The Christmas Pig Page 13

  “It would be nice to get warm,” Jack admitted, but the Christmas Pig still looked suspicious.

  “Would you excuse us for a moment?” he said to the violet lady.

  “Certainly,” she replied, though she didn’t seem pleased.

  “I know she doesn’t seem very friendly, but she must be good, if Happiness sent her,” Jack muttered into the Christmas Pig’s ear, once they’d moved a short distance away. He had trouble making himself heard, because Voice was still echoing around the square, but at least that meant the violet lady couldn’t eavesdrop. “DP might be inside the palace! I love him so much, they might have let him live there! Perhaps he’s become royal!”

  “I don’t believe it,” said the Christmas Pig, whose damp snout was slowly freezing in the evening air. “I never heard there was any king down here except the Loser. And how does that lady know who we’re looking for? We never told Happiness we were after DP!”

  “I expect word’s got round,” said Jack. “I asked Sheriff Specs and the chess piece about him.”

  “I still don’t like it,” said the pig. “It smells like a trap to me.”

  “This is the first time anybody’s told us they know where DP is!” said Jack, now starting to get angry. “You heard what Poem said! We’ve got to succeed before Christmas Day, or I’ll be trapped and I’ll never be able to take DP home! There can’t be much time left!”

  When the Christmas Pig didn’t answer, Jack said, “Fine, don’t come—but I’m going!”

  And with that, Jack turned and strode back toward the violet lady, who stood burning in the shadowy archway like a purple flame. Jack heard the Christmas Pig’s belly beans behind him, and knew he was following.

  Chapter 43

  The Palace

  The violet lady accepted the news that they were ready to follow her with a brief smile, which showed her rather pointed teeth, then led them toward the palace, her black cloak flying behind her in the breeze.

  “How are we going to get past the Loss Adjusters?” asked Jack as they approached the golden palace doors.

  “Oh, you needn’t worry about them,” said the violet lady, with a haughty smile. “The king’s in charge of the Loss Adjusters here in the City of the Missed, and I’m His Majesty’s representative. Good evening to you!” she said grandly to the pencil sharpener and the mallet, who both bowed as each opened a door. The mallet’s head was so heavy he nearly toppled over, but saved himself by clutching the door handle.

  “Good evening, Your Excellency,” they said together.

  A wonderful warmth enveloped Jack and the Christmas Pig as they stepped over the threshold of the palace. They now stood on a thick crimson carpet which was soft under Jack’s bruised, frozen feet. Twin fires burned beneath two marble fireplaces on either side of a magnificent staircase with golden bannisters. At the foot of the stairs stood the very same diamond earrings Jack had seen back in Mislaid. They seemed to be employed now as maids, because they took the violet lady’s black cloak, bowed, then wriggled away, disappearing through a side door.

  “This way,” said the violet lady to Jack and the Christmas Pig as she started to climb the stairs.

  “May we ask your name, Your Excellency?” said the Christmas Pig as they followed, repeating the title he’d heard the Loss Adjusters use. Now that she was unrobed, their companion filled the hall with her violet light. A tall, thin woman, she looked down at them as she said, “My name is Ambition.”

  “How does someone lose their ambition?” wondered Jack out loud.

  “By being a fool,” said Ambition coldly. “My mistress and I achieved great things together. She’s a politician—or rather, she was. She suffered a small setback—lost a trifling vote—but that oughtn’t to have mattered!” cried Ambition, coming to a sudden halt, so that Jack nearly walked into her. Her eyes emitted sparks, and for a moment, Jack found her rather frightening.

  “We could have recovered from that setback and climbed together to even greater heights! But no . . . she lost me, the weak-willed fool!” shouted Ambition, shaking her fist at the finding hole in the ceiling.

  The sound of her words echoing off the marble walls seemed to bring Ambition back to herself. She took several deep breaths. “My apologies,” she said stiffly. “I’ve lived here in the palace for several years now, waiting for her to find me again. Sometimes I fear it will never happen . . . but none of this will help you find your pig.”

