The children were lifted onto the stage where they congregated in a large huddle, each clutching a present to his or her chest. Their faces were bright with excitement. They were nearly blinded by the camera flashes as doting parents recorded the event.
‘Wait!’ Milli shouted over the din of band instruments.
But nobody heard her or even glanced in her direction.
‘Nine, eight, seven, six,’ cried the townsfolk, joining in with Santa’s countdown and clapping their hands in time to the music.
‘Don’t open them!’ yelled Ernest. ‘You don’t know what’s inside!’
‘Four, three…’
‘They can’t hear us!’
‘Two, ONE!’
From there everything happened rather quickly. We all know what children are like when unwrapping gifts—there is no delicacy or thought of saving the expensive paper for reuse. If you think back to your own experience with gifts, I’m sure you will remember tearing off the wrapping paper and flinging it to the floor, impatient to end the suspense and feast your eyes on the contents within.
Before Milli and Ernest had reached the stage, its surface was awash with wrapping paper, ribbons and discarded cards, their messages far too predictable to bother reading. But as the presents were revealed, each child fell silent. They stared into the boxes, their eyes wide. The parents, who had been expecting looks of elation, were confused.
Finally, a voice broke the silence. It belonged to a little girl called Polly Brook whose collar was always starched and pigtails perfectly matched.
‘Yuck!’ she cried, dropping her present to the ground. ‘It’s horrid!’
The gift landed with a heavy thud and suddenly everyone saw its repugnance. What had once been a sweet-faced doll with blonde plaits and an upturned nose had been transformed into something quite repellent. Her eye sockets were empty, their rims painted a lurid red. Long, hairy fingers sprouted from her gums and her hair had been replaced by coiled rubber snakes. She wore overalls and out of the top pocket poked the curved tip of what could only be a knife.
The other children took their toys from their boxes and held them out to their parents in protest. It took the adults some time to register what was happening and they were slow to react. Some of the mothers gasped and put their hands over their mouths, horrified by the sight of the mangled toys. Some grandparents made tut-tutting sounds, believing they were witnessing someone’s macabre idea of a joke. But once the initial shock wore off, people began to panic. The children on stage started to wail, many kicking away the offensive objects. Some pushed their way to the edge of the stage hoping to rejoin their parents.
Nobody had gone far when a sound from above startled everyone. The familiar words rang out over the square—words that filled Milli and Ernest with dread. ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ cried a voice and the tinkling of bells filled the square. Children and adults alike forgot their shock and instead exclaimed in wonder, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the lacquered red sleigh hovering above them like a vision. So entranced were they at seeing the myth of Santa Claus come to life that many forgot all about the strange gifts and broke into a cheer. They waved at the sleigh, perhaps hoping Santa had arrived to rectify his mistake.
‘Don’t trust him!’ Milli yelled, as she and Ernest rushed onto the stage. ‘He’s not Santa!’
But for the second time that morning nobody heard her desperate plea. They were all too preoccupied clapping and watching the reindeer perform graceful manoeuvres in the sky. What they didn’t realise was that the reindeer weren’t being entertaining; in fact, they were preparing themselves for something quite sinister. They began to rock back and forth and suddenly jets of fire spurted from their nostrils towards the stage where the children were standing. Parents screamed and siblings shielded one another but the flames were enchanted and had only one purpose: to form an impenetrable ring of fire around the children. They were now trapped within the flames, inaccessible to their parents.
If you think being imprisoned inside a ring of fire with a collection of mutant toys and a deranged villain in a Santa suit flying overhead sounds bad, imagine the terror the children felt when Dr Illustrious drew a black oblong object from his coat pocket and pointed it directly at the toys littering the stage.
At first the children thought it was a weapon and cowered, but when Santa started clumsily pressing buttons they realised it was a remote control. The buttons activated small microchips planted deep within each toy. Before the children’s eyes, the pile of mutant toys wriggled and came to life.
Little paws, claws and hands reached over the rims of cardboard boxes and the toys scrabbled their way out. Another flick of Dr Illustrious’s remote control and they swivelled around until they were facing the startled children. They began to advance fixedly, with synchronised movements. In the bright sunlight their deformities were even more pronounced—they were a mass of contorted faces and clumsy bodies.
The children tried to back away but were trapped by the searing flames. Through the fiery barrier they could see their parents, their faces paralysed by shock as the toys closed in.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Love is Blind
Milli watched in horror as the toys fell into step like marching infantry. Some of them had fingernails as long and sharp as knives. Others carried small bottles that contained what she imagined to be poisons of the deadliest sort. Some drew weapons from their pockets or from the lacy hems of gowns. One thing was clear—each and every toy was intent on wreaking havoc of the worst kind and the trapped children had nothing but ribbon and crumpled wrapping paper to use in their defence.
‘Papa!’ cried one little child.
‘Please, stop them!’ cried another.
Some children were sobbing openly now, unconcerned with keeping up appearances. Several others called out to their parents, but the adults could do nothing except stand there helplessly, arms waving and mouths moving in silent panic.
