The Christmas Pig Read online

  Finally, he spotted a black chess piece, who was standing talking to a large old-fashioned address book, whose cover was decorated with roses.

  “Let’s ask the chess piece if he’s seen DP!” Jack said to the Christmas Pig.

  “Hmm,” said the Christmas Pig. “I’m not sure. A chess piece isn’t really a toy.”

  “He’s the closest Thing we’ve seen,” said Jack.

  “Well, all right,” said the Christmas Pig. “But don’t—”

  “—mention having a cartoon, I know, I know!” said Jack.

  So they drew into a doorway to wait for the chess piece and the address book’s conversation to end.

  “. . . in five minutes’ time, Mr. Knight, all right?” the address book was saying, in a voice that rang all the way down the street. “Naughty Mr. Knight, I shan’t let you miss another one! We’re starting in the Main Square and I won’t take no for an answer! The tour will finish up at the Town Hall, where the mayor’s most graciously agreed to show us round! Five minutes, Mr. Knight, don’t forget or I’ll be very upset!”

  Laughing gaily, the address book bustled off, leaving the chess piece behind. As soon as she’d disappeared, the chess piece started to hop off in the other direction, going so fast that Jack and the Christmas Pig had to run to catch up.

  “Excuse me?” said Jack.

  “Yes?” panted the chess piece, coming to a halt. His top part was shaped like a horse’s head.

  “Have you seen a toy pig?” asked Jack. “He’s about the same size as this pig, but he’s grayish, his ears are wonky, and his eyes are buttons.”

  “No, haven’t seen any pig like that. You don’t get a lot of toys in Bother-It’s-Gone,” said the chess piece. “Now excuse me, please, I’m trying not to get roped into another one of Addie’s tours.”

  With these words, he gave a little whinny and hopped off again, disappearing into one of the snow-topped chalets and slamming the door behind him.

  Chapter 26

  Addie the Address Book

  Jack was very disappointed to hear that there weren’t many toys in Bother-It’s-Gone. Where could DP have been sent, then? But before he and the Christmas Pig could discuss it, a loud whistle made them both jump. Jack was scared the whistle was some kind of alarm to tell the citizens of Bother-It’s-Gone that some Thing was there that shouldn’t be. However, the whistle was followed by the unmistakeable sound of a steam train approaching.

  “Interesting,” said the Christmas Pig, wrinkling up his snout again. “Where’s the train come from? Let’s go and have a look.”

  So Jack and the Christmas Pig hurried off in the direction of the train noises, and were just in time to see it arrive in a little station in the middle of town. The train was royal blue and gold, and once it had chugged to a halt in another cloud of steam, the doors opened and several Things tumbled out, including a gold wristwatch, a silver cup, and a bronze medal trailing a frayed ribbon.

  “Look, it’s her again,” said the Christmas Pig, pointing a trotter. “That address book.”

  Sure enough, there she stood with her rose-patterned cover, handwritten pages swishing away the steam from the train.

  She spoke at the top of her voice, as before. “How wonderful to see you all! You’re in luck! Just in time for one of Addie’s famous walking tours! Such a wonderful way to find out all about Bother-It’s-Gone! Follow me, follow me, do!”

  Jack could tell the new Things thought they had to do as Addie said, even though she wasn’t wearing a Loss Adjuster’s hat, and so they fell into step behind her.

  “I think we should follow,” said the Christmas Pig, “and try and find out where that train came from—but let’s be careful. There’s something about that address book I don’t like.”

  So they followed Addie and the Things that had just come off the train to a little square, where a further collection of Things was waiting for the start of the tour. Jack saw the Pokémon card, Fingers, and Lunchy among them, all looking cheerful now that they’d seen what a pretty little town they’d come to live in.

  “Allow me to introduce myself!” cried Addie, rustling to the front of the crowd. “My full name’s Address Book, but you must call me Addie! As a long-standing resident of Bother-It’s-Gone, and a close personal friend of the dear mayor, I like to conduct these little tours, to help everyone feel at home! Follow me, please, and if you’ve got any questions, don’t hesitate to ask!”

