miles byfar

Miles Byfarand the Christmas Spirit

Miles Byfar 9/8/06 8:16 am Page 1

Miles Byfar

byRS Harding

Monster Books


Miles Byfar and the Christmas Spirit(LA&CS Ltd 3233613. Monster Books)

Originally published in Great Britain by Monster BooksThe Old Smithy, Henley-on-Thames, OXON RG9 2AR

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form orby any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information

storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

The right of RS Harding to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him inaccordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Text copyright RS HardingIllustrations copyright Rob Rayevsky

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of

binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition includingthis condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN 0-9532261-4-6 soft coverA catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Printed in Great Britain by Anthony Rowe

The Creake Castle series is dedicated to Major Francis Budd,otherwise known as ‘Grandpa’


Late afternoon in the library

‘I’m not always in the middle of things,’ said Fred, quite

suddenly and for no real reason. It was coming up to

Christmas, and he was sitting with Kit, his best friend, Polly,

who was Kit’s Spaniel puppy, and Wellington; a cat of No

Known Origin.

‘Really, you surprise me,’ said Kit, keeping her nose firmly

pointed at the large book she was reading, on Garden Fairies

(illustrated with 504 plates, by the Very Reverend A. Gibbon).

At that point in time, her nose could reasonably be described

as red. She had a bad cold, and Fred was sitting with her in

the library in front of a roaring fire – to keep her company-

or so he said. Kit suspected that he had only come for the

large cake that Mrs Bee, the housekeeper at Creake Castle,

had made, and the fact that he had a captive audience. Her.

‘Did I ever tell you about my second cousin, Miles?’ he

said.

‘Here we go,’ she thought. ‘Fred, how many relatives do

you actually have?’ She looked up to see Fred pouring

another cup of Kit’s cocoa into Kit’s mug and taking a big

gulp.

‘Hundreds,’ he said, absentmindedly wiping the chocolaty


froth off his mouth. ‘Maybe thousands. We Longshanks are

anything but impudent.’

‘I really don’t think you mean that.’

‘Probably not. Anyway, do you want to hear about my

cousin Miles, or don’t you?’ Outside, the pale winter sun was

slipping below the trees at the end of the park, and frost was

beginning to gather on the tips of the grass. Kit glanced

around the library, at the roaring fire, the comfy cushions

stacked on the ancient sofa and at Fred’s bright face. She

closed her book and smiled at him.

‘Why not?’


Chapter One

Wendover Backwoods

Now quite a number of years ago, Miles Byfar, my second

cousin, lived in a modern bungalow, near a town called

Wendover Backwoods. It is the sort of place that has a multi-

storey car park, a bus station, one large roundabout and

about a million hairdressers.

A bungalow isn’t a bad place to live for a number of

reasons, although all very different from Creake, I would

imagine. First of all, there is no chance of falling down the

stairs on dark nights by mistake, and secondly a bungalow

can be useful for getting places quickly. In fact, Miles very

rarely used the front door. He just climbed out of his

window, straight into the back garden, and went to school.

This upset Miles’s grandparents, Dot and Reg, who both

lived in the bungalow with him. His father had moved out

when he was very young, and his mother refused to talk

about him or even say where he was living. Sometimes this

made Miles so angry that he felt almost dizzy; other times he

just felt grateful that his mother hadn’t left him too, and that

just made him feel pathetic. His mother worked for a

computer firm, selling software, and she was away nearly all

the time, driving up and down the country from one large

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town to the next. Miles’s knowledge of towns in Britain was

probably better than his Geography teacher’s, Ms Geelong,

from ‘Sunny Australia’ as she was found of saying on less

than sunny days in England.

When Miles’ mother did come home, it was only for a few

days at a time, and it was usually to bring Miles presents and

take him to McDonalds, followed by a walk around the zoo.

To be honest, Miles was fed up with the zoo, but he never

quite had the courage to say anything, in case his mother got

her feelings hurt and stopped taking him, and then he would

have even less time with her to himself.

All things considered, though, Miles’s life was generally

okay. Dot and Reg were always very kind to him, although

they were quite quiet and a bit boring. Home was all right, if

you didn’t mind gnomes and plastic flowers all over the

place. Even school wasn’t so bad – it was only about ten

minutes’ walk away, and although he didn’t like the majority

of his lessons, he had roughly the right amount of friends,

and most of the time the teachers just about remembered his

name and left it at that.

One thing that he had to admit was pretty good, though, was

the presents his mother got him.

Out of all the kids at his school, St Dunstone’s, he got the

best computer-related presents by a long, long way. Last

Christmas, his mother had bought him a computer from her

company that was incredibly fast, so powerful he could store

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his whole games collection on the hard drive, and had more

than enough gadgets for Miles not to have to leave the house

for a year. He honestly wouldn’t have minded if there was a

nuclear war and he was stuck underground for months, just

as long as no-one turned the electricity off. His mother had

even got him a broadband connection.

Of course, Miles knew the expensive presents were to

make up for the fact that she was never exactly there to spend

quality time with him, and what’s more he knew that his

mum knew this too. He wasn’t stupid and nor was she – but

when he thought about it for a bit, he came to the conclusion

that it was sort of a secret that they both shared and, in a

way, Miles quite liked that. He sometimes thought that the

presents and the unspoken secret about the presents were the

only things that he had in common with his mother anymore,

or at least the only things he shared with her that no-one

else did.

I mention all this because it is important. Miles was

basically a normal kid but one who was a bit lonely perhaps

and who missed his parents, certainly.

Everything usually happens for a reason. If Miles had had

a mum to shout at him more and give him pointless jobs to

do, and a proper dad who went to work and came home

every day, probably grumpy – and, what’s more, if Miles

himself had spent less time looking pointless things up on

Google, and more time reading mind-improving books, then

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none of the strange and incredible things I am about to tell

you would have happened.

Anyway, he didn’t, so they did. So here goes.

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Chapter Two

You’ve got Mail

It was mid-December. Pretty much Christmas.

The trees had finally completely given up on looking nice,

and now stood about the park in little groups, looking

leafless, damp and sad. The local shopping centre had put its

decorations up in late August, but Dot had only just bought

hers. As usual, it was just a circle of holly sprayed silver and

gold, which Reg was busy nailing to the front door when

Miles arrived home from school.

‘Mello Miles,’ he said through a mouthful of nails. ‘Mood

mday gat schoom?’

‘What?’ said Miles, stopping his bike and getting off.

‘Snorry. I mean, sorry,’ said Reg, finally getting rid of the

last one and banging it in with a thump that made next

door’s dog bark under the fence, ‘…had mouthful of nails.’

‘So I saw,’ said Miles. Reg had a habit of stating the

obvious. Things like: ‘I went to the shops today and got

soaked to the skin. It was raining,’ as if you might have

thought that someone at the checkout had chucked a bucket

of water over him.

Miles inspected the silver wreath that now hung from the

door. He didn’t much see the point of decorations. They didn’t

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generally come with software. ‘Do you want a hand putting up

anything else, Granddad?’ he asked, turning around. But Reg

already had his back to him, busy bending down polishing one

of the gnomes next to the ornamental pond.

‘No, son, that’s all right. I shan’t be a minute, your

grandmother has made a pie and she won’t want it

getting cold.’

‘All right,’ said Miles, noticing for the first time that Reg

was actually using an old pair of Miles’s underpants to

polish the gnome. ‘See you in a bit then.’ It seemed somehow

wrong to him, using underpants for that.

As Miles pushed the bike around the back, he smiled as he

remembered how ever since a film came out where someone

had their gnomes stolen and taken on holiday, people had

started taking the gnomes out of the back garden at night.

The whole lot sometimes. Even the one with the fishing rod

that stood by the ornamental pond in the middle of the front

garden and looked like he was peeing if you squinted. Dot

and Reg were horrified that someone would nick them and

for a while every time they went for a walk, Reg would spend

most of it peering suspiciously over people’s hedges and

fences to see if he could find his missing gnomes.

Later, when they had given up hope of ever getting them

back, postcards would arrive and Reg would read them

over breakfast.

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‘Having a smashing holiday,’ they usually said.

‘Wish you were here. Back soon, luv, G. Nome and

Company.’

The best bit was when there were pictures with the letters

of Dot and Reg’s gnomes sitting in the sand at the beach or

in front of well known monuments. But it was typical of the

people in his neighbourhood that nobody went anywhere

more exciting than Blackpool with the Gnomes.

Reg never generally found out who stole his Gnomes and

took them on holiday. But a few weeks later they would get

up to find them all back in their old places in the garden,

looking a trifle sandy but otherwise all right. It had become

a sort of neighbourhood hobby.

To that day, Reg had never been able to see the funny side.

‘Gnomes just don’t do that sort of thing,’ he would say,

managing admirably to look cross and hurt at the same time.

Miles waved at his grandmother thorough the kitchen

window and sloped into his bedroom through the back door.

He hated this time of day, when there wasn’t enough time to do

his homework before supper and it wasn’t worth getting too

involved with anything very much. Instead he spent a few

minutes fiddling around with a couple of simple little games he

had got for free out of one of his computer magazines. They

were all rather lifeless and boring. He stopped when he heard

his grandmother taking the plates out of the bottom cupboard.


As he was washing his hands in the bathroom sink, he felt

the tips of his fingers give a strange tingle. He took them out

from under the stream of water and looked at them. Funny,

they had been doing that a few times recently. Especially

when he had been playing on the PC.

With his fingers still itching a bit, he dried his hands and

wandered down the corridor to the kitchen, where his

grandmother was fussing about amongst clouds of steam

from the potatoes.

‘Oh, there you are, dear. Have you washed your hands?’

‘Yes, Gran.’

‘There’s a good boy. Well, I’ve made you and your

Granddad a lovely pie. Sit yourself down and I won’t be a

tick.’ Dot was nice enough, but she still talked to Miles as if

he was two.

‘Gran?’

‘Yes dear?’

‘What makes your fingers tingle?’

‘Well, I really don’t know. Why don’t you ask Granddad?

He’ll know. He’s obsessed with his health these days.’ Just at

that moment, Reg walked in from the garden. ‘Oh, here he

is,’ she said through a cloud of steam, as she tipped the

vegetables into a strainer.

‘What’s that?’ said Reg, scraping his chair back and sitting

down with a surprisingly loud squeak. He half stood up

again, and removed one of Snow White’s plastic mice from

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the seat. Snow White was the cat, who was now very old, and

very forgetful. A bit like Miles’s grandparents.

‘Well, the garland’s up, dear,’ said Reg, forgetting about

Miles’s question and turning around to watch Dot carefully

lift something burnt out of the oven just after he had sat

down again.

‘Oh, lovely. After tea, I’ll go out and have a look. Woollies

were doing them 20% off after the 15th but I thought, well,

Christmas only comes once a year as they say, and we haven’t

had a new garland since Mrs Batch’s guinea pig got into the

garage and ate the plastic berries off the last one. Do you

know, she had the nerve to complain afterwards? ‘Fleur has

never been right after that,’ she said, as if it were our fault

her guinea pig is nothing but a common thief. ‘Well,’ I said,

not giving an inch, ‘nor has our rosette, so I suppose that

makes us about even.’ That sent her off with a bee in her

bonnet, I can tell you. She cut me dead at the Church Bring

and Buy last week. More fool her. More carrots, Miles?’

‘No thank you, Gran.’

And so supper went on. A couple of times, Miles tried to

bring up the question of tingling hands, but each time it

seemed that something more interesting cropped up in the

conversation, and Miles and Miles’s fingers were gradually

forgotten. Eventually even by him.

He didn’t really blame Reg and Dot for not paying that

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much attention to what was going on in his life. He had been

over at friends’ houses enough times to know that sort of thing

happened in most families. It was just that lately he’d started

taking it more personally and he didn’t really know why.

After supper he helped Dot do the washing up for a bit,

until she shooed him away. So he went into the lounge, to

find his grandfather watching the golf highlights on BBC2.

It couldn’t have been in England, because it looked hot and

sunny. Probably America. ‘I wonder what Christmas must be

like over there,’ thought Miles. He then thought about the

chances of waiting until Reg fell asleep, which he was bound

to do soon, and then turning over to see the film on ITV that

came on at 9. But he thought better of it. Past experience

had shown him that the second he turned over, Reg always

woke up, yawned and said something like: ‘I was watching

the golf,’ in a hurt way. Miles had even tried pretending the

programme was over and that his grandfather had slept until

the end. But Reg, who had been retired for a couple of years

now, knew the TV guide almost as well as Miles did and

would always turn back, and then Miles would feel bad that

he had told a completely stupid lie. Instead Miles went back

to the kitchen. ‘Gran,’ he said, leaning over the Formica

tabletop, ‘I think I’ll go up to bed. I’m feeling quite tired,

actually.’ His grandmother looked up from where she was

stowing away the saucepans and frowned.

‘Are you sure that you are feeling all right? Old Mrs

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Taplow said she saw you coming back from school today and

she said that you looked a bit peaky. You might be coming

down with something.’

This time he just shrugged. ‘No, I’m feeling okay, Gran,

just a bit tired. I think I’ll just get an early night. Goodnight.’

‘Oh all right then,’ said Dot polishing another saucepan

energetically. ‘Goodnight Miles, sleep tight. And don’t go

spending too much time in front of that computer of yours.

Or go falling asleep in your clothes again.’

‘No, Gran.’

In fact this was just what Miles was planning to do. But

he promised himself no more than half an hour on-line and

then a quick game of MecCommander 5 or Total

Annihilation 10, and then he’d be off to bed. He would get

up early and do his homework in the morning.

Ten minutes later he was sitting at his desk, punching in

the password on the computer. That was when he felt the

tingling again in his fingers; but he ignored it as the Home

Page came up.

‘YOU’VE GOT MAIL,’

said the computer, in the American voice they always give

them, and at the same time a strange icon came up on the

screen in front of him.

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CHRISTMAS IS COMING…………………

flashed up on the screen in red letters, capped with what

was meant to be white snow, and with a couple of bits of

holly stuck at the end. ‘Junk mail,’ thought Miles as he

prepared to bin it. But just then the banner melted and

changed.

BEWARE

it said. Miles paused. ‘Funny thing to say,’ he thought. He

waited a moment, his hand on the mouse hovering near the

screen close ‘x’.

The screen blinked again and started to change once

more. Abruptly Miles felt the tingling in his fingers intensify.

Far more uncomfortable than it ever had been before, like a

series of small electric shocks, gradually getting worse. And

then he felt a sudden icy blast of wind brush across his face,

as if it had come straight from the computer itself. Miles

looked at the window to see if it was open. It wasn’t. There

was a sort of chuckle, and the groan of cold air down a

chimney.

GO BACK

the screen flashed.

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DON’T UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES

CLICK DOWNLOAD

So of course Miles blinked and clicked ‘Download’.

The sound and the feel of the wind increased around his

bedroom, until Miles was sure it was coming straight at him

from the monitor. The screen showed that the download was

almost complete, as the computer seemed to open up before

him and the wind blew some sheets of paper off the desk.

Then, quite suddenly, the bedroom lights went on.

It was his grandfather. ‘Hello son,’ he said, the light in the

hall framing his head like a halo. ‘Your grandmother sent me

up to check you weren’t spending too long on the computer.’

Quickly Miles hit the cancel button on the download and

turned the monitor off. He was still a little stunned by what

he had just seen, but he managed to fake a fairly believable

yawn. ‘No Granddad, just off to bed.’

‘Right you are then. Goodnight, my boy.’

‘Goodnight.’

The bedroom light went off again and Miles was back in

almost darkness, except for the small bedside light in the

corner.

He really didn’t know what had just happened to his

computer. He sneaked a look around the back, just in case

there was something there, where all the cold wind had

suddenly come from. He didn’t perhaps want to know what

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had happened for the time being, he had to admit. His hand

was even shaking a bit. Instead he dived into bed and pulled

the covers over his head and tried not to think about it.

Miles didn’t go to sleep for ages that night, but when he

did, just as he was dropping off, he thought he heard the

distant sound of sleigh bells and the howl of wind, far, far

away.

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Chapter Three

School

The day started at about 7 o’clock in the morning, and

showed the world that it had tried to snow during the night,

but had given up sometime around 6 o’clock and then

decided, rather spitefully, to rain instead.

Miles walked to school head down, stamping through

puddles of slush and trying to ignore the cold air that swirled

around him. All he could think about still were his tingling

fingers, hearing bells in his room before he went to sleep and

the strange, un-computer-like behaviour of his computer.

Without having to think about it too hard, he knew that they

were all related. He hadn’t dared turn the monitor on that

morning, but he was determined to get to the bottom of it

tonight.

