Hogfather

So that the staff would not be Tempted, Mr Crumley had set up an arrangement of overhead wires across the ceilings of the store. In the middle of each floor was a cashier in a little cage. Staff took money from customers, put it in a little clockwork cable car, sent it whizzing overhead to the cashier, who’d make change and start it rattling back again. Thus there was no possibility of Temptation, and the little trolleys were shooting back and forth like fireworks.

Mr Crumley loved Hogswatch. It was for the Kiddies, after all.

He tucked his fingers in the pockets of his waistcoat and beamed.

‘Everything going well, Miss Harding?’

‘Yes, Mr Crumley,’ said the cashier, meekly.

‘Jolly good.’ He looked at the pile of coins.

A bright little zig-zag crackled off them and earthed itself on the metal grille.

Mr Crumley blinked. In front of him sparks flashed off the steel rims of Miss Harding’s spectacles.

The Grotto display changed. For just a fraction of a second Mr Crumley had the sensation of speed, as though what appeared had screeched to a halt. Which was ridiculous.

The four pink papier-mâché pigs exploded. A cardboard snout bounced off Mr Crumley’s head.

There, sweating and grunting in the place where the little piggies had been, were … well, he assumed they were pigs, because hippopotamuses didn’t have pointy ears and rings through their noses. But the creatures were huge and grey and bristly and a cloud of acrid mist hung over each one.

And they didn’t look sweet. There was nothing charming about them. One turned to look at him with small, red eyes, and didn’t go ‘oink’, which was the sound that Mr Crumley, born and raised in the city, had always associated with pigs.

It went ‘Ghnaaarrrwnnkh?’

The sleigh had changed, too. He’d been very pleased with that sleigh. It had delicate silver curly bits on it. He’d personally supervised the gluing on of every twinkling star. But the splendour of it was lying in glittering shards around a sledge that looked as though it had been built of crudely sawn tree trunks laid on two massive wooden runners. It looked ancient and there were faces carved on the wood, nasty crude grinning faces that looked quite out of place.

Parents were yelling and trying to pull their children away, but they weren’t having much luck. The children were gravitating towards it like flies to jam.

Mr Crumley ran towards the terrible thing, waving his hands.

‘Stop that! Stop that!’ he screamed. ‘You’ll frighten the Kiddies!’

He heard a small boy behind him say, ‘They’ve got tusks! Cool!’

His sister said, ‘Hey, look, that one’s doing a wee!’ A tremendous cloud of yellow steam arose. ‘Look, it’s going all the way to the stairs! All those who can’t swim hold onto the banisters!’

‘They eat you if you’re bad, you know,’ said a small girl with obvious approval. ‘All up. Even the bones. They crunch them.’

Another, older, child opined: ‘Don’t be childish. They’re not real. They’ve just got a wizard in to do the magic. Or it’s all done by clockwork. Everyone knows they’re not really r—’

One of the boars turned to look at him. The boy moved behind his mother.

Mr Crumley, tears of anger streaming down his face, fought through the milling crowd until he reached the Hogfather’s Grotto. He grabbed a frightened pixie.

‘It’s the Campaign for Equal Heights that’ve done this, isn’t it!’ he shouted. ‘They’re out to ruin me! And they’re ruining it for all the Kiddies! Look at the lovely dolls!’

The pixie hesitated. Children were clustering around the pigs, despite the continued efforts of their mothers. The small girl was giving one of them an orange.

But the animated display of Dolls of All Nations was definitely in trouble. The musical box underneath was still playing ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice If Everyone Was Nice’ but the rods that animated the figures had got twisted out of shape, so that the Klatchian boy was rhythmically hitting the Omnian girl over the head with his ceremonial spear, while the girl in Agatean national costume was kicking a small Llamedosian druid repeatedly in the ear. A chorus of small children was cheering them on indiscriminately.

‘There’s, er, there’s more trouble in the Grotto, Mr Crum—’ the pixie began.

A red and white figure pushed its way through the crush and rammed a false beard into Mr Crumley’s hands.

‘That’s it,’ said the old man in the Hogfather costume. ‘I don’t mind the smell of oranges and the damp trousers but I ain’t putting up with this.’

He stamped off through the queue. Mr Crumley heard him add, ‘And he’s not even doin’ it right!’

Mr Crumley forced his way onward.

Someone was sitting in the big chair. There was a child on his knee. The figure was … strange. It was definitely in something like a Hogfather costume but Mr Crumley’s eye kept slipping, it wouldn’t focus, it skittered away and tried to put the figure on the very edge of vision. It was like trying to look at your own ear.

‘What’s going on here? What’s going on here?’ Crumley demanded.