  She began to climb the stairs again. Jack and the Christmas Pig glanced at each other, then followed. Jack could tell the Christmas Pig was having even more doubts about Ambition now, and in truth, she’d made Jack quite nervous, too. However, he didn’t want to turn back, so he tried to look cheerful and unconcerned.

  At the top of the stairs, they found more double doors, which were opened by a pair of solid gold fish knives.

  “Your Excellency,” they muttered respectfully as Ambition passed through into the room beyond. Jack and the Christmas Pig followed, watched curiously by the glinting knives.

  Chapter 44

  The Royal Family

  The room they now entered was even grander than the hall, with gilded columns and mirrors. The vaulted ceiling was painted with pictures of the three cities of the Land of the Lost: the low wooden houses of Disposable, the neat snow-topped chalets of Bother-It’s-Gone, and the villas and canals of the City of the Missed. Beneath the painted ceiling stood a long candlelit table, which was laid with enough golden plates and crystal glasses for fifteen Things. At the head of the table stood a large golden throne, which was currently empty.

  In front of another fire, in a ball of emerald light, stood a very handsome young man who was examining himself in the mirror over the mantelpiece. He looked delighted with what he saw there.

  “Good evening,” he said, without taking his eyes off his own reflection, but turning his head this way and that, to get a better view of his profile.

  “That’s Beauty,” said Ambition, indicating the green man, “and that,” she said, pointing to a ball of orange light, inside which stood a young man with a plump, smiley face, “is Optimism. They’ll entertain you while I tell His Majesty his guests have arrived.”

  Ambition swept out of the room, leaving Jack and the Christmas Pig feeling nervous and extremely shabby in all this splendor. However, the moment the golden fish knives had closed the door behind Ambition, Optimism came bounding over to Jack and the Christmas Pig, beaming from ear to ear. He had round, innocent eyes and, like Happiness, gave off a pleasant warmth. After seizing Jack’s hand and shaking it, and doing the same with the Christmas Pig’s trotter, he cried, “Marvelous to meet you! What jolly good Things you are! I feel as though I’ve known you forever! Let’s be best friends!”

  “Hello,” said Jack timidly.

  “I hear you’re looking for an old toy pig?” said Optimism, bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet.

  “Yes,” said Jack.

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll find him! Everything will work out splendidly! And you’ll love our king! He’s a very good Thing”—for just a second, Optimism’s smile faltered, but then he beamed as widely as ever—“deep down, you know!”

  “Isn’t anybody going to admire me?” asked Beauty indignantly, turning from the mirror to look at Jack and the Christmas Pig.

  “Oh—er—yes,” said the Christmas Pig. “You’re very handsome.”

  “Which is more than can be said for you two,” said Beauty with a smirk, looking from the now-bedraggled Christmas Pig, with his lopsided ears, to Jack’s filthy bare feet and muddy pajamas. “Your beauty must be here somewhere, too! Or perhaps you never had any to lose?”

  With this rude remark, he turned back to the mirror. Then a door opened at the far end of the room. A ball of indigo light entered. For a moment, Jack thought it might be the king, but as the light came nearer, he saw a very old lady shuffling alo
ng in its center.

  “Good evening,” she said in a high, cracked voice.

  “Good evening,” said the Christmas Pig.

  “This is Memory,” said Optimism.

  Memory peered at the Christmas Pig for a moment or two, then said, “Eighty-five years ago, my mistress owned a pig, but hers was of china; what we call a piggy bank. Its sides were painted with little blue flowers and she used to keep her pocket money inside it. One Sunday afternoon, eighty-four years ago, my mistress’s younger sister, Amelia Louise—”

  “Memory,” said Beauty with a yawn, “nobody’s interested. Nobody cares.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it will be a smashing story!” said Optimism, still beaming. Jack wondered how he could smile so much without his face hurting.

  “—broke that piggy bank with the little blue flowers—”

  “We’ve heard this at least a thousand times already,” groaned Beauty, while Memory continued to mumble.

  The door at the far end of the room opened again. Six balls of glowing blue light entered the room, each of which had an identical man inside it, all of them small and neat and serious looking. They couldn’t all be the king, Jack thought, getting more confused by the second.

  “Good evening,” said the six blue men, speaking with one voice, and drowning out Memory, who continued to mumble her story about the piggy bank. “We are the Principles.”