‘CHRIIIIST-A-MUS!’ yelled Miss Geelong at the top of

her voice as the class sat down for their first lesson. She was

one of those teachers who emphasised everything but

writing what she’d just said, and so, predictably, she wrote

‘Christams’ on the whiteboard, and added two large

question marks for good measure. ‘WHAT DOES IT

MEAN TO US?!’

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‘Miss?’ said Thomas Cunningham from the back, as the

class started to giggle.

‘………….WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?’ Miss Geelong

continued, ignoring Thomas. She was shouting so loudly

that the big windows at the back rattled.

‘Miss!’ said Thomas a little more loudly, as the rest of the

class caught on and started to giggle too.

‘OH YES, WE ALL LIKE THE PRESENTS AND THE

FOOD AND THE DECORATIONS…..!’ Miss Geelong

was obviously in a world of her own.

‘MISS!’ By now there was a group of giggling and

laughing pupils at the back, all pointing at the board and

waving their arms about as if they were trying to get the

attention of a passing helicopter. Miss Geelong, who, as we

know, came from Australia, finally got the message and

stopped.

‘Yes, what is it, Tom?’ she said in a commendably normal

voice. By now Thomas could hardly speak, he was laughing

so much, and it took him some moments before he could

blurt out:

‘You’ve spelt Christmas wrong,’ as if it was the funniest

thing that had ever happened in the history of the whole

world. At this the whole class collapsed into fits, and it was

nearly ten minutes before everything quietened down again.

Eventually Miss Geelong got cross and made them copy out

the lesson from the board, as a punishment. It was all about

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The History of Christmas, and Miles sat there resting his

head on his arm, writing automatically and waiting for the

morning bell to go. Occasionally bits of what he was writing

filtered through to him.

‘St Nicholas was a 3rd century saint from Asia who was

famous for giving presents to people by putting them down

the chimney, Father Christmas never existed…….Christmas

was really invented by the Victorians or possibly Coke…

Charles Dickens as Christmas Carroll, plum pudding, holly,

people would open their presents the evening before

Christmas, hence Christmas Eve……… turkey from

America….back home we eat kangaroo…’

Miles fell into a sort of bored daydream and started

thinking about his Christmas Day. If he was lucky, his mum

would arrive early on Christmas Eve, carrying loads of

presents. He wondered what he would get: maybe a mobile

phone if he was really lucky. On Christmas morning they

would go to church down the road where some of his

classmates would go too, their hair neatly brushed and their

shoes polished for the first and last time that year. Miles

would sit through the service with steam practically coming

out of his ears with impatience to get back and see what was

in the parcels.

After church they would all go back home, Miles, Dot,

Reg and Miles’s mum, and open their presents around the

tree. Reg would pour a large sherry for himself, and a small

17


one for Dot, who would be rushing around trying to get the

turkey sorted, and Miles would fire a constant stream of

questions at his mother about anything that popped into his

head, and his mother would smile and answer patiently.

Miles didn’t much enjoy the rest of Christmas Day. There

was never enough time to play with the new presents after

lunch, and then there would be a walk down the street to the

swings in the park and back, and then the Queen’s speech on

the TV and everyone asleep on the settee and then some film

on BBC1 that they never seemed to catch the beginning of.

Boxing Day was better. His mum would take the car and

take him to his aunt and uncle, who lived in the country, and

they would have champagne with orange juice in it and a go

on his cousin’s death slide that his uncle had built for them in

the woods. And on the way back he would have a great chat

with his mother in the car, before falling asleep, exhausted.

The school bell went, and Miles lifted his head with a

start, suddenly remembering where he was.

And so the day went on in its usual sort of way and ended

in its usual sort of rush as the kids streamed out, pushing

past teachers, unlocking bikes and cycling off, or giving each

other dead legs on the way to the bus stop.

Miles walked out of school with his head down, with one

thing on his mind. His e-mail message.

When he got back home he walked around the back, so as

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to avoid bumping into his grandfather, and crawled through

the bedroom window. Once inside his room he looked

around and noticed that it was very cold. Much colder than

it should have been, especially since, as usual, Dot had had

the central heating on full blast all day. He went over to the

computer and turned it on. It clicked and whirred a few

times and said something about checking for viruses. Miles

sat down and typed in the password, ‘Kennyisdead’, when he

was ready, and watched quietly as the windows flicked up.

His face was thoughtful as he signed on, clicked the Explorer

button and looked at his fingers. Waiting for something.

Nothing happened.

He checked his Hotmail.

Nothing was there. His fingers did start to tingle; but then

he realised that it was probably his imagination, or his hands

had been cold and now they were beginning to warm up. No

post, nothing about Christmas. Nothing about anything.

Nothing.

Scary though last night had been, he did feel a little

disappointed, and so he sat for a while staring at the screen,

flicking the mouse to and fro, waiting for something to

happen. Eventually though, he got bored of this and wrote a

quick e-mail to his mother about nothing much, and one to

his friend Danny down the road about homework. ‘See you

at school, you owe me a quid,’ he typed and signed off, to go

and do his homework in front of the TV.

19


Over the hills and across the sea, a lonely robin flitted and

flicked itself from one air current to another, eventually

landing on a distant shore, where it rested. After a while, it

gathered its strength and turned and headed into the dark

and very sinister forest behind it, soaring over the snow-

capped firs, with the cold air stinging its lungs.

By nightfall the robin had reached its destination: a hut in a

clearing in the forest, standing alone in a small pool of light, in

the middle of a very, very large pool of darkness. Someone

inside the hut was singing:

‘We wish you a Merry Christmas

WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS

WE WISH YOU A M-E-R-R-Y CHRIST-MAS

AND- A- HAPPY NEW YEAR!

There was a loud burp and a crash of broken glass, as a

bottle came through the window of the hut and landed in the

snow, just missing the robin, who was perched nearby. The robin

blinked in the frozen air and looked down at the bottle, which

had ‘Christmas Sherry’ written on the label. The small brown

and red bird shrugged. ‘Typical,’ it thought in its own birdy way.

‘Two weeks before Christmas and already on the sherry. Must

have been one of the millions left out for him last year.’ Inside,

the singing had started again. The robin looked at the window

and caught a glimpse of a red sleeve as it bunged something on

the fire. ‘Probably an elf,’ it thought, and turned back into the

forest to find somewhere quieter to spend the night.

20


Chapter Four

One million quid

That night Miles sat up with his grandfather watching

television after supper. TV got boring, and anyway it was hot

in the lounge, so he went into the kitchen to talk to his

grandmother.

‘Gran, can I have a glass of milk and some chocolate

biscuits to take to bed, please?’ His grandmother looked up

from the knitting magazine she was reading at the kitchen

table, and smiled at him in a vague sort of way.

‘Yes, of course, if you like dear. But didn’t you have

enough for supper? You’re growing up so fast, you’ll be

eating almost as much as your grandfather soon. I don’t

know.’

Miles, who liked Dot’s cooking, especially after what he

had had to eat at other people’s houses, agreed with her. He

took some Jaffa Cakes out of the cupboard, some milk from

the fridge, and left the room with a mumbled goodnight.

A few minutes later he was brushing his teeth in the

bathroom mirror when he thought he heard something

break, what seemed like very far away, but strangely, at the

same time, very close by. It sounded very much like glass, so

he turned around sharply, but there was nothing there. At

21


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that moment, he felt his fingers start to tingle again. He

looked at them: all across the tips he felt tiny prickles, like

electric shocks. This time something really was happening.

But, then, almost as suddenly as it started, the tingling

stopped.

Miles went back to his bedroom, a little disappointed, and

sat on the corner of his bed. I must be going bonkers, he

decided. There was no other explanation. Stark staring

bananas. Doolally. Cloud Cuckoo. He still had the certain

sense of something big about to happen. ‘I wish whatever is

going to happen would just happen all at once,’ he thought

glumly to himself, ‘and then I wouldn’t have to put up with

the suspense. I could be quietly locked away and let out only

on weekends for good behaviour.’ He looked at the computer

for a bit and then turned out the light and rolled over, still

fully clothed, as usual.

Gradually the lights in the street all went out as people

packed themselves off to bed, and bit by bit the street was

plunged into almost total darkness, apart from the orange

glow of the street lamp in the frosty night air.

In Miles’s room the computer clicked a few times and

turned itself on, as Miles rolled over in his sleep.

Ghostly hands played over the keyboard and a ghostly

member signed itself up to one of the chat rooms.

WIN A MILLION!!!


flicked the banner at the top of the screen.

Ghwerufkgheruwfih../////

JUST ENTER OUR CHATROOM AND ANSWER A

FEW SIMPLE QUESTIONS!!!

Hu2llihfewui’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’

The banner flashed red and then white.

Red and white

Off

And on

Off

And…..on

Miles’s eyes flickered and then opened. He looked up with

a start and rubbed his face. He looked at his watch. It

showed 11.55 pm. Then he looked over at the computer. For

an instant part of him hesitated. From where he was sitting

he could read the banner easily. Then he read it again. This

was incredibly weird. But a million quid was a million quid,

and anything like that was worth a shot, even if his computer

was acting as if it was possessed.

Maybe, with all that money, Miles’s mum wouldn’t have to

work away anymore, and she could afford to come back and

live with them. Or maybe it would just be nice to be the

richest kid in Wendover Backwoods.

23


He rolled off the bed and sat down in front of the PC.

There was a box saying ‘enter’ to the left of the site, so he

clicked on it. The screen flashed and he read:

SPECIAL CHRISTMAS CHAT SITE.

PLEASE WAIT……………………..

By now he was fully awake. Miles’s hands tapped the

mouse gently, as he wondered vaguely why all the best sites

took the longest to come up.

The logo stopped spinning and all of a sudden the screen

went blank.

‘HELLO, MILES,’ it said. Miles’s mouth dropped open.

He sat there frozen.

‘HELLO, MILES BYFAR,’ the screen repeated, as if

Miles was incredibly stupid and needed to have it spelt out

that it was actually talking to him.

The cursor flicked. Miles’s hand reached over to the

keyboard and typed:

‘ER, HI.’

‘‘ER, HI’? WHAT SORT OF AN ANSWER IS THAT?’

It came back in an instant. ‘DON’T THEY TEACH KIDS

ANY MANNERS AT SCHOOL THESE DAYS?’

Miles sat up straighter and blinked.

‘SORRY,’ he typed. ‘HELLO,’ and then ‘HOW ARE

YOU?’ after he had thought about it for a bit.

‘THAT’S BETTER,’ said his computer. ‘VERY BAD,

24


SINCE YOU ASK. MY SINUSES ARE PLAYING UP

SOMETHING CHRONIC.’

Miles didn’t know what to say, so he typed: ‘SORRY TO

HEAR THAT. I DIDN’T THINK COMPUTERS COULD

GET ILL.’

The monitor glowed red. ‘HE THINKS HE’S TALKING

TO A COMPUTER. ARE YOU SURE THIS WAS A

GOOD IDEA? I MYSELF DON’T KNOW. HE SEEMS

PRETTY DUMB TO ME.’ Although the words were

coming up on the screen, whatever or whoever it was seemed

to be having a conversation with someone else, so Miles

remained quiet. After a bit the screen went from red to pink,

and then back to its normal colour.

‘ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT, BUT THIS IS HIS LAST

CHANCE, I’M A PROFESSIONAL, YOU KNOW.

NEVER WORK WITH CHILDREN OR ANIMALS,

YOU KNOW THE STORY………… OKAY, MILES

BYFAR – ARE YOU STILL THERE?’

‘YES,’ typed Miles simply.

‘GOOD. I’M AN EMPLOYEE OF A VERY

IMPORTANT PERSON. THAT’S ALL YOU NEED TO

KNOW FOR THE MOMENT, KIDDO. SO LET’S GET

THIS OVER WITH. HERE GOES- WOULD YOU,

MILES BYFAR, LIKE TO WIN ONE MILLION, IT’S

THE CHANCE OF A LIFETIME, A VERY LIMITED

OFFER, RIGHT? YES OR NO, QUICKLY.’

25


Miles paused for a split second. ‘Seems simple enough,’ he

thought to himself. ‘YES,’ he typed.

‘WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO TO LAPLAND?’

‘NO,’ Miles typed; it sounded cold.

‘LOOK KID, DON’T GET CUTE. YOU WANNA WIN

A MILLION, YOU GOTTA GO TO LAPLAND, ALL

RIGHT?’

‘Keep your hair on,’ thought Miles. ‘ALL RIGHT.

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?’

The screen didn’t do anything for a moment. Miles tapped

the desk. Somehow he had forgotten he was talking to a

stranger in the middle of the night on a computer that had

turned itself on. The cursor started to move; it all seemed

very natural.

‘E-MAIL YOURSELF.’

‘WHAT?’ typed Miles. Chat rooms were nearly always full

of crackpots; he avoided them in general, and this was

getting silly.

‘YOU HEARD ME, KID. IT’S SIMPLE. E-MAIL

YOURSELF.’

Miles frowned at the computer screen for a moment.

‘HOW DO I DO THAT?’

‘JEESSUSS! IT’S AS EASY AS THIS. GO TO ‘E-MAIL’

ON THIS SITE ONLY, ‘ATTACH’, TYPE IN ‘MILES

BYFAR’ AND HIT ‘SEND’. YOU’LL SEE.’

Miles had never heard anything so stupid in his life, and

26


didn’t believe for a minute that it was actually possible.

This was his first big mistake.

But, then again, this was probably why he went into the

‘compose mail’ screen ‘attach’ and typed his name and hit

‘send’. A million was a million, after all, and he was fully

awake now and not doing anything else. Oddly, as he was

doing it, although he didn’t believe for one second anything

would happen, he felt his heart beat faster, thumping in his

chest so loud now that Miles thought he could hear it.

Then the screen went blank and Miles sat there looking at

it. He had heard that there were a lot of strange people in

America, if that’s where the person at the other end was

speaking from. Then again, it might have been someone

trying to sound American. He had to admit, they’d had him

going for a mom…

And at that instant Miles’s world exploded into a million

pieces of sound and light.

27


28


Chapter Five

North Pole

Time revolved.

Miles felt himself floating, turning very slowly one way,

and then very fast in another direction, rather like a bottle

caught in a strong current of water, twisting along the path

of a river. When he looked at his hands they seemed to have

grown to ten times their normal length and his feet, he was

shocked to discover, were spiralling away in the distance. He

looked like a long piece of string, with his head at one end

and his feet getting smaller as they got further away at the

other.

Miles was worried that he might snap for a moment, like

one of those rubber dolls you could twist and pull and turn

into strange shapes, until one day the rubber got dry and

brittle and they came apart, and you had to buy a new one

from the newsagent’s.

Then, just as suddenly as it had all started, it stopped.

Miles’s world came slowly into focus and he found himself

standing, quite unexpectedly, in a clearing in a forest,

surrounded by snow and a howling gale. It was also

very dark.

29


He looked at his feet, peeping out of his pyjama bottoms,

and was glad to see that they had returned to their normal

size without any obvious damage, but shocked to discover

that they were already turning light blue with cold.

Going from the warm comfort of his bedroom to

appearing here via e-mail was so unexpected he could hardly

begin to think about it. He had already forgotten all about

the million pounds. Normally he liked snow. Quite a lot,

actually. But there was altogether too much of the stuff out

here for his liking. And in his pyjamas, with no dressing

gown or slippers, he had to admit that he wasn’t exactly

dressed for the occasion.

‘Godda ged ouda da cold,’ he muttered to himself, his

teeth chattering like a couple of demented castanets. It was

then that he noticed, not far off, a cottage, nestling in the

corner of the clearing. Smoke was coming out of the

chimney, and from one of the windows there came rather an

inviting orange glow, all warm and homey. Without pausing

to think of the consequences, Miles began to hop gingerly

through the snow towards the side of the hut, where he could

just make out a door. ‘Where on earth am I?’ he asked

himself, wrapping his arms tighter around his body to keep

out the cold. ‘Oh please God, let this be a dream. It must be

the cheese I had before going to bed. They say that gives you

nightmares. I’ll never touch the stuff again, I promise.’

As he got nearer the hut he heard the sound of singing

30


coming from inside. ‘Well, at least whoever is inside is in a

good mood,’ he thought as he finally got to the door.

Carefully, Miles stretched out a hand and tapped on the

wooden planks.

Almost immediately the singing stopped, and Miles heard

the sound of something glass being dropped on the floor.

‘Who’s there?’ boomed a man’s voice. Through the door, it

sounded more scared than angry. Miles felt a bit of his

courage come seeping back into his frozen limbs. If whoever

it was was scared of a knock at the door, then he didn’t have

too much to worry about.

‘Er, it’s Miles,’ said Miles rather stupidly.