The Drabville fire brigade arrived and tried frantically to extinguish the flames but they didn’t respond to being doused with water. If anything, they seemed to leap even higher in devilish mockery. Some heroic firemen tried to brave the flames in their yellow heatproof suits, but found that the fire acted as a kind of force field and they could not get past it to help the children.
There was no time for logical thinking. All the children could do was band together on the stage, with the youngest at the back, and try to defend themselves. But as the toys were armed with all manner of weapons there seemed little chance that everyone would escape unharmed.
Ernest succeeded in kicking a doll into the fire and hoped he had destroyed her, but the doll re-emerged seconds later. Even though part of her plastic face was melting, making her look more ghoulish than before, she continued to advance with the army of toys.
As he hovered above in his sleigh, Dr Illustrious opened his arms and let out a peal of triumphant laughter. As he did so a harsh wind blew up around him, tearing off his disguise. First the red coat and wide belt were whipped away, followed by his pants, gloves and buckled shoes. Underneath was not the pitch black suit the children were accustomed to seeing Dr Illustrious wear, but long flowing robes. Finally, Dr Illustrious tore off his hat and beard revealing himself to the stunned onlookers. A collective gasp rose from the crowd when they saw him. He might be wearing his hair cropped short but there was no mistaking the hollow eyes and shrunken features. The children could not decide what to be more frightened of, the advancing army of evil toys or the skeletal figure of Lord Aldor glowering at them from the skies.
Lord Aldor’s laughter lashed the crowd like a whip. Above the clamour rose the voice of one of the fathers, Bert Granger, a hulking dairy farmer who wasn’t prepared to take what was happening without putting up a fight. He stepped forward with his clenched fists raised and eyes glowering.
‘Whaddya want with our children?’ he bellowed. “Ave you not plagued us enough? For pity’s sake, let them go.’
&n
bsp; Lord Aldor peered curiously over the edge of the sleigh.
Bert Granger continued, ‘If you ‘ave a beef then take it up with us. What kind of coward are yer, to attack defenceless children!’
Others added their jeers but Lord Aldor’s gaze was so unflinching he might have been a god on Mount Olympus looking down on the little clay people to see what they were up to. Looking up into Lord Aldor’s face was like looking into an empty wasteland where it was lunacy to expect to see anything there other than desolation. Even Lord Aldor’s mouth when he opened it to speak was as dry as a crater.
His voice filtered down to them. ‘You look confused. Would you like to understand my motivation? The truth is, I hate every last Drabvillian to the core. You people reek of cheerfulness, spirit, resilience and I have grown tired of it. The very scent of you is like acid on my skin. This town was meant to be reduced to ruin years ago but you have somehow eluded my schemes. I tried to be fair but you scorned my generosity. I am here now to prove that you cannot resist my will—your lives are not your own! It is I who decides your fate! Your world will exist as I dictate, and I say there shall be no happiness, no music in the streets, no laughter. Only when I have achieved this shall I be at peace.’
With these final words, Lord Aldor pushed a button on his remote control and the toys crouched in readiness to strike.
‘Attack,’ he said coldly. ‘Let them suffer as I have suffered! Let the hills ring with the echoes of their screams for years to come.’
The toys were close enough now that the children could see the imperfections in their stitching and the dried streaks of glue where weapons had been added to their bodies. Some children tried to remember their prayers, whilst others looked around desperately for something to stave off an attack.
Milli’s mind went into overdrive trying to think of all the knowledge she had amassed during her short but event-filled life. Nothing of much use presented itself. She did know that when you are in the strangest of situations help can sometimes come from the least expected quarter. She ran through all that had happened since her and Ernest’s first visit to the toy arcade and replayed every conversation in her head. As the thoughts raced through her mind she realised that perhaps the most important message had come from the toy she had treasured most. She could almost hear Loyal’s gentle voice as if he were right there beside her: Toys have been the allies of children for centuries. It would take something more extraordinary than an operation to change that.
With the rocking horse’s words echoing in her mind, Milli did something that many people might have considered rash, foolish or just plain dangerous. Taking everybody, including herself, by surprise, she stepped forward and scooped the nearest toy into her arms. It was a teddy bear, and no sooner had she embraced him than he dropped his pocket knife clumsily to the ground. She hugged him tight to her chest and whispered into his furry ear, her hands stroking his deformities and hideous scars. The bear seemed to go limp in her arms, all his aggression falling away, and the two stood melded together in the way children and their toys often interact.
The other toys came to a baffled halt.
Milli turned slowly to face the other children, who were staring at her in shock. The look on her face told them what they must do.
Ernest was first; having a penchant for girly toys, he hesitantly picked up a doll. Finn and Fennel, who were also stranded on the stage, wasted no time in following Ernest’s example. When Milli looked around she saw their old comrades like Gummy Grumbleguts, Harietta Hapless, Horace Rugknuckle and Prudence Cackle were quickly following suit, each gathering a toy into their arms. Due to his size, Gummy thought it only fair that he get hold of two. In the space of a few moments, every child was embracing a toy, despite their scars and wrongly placed limbs. Their faces were horrifying, their bodies lumpy and uneven, but the children pushed away any fear they had and tried to think of these toys as old friends who had been neglected for some time and therefore deserved more of their attention. The children of Drabville held those poor misshapen toys and spoke to them in soothing tones until the mechanisms that had been planted in them to cause harm short-circuited and burnt out and every toy was simply content to be wanted.
