Father Christmas and Me. Matt Haig

he said. ‘You’re not scared of me yet. Just watch those big feet.’

      And then he turned and left, and everyone was too busy to notice that the smile I had been wearing was now gone, replaced with a look of worry. I was so concerned that I had just made an enemy of the nastiest elf in Elfhelm that, for the rest of the evening, I completely forgot I was due to start my new school the very next day.

       My First Year at Elf School

       lves were small but elf children were smaller. Even though I was technically a child I was quite tall by human-child standards, so I was very tall by elf-child standards.

      I was always bumping my head on the school doorways, I could hardly squeeze my legs under the desk, and the seat of the chair seemed to be on the floor. The notepads and the crayons were too small. And the toilets – well, the toilets were just ridiculous.

      But I did like it that all the classes had names. There was Frost Class and Gingerbread Class and Sleigh Bell Class, and the oldest elves were in Mistletoe Class. I was in Snowball Class.

      I sat next to a smiley elf girl called Twinkle who was good at everything. All the elves were good at everything, but Twinkle especially. The reason Twinkle was so good at everything was because, even though she was a child, she was actually three hundred and seventy-two years old.

      ‘Three hundred and seventy-two and a half, actually,’ she told me on the first day. ‘I know that might sound confusing, but what happens to elves is that we grow older and older, and then we stop growing old the moment we reach our perfect age, the age at which we truly know ourselves and will be happy for ever. Most elves generally don’t find out who they are – what makes them happy, what they want to do – until they are quite old.’

      I knew this already. For instance, I knew Father Topo was ninety-nine before he stopped ageing. Father Christmas – who is not technically an elf but a drimwicked human – stopped ageing somewhere in his sixties, when he discovered his destiny. But some such as Twinkle find out when they are very young. So Twinkle was eleven and three hundred and seventy-two (and a half) all at the same time.

      There were about twenty of us in Snowball Class. As well as Twinkle there was also a tiny but extremely enthusiastic elf called Shortcrust, who was the junior spickle-dance champion, and Snowflake, who was a bit annoying and always laughed at me whenever I made a mistake, which was quite often.

      We had different teachers for different subjects but our form teacher was Mother Jingle. She always looked at me with kind eyes, but I couldn’t help thinking she thought I was a big waste of space.

      It was she who told me, in my first week, that I wasn’t ready for sleighcraft lessons just yet.

      I felt anger boil inside me. It was an anger I hadn’t really felt since the workhouse, and Mr Jeremiah Creeper. ‘But I’ve flown a sleigh before! I flew Father Christmas’s sleigh! The biggest sleigh there is!’

      She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, but when people arrive at this school, they have to wait six months before they are allowed to start flying sleighs. Those are Kip’s rules, I’m afraid.’

      ‘But most people who start at this school are five years old. I’m eleven.’

      ‘You have lived for eleven years as a human, which is different. Humans aren’t made for flying sleighs.’

      And that was the end of it. I had to wait. And in the meantime I had to get on with all the other lessons.

      There was maths, with Pi, which was really tricky. You see, elf mathematics is very different to human mathematics. In elf mathematics the best answer isn’t the right one, it’s the most interesting.

      ‘Amelia, what is two plus two?’ Pi would ask.

      ‘Four,’ I would say.

      And the whole class would burst out laughing. Apart from Twinkle.

      ‘Twinkle, tell Amelia the answer.’

      And Twinkle would sit up straight and say, ‘Snow.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Pi. ‘Two plus two is snow. Or you could have said feather duvet.’

      And then Twinkle would look at me and apologise for being right, which made it worse.

      The other subjects were equally tricky.

      There was Writing, Singing (my voice wasn’t cheerful enough), Laughing Even When Times Are Tough (a very difficult lesson), Joke Making, Christmas Studies, Spickle Dancing (a disaster), Practical Drimwickery (even more of a disaster, obviously), Gingerbread, General Happiness and Geography.

      Columbus – the geography teacher I had met along with Pi that day in the sweet shop – was a lovely elf, and I had high hopes for his lessons. They sounded quite ordinary and human, but of course they weren’t. Elf geography was as crazy as all the other subjects. The whole of the globe, south of Very Big Mountain, was simply called ‘the Human World’. It didn’t matter if it was Finland or Britain or America or China, it was absolutely all the same to elves, and they left it up to Father Christmas – and now Mother Christmas – to plan which route Father Christmas should travel every year.

      Everything this side of the mountain, on the other hand, was studied in great detail. These were called the Magic Places. And they included the Elf Territory (which was made up of Elfhelm, and the Wooded Hills, which was more accurately pixie territory, but apparently pixies were terrible at geography and didn’t care very much about the names of things and so none of them objected). The other Magic Places were Troll Valley, the Ice Plains (where Tomtegubbs could often be found), the Hulderlands (home to the Hulder-folk) and the Land of Hills and Holes.

      Days and weeks and months went by. Father Christmas came home late a lot of the time, because this was the busiest year for the workshop ever. Mary was also very busy, as she was in charge of Christmas route planning. She had also begun to take drimwickery classes, so she could unleash her magic, but she was finding it quite difficult. Anyway, they both became very preoccupied and I didn’t want to bother them with my problems, so I just whispered my complaints to Captain Soot, who always purred some comfort.

      I’ve always been the kind of person who could look after herself. I’ve always had to, really. And, in fact, for most of the year I made the most of it. And a lot of the time I had fun. A lot of fun. Living in Elfhelm was still a lot better than being an orphan in London.

      I often went to Twinkle’s house to play elf tennis, which is exactly like normal tennis but with an imaginary ball rather than a real one. This was one elf sport I was good at, and I wished we could have played it at school. Then I would go home and read or bounce on the trampoline or read while bouncing on the trampoline.

      Even my lessons weren’t all bad. Twinkle was fun to sit next to and always told great jokes, and Shortcrust would often entertain us with his spickle dancing at playtime. And even on bad days I kept on saying to myself that things would be much better when the sleighcraft lessons happened. But six months went by. Then seven. Then eight. And soon it was December, and it seemed that I might never be allowed to take part in a sleighcraft lesson and would always have to stay by myself in an empty classroom, staring out of the window at the other pupils in my class flying past in sleighs.

      It was getting quite close to Christmas when I first spoke to Mary and Father Christmas about it. It was the day I first heard mention of the Land of Hills and Holes.

      ‘Where is it?’ I asked Columbus.

      ‘Very far away. The furthest away it is possible to be, within the Magic Places. About a hundred miles east of Troll Valley.’

      ‘And