There was a pause. ‘Miles what?’

‘Miles Byfar.’

There was a slightly longer pause this time. ‘What’s miles

by far? That isn’t even a sentence. Unless it’s a riddle. Or one

of those ‘knock knock’ jokes. Is it a ‘knock knock’ joke? I

like those.’

Outside in the snow, Miles couldn’t even feel his head

anymore, he was so cold. ‘No, it’s my name, Miles, and my

surname is Byfar. And I’m very cold. Can I come in?’

‘No.’

Miles stood there in the snow feeling as if he was about to

burst into tears. He was freezing and it was a school day

tomorrow and he wasn’t even wearing his warm pyjamas, the

ones with the faded Bart Simpson on the front, and he had

31


no clue where he was. Then he straightened up. He hadn’t

cried, well, not properly, since he was seven, and at ten he

wasn’t about to now. At least, so he hoped.

The fact still remained, he was desperate to get out of the

cold. Without knocking again or anything, he put his hand

on the cabin door and pushed as hard as he could. As luck

would have it, the door wasn’t even properly shut, and it

swung open with a creak. Miles felt a blast of deliciously

warm air hit him. He looked into the room and this is what

he saw…

Two chairs and a table in the corner of a room, not much

bigger than his own bedroom at home, with an armchair by

a roaring fire and something roasting on a metal rod hanging

over the fire. In the middle of the room, with a glass of what

looked suspiciously like his granny’s sherry in his hand,

wearing large black boots and a red jacket, stood none other

than someone who looked like Father Christmas himself. He

was swaying very gently to and fro and, as far as Miles could

tell, he was very drunk.

For a moment Miles was too shocked to speak or to move.

He forgot about the cold and where he was and just gaped,

as somebody he had given up believing in when he was five

turned out to be very much real, there, large as life and

absolutely stinking of cheap alcohol. Miles half expected the

Easter Bunny to appear, followed by Spiderman.

32


Father Christmas stood there for a moment without

saying anything either, and glared balefully at Miles. Miles

noticed, for the first time, just how large he was. About

double a normal man’s height and size. Easily the tallest

human being he had ever seen. If he was a human being,

which he probably wasn’t. And all these thoughts ran

through Miles’s head rapidly as he was trying to lap up all

the strange things that kept happening to him in quick

succession, so it came as quite a surprise when Father

Christmas opened his mouth and said:

‘Urgh, a boy! Who let you in, you disgusting little brat?’

Miles thought for a minute that he was about to throw

him back out into the snow. He looked around frantically for

a place to escape to and saw a bedroom door leading to an

unmade bed across the other side of the room. If he made a

run for it now he could just get there in time to hide under

the bed. He doubted whether Father Christmas, in his

present state, could bend down enough to get at him without

falling over. But nothing happened, so Miles decided that

politeness was probably best.

‘Erhem,’ he cleared his throat, ‘you wouldn’t happen to be

Father Christmas would you?’ The door slammed shut and

Father Christmas went bright red.

‘IS THIS SOME SORT OF JOKE? OF COURSE I’M

RUDDY FATHER CHRISTMAS. WHO ELSE DID YOU

FINK WOZ GOING TO BE DRESSED UP LIKE THIS,

33


THE BLOOMING SUGAR PLUM FAIRY!?’ He roared,

louder than Miss Geelong could probably have managed,

even on a very good day.

Miles took all this in quite calmly and said: ‘Pleased to

meet you, Mr. Christmas. Did you know, you’ve always been

a hero of mine? I was wondering, if it’s not too much

trouble,’ he patted his pockets as if looking for a pen,

‘whether I might have your autograph, and then I’ll be on my

way. If it’s not too much trouble?’

Slowly the colour drained from Father Christmas’s cheeks

and he seemed to relax a bit. He picked up another empty

glass and poured himself a very large sherry, the sherry glass

looking tiny in his huge hand.

‘Yeah wewl, I suppose so,’ he began to mutter, ‘not that I

like visitors, especially not kids. I suppose you can stay for

five minutes and then you’re out,’ he said taking a large gulp

and pointing to Miles.

Outside the wind began to howl all the more. To Miles it

seemed the coldest, most inhospitable place he had ever

been, including Wendover Backwoods Bus Depot. Then,

slowly, a sort of cunning, sneaky look stole over Father

Christmas’s face, as if something had just occurred to him.

‘Tell you wot, seeing’s you’re here,’ he said turned to Miles

with a sickly, greedy look on his face, ‘do you wanna buy a

Game Boy?’

‘Er, no thanks, I’ve already got one,’ said Miles as politely

34


as possible.

‘Oh go on, son,’ said Father Christmas, staggering

horribly towards Miles, ‘they’re goin’ cheap this month,

straight from China. Black-market, but just as good as the

real thing. Even comes with batteries and the new colour

screen, ‘ave a look, son, quality stuff or I’m a monkey’s

uncle, every boy should ‘ave one.’

‘Er, really no,’ replied Miles backing away as politely as he

could. ‘I couldn’t possibly. You’ve been too kind already.’

Father Christmas’s face went dark again. ‘Look, didn’t

your parents tell you that it was rude to refuse things

from strangers?’

‘Er, actually, no,’ replied Miles. ‘Just the opposite, in fact.’

He was gradually edging around towards the door of the

bedroom. ‘Anyway, aren’t you meant to give presents away or

something, not try and sell them to people?’

Like a fat spider, Father Christmas’s hand shot out and

grabbed Miles by the scruff of his neck. Much faster than

Miles had expected. ‘Tell yer what, I’ll throw in a reindeer

burger. ‘Ow’s that for an offer a growing boy

can’t refuse?’

‘Reindeer burger?’ squeaked Miles – Father Christmas’s

huge hand was cutting off the air supply and he could hardly

breathe, let alone speak. ‘I thought that the reindeer were

your friends?’ He couldn’t believe that Father Christmas,

whom he hadn’t believed in until a few minutes ago, could

35


turn out to be such a horrible person, who even ate reindeer.

He had an idea. ‘What happened to Rudolph?’

‘He woz the first to go!’ cried Father Christmas with a

nasty laugh.

‘This is it,’ thought Miles. ‘I’m going to end up dead in a

made-up land, in a made-up stew, all because a made-up

person is peckish.’ But even as he thought this, something

unusual seemed to be happening to Father Christmas’s face,

which was pressing close up against his. His nose seemed to

start to melt and his eyes faded. Miles thought he was going

to faint, until he realised what was happening. The familiar

feeling of his arms and legs stretching into infinity started

again, and Miles felt the pressure of that great big hand

disappear bit by bit from around his neck.

Moments later he was back in his bedroom, sitting in

front of a switched-off computer, with a pile of snow quickly

melting in the top pocket of his pyjamas.

All around there was darkness. Nothing came and nothing

went. Not even a breeze; not a breath of air. Not even, as they

say, a mouse.

Then came the sound of someone lighting a match in the

darkness. The match flared and lit the face of a man. Bleary,

red-eyed and bad-tempered-looking. The candle he was

lighting flickered and nearly blew itself out, as if it was

trying to avoid the man and his breath, which you just knew

was smelly. There was a pause as the man coughed and spat

36


onto the floor. Briefly, he lowered the candle to look at

whatever it was had come out of his mouth. He pulled a face

and straightened up to shuffle across the room. He farted –

easily loud enough for the sound to echo off the stony walls.

‘Oh really – must you!’ came another voice, from someone

sitting at the far end.

‘Sorry Baws,’ said the shuffling figure, ‘it’s dem toikey

sandwiches. They repeats on me sumt’ing rotten.’

There was a slight pause. ‘Did you get him to do it?’

drawled the voice at the far end, as if he really didn’t care to

carry on the conversation about turkey sandwiches and what

they did to the man carrying the candle.

‘Yes Baws, hook, line and sinker – the boy’s a natural.’

‘ You mean, greedy and selfish.’

‘Heh heh, yeah, he fell for it, like a... like er...’ there was a

pause, ‘like a man falling over a cliff.’

‘Yes, Globule. I don’t claim to be impressed by the

comparison, but he sounds just like any other 10-year-old

I’ve ever met; let’s hope he is suitably disgusted by our Mr.

Christmas, so we can enter phase two of the plan. We’ll be

contacting him tonight.’

‘Don’t you tink we should wait a bit? Let him cool off ?’

‘No! Time is of the essence, you idiot, we’ve only got a few

weeks until D-Day.’

‘‘The’-what?’

‘You know. D-Day. The big one.’

37


‘Big what?’ Globule’s bottom lip began to drip saliva, just

as it probably always did when he concentrated.

‘The Big Day! The one we’ve been working towards.’

‘Oh you means Christmas Day. Oh goody, I love

Christmas Day. Presents and holly and mistletoe for

kissing…!’

‘DON’T SAY THAT WORD!’ The figure leapt up,

casting a huge shadow across the whole of the room.

‘ Uhr, sorry Baws.’

‘YOU KNOW HOW SENSITIVE I AM! All I hear is

Christmas Day this, Christmas Day that. But who ever

remembers the 26th? Eh? Eh? Oh! But they will regret it.

They will rue the day. Ten miserable centuries of a hangover

and unwanted presents, of clearing up and relatives you

don’t like – don’t even know half the time! Oh yes, Father

Flipping Christmas thought he was sooo clever, with his

sleigh bells and his poncey dinga-linging. But he’s having a

bit of a hard time now, keeping up with cheap imports, isn’t

he? Ha! But I, Boxing Day, will rise from the ashes of

commercialism and trample the old man Christmas, until the

whole world will be alight, shouting my name. Boxing Day,

Boxing Day! Hooray……..Hooray………..aaaaaaarggghh!’

Boxing Day had put his long sleeve into the candle by

mistake. The cavern walls were lit up as the figure danced

around, looking for the water siphon that had never been there.

38


Chapter Six

Same snow,different place

Dawn came and found Miles still sitting at his computer,

head on the desk, fast asleep. He awoke with a fairly

revolting stream of dribble on his sleeve, rubbed his eyes and

looked out of the window, where a carpet of snow had

settled in the garden and all along his window ledge. ‘Urgh,

yuk!’ was his first thought. After the events of the night

before, which came flooding back to him now, the way a bad

report comes back to haunt you late at night, he had had

enough of snow to last a lifetime.

He scratched the back of his head, stretched and

wandered into the hallway, down towards the kitchen on his

way to get a drink. Drifting down the corridor, Miles looked

out of the window into the front garden and onto the street.

Funny, there didn’t seem to be much snow there. Perhaps the

council had sent a team of street sweepers out early. He

looked at his watch. It said 7.30 a.m. Very early for street

sweepers to be around.

As he stood by the kitchen sink, pouring himself a glass

of water, he glanced once more out of the back window and

noticed that there wasn’t even much snow in the rest of the

39


back garden, just a huge chunk of it, for about twenty or so

feet around his bedroom window. Dry, powdery snow, the

sort that you only get when the weather is really cold. Real

snow really, not the usual watery slush that’s turned by

midday into muddy piles at the side of the road.

Powder snow, just around his room; only around

his room.

Without having to think too hard, Miles had a pretty fair

idea where it had all come from. Somehow, it must have

followed him from the North Pole the night before. If he had

been thinking that he could pass the events of last night off

as a dream, even a really nasty, realistic one, then now was

when he realised that he couldn’t.

His first thought was to get rid of all the snow. But how

was he going to get rid of half a ton of frozen water before

his grandparents got up? It was impossible. Miles’s head

began to spin. Strangely, his first thought was of his mother.

‘What’s Mum going to say when she finds out that her son

has gone loopy?’

At that moment his grandmother chose to come in,

positively gasping. ‘Miles, Miles! Have you seen what’s been

going on outside your bedroom window?!’

Miles stared at her for a moment. ‘I don’t feel very well,’

he said- really not feeling very well at all.

The morning shot by, after the discovery of the strange

40


snow. As Miles wasn’t feeling well, Dot excused him from

going to school, after much tutting and I-told-you-so-ing

and this-is-what-comes-of-staying-up-late-ing.

But that didn’t stop the school coming to him, nor did it

stop the local press and half the street turning up in his back

garden. Mrs. Taplow, the nosey neighbour, had met Dot at

the local mini-mart and before the morning was over, Miles

had become a local celebrity. A crowd of people gathered at

the back of the garden, including Miles’s headmaster, who

told everybody that he had just popped round to wish the

dear boy well and that he had had no idea at all about the

snow, the big liar.

‘Christmas comes early for local boy!’

exclaimed the Wendover Backwoods Evening News. The

Wendover Backwoods and Ditton Enquirer, which Dot

wouldn’t get on account of it being trashy, went one better.

‘I’m dreaming of a White Christmas’

it said, showing a picture of Miles in his pyjamas, looking

out of his bedroom window. ‘Christmas wish comes true for

Miles.’ They had even hired a ‘specialist’ from London, who

was quoted as saying that ‘extreme localisation in snowfall

remains inexplicable in the modern field of science and

41


meteorology,’ which basically meant he didn’t have

a clue either.

Only Miles knew how it all got there. And he was staying

put in his room.

Eventually, though, round about lunchtime, the crowd

began to slope off. The photographers had got their pictures

and the snow was beginning to melt. As soon as they had

gone, Reg got a shovel and heaped the remainder of the

snow onto the grass, where it wouldn’t damage his crazy

paving.

When he was sure they had all gone, Miles got up and

drifted into the kitchen and told Dot that he was feeling

much better. Dot frowned and took his temperature and

then his pulse and finally declared him fit to help her put up

last year’s Christmas decorations.

Miles nodded. Anything was better than staying in his

room. Besides, he felt like doing something normal and

putting up decorations was about as normal as it got. They

always did it at school before the last week of term. So this,

in a way, was practice.

Every year Miles asked for a real Christmas tree. And

every year they put up the plastic silver one, which Reg and

Dot both agreed was better for the carpet. One year, Miles

had offered to do all the clearing up himself, if, just once,

they could have a real tree. But Dot had read somewhere that

children could be allergic to the sap in fir trees and had said

42


no, for health reasons, which was her way of saying that that

was the end of all further discussion. Anyway, this year,

Miles didn’t mind a bit, and besides, he had other things to

worry about.

Whilst putting up the decorations, Miles started to feel

more himself, and even wondered what that night would

bring. He had been doing some thinking, and had decided

that what had happened hadn’t been so bad. Just

unexpected. Something was going on and he was very

curious to get to the bottom of it.

There was also the matter of a million pounds, which he

hadn’t forgotten about. He very much wanted to get to the

bottom of that as well. He had already started making plans

for the money despite his scare.

That evening he found it very easy to take an early night.

Reg was still on the phone when Miles said goodnight. He

was giving quotes to the press and anyone who wanted to

hear a quote of any description. As he slipped off to his

room, Miles heard him explaining to a local reporter how

best to plant out strawberries, something he felt sure the

reporter hadn’t asked for a quote on, but was getting

nonetheless. He made sure he took some bread and cheese

from the kitchen, just in case he needed to spend some time

anywhere where bread and cheese were in short supply.

Outside it was pitch dark. Miles locked the window and

43


drew the curtains. By now he was beginning to feel the first

signs of excitement, so he hurried to his room, and got

changed into a pair of tracksuit bottoms, training boots and

a thick fleece. Then he sat down at his computer.

His hands moved quickly and expertly across the

keyboard. As he heard the motherboard beep and squeak,

his fingertips gave a now-familiar tingle. He opened his mail

site but nothing was there. Miles went in to Compose Mail

and typed his name into the attachment box and pressed

‘Send’. Nothing happened, just a slight gust of air. He tried

it again and even went into a couple of chat rooms. Nothing,

once more. He was beginning to get the feeling that whatever

it was at the other end of the computer sending him to The

North Pole, it controlled him; he didn’t control it.

Miles leant back in his chair and scratched the end of his

nose, something he always did when he was concentrating,

and that’s when he heard a noise coming from behind him.

Just a slight rustle and a gentle thump. Slowly he turned

around in his swivel chair. There, in the corner of his room,

stood a man about his father’s age, or so he would have said

if he knew his father, wearing a jumper and a pair of baggy

green corduroy trousers.

‘Hello, Miles,’ he said pleasantly, taking a pipe out of his

trouser pocket and tapping it on his hand. ‘I’m absolutely

delighted to meet you at last. Really I am.’

44


Light years away, Father Christmas was just waking up

with a terrible hangover and a nasty cold coming on.

‘Oh, my poor head,’ he burbled quietly to himself, sitting on

the side of the bed with his head in his hands. ‘I’ve got to pull

myself together. I really can’t go on like this.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ said a familiar voice. He looked up

to see a robin perched on his windowsill, shaking the last lumps

of snow off its ruffled feathers.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Father Christmas. ‘Wot do YOU want?’