  They bowed in unison and Jack, who didn’t know what else to do, bowed back, as did the Christmas Pig, whose tummy beans, now drying out in the heat from the fire, made a crunching noise.

  “I thought the king told you to stay in your rooms?” asked Beauty, frowning at the Principles’ reflections in the mirror.

  “After carefully considering His Majesty’s order,” said the Principles, speaking together as before, “we decided it would be against ourselves to stay in our rooms.”

  Jack whispered to the Christmas Pig, “What are Principles?”

  The Principles seemed to have heard him, because they answered together, “We are the Things who make humans behave with honesty and decency. Alas, our owner—a businessman—lost us one by one in pursuit of riches. He is now a wealthy crook. He likes the money, yet he is unhappy, because he knows he was better loved and respected while he still had us. Unfortunately, lost Principles are among the hardest Things to find, so we expect to live here forever. We have therefore taken on a new job. We attempt to keep the king on the path of righteousness.”

  “And does the king often need your help?” asked the Christmas Pig.

  But before the Principles could answer, there was a loud fanfare and the doors behind them opened.

  Chapter 45

  The King

  The whole dining room now filled with scarlet light, which glinted off the crystal goblets and turned the plates bloodred. The crimson figure standing in the doorway made even Ambition, who’d entered the room behind him, seem dim by comparison.

  Beauty, Optimism, and the Principles bowed, and Jack and the Christmas Pig copied them, while Memory dropped into a deep curtsy and fell silent at last.

  “This,” said Ambition proudly to Jack and the Christmas Pig, “is Power, our king. Your Majesty, these are the two you’ve been waiting for: the ones who’re looking for the lost pig.”

  By screwing up his eyes, Jack was able to make out the figure casting the scarlet light. He was a big, fierce-looking man with a sour expression and a jutting jaw.

  “Welcome,” he said, in a booming voice. “What d’you think of my city? Do you like it?”

  “It’s very beautiful, Your Majesty,” said the Christmas Pig. Jack was too frightened to speak.

  “Beautiful?” said Power, who seemed displeased. “Many places are beautiful. I consider my city to be magnificent. Stupendous. SUBLIME!”

  He thundered the last word and everyone jumped.

  “It’s those things, too!” squeaked the Christmas Pig.

  Power turned to the Principles.

  “I THOUGHT,” he shouted, “I told you to stay in your ROOMS?”

  “It was against ourselves to stay in our rooms,” repeated the Principles, speaking in one voice as before.

  Power’s huge hands balled themselves into fists and he ground his teeth. Jack and the Christmas Pig both took a step backward.

  “Your Majesty,” murmured Ambition, laying a hand on Power’s thick arm. “I beg you to remember our objective.”

  Her touch seemed to make Power think better of shouting at the Principles.

  “You’re quite right, Ambition. Everyone, sit DOWN!” boomed the king, and he strolled to the head of the table and took his place on the throne.

  Jack sat down between the Christmas Pig and Beauty, who was now admiring himself in the back of a shining spoon. Optimism settled into the seat opposite Jack, smiling as widely as ever.

  “There’s no need to be nervous!” he called across the table. “I just know everything will turn out wonderfully!”

  “Excellent,” growled Power, in response to something Ambition had just whispered in his ear. Even his ordinary speaking voice was so loud that it made the cutlery rattle. “And the door’s locked?”

  “It will be, after the servants confirm she’s gone to bed,” said Ambition. “As for the other . . . well, I’m afraid I haven’t been able to find her. Your Majesty knows how she’s always flitting off into dirty corners where no decent Thing would go. I had the Loss Adjusters try and hunt her d—I mean, find her,” she corrected herself, with half a glance at Jack, “but alas, they were unsuccessful.”

  Jack gathered that Power and Ambition were talking about the Things who ought to have been sitting in the two empty spaces left at the table, but he felt too scared to ask questions.

  Power now clapped his enormous hands together twice. At once, a procession of Things came hurrying through the servants’ door, all carrying food, and a very odd assortment it was, too.