It is a toy’s nature to respond to the scent and touch of children. These are as familiar to toys as the scent and touch of our mothers is to us. The children could almost feel the hatred and resentment drain out of the toys. A strange sense of homecoming overwhelmed them all. And as it did, the wall of fire vanished, leaving only a ring of ash on the stage.
The adults stood speechless for a moment, watching their children. Then they ran forward like a wave, exclaiming in admiration and relief.
A sudden creak from above drew everyone’s attention. Lord Aldor’s sleigh was lurching from side to side as the reindeer struggled to keep it airborne. Milli wondered if it had been the menace of the toys that had kept it off the ground. With that dissolved, the sleigh was slowly but surely falling. It gave a last shudder before plunging towards the earth at an alarming speed. The townsfolk scattered, pulling their children well out of harm’s way.
The impact of the collision when the sleigh connected with solid ground made the earth tremor and kicked up a huge cloud of dust. When it cleared and people could see and breathe properly again, the bent figure of Lord Aldor was visible clambering from the wreckage. The wizard now found himself surrounded, with not an ally in sight. The reindeer had somehow recovered from their fall and scrambled away into the night.
The townsfolk drew nearer, no longer fearful of his powers nor enraged by what he had attempted to do. Instead, they felt only pity for this shrunken old man who had wanted to rob Drabville of Christmas. A citizen nearby reached out a hand to support Lord Aldor as he staggered a little, shaky on his feet. For a brief moment, hesitation crossed the magician’s face, as if somewhere in the deepest part of him there was a small hankering for acceptance. Then his expression darkened again. Lord Aldor may have been exhausted but he was not about to allow himself to be humiliated in front of a crowd of mortals. If he did, his reputation would be dust. He gathered all of his remaining strength and concentrated hard on levitating out of their reach. He succeeded in raising himself a few inches above the ground before his body collapsed under him, like a tree that has withered from the inside.
A sudden shout from above had every face turning towards the sky. There was the silver rocket from the arcade that the second group of children had ridden in. At the controls, dressed in a silver spacesuit, her hair in sleek black coils, was the curator, Ms Tempest Anomali. She landed the rocket at a safe distance and emerged shrieking at the top of her lungs.
‘I’m coming, Master!’ She swatted away the crowd with her hands as if they were flies. ‘Get back! Don’t you dare touch him with your filthy hands!’
Tempest Anomali supported Lord Aldor to the rocket, looking excited to have her mentor and master entirely dependent on her for the first time. Once she had him comfortably settled, she bared her teeth and hissed at the stunned crowd before climbing in herself and taking the controls.
‘They’re getting away,’ Ernest said in despair.
And for a moment it really did seem as though Lord Aldor and Tempest were about to escape without any comeuppance—until another figure hobbled into the town square, aided by a young man with a rather formal air. Milli and Ernest at once recognised Gustav Von Gobstopper and his nephew, Fritz Braun.
Von Gobstopper clutched a lacquered music box at which he seemed to be directing some kind of incantation. Had he gone mad, the children wondered. Had the stress of all he had endured sent him off the rails? But Von Gobstopper looked more focused and sure of himself than the last time they had seen him.
He opened the lid of the box a fraction and a streak of blue fire shot out. It circled the square once and then darted between trees and startled townsfolk. Finally it disappeared inside an ancient elm. The huge tree began to glow, shafts of blue light spinning from its branches in all directions
. Then out stepped a woman with soft fair hair and blue robes that seemed to flow around her like water. A halo of light surrounded her entire body.
‘The Blue Fairy,’ whispered Milli.
‘She’s too late,’ said Ernest. ‘They’re about to escape.’
But it wasn’t too late.
From the folds of her robe, the fairy drew a wand in the shape of a twisted black twig and pointed it serenely at Tempest Anomali.
Tempest looked genuinely alarmed for the first time and raised both hands as if to shield herself. She tried to cower behind Lord Aldor, but he was intent on avoiding the wand himself and, with an unceremonious shove, jettisoned Tempest from the rocket. She landed on the ground in a surprised heap. Scrambling to her feet, she pleaded with Lord Aldor for assistance. As she waved her hands at him, something odd happened: her foot was suddenly where her hand should have been, and she was waving around her boot. Tempest watched in horror as the foot encased in its black studded boot began to blur. She blinked hard, hoping it was a delusion brought on by stress, but her foot continued to fade until it disappeared completely! She was left hopping ridiculously on one leg. The next thing to go were her hands and ears. The Blue Fairy moved her wand a fraction in various directions and Tempest continued to fade away piece by piece, until there was nothing left of her but a shred of silver fabric fluttering in the wind.