‘I mean just look at you, you’re a mess,’ continued the

robin, speaking directly into his head, as if Father Christmas

hadn’t said a thing. ‘You do know what time of year it is,

don’t you? Or am I going to have to start pinning the date to

your shirt? Speaking of which, when was the last time you

cleaned yours?’

‘Oh leave me alone, pleeaaase, my ‘ead feels like it’s about

to explode into goo and bits an’ all you can do is bang on about

the laundry.’

The robin absentmindedly inspected the ground for worms.

Actually he felt quite sorry for the Big FC, as he was known in

the trade. He really hadn’t been himself for the last couple of

hundred years, but this time he really seemed to have lost it.

However enough was enough. Everybody had their

responsibilities. ‘Pull yourself together,’ he chirped out loud.

FC just shook his head sadly and looked at his hands. ‘How

can I? There’s no place for me at Christmas anymore. It’s all

45


foreign imports and batteries not included, software, hardware,

‘Plug and Play’ – I don’t even really know what a fax machine

is, to be honest. Let’s face it, I’m outmoded. According to the

Tooth fairy, who was round for dinner last week, I need a new

hard drive, whatever that is. Even the elves think I’m an

antique. People laugh at me, even the kids – especially the kids.

They just think I’m a fat man, with a beard, who doesn’t even

exist. It’s terrible.’

‘There, there,’ said the robin, trying to look sympathetic,

which isn’t an easy thing to do when you’ve only got a beak to

work with. ‘At least you’ve still got your Christmas Spirit.’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ murmured FC, reaching under his bed

and taking out an old brown bottle, labelled ‘Christmas Spirit,

100% proof ….of everything you never thought you believed

in,’ written in smaller letters at the foot of the label. He

polished the bottle with his sleeve. ‘I suppose so. But even that’s

not much good. Did you know that there’s something called ‘E-

Bay’? Its means you can buy stuff, practically anything from

anywhere around the world, far faster than I can get things to

kids. Supply and Demand. I just can’t compete anymore. And

now I’m getting visits from hit squads of kids.’ His memory of

the night before was hazy. The way FC remembered it, Miles

had broken the door down and attacked him, which just goes to

show what a dangerous thing cheap sherry can be.

The robin looked at FC through the glass and shook his

head. There was no point in talking to him when he was feeling

46


this sorry for himself. He felt an easterly wind lift the tip of one

of his wings. ‘I’m off to talk to the one person who may be able

to help,’ he said in his head to no one in particular. ‘Let’s just

hope I can get there in time.’

47


48


Chapter Seven

Peter and the Plan

Now back in Wendover Backwoods, things were going

brilliantly. For the first time in ages, Miles felt that he was

really being listened to. Peter – that was how the man

introduced himself – was like every slightly weird but kind

uncle that Miles had always wanted. What’s more, he was the

guy with the million ‘bucks’, as he had put it to Miles in a

fake jokey American accent, which had made Miles smile

and relax even more.

‘Aren’t bucks less than pounds, though?’ Miles had asked.

Peter had looked slightly cross and guilty for a split second,

as if he had just been caught out and wasn’t too pleased. His

eyes flashed in a way that made Miles shiver, but just for a

moment, and then he had smiled and said in a way that made

him sound incredibly impressed:

‘Clever. I do so like that in a boy of your age. Rare, very

rare.’ And Miles had immediately forgotten about the look.

In fact, talking to Peter, who had told him he was working on

behalf of clients from another dimension, you tended to

forget everything. Or at least, everything you thought you had

remembered but had unfortunately forgotten, because all that

seemed important was ‘what Peter had to say’ and ‘what Peter

49


thought’, when you were talking to kindly old Peter.

It was all so delightfully simple. As they talked, soon

Miles stopped wishing Peter was his uncle, and started

wishing Peter was his dad instead. He felt a bit guilty about

thinking this at first, then thought: ‘Well, at least Peter takes

the trouble to visit me all the way from another dimension.

Dad just left and never came back.’ Which was a bit unfair,

and Miles knew it; he had no idea if his Dad even knew

where he was anymore, or if his mum would even let

him visit.

‘So you see, that’s just the way it is,’ Peter had been

explaining about Father Christmas. ‘Of course he is a mortal

just like you. And just like you, he sometimes gets a little

tired and perhaps depressed-’ Miles nodded intelligently ‘-

and a little fretful. My superiors have decided, and quite

rightly, I might say, that it’s time for retirement. But FC is

getting old and he’s a little stubborn. Like a lot of old

people.’

Miles nodded again. He understood. He’d been living

with Dot and Reg for long enough to know that.

‘The fact is, my dear boy, he just won’t go. And due to

ahm…technical difficulties, it’s rather hard to get rid of him.

I mean, it’s not like we can just waltz in and shoot the old

codger, right? Ha ha!’

Miles thought that was going a bit far, even for a joke.

‘But we can ‘let him down gently’, so to speak,’ Peter went

50


on, patting Miles on the back in a sort of ‘good on you son’

sort of way, ‘and that’s where you come in.’

‘How?’ Miles knew this had been coming, and was

desperate to show Peter that he could be useful and grown up

and, above all, brave.

‘Ah, I just knew you would be eager to help. ‘Keen as

mustard, that’s what that boy is,’ I told my lot downst – I

mean….upstairs – ‘and with a heart of gold, ideal for

the job.’’

‘Of course I would love to help. As long as it doesn’t

involve shooting Mr. Christmas.’

‘Ha ha ha,’ laughed Peter without really laughing, and

Miles noticed again, just for a split second, how only his

mouth moved when he laughed and the eyes stayed the same.

‘Of course not! We’re all just as fond of him as you are.

Fonder, if that’s possible. But, like I said, your heart is in the

right place and that’s the main thing. No, Miles my boy, we

only need to hand the job over to someone better suited. But

to do that, we need his Christmas Spirit.’

‘His what?’ asked Miles.

‘It’s a bottle-brown-under his bed-can’t miss it,’ rapped

out the reply like Morse code, before Miles had had time

to blink.

‘Why do you need that? Mr. Christmas has got masses of

bottles in his house. For some reason he seems to really like

all of them, why’s that one so special?’

51


‘Well, Miles, I won’t beat about the bush with you. You’re

too sharp for that,’ said Peter, getting off the bed and

beginning to pace up and down the room like an eccentric

schoolmaster. ‘Without it he can’t do his job. It’s what allows

him to deliver all the presents in one night, it’s like a bottle

of magic potion. When he realises it has gone, he will finally

see, we hope, that he can’t do his job, I mean really can’t do

his job, and hopefully he will retire of his own free will

without things having to get too nasty. Really, it’s for the

best,’ continued Peter, turning to face Miles, ‘sort of letting

him down gently.’

‘This may seem like silly question,’ said Miles, still a bit

doubtfully, ‘but why me? Surely, you’d be much better at this

than me? I mean you actually know him. He probably likes

you. The last time he saw me he threatened me with a burger.’

Peter stopped pacing. ‘Quite right, my boy, quite right.

But, you see, he lives in a special part of the North Pole. A

sort of protected area and I, I mean we, can’t go there – only

children and elves. Something to do with the tenancy

agreement with the Land Lord.’ He paused and smiled at

Miles cheerfully. ‘Don’t forget too that we will be paying you

handsomely for your services.’

Miles hadn’t forgotten, not in the least. ‘But why me, then,

why not any other boy my age – or girl?’

‘What, how could you say that?’ Peter looked amazed.

‘After you’ve done so splendidly so far? You’re perfect for the

52


job. No-one else would do, quite simply. No-one else.’

And that was it. That decided Miles. He’d always known

that he was special. And finally there was someone there, an

adult, to tell him so, and pay him a million pounds or

whatever for it.

‘Okay,’ he said, grinning as though he had suddenly grown

twice the number of teeth in his mouth, ‘how do I do it?’

The plan was simple, actually. ‘A quick in and out job,’

Peter explained smoothly. ‘A piece of cake, Guv.’

Miles found a pair of woolly gloves, a baseball cap and he

was ready to go. Peter shook him warmly by the hand, saying

that Miles had just over half an hour to get the job done, and

then he would be immediately transported back to his room,

where Peter would still be waiting. ‘Good luck, my boy!’ he

said, looking over his shoulder, as Miles typed out his name

and hit ‘Send’.

Miles felt a brief surge of pride at the importance of the

job he was doing as he hit the send key and then, all of a

sudden, came the feeling of floating and then stretching, the

rushing of air and the familiar sound of sleigh bells in

his head.

‘Whoosh,’ went the freezing air around his ears, as he got

to the other end, and ‘FLUMP,’ went Miles, as he landed

head first in a snowdrift that hadn’t been there the night

before.

53


After about five minutes of waving his legs and flapping

his arms like a demented sparrow, he managed to get himself

free of the snowdrift and start looking around for Father

Christmas’s hut. Of course, it was easy enough to find. In

fact it hadn’t moved a bit since the night before.

As Miles trudged across the frozen glade in the forest,

towards his target, he was watched by a small, beady pair of

eyes; glinting at him in the moonlight through the dark foliage

of the pine trees.

Properly dressed, by the time Miles eventually reached the

door, he had warmed up considerably. Tramping about in

snow was a tiring business. He paused for a bit to catch his

breath, keeping a sharp eye out all the time for flying bottles

and angry men with beards. Funny, though, there didn’t

seem to be any sign of any activity in the cottage. No smoke

coming from the roof and no lights on.

He took a peek through a crack in the door.

Nobody home.

‘Where on earth could he be at this time of night?’ he

wondered. Still, it meant that Miles’s job was easier. So,

pushing the door open a crack and keeping nice and low, he

slipped into the cottage via the front door. The fire in the

grate was nearly out and the remains of last night’s supper

sat, un-washed-up and gooey, on the table. An old pair of

54


socks was hanging by the window and a large box stood in

the corner. ‘MADE IN KOREA’ it had stamped on the top.

‘THIS WEE UP’. Miles smirked and tip toed across the

room, avoiding the empty bottles, which seemed to be

everywhere, until he got to the door of the bedroom.

It was half-open and, through it, Miles could see the

corner of a brass bed that he had glimpsed the night before.

‘That’s where it is,’ he thought as he went down on all fours

and crawled towards the bed, the blood pounding in his

head. And all the time he kept thinking he was about to be

discovered at any moment. Once he got to the bed he lay

down and, pushing the bedclothes to one side with one arm,

he used the other to search blindly under the bed, like a

spider looking for dead flies.

Almost immediately, his fingers encountered a cold,

round object, which rolled away from his grasping fingers.

‘THAT’S IT!’ he thought and dug his whole arm deeper

under the old bed. He pulled the bottle out and read the

words ‘CHRISTMAS SPIRIT. PROPERTY OF F.

CHRISTMAS, Esq. Keep your feeving hands off!’ someone

had written underneath in felt tip. ‘Yeah, I bet I know who,’

said Miles under his breath, just as he heard the front door

slam open and shut, and the sound of a heavy footstep in the

other room.

Up until now, Miles had been fairly calm, reminding

himself every few minutes that he was on an important

55


mission and that Peter was counting on him. Now, suddenly,

he felt his heart jump into his mouth, as he gripped the bottle

and wriggled quickly under the bed. The thought of ending

up like the reindeer, as part of some fast food dish in a

sesame bun, filled Miles with dread. ‘Oh, please don’t let me

be caught, please don’t let me be caught,’ he whispered to

himself, like a mantra, as he crawled deeper under the bed.

All of a sudden this didn’t seem like such a good idea. Even

for a million pounds.

He looked at his watch. He had been there, wherever

‘there’ was, for just over twenty minutes. Another nine

minutes and twenty-two seconds to go.

The footsteps circled around the room and he heard the

sound of a cork being pulled out of a bottle, then a sort of

glug, glug, glug. ‘That’s right,’ he heard Father Christmas say

to someone, hopefully himself. ‘Just a wee drop before bed.’

‘Oh no!!’ thought Miles, ‘Not bed!’

‘And I’ll sleep like a baby.’

Miles heard a loud slurp and Father Christmas sit down

heavily in his armchair. Then, after a few minutes he heard a

loud snore and a quiet burp. ‘Phew,’ he thought, ‘he’s fallen

asleep.’ Miles began to relax again. Actually, it wasn’t at all bad

under the bed – warm and comfy. He could do with a bit of a

snooze himself. Miles grinned: it had been a difficult few days,

nevertheless he would soon be a millionaire and he wouldn’t

have to go to school anymore. He’d probably buy a submarine

56


and take it with his mum around the world before retiring in

America. But right now he could do with forty winks.

Then, like the worst sort of surprise, the bedroom door

opened ever so slowly. Within a split second Miles was wide-

awake again. ‘It can’t be him,’ he thought; and sure enough

Father Christmas let out a great big snore from the other

room as if to prove it. Even so, who was it? The sound of soft

footsteps approached the bed. Very slowly and very quietly,

almost as if the owner of the footsteps knew that Miles was

there and was hoping to catch him unawares.

Miles blood ran hot, then very cold as he turned his head

to see who it was. From just beneath the bedclothes, hanging

down in an untidy mess, Miles saw four black paws padding

across the room. ‘Miaow,’ went the four black paws. ‘Miaow,

miaow.’ Miles looked at his digital watch. He had set the

timer on it. Now it showed he had barely two minutes to go

before he was automatically transported back to his

bedroom and into safety. ‘I should be all right,’ he thought,

‘as long as that horrible cat keeps away.’

Suddenly, the snoring stopped in the next-door room.

‘Miaow, miaow,’ went the cat on cue; but not, Miles noticed

to his horror, making a normal cat noise. It actually said

‘miaow’ like you or I would, in a human voice, as it nudged

its way under the bed and looked at Miles with jet-black eyes.

‘Purr, purr,’ it added as an afterthought.

There was a cough and a snort from the armchair. ‘Wot’s

57


that, Tiddles? Wot ‘ave you found?’

The cat turned around and arched its back, slowly. It

looked at Miles, then licked its paw. The cat actually smiled.

A sort of horrible, smug smile, straight at Miles. Miles had

never seen a cat smile before, not properly; not a ‘real’ human

smile, and it was very, very unnerving. ‘Not much,’ Tiddles

suddenly said, in a very human voice, ‘just a boy under your

bed. The same one that was here last night, I think. He’s got

your bottle of Christmas Spirit.’

‘Oh, I’ll just go back to sleep again…’ There was a pause,

whilst what the cat had said sunk in... ‘WHAAT!?’ roared

FC. Miles felt like saying the same thing. A talking cat. Now

he had seen everything. But he didn’t have time to think

about it for too long. With a scrape of the chair and the

sound of something flying across the room that had no

business flying at all, let alone indoors, Father Christmas

burst into the room. A large hand came shooting under the

bed, feeling for Miles, who pushed himself out of the way

just in time.

‘WHERE’S MY GUN?’ he roared again.

‘Behind the door,’ said the ghastly Tiddles helpfully, and

winked at Miles, as if they were best mates.

Miles felt his insides turn to water as FC lumbered

towards the door. ‘This is it,’ thought Miles, ‘this is when I

die horribly.’ ‘Thanks a bunch,’ he hissed at the cat, who

looked at him calmly and scratched its ear.

58


‘Sorry,’ it said. ‘Just doing my job. Anyway, he might miss

first time. Take off an arm or a leg. Should be interesting at

any rate.’

‘Interesting is not the word I’d use,’ thought Miles grimly

to himself as Father Christmas burst back into the room like

an angry red baboon. Miles saw the shiny end of a shotgun

poke itself under the bed. ‘Stew tonight, Tiddles!’ cried

Father Christmas, and pulled the trigger. Miles shut his eyes.

He heard a loud bang and the rush of an approaching wind.

Strangely, the last thought that went through his head was

of how much he had enjoyed the raspberry and apple

crumble at lunch that day.

Time passed.

Miles opened his eyes again.

He was still lying down, but this time there was a draught

and it was dark all around him. Pitch black. Darker, it seemed,

than anywhere he had ever been in his life. Carefully he felt his

body. He couldn’t see it, but it everything still seemed to be in

the right place, and bits of him didn’t seem to be missing.

‘I must have done the jump at the exact minute that the

shotgun went off. That was lucky.’ Miles could feel his hands

shaking, but he also felt tingly and amazingly alive. Like he

could run for miles and not get tired. Very lucky. He didn’t

think he had had such a close shave in his life. ‘Where on earth,

or not on earth, am I?’ he wondered.

59


Complete darkness, if you have ever been in a room or any

other sort of place with no light, makes you feel dizzy, aswell

as rather scared. He was just feeling the floor, which felt like it

was some type of stone, when he heard voices, coming from

what sounded like the next-door room and saw an orange glow

appear- like that of a candle far off down several twists and

turns of corridor.