  There was a single peppermint as large as Jack’s head, a few giant crisps, a pillow-like slice of birthday cake, pieces of popcorn the size of cauliflowers, and largest of all, a chocolate tree decoration wrapped in colored foil and shaped like a fat Santa Claus. The sugar tongs carrying it groaned as she heaved it onto the table.

  “The only food here is lost food, of course,” boomed the king down the table at Jack, as the Things that had delivered the food ran out of the room again. “We Things have no need of food—but YOU will want to eat,” he said, glaring at Jack, “because YOU, of course, are a LIVING BOY!”

  Chapter 46

  Power’s Plan

  As soon as Power shouted the words “living boy,” loud metallic clicks sounded from either end of the room and Jack realized that the servants outside had just locked the doors.

  “We were afraid of something like this,” muttered the Principles all together.

  “He isn’t a living boy,” said the Christmas Pig in a squeaky voice. “He’s an action figure!”

  “That’s right,” said Jack, whose mouth had gone dry. “Pajama Boy, with the power of sleep and dreams.”

  “He’s got his own cartoon!” said the Christmas Pig.

  “We disapprove of lying,” said the Principles in one voice.

  “Eighty years ago,” piped up Memory, “my mistress’s sister, Amelia Louise, was caught lying when—”

  “QUIET!” yelled Power, banging his huge fist on the table. One of the crystal goblets toppled over and cracked. Memory fell silent again. Power got to his feet, burning a deeper, darker red than ever, and all the Things around the table looked nervous except for Ambition, from whose eyes sparks were flying again, and whose pointed teeth were revealed in a wide grin.

  “Do you KNOW,” thundered Power, staring at Jack, “why I’m HERE, in the Land of the Lost?”

  “No,” whispered Jack.

  Beneath the table, the Ch
ristmas Pig stretched out a trotter to hold Jack’s hand.

  “My owner,” said Power, beginning to pace up and down, “lost me by failing to stamp down hard enough”—he smacked one huge fist into the other hand—“on his ENEMIES!

  “Together, we ruled an entire COUNTRY! To keep me, my master kept the PEOPLE”—as Power bawled this word, he screwed up his face in disgust and hatred—“in their proper places, which is to say, ON THEIR KNEES!” he thundered, a mad look in his bright red eyes. “But THEN,” he bellowed, “a boy like YOU dared CHALLENGE my master in PUBLIC! And THAT CHILD,” shouted Power, “gave the PEOPLE courage to REVOLT!”

  Power’s voice rose to a scream.

  “AND I WAS SUCKED DOWN HERE, TO THE LAND OF THE LOST!”

  “Power, dear,” said Beauty, “do stop shouting. Quite apart from the racket, it makes you look awfully ugly.”

  “So you’ve lured us here to take revenge on living boys, have you?” asked the Christmas Pig, still gripping Jack’s hand under the table.

  “Of course not!” sneered Ambition. “We aren’t interested in petty revenge! Our aim is to do whatever we must to rise higher, to gain more prestige, to achieve greater success—”

  “To increase our POWER!” roared the king. “We know what you seek: the one called DP—”

  “Where is he?” asked Jack desperately. “Do you know?”

  “YES, I KNOW!” screamed Power. “BUT YOU WILL NEVER FIND HIM, NEVER, BECAUSE I AM ABOUT TO TRADE YOU TO THE LOSER! IN RETURN, HE WILL REWARD ME, AND WITH AMBITION AS MY QUEEN, I SHALL RULE STILL VASTER TERRITORIES, UNTIL MY POWER RIVALS HIS OWN!”

  “Calmly, Your Majesty, calmly,” said Ambition, laying a bony hand on Power’s arm again. “We need votes to proceed, remember . . . Now listen, all of you,” she said, addressing Beauty, Optimism, Memory, and the Principles. “If we trade these two to the Loser, he might give us things in return. Perhaps an enlarged palace, with even more mirrors”—she glanced at Beauty—“or a guarantee he’ll stay outside the city walls! We might even be allowed a say in who comes to the City of the Missed! Occasionally some Thing arrives that is not of the standard we expect . . . you all remember that scruffy Poem, I’m sure, and that ghastly, common Pretense . . . Beauty, how do you vote?”