Slowly, being very careful not to make a sound, Miles lifted

himself up onto his feet and crept over towards where the light

was coming from. As he got closer, the voices got clearer until

he could almost make out the words from the low murmuring.

It sounded like two men talking.

Suddenly the voices got much louder, as if the two men had

moved across the room, across towards where Miles was hiding.

Miles shrank back against the wall. Most of the things that

had happened to him in the last couple of days had taught him

to be careful about dashing into dark rooms.

‘Well, Globule, the snivelling, money-grubbing little brat

should be back by now.’ Miles’s jaw dropped open. He nearly

jumped up and shouted with joy. It was Peter! But it didn’t

sound like the Peter he knew at all. The voice was harsh, like

nails being drawn down a blackboard – still the same person,

just not in the same mood.

‘Yes Baws. I beamed him up about five minutes ago. The

server on the PC has been temperimental recently, but it told

me he had been sent okay.’

60


‘Good,’ came back Peter’s reply. ‘When I get The Bottle off

the greedy fool, he’ll be in for a surprise.’

Miles stiffened. They were definitely talking about him. But

using words like ‘brat’ and ‘fool’, which he didn’t like the sound

of at all. They always said that you never overheard anything

good about yourself, but this was terrible. Peter was going to

steal The Bottle and get rid of him in some messy way. He

couldn’t believe he had been so stupid. He had thought Peter

was his friend. And whatever the surprise was, it didn’t sound

like it was going to be the sort of one that he would enjoy much.

‘What you going to do with him Baws?’ the American voice

said.

‘What?’ said Peter (if that was really his name), off-

handedly. ‘Oh, get rid of him somehow.’ Miles’s blood froze in

his veins; he’d half hoped he’d been wrong the first time. ‘That

Beelzebub fellow always needs people to work the gates and

sweep up corpses, that sort of thing, I’m sure he’ll have him for

a bit. Kids his age are always going missing. His mother’s never

around, I believe, so I doubt that there will be much fuss about

it. Still, best be running along. Can’t keep the boy waiting, now

can we? Nor my destiny. When I return, Christmas will be

mine, along with all the film rights! It’s time we took this

holiday into the next century! Ha ha ha!’

Within thirty seconds Miles felt his whole life come apart. It

had obviously been a trick all along, and now he was going to

turn up dead – or something worse! He suddenly felt dizzy.

61


Without thinking he took a step backwards to steady himself.

Something hit the back of his leg and tipped over. By the

sounds of things it was something tall and heavy, like a statue.

He heard it rock back and forwards a couple of times as he

vainly tried to grab hold of whatever it was to stop it from

falling. But he couldn’t see a thing, and the object gave one

final tip and crashed to the ground.

‘KAABOOOOM, CRASH!!’ The sound echoed off the

stone walls, like fireworks going off all at once in a tin box.

‘What was that?’ came Peter the Cheater’s voice through

the door.

‘No idea Baws.’

‘Quick, there shouldn’t be anyone there, you go and

investigate.’

But obviously Globule didn’t find the idea of going into the

dark room on his own that good. ‘Why me, Baws? Why don’t

you go? I’ve got dese bad eyes. Can’t see a ting in the dark.’

Miles looked around the darkness, frantically searching for

somewhere to escape to. He had to think of something quick;

sooner or later one or both of them were going to make up their

minds and come in with the candle to find him.

And indeed, just at that moment, Globule stuck the candle

around the door. Miles blew it out.

‘Baws, Baws! Someone’s blown da candle out.’

‘Well of course they have, you idiot! You go sticking your

big hand in there like an inquisitive ape. They’re probably

62


making off with the silver right now. Come on, hurry, we’ll

both go in.’

‘This is it,’ thought Miles. ‘Now I am going to die.’ It was

then that he remembered The Bottle. Later Miles would tell

people that it was instinct, that he just knew that the contents

of the bottle he had stolen from under the bed would do

something to help get him out of the situation. The plain fact

was, though, that he was desperate. At that moment Miles

would have eaten, drunk, said, not said, and done anything to

get out of that dark room in one piece, and if drinking from a

bottle he had no idea what the contents of were might help,

then he was prepared to give it a go.

The strange thing was, it was exactly the right thing to do.

63


64


Chapter Eight

Christmas Spirit

He tipped the bottle towards his lips and held the liquid in

his mouth for an instant before Globule burst into the room

and thumped him in the chest. The punch made him swallow

instinctively.

The feeling was instantly amazing. More fabulous a

feeling than Miles had ever felt before.

In the time it takes to click your fingers, Miles was out of

the dark room and floating somewhere white, suspended, as

if he was being held in space by invisible but rather expensive

cushions. All about him were lumps of cloud, no wind, and

delicious warm sunlight, like that of the best day in August.

He tucked The Bottle into the zip-up pocket of his fleece and

had a leisurely look around.

He was high up, that was for sure. Surrounded by blue. To

move he need only kick his legs and he was propelled

forwards or backwards, just as he liked. Funny, it wasn’t cold

at all; and when he looked down through the clouds and saw

the sea shimmering like ripples of silver foil below, he didn’t

feel the least bit scared. It was like floating in an invisible

bubble, but one that allowed him to move wherever he

wanted, with lazy movements of his arms and legs.

65


Miles looked at his watch and noticed that it had stopped.

It might be broken, but he doubted it and anyway, for the

first time in weeks, he didn’t care. In fact nothing up here

mattered at all. He just felt marvellously relaxed, as if it had

all been a bad dream that was well and truly over now.

So he had a short snooze, just to catch up on a bit of sleep.

That, too, was marvellous and very restful. And when he

woke and looked down through the clouds he saw what

looked like the shape of England far below, just like he had

seen it on maps at school.

‘I’ll just pop down and have a look,’ he thought to himself

dreamily, having a good stretch.

Down he went, in a graceful kind of swoop. As he got closer,

he noticed that all around there were patches of snow on the

hilltops, like sugar icing on the tops of cakes. It all looked so

perfect and Christmassy, and there he was, warm and snug and

protected in his bubble, high up in the atmosphere.

Miles kicked a foot once more and slightly changed

direction as he slowly headed downwards and along, further

inland. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the long snake

of a river, and decided to follow the wriggling path it made

through the patchworked countryside. As the river got wider,

Miles noticed a town start to form around its banks. ‘That

must be London,’ he thought to himself, ‘and that then must

be the River Thames.’ And indeed it was. As he flew along

the path of the river, it gradually took on the colour of the

66


morning sunrise, turning from gentle grey to a colourful

shade of pink, with tiny flashes of silver, as miniature waves

broke against the Embankment. In minutes he was flying

good-naturedly over the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.

Miles was unsurprisingly very pleased with himself and

did a couple of midair somersaults and back flips to

celebrate. He’d been to London once with his mum, although

he hadn’t had the chance to do half the things he wanted to.

But now, he suspected, was his big chance to make up for lost

time. Another landmark he recognised, Harrods

Department Store, appeared underneath him, draped in

bright lights and gold tassels that sparkled and shone in the

clear Christmas air.

Slowly he sank to street level. The first thing that he

noticed was how quiet it all was. Then he noticed that all the

cars and all the people weren’t moving. Not at all. Not one

centimetre in fact. It was like they had been frozen in time,

he thought to himself, and then realized that it was because

that’s exactly what had happened. Miles took out the bottle

of Christmas Spirit and examined it. What was this stuff ? He

was beginning to suspect he had nicked something quite

powerful indeed, and very important for Christmas. If

drinking the stuff helped you fly, and also seemed to stop

time, then the hard part for Father Christmas, delivering

presents every year, was already taken care of. Peter had at

least been telling the truth about that. ‘I always wondered

67


how he did it,’ Miles murmured half to himself. All he would

then need were all the presents to deliver.

Speaking of which... Miles gazed at the shop windows in

front of him, piled up with Christmas gifts. ‘It’s about time I

did some Christmas shopping, I think,’ he said out loud.

First stop, Harrods. It was like a dream come true. Miles

went a bit mad from the moment he went in there. Looking

around the ground floor at the people frozen in time, he

realised that he could do more or less anything that he

wanted to. He waved his hand experimentally across the

faces of a few rigid shoppers and, when they didn’t move, he

went on the rampage.

First stop, computer games, where he stocked up on all

the best titles for the PC, a proper joystick and an X-Box for

luck, with all the trimmings. He piled them in a heap on the

floor and went off to the food hall to fetch a trolley. When

he got it all in, he went off to look at hi-fis. The choice was

enormous; so he took two, one portable and a midi-system

for mini disks and an iPod.

At one point he noticed he was getting quite tired, so he

went to the top floor café and ate half a tub of Ben and

Jerry’s Ice Cream and drank two large Cokes. He was

finishing the ice-cream off with a long spoon and the ends of

his fingers wiped round the sides of the glass, and just

beginning to feel a bit sick, when out of the corner of his eye

he noticed one of the waitresses start to move ever so slowly.

68


Outside the window, in the busy street below, cars started to

crawl forwards and a traffic light flicked from red to green.

Miles looked at his watch and noticed that it had started

again. He took The Bottle out and opened the cap. This time

he took a slightly larger gulp and closed his eyes. Immediately

there came the tremendous feeling of lightness again, as if

nothing mattered, and slowly the world about Miles seemed

to change. He opened his eyes again and looked out of the

window. He didn’t feel querezy anymore and, down below at

street level, everything had stopped again. ‘Blimey!’ he

thought to himself, ‘that was close.’ He made a mental note

to take a sip about once every hour or so. The stuff was

strong, but it obviously wore off eventually. He wouldn’t want

to be flying about above England if that happened.

After the refreshments he raced down to the Stationery

Department and got himself a gold Mont Blanc pen and

some heavy cream-coloured letter writing paper. He sat on

the counter, next to an assistant who was halfway through

wrapping something for a very snooty woman in a big purple

hat, and wrote himself out a list.

It went something like this:

For Presents

Mum

Makeup

Perfume

69


Miles sucked his new pen and continued, wondering what

else his mother might want.

Pen

Gold Watch

New shoes

Shopping with his mother was so completely boring, he’d

only just realised he had no idea what she liked. This

depressed him for some reason, so he moved onto his

grandmother who seemed easier to please.

Granny

Chocolates

Jewels

Photograph album

Granddad

Sherry

Gnomes

Binoculars

New Reading Glasses

For me

Ice cream maker

Mountain Bike with suspension

70


3-D card for PC

Comic Books

Reeboks

Tennis Racket

Man U football gear

Divers watch

Mobile phone

That’s it, he thought. He jumped off the counter and

folded the list into the back pocket of his jeans. Just before

he left, he stopped in front of the old lady. She looked dead

bad tempered, just like she had a mouthful of wasps: just the

sort of person, in fact, who was always telling him off in

department stores whenever he went shopping with Dot

and Reg.

Miles paused and took a large felt tip marker pen from the

counter. Carefully, he drew a large black moustache on her

crabby old face and gave her a pair of goofy glasses. ‘There,’

thought Miles, with a smile of immense satisfaction. ‘That’ll

give you a shock when you wake up.’

Far far away, Father Christmas looked out over the bleak

snow horizon with tears in his eyes. This time he had really

messed up. St Nicholas was really going to have his guts for

garters. He knew he was wrong and he knew he had behaved

very badly over the past few years. Sometimes the job just got

too much but he was going to mend his ways from now on, try

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to be more positive. He hoped he wasn’t too late! He’d lost his

precious Bottle. Perhaps he might as well just give it all up now.

He looked at his feet forlornly, then looked up when he heard a

noise.

It was the robin back again. ‘Not him!’ he thought. ’Why

does he keep turning up?’

‘Quick,’ said the robin, landing on a log outside the cottage,

‘get inside and tidy up. Look lively. You’ve got important

visitors.’

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Chapter Nine

Conversations with FishMeanwhile, Miles hadn’t got a care in the world.

He was now sitting back home in his bedroom, after a

short easy flight across London, with a pile of goodies

heaped over the bed, rolling onto the carpet and blocking up

the door. He took a sip from the bottle and wandered into

the living room, where he put everything he had got for his

family under the Christmas tree. Then he went back into his

bedroom and tried his new football top on.

After he had left Harrods Stationery Department, he had

swiped a pair of roller blades from Sporting Goods to save

time. His Christmas shopping spree was over pretty quickly:

getting everything you wanted got dull more quickly than

he’d expected, he realised. Searching around for something

else to do, he had spied a mountain bike with suspension and

25 spanking bright gears in one of the window displays.

Miles had often wondered what it was like to ride a bike

indoors, after seeing the same thing done in a film once. Now

he was about to find out. The walkways were huge on the

ground floor and very wide, with just enough people on

them so that Miles could practice slalom and skid stops. A

couple of times he accidentally hit a display. The first time it

happened, he was horrified at the sound of smashing glass

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and perfume bottles exploding in all directions on the marble

floor. Then he thought, ‘What the hell,’ and went about

smashing into the displays, the bigger the better, on purpose.

He was exhausted by the time he got up to the roof with

all his loot, and beginning to feel a little guilty. But once up

there, he found that he could float, presents and all, just by

thinking about it with no effort at all. ‘This is marvellous,’ he

thought as he drifted, once again, high over London. Just

then, it started to snow. Wonderful, huge, powdery flakes.

Miles didn’t mind snow any more; in fact he positively loved

it. He loved everything. Lazily, he stretched out his arm and

caught a few flakes on the palm of his hand, where he

watched them melt slowly into droplets of water, like tears

next to his skin.

Then he yawned, stretched and had another snooze.

When he woke, he was just hovering above the shopping

centre on the outskirts of Wendover Backwoods. And now

here he was home, looking in the mirror at his new shirt and

i-pod. He looked out of the window and watched the grey

clouds for a bit. ‘What I need is a holiday,’ he said out loud

to no-one in particular.

And so he went to the Caribbean.

Miles had never been on a beach before that wasn’t

freezing cold and covered in bits of tar, rusty lumps of metal

and sticky patches of someone’s half melted ice-cream. One

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hour’s flight from Wendover Backwoods and he was relaxing

in the hot sun, lying by a bright blue pool and sipping a

bright pink cocktail he had made himself from the bar. He

looked around at the people and tried to guess what they had

been doing before he had arrived and frozen them all to the

spot. A lot of them looked as if they had been doing much

the same thing that he was doing now, just sitting around

and relaxing, taking in the holiday atmosphere away from

the cold and the damp in England, and going for the

occasional swim.

The beach looked brilliant. Just like in the magazines and

brochures he had seen in the window of the travel agents

back home. Not a cloud in the sky, and palm trees

everywhere. He got out of the sun lounger and wandered

down the steps to the private beach owned by the hotel,

passing some palm trees and a big black man with a kind

wrinkly face, in the middle of selling some coconuts to a

couple wearing identical flip flops.

Once on the beach, he stopped, and inspected the sand

beneath his bare toes. It was fine. Fine and well, very sandy,

actually: but it was also very white, white as cooking flour

and very hot. He hopped carefully over to a patch of shade

under an overhanging palm tree, feeling the soles of his feet

beginning to burn. When he got there, he sat down and blew

on his feet, and then he looked out towards the sea, shielding

his eyes against the glare. He took a sharp breath, and took

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off his top, placing The Bottle, carefully wrapped in his T-

shirt, under the tree. He took off his jeans, gave a huge shout

of joy and ran and skipped towards the water.

It was incredibly warm. Miles, of course, had heard

stories about the sea in the Caribbean being warm, but

somehow he had never really believed them. Miles was used

to dipping a toe slowly in and then a foot, followed by a leg

and, if he was feeling very brave, the rest of his body by tiny

increments, inch by freezing inch. This was like heaven, the

water was like a bath. And a warm one at that. He ploughed

out to sea energetically, doing the crawl, and then looked

about him. The water was like looking through glass. It was

crystal clear; not only could he see his legs and feet, moving

through the water just beneath him, but he could also see the

sea bed, all shiny and pebbled.

He looked up at the deep blue sky and laughed

delightedly, almost with relief. All the awful things that had

happened to Miles in the past few days seemed to have been

forgotten in the gentle slap of the waves. He had never felt so

happy in his life, so warm and so alive. He practiced a bit of

backstroke, looking up at the sun through squinty eyes. Then

he looked down again. All about him were fish. Small blue

ones, in groups of what seemed like hundreds, darted to and

fro amongst the underwater coral and rocks. Miles wondered

how they managed to all know when to turn at exactly the

same time as the others. ‘One of the first things they must

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learn is left and right,’ he thought. ‘Probably one of the only

things they know.’ He had read somewhere that most fish

had brains no bigger than a pea. And that was if they were

lucky. He watched a shoal of fish swim by. Bands of blue and

green and orange shot down their bodies. They looked just

like they had been coloured in. Another, who was much less

brightly coloured than the rest, seemed to be staring at Miles.

Miles ducked down, to see what the fish wanted. After all

the weirdness, it seemed like the most natural and normal

thing to do in the world. The fish bobbed about a bit and

winked at him. When the fish spoke and when Miles

understood perfectly, well, even that seemed normal. The

strange thing is, if you have spent a few days having strange

and unusual things done and happen to you, then you are

not only more or less prepared for anything, but you actually

expect the unexpected.

In fact, Miles was quickly learning that practically

anything in life was possible, and that the really hard thing

about life was going about believing everything was too

hard, so why bother. At the moment Miles thought he could

do anything, which for anyone is as much a bad thing as it is

a good thing.

Anyway – back to our fish.

They stared at each other for a bit. ‘’Ello, mate,’ said the

fish eventually, bobbing off a little underwater bow.

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‘Er, hello,’ said Miles as politely as he could. ‘Nice day,’ he

added.

The fish let a small bubble escape from its mouth. ‘You on

yer ‘olidays too?’

‘Yes,’ said Miles. ‘It’s nice here, isn’t it?’

‘Too right old son. Too right. I’m semi-retired now, of

course. Made a pile in krill, like to take the missus here once

a year, nah that we can afford it likes. Beats Margate any day.

Still go there on Bank Holidays mind yew, with the

grandchildren. Not really my cuppa tea now that we’ve gawn

up in the world. But it gets the little nippers ou’a their

parents’ tentacles for a bit.’

Miles, who had no idea what the fish was talking about,

searched around for something to say. ‘How many

grandchildren have you got?’

‘Oh, about five million,’ replied the fish, nibbling

absentmindedly on a bit of blue coral.

‘Gosh,’ said Miles.

‘Anyway, best be off. You wouldn’t know who won the

footy last night, down at White Hart Lane?’

‘No,’ said Miles. ‘Sorry. I support Man U, by the way.’

‘More fool you,’ said the fish. ‘See yer.’ He darted off and

then turned back. ‘’Ere, you’re one o’ the Beautiful People,

ain’t yer? Shouldn’t you be delivering stuff and whatnot at

this time of year, you know, for the Youmans an’ stuff ?’

Miles had never been called beautiful in his life before, but

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he supposed that that was the name for people who could fly

and talk to fish. ‘Er, yes,’ said Miles, ‘but I’ve got a few places

I’d like to see first.’

‘Oh right. You should go to New York. It’s great this time

of year. Really Christmassy an’ all. Ta for now son. Take care

of yerself.’

‘I will,’ said Miles as he waved goodbye, ‘ta, yourself.’

He had enjoyed his chat with the fish, so he decided to see

what the other inhabitants underwater had to say for

themselves. Miles spent the afternoon with a snorkel and a

pair of flippers he had borrowed off someone on the beach,

splashing around by the rocks. Clams, he found, were pretty

friendly, although they always wanted to know what was

going on in the next-door rock pool. Miles assured all of

them that the one they were in was the best, with the most

water and the thickest seaweed. He met an oyster, who

complained about getting headaches, and a puffer fish who

could quote Shakespeare. Most of the fish were obviously

bored of tourists though, and once they knew that Miles

wasn’t going to eat them or have them stuffed and taken

home on the plane, they lost interest. A couple of squid even

told him to buzz off, but a passing eel told him not to worry

because squid were always a bit spiky like that. ‘It comes of

never knowing whether you are going forwards or

backwards,’ said the eel, busy hiding down a hole.

Miles half wished he could meet a shark. He had masses

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of questions, like what was the biggest thing it had ever

eaten, and what was a feeding frenzy like, and was it true that

a shark drowned if it stopped moving, and if so what

happened when it went to sleep and accidentally bumped

into things? And wasn’t that embarrassing? And did they like

the movie, ‘Jaws’? Miles thought it was rubbish, not a bit

scary, with really terrible special effects.

So, after a long day on the beach, Miles was watching the

sun go down by the pool back at the hotel. He was just in the

middle of a triple-chilli-and-tomato-ketchup hamburger he

had made for himself, straight off the outdoor barbecue

when, out of the blue, a robin landed on his shoulder. Miles’s

first thought was that you didn’t get robins in the Caribbean,

least of all ones that talked in an irritating sing-song way.

‘Hadn’t you better give The Bottle back?’ it chirped in his

ear.

‘No,’ said Miles, quite definitely, and made himself

disappear, chilli burger and all.

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Chapter Ten

Hags

New York had been on his mind, and so New York was

where he appeared, quite suddenly, with both feet planted in

a rubbish bin. The Christmas Spirit must have been wearing

off, otherwise he would have landed somewhere a little less

smelly. Nothing, in fact, smells like a New York dustbin. Not

even a rhino’s behind, although that’s the closest thing.

Anyway, he took another swig, checking The Bottle to see

how much was left. The liquid shimmered under the

streetlight as Miles turned The Bottle the right way up. It was

just under half full. He’d have to go carefully with the

precious liquid, or else he was going to have to go home

early. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knew that

certain things he’d done in the last few days weren’t going to

go down too well with certain people, least of all his

grandparents, if they ever found out.

In the city it was early evening by the looks of it, and

Christmas shoppers were scattered everywhere. As was snow,

and yellow taxicabs. All frozen in time, like a Polaroid

snapshot.

The bird had given Miles quite a shock and when he

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arrived he had ketchup all down the front of his T-shirt. He

was also freezing cold, so Miles looked about for a bit and

then disappeared into the nearest sports shop. Ten minutes

later, he came out wearing his fleece with The Bottle in it, a

brand new skiing jacket and a sort of woolly baseball cap

with earflaps, like he’d seen rappers wearing on TV.

‘Yo dude!’ he said to himself, looking at his reflection in a

shop window. Then he felt stupid and tossed a snowball at

his reflection where it landed with a splat, making the glass

shake and turning his reflection wobbly.

Just then, something caught his eye. Something red. Miles

turned slowly. A Ferrari. The car shone and it gleamed in

every way, as brightly and coolly as it did in pictures. Miles

looked at it, there on the kerb, and started to wonder. He

could do anything, right? This was his time to enjoy himself,

was it or was it not? He was master of The Christmas Spirit

and that made him master of New York, and, for the time

being, everything in it, right? And that included brand

spanking new red Ferraris, sitting there, just waiting for

someone to take notice and appreciate them. And surely –

Miles’s thoughts raced ahead – the best way to appreciate a

work of art, like a car, for example, was not to stand there

and gawp at it – oh no! That would be insulting – but to

actually take it out for a spin. Why ever not?

Miles, in fact, didn’t need much persuading. Five minutes

later, he was sitting behind the controls of the Ferrari. He

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didn’t need keys. The moment he got in, the engine purred

into life like a contented lion. He didn’t seem to need to

know how to drive either. The thing practically drove itself!

It was as if some unseen hand was taking care of all the hard

bits, just letting Miles get on with the business of actually

enjoying himself. That is, going fast around corners and

accelerating when he really should have been slowing down.

No wonder it was so much fun being a grown-up sometimes.

That was the thing about The Bottle. It was like being grown-

up with just the easy bits.

Half an hour later, he was really beginning to get to grips

with this monster of a machine. Up and down the road he

went, at full speed, until the shops became just a blur, and

then he would pull a skid by giving the handbrake a good

yank and end up facing the other way, sweat running down

his face, laughing like he’d never laughed before. He tried

doing jumps over the speed bumps in the road, and almost

felt as though he was flying again.

Then he saw a park on his right. ‘That must be Central

Park,’ he said to himself. ‘It’s supposed to be quite

dangerous. Not in this thing though.’ He gave a laugh and

shot through the gates, straight over the grass. He turned the

headlights off and tried driving in the moonlight. It was

quite hard, but it made things rush up at him more quickly

than in any arcade game he had ever played. This was the

real thing.

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After a bit he was tired out, so he drove to the edge of the

park, back onto the road to where he had found it. He

planned to come back later and drive it around some more.

After London, Miles was bored with shopping, so he

looked around the streets for a bit, jumping on shop front

mats, making the automatic doors open and shut. He looked

up deep into the sky and caught the first flakes of the first

snowfall that evening on the end of his tongue. Really,

everything that was cool about New York was up. At street

level, it was just the same as everywhere else: dirty

pavements, brightly lit shops – just like Wendover

Backwoods, really, but bigger. Up seemed the place to be.

The skyscrapers were all around him; he’d never been in such

a tall place in all his life. It was as though all the castles in

Europe had been put in one place.

Without really realising it, the magic started again and

Miles’s feet began to slowly lift off from the pavement as his

loitering steps turned into a graceful soar that took him up

and along 5th Avenue in a sort of long swoop through the

air, and he was flying again. What looked normal and boring

on the ground suddenly looked bright and interesting from

above: the Christmas tree lights lining the road, the piles of

snow on the street corners and the holes in the pavement,

covered with metal grilles that poured out hot steam. It all

looked just like the opening shot of a film, as the camera

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raced over skyscrapers and music blasted the audience

practically deaf.

Miles went higher and higher, feeling perfectly warm,

as his breath billowed out like a dragon’s over the sleeping

city that he, all on his own, had frozen in time just so that he

could enjoy it.

By now he was up to the roof level of most of the taller

buildings and Miles found himself quite suddenly in a

completely different world from the one he had just left

spiralling below him. Up here, the New York skyscrapers

were even more like medieval castle towers, dominating the

city. Nearly every one had a pointed roof, ornate arches

topped off with copper gutters and old-fashioned round

windows. Snow lay thickly on ledges lit up by roof lights that

Miles supposed were there to stop planes crashing into them.

It was very different from the Caribbean. And all the world

was peaceful, almost as though it was empty. From one of

the windows came the sound of music. It was a carol, one

that he recognised.

‘Silent Night,

Holy Night,

All is calm,

All is bright…’

He flew over to investigate and saw that it came from an

85


attic window, high up in one of the towers. Someone had left

the radio on and for some reason, whatever the magic was

that flowed in his veins from the liquid in The Bottle, at that

moment, it had chosen to keep just that song playing, whilst

everything about him remained silent and still, like the music

said. It was probably because it was a Christmas song, he

thought vaguely to himself as he swooped and dived

amongst the snowy outcrops of stone and lead.

Miles’s world seemed to close in until he wasn’t aware of

anything else going on down below, or of any other thoughts

in his head, except how it was to be up there in that other

world of towers and arches and silence. For the first time in

his life, he hadn’t thought once about his grandparents or

even his mother in the last 12 hours.

Something moved in the corner of his eye and he went

down to inspect it.

Lined up, in a row, at the top of one of the taller buildings

in the block were four stone statues. All were of girls, who

didn’t look a lot older than Miles. They were very beautiful

and they looked, to Miles, unlike any statues he had ever

seen, for a reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on. One

carried a book, the second seemed to be writing something,

the third one held a sort of miniature violin and the last one

didn’t seem to be doing anything at all, just sitting there

looking pretty. The stone they were made of was purest

white, like marble, whereas the rest of the building had gone

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a sort of dirty grey over the years. Miles wasn’t very

interested in the statues, however pretty. At first he thought

it was a bird that he had seen up there, and he was going to

ask it directions to the Statue of Liberty, until one of the

statues moved ever so slightly to the left and winked at him.

This gave him quite a shock.

‘Well, hello Miles,’ she said, in a sweet voice that seemed

to be made of syrup and double cream. Miles went bright

red, enough that the snow around him seemed to melt. He

wasn’t used to girls doing anything but ignoring him, and he

would have fallen clean off the ledge if he hadn’t been

floating about three feet above it.

‘Hello there,’ he said, trying to sound cool, but beginning

to wish he hadn’t stolen that hat with the stupid earflaps.

‘We’ve been expecting you,’ she said, putting her book

down and resting her head in her hand.

‘Have you?’ said Miles.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve been waiting up here for ages. I’ve

been so excited I’ve hardly been able to concentrate on my

book.’ And then she even managed to blush a little, too.

‘But who are you?’ said Miles, asking a question he

seemed to ask a lot. With practically everyone he met these

days, really.

She laughed, and it was a sound like water flowing over

rocks on a sunny day; Miles had never heard anything so

wonderful, and he very much hoped that she did it again

87


soon. ‘We’re the Muses,’ she said when she had finished

laughing. ‘We’re here for you Miles – at your service,’ and she

gave a little mock bow and giggled again.

‘At my service?’

‘It means that we are here to inspire you,’ said another

Muse quite suddenly. The one carrying the violin. Miles

turned and looked at her. She was prettier even than the

other one, if that was possible, and he found himself falling

in love all over again.

‘Inspire….?’ He repeated blankly.

‘Yes,’ said the third, suddenly waking and flashing a smile

so radiant that it made a passing pigeon lose concentration

and fly straight into a TV mast. Miles, at whom the smile

had been directed, felt as if steam was going to come out of

his ears at any moment, the way it did in cartoons.

‘We are here to help you,’ said the fourth, in a more

matter-of-fact voice.

‘Help me do what?’ asked Miles.

‘We are here to help you do anything you want to do,

Miles. You have superhuman powers. You are now one of the

Beautiful People. You can do practically anything now. And

Miles,’ said the first girl, ‘we are happy for you, and it’s our

job to make you happy too. Isn’t it girls?’ she said, turning to

the rest with a bright laugh.

‘Oh yes,’ they chorused and directed smiles at him again

that seemed to light up the whole of New York. Miles, who

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had never been in love before, suddenly found himself in love

with four girls, all at the same time – like buses, his granddad

would have probably said, never one not to mix a metaphor

or five. But despite all this, in the last few minutes he’d begun

to experience a strange feeling around his forehead, a sort of

low humming noise, and a pressure: something telling him

that this was too good to be true. Even superhumans weren’t

that lucky. And it seemed at bit fishy that they were waiting

for him here, on top of a building in New York, and that they

were being so nice to him. He then did something that,

unknown to him then, probably saved his life. He moved

back from them, just a few inches, really without thinking.

The Muses looked at each other.

Miles took out The Bottle and gave a quick sip. Out of the

corner of his eye he noticed four pairs of eyes light up at the

sight of The Bottle. It reminded him oddly of kittens looking

at a bowl of cream.

‘Come over here,’ said the youngest and prettiest, patting

a spot beside here on the ledge, ‘and be seaten.’

‘Seaten?’ said Miles, very much looking forward to sitting

down next to her, but still not moving, ‘that’s a funny way of

putting it.’

‘Seaten?’ Her voice changed subtly in tone, almost to a

growl, and Miles noticed something change about her, and

the air abruptly got much colder. ‘Oh no! We meant

EATEN!’ and with that she sprang forward.

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Her whole face seemed to grow larger, her eyes turned

from blue to an unnatural dark green, as four long sharp

teeth appeared under her blackened gums. Miles shot a

glance at the other three, only to see, to his terror, their hair

shooting straight up and turning into serpents, and their

nails curling like claws. ‘MILES!’ they all hissed at once and

lunged forward, their hideous claws grabbing for his face.

‘YOU ARE OURS!’

Luckily Miles had stopped in his tracks at the first hint of

trouble, listening, perhaps for the first but not the last time in

his life, to the small voice we sometimes get at the back of

our minds to beware when strangers are being too nice. He

was not quite close enough for them. With a shout that

nearly made him drop The Bottle, he turned and shot

through the air, down amongst the buildings, at full speed.

When he turned his head he was shocked to see them still

following, their faces changed now into those of old hags,

their black claws grabbing for his legs and their black gums

hissing: ‘MILES, MILES, COME BACK, WE ONLY

WANT TO EAT YOU! IT’S NOT MUCH TO ASK! WE’RE

BEAUTIFUL, CAN’T YOU SEE?’

‘This is terrible!’ thought Miles as he flew round a corner

so fast he could hear the wind make little skidding noises.

‘Really terrible.’ He felt a hand grab for his trainer, which

came off and fell to the ground far below him. The thought

of the hags’ pitted broken teeth biting into the tender flesh

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on the backs of his legs made him put an extra spurt on. For

a moment it seemed as though he was just about losing them.

And then, with a terrible screech, they doubled their efforts

and began to catch up.

‘Give us The Bottle, Miles, and we will let you go, we

promise, yes we do. On our beauty.’

‘Not bleeding likely,’ thought Miles and shot up in the air,

like a rocket. He closed his eyes, as he had done before to

make himself disappear to another place. Any place right

now. But it didn’t work. Not even a tingle. ‘They must have

magic of their own,’ he thought. The Hags had followed him

upwards and then split off into four different directions. In a

few moments Miles would be trapped and he knew it. In

desperation he took out The Bottle. There were about two

inches of liquid left in the bottom. Miles looked around and

saw they were almost upon him, so he pulled the cork off

The Bottle and took a huge swig.

‘Har har. Got you!’ They cried, but just too soon, as

Miles, with the extra potion inside him, disappeared from

between their fingers. At that, all four Muses immediately

turned to stone and fell to the New York sidewalk far below,

where they broke into a thousand pieces amongst the snow

and the mud.

Miles stood in the dark for a bit. For a minute he thought he

was back in the cave with Boxing Day and his American

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assistant, Burp or Puke or whatever his name was. But it

wasn’t as cold and it wasn’t really even dark: just grey and a bit

musty. The floor felt sticky and there was a smell of old

cigarettes and stale coffee that would hang in the air, however

long you left the window open.

For some reason it all seemed very familiar.

After the chase high above the New York streets, it took

Miles a while to get his breath back and stop shaking. Nothing

seemed to be happening, so Miles stood and waited, and then

he stood a bit more and waited a bit more. Then he sat down

and waited and waited and waited and finally, he waited. Just

when he thought that he was going to get up and explore –

something that he had promised himself all along he wouldn’t

do, because it might be dangerous – he had an idea, brilliant in

its simplicity: ‘Hello,’ he called out, ‘is there anybody there?’

Almost at once, a light went on in front of his face and an

invisible voice said:

‘What do you want?’ rather rudely.

‘I’m bored,’ said Miles. ‘I’m really bored, actually. Really

bored of waiting.’ There was a long sigh.

‘You’re bohhred?!’ said the invisible voice in a fake posh

accent that his grandmother sometimes used when she was on

the phone to people like the electrician, ‘of waiting,’ continued

the voice eventually, ‘ in a WAITING room? How absurd!’ as if

this was the most ridiculous thing he or she (Miles hadn’t quite

made up his mind on that yet) had ever heard of. ‘Why would

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you come to The Waiting Room if you didn’t want to wait? It’s

a bit like going to the lavatory and expecting a haircut. Ha

hahahahah!’ The voice laughed, a rather shrill sharp little

laugh, like a pony whinnying, and Miles involuntarily pictured

the sort of person who wore their glasses on a chain around

their neck and worked in a library. ‘I mean, that’s what you are

supposed to do here. So sit down and keep quiet, I’m very busy.’

‘Yes, but what happens if I want to leave? And if I didn’t

want to come here in the first place even?’ asked Miles.

‘Well, that’s simple, young man. You simply LEAVE!’ and

with that the light went out. Miles squinted through the dark:

now he really couldn’t see a thing and the person behind the

Voice seemed to have left or disappeared.

‘Hello,’ Miles called out in a small voice, ‘are you still there

Mr. Whatever Your Name Is? Hello? Hello? I want to leave

now. Really, I do. But I don’t know how. Can you help me?’

There was a long silence, then Miles heard the Voice, much

further away this time, and saw the light go on dimly, from

hundreds of feet away.

‘You can’t leave.’

‘What was that? I can’t hear you.’

‘ I SAID YOU CAN’T LEAVE! Deaf as well as dense,’ it

added, under its breath, and the light flashed brightly for an

instant so that it stung Miles’s eyes before going off again.

‘Why not?’ asked Miles, beginning to get a little frustrated

and angry, but at the same time not wanting to upset the Voice

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94

too much.

‘Christmas hold-ups. Always get them at this time of year.

Can’t do anything about them. Fact of Life. Well fact of the

Afterlife actually.’

‘Afterlife!’ cried Miles, ‘does that mean I’m dead?’ He was

horrified at the thought. Honestly, nobody told him anything

these days.

‘Well, you should know!’ said the voice tartly.

‘How?’

‘Look, did you die or didn’t you?’

‘Er, yes. No! I mean…..what’s the right answer?’ The light

flashed white and glared into his eyes

‘There isn’t a right answer, you foolish boy. There is only the

Rrrea-li-ty. Do you remember dying or not? Really, if you can’t

get a better class of corpse these days I’m requesting a

transfer,’ the Voice added, just loud enough for Miles to hear.

Miles searched around in his memory. He was sure those

terrible Hags hadn’t got their claws on him. Anyway, if they

had, how come he still had The Bottle? He pinched himself

just to make sure it hurt, and it did. Also, dead people

weren’t meant to be hungry and he was starving, so he must

be alive. ‘No, I’m not dead,’ he said matter-of-factly.

There was a long pause, followed by the rustling of paper.

The light went pink, with a hint of red. ‘Christmas!’ wailed the

Voice. ‘Christmas, ruddy Christmas! It’ll be the end of me, you

mark my words, every year worse and now with my sinuses


acting up! As usual, they send everything to the wrong place

and a week late and who has to sort it out? I’ll tell you who:

Muggins. That’s who.’

‘Who’s Muggins?’ asked Miles politely.

‘Me, I’m Muggins of course!’

‘That’s a strange name.’

‘No, you idiotic pipsqueak numbskull, I’m not really

Muggins!’

‘Then why did you say you were? That’s lying, my Granny

says you shouldn’t lie or your tongue goes black.’

‘No! I’m just Muggins for the moment.’

‘What, until the real Muggins gets back?’

‘No, it’s…… it’s AN EXPRESSION! OH, THERE’S

OBVIOUSLY BEEN A MISTAKE, GET OUT OF HERE!’

The light went out and Miles felt the familiar whooshing as he

shot off to his next destination.

95


96


Chapter Eleven

Sea of SorrowsCold ground, cold air, cold sky. Cold. Cold. Cold.

The next destination, in fact, was a bit of a

disappointment.

When Miles landed, the very first thing that he realised

was that he was still missing his trainer. The realisation that

made him realise this was that he was standing halfway in

and halfway out of a lake. And the side that happened to be

in the lake was the shoeless portion.

If he was back on Earth, and if time had stopped for him

as it had before, then where he was wouldn’t make the

slightest difference. He looked around. The sky was dark

blue on blue, but it was freezing cold. He was surrounded by

the tallest mountains that he had ever seen in his life, even in

pictures, and there wasn’t a single soul in sight.

No people, no plants: just flat, grey rocks. At a guess

Miles would say he wasn’t in Wendover, or anywhere near it

for that matter. He had seen a documentary about Tibet

once on the Discovery Channel, and the landscape around

him reminded him of that. Tibet was the tallest country in

the world, according to the programme, and had Mount

Everest in it, the tallest mountain. It was one of the smallest

countries as well. Miles supposed that was the only way they

97


could fit it in on top of all the sharp mountains. Any bigger,

and Tibet would probably fall off. The people there ate

special leaves to help them climb up into high places and

they drank yak’s milk, which looked like cow’s milk but

tasted a lot worse. They also believed that God was born

every few years and he came to live with them until he died,

and then he was born again, somewhere else in Tibet, so off

they all went to find him. No sillier than believing in Father

Christmas, thought Miles, and he was certainly real enough.

Miles hopped out of the water and sat on a rock to

massage his freezing foot back to life. Gradually, as the

feeling began to return to his toes, he felt another patch of

wetness, spreading somewhere near his chest. Like lightning

he leapt up, stuck a hand into his fleece and pulled out The

Bottle. Somewhere on the journey from wherever he had

come from to wherever he was now, the cork had come out

of The Bottle, and the contents, what little was left of them,

seeped into the lining of his clothes. NONE OF THE

LIQUID WAS LEFT. Just a few drops sticking miserably to

the sides.

Without The Bottle, suddenly Miles felt very small in the

middle of the tall mountains, very alone, and very sorry he

had got into this mess in the first place. He sat back down on

the rock and, because there was nothing else he could do, he

began to cry. Great, fat tears that dripped onto his one

remaining shoe and froze instantly in the unusually cold air.

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Then a very peculiar thing started to happen.

He found he couldn’t stop crying. The more he cried, the

more he felt like crying, until the tears were flowing like

water, soaking into his clothes and freezing, only to be

replaced by more tears that froze too, until his clothes got

stiffer and heavier. Miles concentrated on stopping crying

after a bit, but he found that he couldn’t: the tears just kept

flowing out of him, running down his face in two thick

streams. Soon the ice from the frozin tears was up to his legs,

and then his chest, but Miles continued to cry in that lonely

place and the ice continued to slowly creep over him, bit by

bit. So Miles sat there on the rock, alone and without a way

of getting back to his bungalow, Wendover Backwoods, his

school and his friends.

He cried for hours and hours, until the ice covered him

from head to foot and his soul drifted.

Far away, someone else was crying too – but tears of joy.

Father Christmas felt much better. Better, in fact, than he

had done in centuries. The robin had brought the Special

Visitor and after a few minutes of conversation FC had felt

a change come over him. Suddenly it all seemed to make

sense again: Christmas and giving and all that. It was so

simple really; it was just about making people happy.

Something he knew he was good at. After a bit, he thought

about Miles and felt really bad again. But at least this time

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he knew what he was going to do.

He got up and put his hat on, pausing to look at himself

in the mirror, and went outside to where his guests were

waiting patiently for him.

Miles didn’t know how long he slept for. It was a strange

sort of sleep. Part of him still felt frozen by the lake, high up

in the mountains, thousands of miles from anywhere

remotely useful, such as a McDonalds or a payphone. But

another part of his mind drifted around the world. He had

strange dreams that he was back in the Caribbean talking to

the fish again, except this time he was a fish too; one of the

blue ones with yellow stripes. The fish asked if he had done

his homework, and Miles got quite cross because he didn’t

have a pen. Then he was back in Wendover Backwoods,

having his hair cut in the multi-storey car park. ‘How odd,’

he thought in his sleep and tried to scratch his nose, which

was tickling as bits of hair were cut off his fringe. Finally he

let out a huge sneeze in his sleep and dreamt that he was in

the front garden with Reg painting the gnomes. ‘There’s no

place like gnome,’ his grandfather was saying over and over,

‘there’s no place like gnome.’ Then he picked up a large green

and red gnome carrying a fishing rod; it was alive and

wriggling a lot in his hands. ‘This one’s a beaut!’ he declared.

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‘Let’s take it inside, your grandmother can cook it for tea!’

Miles’s eyes sprung open. Everything seemed white for a bit.

Like this.

101


102

He fell asleep once more and dreamt he had died. In his

reverie days passed, which turned into weeks, then months

and finally years.

Miles stirred. Slowly, by imperceptible degrees, he felt he

was coming to. He was no longer by the lake, that was for

sure: in fact he was quite warm again, lying in a bed. He

looked up and just made out what looked like an oil lamp

above his head; it was out, and the room was quite dark. He

closed his eyes and drifted off again. This time there were no

dreams, just a relaxing feeling of bobbing and floating ever

so gently on a warm breeze. Wind chimes, moving like

shadows, sounded far off, in the corner of his mind.

When Miles awoke again, the first thing he noticed was

bright sunlight streaming through the gaps in the wood in his

room. He seemed to be wrapped up in some sort of animal

skin that kept him feeling warm and snug. The next thing

that he saw was a big round face staring over him, ‘You

awrigh’ mate?’ the face said cheerfully through a mouthful of

teeth.

Miles lifted himself onto one elbow and squinted. He was

relieved to see that the face had a body attached to it, dressed

in robes that looked as though they were made of silk. Miles

had seen clothes a bit like that when he had gone to a

Chinese restaurant with his mother once. All the waiters had


worn them. The person standing in front of him seemed to

also be oriental. He was grinning from ear to ear, with an

expectant look on his face, as if Miles was about to tell him

some huge joke. Miles swallowed, and found his voice

eventually. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I think I’m okay.’

‘Shoor you are Squire. You been sleeping long time, big

kip. Four day! We thought you karked it. Where you from?’

‘Er, England. Wendover Backwoods actually, it’s just

outside London. Do you know England?’

‘Do I know England!? Ha ha ha!’ The small man burst out

laughing. ‘Shoor I know England. That’s where I was

brought up, mate. Drove big cab in Croydon – four year!

‘Very goo’ mate,’ ‘You pay now!’ ‘Shut your face!’ see? Come

here after. Go back on holidays though, when High Priest let

me. See?’ Miles scratched his head; he really had no idea

what this bloke was talking about.

‘Yes, I think I see,’ he said eventually. ‘Where am I

exactly?’

‘Where am I? Ha ha ha, mate! Very goo’ joke, very funny,

ha ha ha!’

‘No, really, Mr Whatever your name is, I was lost, that’s

why I had stopped by the lake.’ He paused. Miles didn’t want

to tell anyone too much about anything. Least of all The

Bottle. There were still a few drops left in it. Miles felt sure

that if he concentrated very hard on where he was now and

where he wanted to go, he might just be able to make it back.

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But he needed to know where he was first.

‘Name’s Qualin, but you can call me Mike, my Engrish

name.’ He stopped laughing suddenly and looked serious.

‘You not joking; you really don’ know where you are, do

you?’

‘No,’ Miles agreed.

‘High Priest say you magic, you flew here in ball of ice.

Me, I think you small boy, big time lost, with only one shoe.

Maybe we both right, eh, know what I mean?’

‘I did fly here,’ said Miles, ‘but not in a ball of ice. Things

went weird and I started crying and the tears froze me.’

‘Ha! That’s easy one, you found near Sea of Sorrows. Very

sad place, makes even me cry. Ha ha ha!’

‘Yes,’ said Miles, not really convinced. ‘Anyway, I am lost.

If you can tell me where I am then perhaps I can get back.

Thanks for the bed and lending me your animal skins. They

were very comfortable.’

Mike looked at Miles in a shrewd way for a bit and then

said: ‘No need to tell you where you are, small boy, mate.

Mike thinks you already know that. And High Priest want to

see you anyway. He help you out. You can come with me

when you’ve had some grub.’ He patted Miles’s head in a

rough but kind way. ‘These things tend to turn out ok, you

see, SEE?’ Miles swung his feet out of the bed. He didn’t feel

sleepy anymore but he did feel a little stiff. As he stood on the

floor he looked down at his clothes: in New York they had

104


been brand new but by now they were in a terrible state, with

gashes from the Hags’ claws and mud marks from the Lake.

Within seconds Miles was surrounded by four or five little

old ladies, who barely reached to his shoulder. Before he

knew it, he was stripped down to his underpants and

someone pulled a brightly coloured tunic over his head, and

a pair of very baggy black trousers were yanked up his legs.

Then they all stood back and laughed and clapped and

pointed at him. Miles felt a bit silly standing in front of them

like that, and funny wearing a tunic and a leather pair of

sandals they had given him to wear on his bare feet. But he

had to admit that it was a big improvement on his old

clothes, which were filthy, ripped and soaking wet. Then one

of them handed him a bowl of something. He took a sip. It

was absolutely revolting. ‘This must be yak’s milk,’ he

thought to himself and gamely finished it in one go. It made

him feel momentarily sick, followed by feeling slightly better

now that he had something in his stomach for the first time

in days.

He then wandered out of the door and was greeted with

the sight of the Himalayas spread out before him.

His hut was on the side of a very narrow track, no more

than a few feet away from a sharp drop that disappeared into

a gorge that led down to the foot of the mountain far away.

From where he was standing one mountain ended and so

another one appeared. It looked never-ending, as if the

105


whole world had sprouted up overnight into huge peaks and

valleys. Most of the mountains had snow on the top, but

further down below, where he was, it was green and sunny.

The air was sharp and clean but still very cold, and Miles was

glad that the tunic he was wearing was a good thick one.

A short while later, Mike had come back to collect him.

‘You had good breakfast?’ he said with another trade-mark

huge grin and Miles thought it best to be polite.

‘Oh yes, very good. Thanks.’

‘Ha ha, you joking. Very bad liar. Yaks milk, yuurrk!’ He

made sick noises and smiled. ‘Make me throw up first time.

Give me bacon sandwich any day! Anyway Squire, High

Priest ready to see you now. I will come and translate.’

‘Doesn’t he speak English?’ asked Miles.

‘No, he speak very goo’ English. But you must not speak

to him direct. You are a foreigner. Not good for him. Not

good for you ha ha! Know wha I mean?’

‘Oh,’ said Miles, a little bit upset at being considered

dangerous, just because he was from England.

‘Don’t worry,’ added Mike, seeing the look on Miles’s face.

‘He’s pretty nice bloke. Just don’t mention football.’

‘Why not?’ asked Miles, thinking that there must be some

weird religious reason why football was bad for you if you

were a High Priest.

‘Oh, he support Manchester City, they not win much

106


recently. Not win much ever, actually, ha ha.’

So together with Mike, he set off up the hill to where he

could see an important-looking building with a pointed roof,

cut into the mountain rock. It looked as though it had been

there forever. As he walked he felt the cobwebs from four

days’ sleep being blown away and he started to feel himself

again. So much had happened to him in the last few days

that had been fantastic, terrible or just downright weird that

he had trouble remembering exactly what the old Miles had

been like.

He also knew that people were probably still after him for

The Bottle: if it wasn’t Hags with claws and sharp teeth, it

was Boxing Day or that strange robin or even Father

Christmas himself. He knew that The Bottle with nothing

much left inside it was probably worthless, but something

told him to hold on to it for the time being.

As the got to the door of the High Priest’s house or

church or whatever it was, Mike stopped smiling for once. He

made a strange sign across his forehead and rang a small

bell. After a few moments wait, the bell was answered with

another bell coming from deep within. Mike signalled to

Miles to follow.

The air inside was thick with a sort of perfumy smoke

Miles had never smelt before. It smelt funny and exotic and

it made his nose wrinkle, and he tried not to sneeze. From

inside, he heard the swishing sound of heavy robes.

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‘Welcome Miles,’ came a voice from deep within the layers of

smoke, ‘we have been expecting you.’ Miles turned and

looked at Mike who was bowed down low.

‘Don’ worry,’ he whispered at Miles, from out of the

corner of his mouth. ‘He always say that. Too many James

Bond movies.’

Slowly, the High Priest appeared from a doorway at the

back of the Temple. He was not much taller than the women

who had dressed Miles that morning and his face was very

brown and creased-up, like an old purse. He shuffled forward

and paused. He had a very stern look on his face, and

piercing black eyes that bored holes into Miles, as if looking

for his deepest thoughts and darkest secrets. He stroked his

long white moustache for a while and glared, whilst Miles

fidgeted about nervously. ‘Do you,’ he said eventually,

‘support Manchester United?’

‘No,’ said Miles, indignantly, as if the High Priest had just

asked him if he could borrow all his pocket money, and pay

him back in a year or two, ‘certainly not.’ This was not true.

Mike translated.

The High Priest glared Miles for some time, whilst

stroking his beard and muttering to himself. He approached

Miles and looked deep into his eyes. Miles felt the back of

his head begin to burn as if two lasers were pointed straight

at him. ‘Velly goo’!’ he announced suddenly, and laughed

and ruffled Miles’s hair. ‘Velly goo’ boy.’

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Everyone, including Miles, started laughing, as much with

relief as anything else. Suddenly the High Priest’s face went

serious again.

‘Show me The Bottle!’ he ordered.

‘How did he know about The Bottle, and what’s more,

how did he know it was important?’ Miles hesitated for a

second and then slipped his hand into his tunic and pulled

The Bottle out.

The High Priest kept his hand held out, like a headmaster

who was confiscating sweets. Miles hesitated for another

second and then decided two things: Firstly, there were only

a few drops left in it, so actually he was just handing over an

empty bottle. And secondly, the High Priest didn’t have that

greedy look on his face like he had seen on Boxing Day or

The Hags. More to the point, as he had only just realised, up

there in the clear mountain air, it was the same greedy look

he had seen on his own face, as he remembered it reflected in

the shop window in downtown New York. He was probably

just as bad as the lot of them. He sighed and handed The

Bottle over.

Mike looked confused, but The High Priest seemed to

know what he was doing. He took it by the neck and held it

up to the light of a small candle. ‘Hoar! Haor haoor hoor!

Yeauk!’

‘What’s he doing?’ whispered Miles to his new friend.

‘Clearing his throat,’ said Mike, looking embarrassed,

109


‘comes from too much smoking.’

‘THE BOTTLE IS NEARLY EMPTY!’ pronounced the

High Priest after a five-minute wait.

‘The man’s a genius,’ thought Miles.

‘Few drops left, magic only last short time, not enough for

Land of Black Cabs and Premiership!’

‘Er, Mr High Priest, what are we going to do?’ Miles

paused and let Mike translate. After an few seconds

reflection, the Priest raised his hand to the sky and declared:

‘Dongangsoya!’

‘What’s that?’ hissed Miles and Mike turned to him and

put his hand gravely on the boy’s shoulder.

‘High Priest say: ‘Only one thing for it! Dance of the

Seven Souls!’‘

Ten minutes later, Miles found himself outside,

surrounded by the village folk, the elders seated on small red

cushions at the front and the younger ones standing behind.

Everyone was looking deadly serious. A man with a small

hollow drum was beating out a hollow tune whilst the people

clapped dully in time with the beat.

And Miles, standing in the middle of the circle, wearing

only his underpants, with a flower stuck up his nose, hopped

in a circle, as he had been told to do, chanting, ‘Yom, yom,

yom, yom yom……’ He waited for something to change, for

his fingers to tingle and for that old rushing feeling. But

nothing happened. He chanted ‘Yom, yom,’ a bit louder and

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the village elders smiled and nodded encouragement at him.

But after half an hour Miles was tired out and couldn’t hop

anymore. It was then that Mike came forward from the

crowd. Miles was surprised to see that he was carrying a

video camera. ‘It’s not working,’ whispered Miles through his

teeth.

Mike looked confused. ‘What’s not working, little friend,

mate? Seems to be going pretty goo’ to me. Villagers, they

love it. You’re a big star!’ Miles stopped what he was doing,

and glared at Mike suspiciously.

‘Star?’ The people, seeing that he had stopped, started

clapping and whistling. ‘What do you mean, star?’

‘Got it all here on the ol’ camcorder!’ said Mike proudly.

‘Dance of the Seven Souls, very popular Party routine. Gets

boring up here in the winter. You were natural. Keep us

laughing until March. Mrs Wong here,’ he pointed at one of

the older women in the audience, who gave him a huge

toothless grin, ‘she wan’ buy you! Ha ha, absolutely funny,

no? Ha ha ha!’

‘Absolutely side-splitting,’ said Miles, removing the flower

from his nose. ‘Now you’ve had a good laugh,’ he continued

crossly, ‘do you mind telling me how I get back?’

‘That’s easy,’ said Mike. ‘High Priest give me money for

your flight this morning. Your plane leaves from Kathmandu

tonight. You can pay us back when you get home.’

112


Five hours later, in his normal clothes, which had all been

washed and repaired as best they could, Mike found himself

at the airport, ticket in hand. He was very relieved and had

just about forgiven them for the ‘Yom yom’ trick. He

supposed it was quite funny after all. Mrs. Wong had cried

when he left and had even given him a small white mountain

flower as a souvenir.

‘Nice guys, but that priest was a complete fake,’ thought

Miles as he waited in the departure lounge. ‘I bet he wasn’t a

High Priest at all, just someone put there for the tourists,’

Miles thought. Then Miles remembered that just before he

left Mike had come running down the hill after him. ‘Oi

Squire, little fella, High Priest, he say give you this!’ and with

that Mike had handed him a small yellow paper envelope.

Then he had wished Miles good luck and promised to look

him up when he next got back to England. Anyway, with

nothing better to do whilst waiting for his flight to be called,

he put his hand in his ski-jacket pocket and pulled out the

letter Mike had given him from the High Priest. ‘It’s

probably just a fortune cookie or something swiped from a

cracker,’ he thought.

When Miles did open the letter he sat there for a long time

thinking about what he had found. He had the funny feeling

he had been wrong about the High Priest all along. He didn’t

know precisely what the the High Priest’s package meant but

he knew it meant something.

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‘What’s that?’ said a friendly voice behind him. Miles

turned to see one of the stewardesses kneeling down to his left.

Without a word, he lifted up the red robin’s feather that he had

found carefully placed in the envelope and showed it to her.

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Chapter Twelve

Home

So that’s how Miles got back. Arriving 15 hours later at

Heathrow airport, he took out The Bottle and guzzled down

the last remaining drops. As Mike had said, they were

probably enough to get him home without anybody

suspecting anything.

What he was going to do about all the presents he had

stolen from Harrods was another big problem. He knew that

he couldn’t very well hide them, and his Grandparents were

sure to think that he had been shoplifting. Which was exactly

what he had been doing, really.

He walked out through customs and out of the airport

into a quiet spot in the car park, where he closed his eyes and

let the last remaining bits of precious magic from The Bottle

of Christmas Spirit take over.

The journey home was uneventful, but it was amazing

how quickly one could get used to being able to fly. He didn’t

enjoy his last flight home that much anyway. After all that

had happened, it didn’t seem the same and he realized, with

relief, he wouldn’t miss The Bottle one bit. He could feel the

effects wearing off just as he got to Wendover Backwoods, so

he landed in town and walked the rest of the way, looking

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around with interest as people came back to life. It really was

an amazing potion, even if it was a bunch of trouble. He

looked at his watch: Mike was right, with all the stopping of

time Miles had done, barely a day had passed. It was only the

morning after he had first left, when he had first got his paws

on the Christmas Spirit. No-one was going to have missed

him, which meant he wouldn’t have to explain that at least to

Dot and Reg.

Something else was worrying him though. First of all,

what if Boxing Day caught up with him? After all, he knew

where he lived. Secondly, how was Christmas going to

happen if Father Christmas, who seemed to have lost the

plot anyway, didn’t have any Christmas Spirit left because

Miles had gulped down the lot? Miles began to feel guiltier

and guiltier, and his feet got slower and slower, as he came up

the road towards the bungalow with a feeling of dread

creeping up from his boots into the pit of his stomach.

It was still early morning when Miles crawled through his

bedroom window on the ground floor and Dot and Reg were

in bed, fast asleep, glasses of water next to their bed, their

dentures rattling in the glass, in time with their snores.

As he’d suspected, he had visitors.

The moment he had picked himself up from the floor

three figures appeared, standing by the bed.

The one Miles noticed first was a huge man with a flowing

beard and a large bearskin thrown over his shoulders. He

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had a smile on his face and a pair of crinkled blue eyes,

whose colour reminded Miles of the sea in the Caribbean.

Behind him stood Father Christmas, even he looked tiny by

comparison. Father Christmas mouthed the word ‘SORRY’

at Miles from behind his companion’s back. He looked very

guilty indeed, and Miles began to think that perhaps he

wasn’t such a bad guy after all. Even if he had tried to shoot

him the last time they had met. And he didn’t believe all that

stuff about reindeer burgers anyway. He was beginning to

learn that you didn’t judge people the first time that you met

them. After all, Peter, or Boxing Day, or whatever his name

was, had seemed great until Miles had discovered that he was

just using him to get to The Bottle.

The third person was no more than a shadow in the back

of the room. Miles squinted a bit and could just about make

out the face of a young man.

Nobody said anything for a bit. It was Christmas Eve:

outside Miles could hear the streets coming to life and

people getting into their cars to go to work for the last time

before Christmas Day. Right now his mother would be

leaving her hotel in the Midlands to drive down to Wendover

for the next three days. The large man in front of Miles heard

the noises too. He sat down slowly on the bed and rested a

frankly huge arm on Miles’s shoulder.

‘What can all those people expect is going to happen

tomorrow?’ His voice was like a rumble, deep and very rich.

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The sound of it seemed to fill up the whole room.

‘Dunno,’ said Miles and stared at his feet. He didn’t

exactly know what this man was saying. After all, everyone

knew that presents weren’t delivered by Father Christmas, or

whoever, every year. So what was the Christmas Spirit all

about? Christmas just happened now on its own, or made up

by large companies; it seemed nothing to do with them. But

the minute that thought entered Miles’s head he knew he was

somehow wrong.

‘You are wondering what all the fuss is about aren’t you?’

the large, kindly man asked, smiling. ‘Nobody believes in me

anymore, but Christmas seems to happen anyway, every

year.’

‘Are you the real Father Christmas?’ asked Miles,

suddenly forgetting to feel shy. The man laughed slowly and

gently.

‘No, Miles,’ he said, ‘this is the real Father Christmas.’ He

pointed at Father Christmas who was still standing behind

him. ‘I am Nicholas.’

‘Saint Nicholas!’ said Miles. ‘We learnt all about you in

class. Is it true that you used to drop things down chimneys?’

‘Hush now,’ said the man smiling again. ‘Yes, some of it is

true and some of it is legend. But all of it is good, so I

suppose that I really can’t complain.’

‘No,’ replied Miles, ‘Miss Geelong says that without you

and Charles Dickens we wouldn’t have Christmas.’

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‘That’s not entirely true.’ He paused. ‘Father Christmas

also needs his Christmas Spirit, Miles.’ At that Miles

suddenly felt bad again.

‘I’ve drunk it all,’ he mumbled, handing The Bottle over,

expecting the worst.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Nicholas, ‘it will be filled shortly.’ And

he held The Bottle up. Slowly it began to fill. When it was full

Nicholas handed it back to Miles. ‘Would you give this back

to its rightful owner, please,’ he said quietly but firmly. Miles

hesitated for a second and then took The Bottle in his hand.

He crossed the room nervously to where Father Christmas

was standing.

‘Here you are,’ he said, holding it up to the old man with

a white beard. ‘Sorry I pinched it.’

‘That’s okay,’ said Father Christmas. ‘Sorry I threatened

you with a burger.’

‘There’s one thing I still don’t understand, though,’ said

Miles, his curiosity getting the better of him finally.

‘What’s that?’ asked Father Christmas, bending down.

‘How come, if you don’t really deliver presents, you need

the Christmas Spirit?’ At this Father Christmas moved his

eyebrows about and thought for a bit.

‘It’s like this,’ he said at last, ‘it’s all about Christmas

Spirit, that’s what I am doing when I stop time, like you did,

and go around the world. I am delivering Christmas Spirit,

as much as I can to all the houses around the world. Oh, and

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sometimes the odd present.’

‘How do you mean?’ asked Miles.

‘Well,’ said Father Christmas with a smile, ‘have you ever

got a present, usually quite a small one, and you can’t figure

out where it came from and no-one remembers buying it for

you?’

‘Yes,’ admitted Miles, ‘that sometimes happens.’

‘It’s usually quite a small one,’ Father Christmas

continued, ‘one that you didn’t think you needed. But it’s

funny how those are the presents that you often keep for

years, although you have no idea who bought them for you.

Usually they lie in a box, half-forgotten, sometimes for years;

until, one day, you come across the gift by chance and it

brings you back, just for a moment, lost in the memory of a

Christmas passed.’

‘I see,’ said Miles, ‘and that’s you, is it?’

‘Sometimes,’ said Father Christmas.

‘So, am I going to get anything this year?’ asked Miles,

biting his lip, knowing that he didn’t deserve anything after

his antics.

Father Christmas chewed his beard for a bit. ‘Well,

records show you’ve been pretty good for most of the year,

and although you’ve slipped a bit in the last few days, I think

we can make a special exception for extreme circumstances.

You can’t keep all this stuff, of course,’ he said waving a hand

at all the things Miles had stolen, and at that they all faded,

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then disappeared, ‘but this year you will have a greater

present than ever. When your mother comes home, I think

this time she will tell you that she is staying for good.’

Miles paused. It didn’t take him long to realise that this

was the best present he could have. It was so simple and he

had been so stupid. All the computers and roller blades in

the world were okay but at the end of the day it was just

STUFF. It didn’t mean anything unless it was given properly.

Not just because you felt that you had to give it. And

especially not if it was stolen.

He didn’t know why but he started to cry quietly, once

again. He hated crying, and he usually felt ashamed. But

somehow this seemed all right. Just then, there was a

movement at the back of the room, like a shadow stirring,

and Miles looked up to see the young man standing in front

of him. Miles also saw that Nicholas was kneeling, his huge

head bowed, and that he looked almost shy, as if this young

man was in some way more important than him, and

perhaps a little frightening.

Slowly, the room and everything else besides went quiet.

‘Stop crying, Miles,’ said the young man, in a voice so gentle

the sound seemed to take ages to come and his lips seemed

hardly to move. ‘If you understand all this and if you believe

in me you will never truly be sad again, I promise you this.’

And with that he reached up his hand and wiped Miles’s

tears from his face. As the man took his hand away the

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morning sun caught the flat of his hand and Miles saw, for

the first time, that the palm had a tiny scar in its very centre.

There was now nothing to say, and anyway Miles couldn’t

get his voice to work. The three visitors smiled at Miles in

turn for one last time and slowly vanished.

And I’ve got nothing more to say either, except that when

Miles turned to close the bedroom window he paused for a

bit and then smiled to himself as he heard the voice of a

robin calling in the crisp morning air.

THE END

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EpilogueFred was now standing by the window now, looking out at

the frozen lake. As he finished the story, he turned to Kit, to

see that she had fallen asleep; he had no idea for how long.

As quietly as he could, he crossed the room and put another

log on the fire, then left, shutting the library door behind

him.

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miles byfar

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grandpamiles byfar

chocolatymiles byfar

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mycousin miles

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great britain