  She bustled off up a new street and everyone followed. Jack and the Christmas Pig found themselves walking beside the gold watch they’d just seen get off the train.

  “Just arrived?” asked the watch as he wriggled along.

  “Yes,” said the Christmas Pig.

  “Didn’t see you on the train.”

  “No,” said the Christmas Pig. “We were Adjusted from Disposable.”

  “Ah,” said Watch. “That would explain it.”

  The wristwatch had words engraved on his back, Jack noticed: To Bob, with love, from Betty.

  “Are you looking at my inscription?” the watch asked Jack.

  “Um—yes,” said Jack, hoping it wasn’t rude to look at a Thing’s inscription.

  “Huh,” sighed the wristwatch. “Well, Betty and Bob don’t love each other anymore, I know that much. The moment they told me I was being Adjusted, I thought ‘they’ve split up.’ Solid gold, I am, and Bob was very upset when he first lost me. But something must have changed, Up There. Bob clearly doesn’t miss me as much as he did at first, or they wouldn’t have made me move out of—”

  “No talking at the back there!” cried Addie. “Or you won’t get the full benefit of my tour! Now, we’re just passing a rather nice chalet, one of the best in town—and it so happens to be mine!” she said, with a peal of laughter. “And here to our left, the residence of a rather charming silver-plated bookmark. So important to have well-bred, well-read neighbors! The previous occupant was a grubby old school timetable!” she added, with a shudder. “What a dreadful impression it gave newcomers, to see him as soon as they arrived!

  “Now, for those of you who’ve come here straight from Mislaid,” Addie went on, leading them round a corner, “I should explain that there are two towns in the Land of the Lost: Disposable and Bother-It’s-Gone!”

  The hands on the watch’s face bunched up at these words, giving him a puzzled expression.

  “No, madam,” he called out to Addie, from the back of the crowd, “I think you’ve been misinformed. Medal, Cup, and I were sent here from—”

  “There are only two towns in the Land of the Lost!” cried Addie, coming to a sudden halt and wheeling about to face the crowd, who all stopped so abruptly that some of them bumped into one another, and the silver cup toppled over and had to be helped upright again by a pair of furry mittens.

  “Two towns!” repeated Addie, glowering around at them all. “One for the Good Things and one for the Bad! Disposable is for worthless objects, ones that are easy to replace, whose loss is barely noticed in the Land of the Living! But Bother-It’s-Gone is for special Things. Every Thing in Bother-It’s-Gone caused our humans a great deal of trouble when we were lost. We are valued. We are important. I, for instance,” continued Addie, “spent fifty whole years in the possession of a lady Up There! She wrote the names and addresses and telephone numbers of her family and friends inside me. I was the only place she kept this important information!”

  Addie flicked her pages and everyone saw the dense, spidery writing of the old lady.

  “Imagine the trouble it caused when she lost me!”

  Instead of looking sad, Addie burst into uncontrollable laughter.

  “DP definitely isn’t here,” whispered Jack to the Christmas Pig. “Not if this is a place for Things that are glad they made their owners sad!”

  A low voice spoke suddenly in Jack’s ear, making him jump.

>   “One thing I must beg of you, dear laddie:

  Please don’t judge us all by horrid Addie.”

  Jack looked round. A grubby sheet of paper with eyes and a mouth doodled at the top had joined the walking tour.

  As they all set off again, Jack asked the paper, “Who are you?”

  “My name is Poem. See my scribbled lines?”

  She unfurled slightly to show them the words scrawled across her.

  “And as I’m verse, I only speak in rhymes.”

  “Oh,” said Jack. “Have you just arrived here, too?”

  “No, I’ve been here ages, but today

  I thought I’d join the walking tour. I’ll pay

  A price for joining in, because you see

  There’s nobody old Addie hates, like me.”

  “Why does she hate you?” asked Jack.

  “Because she’s very mean and underhand,

  And I’m not scared to say so, so I’m banned.”

  Sure enough, at that very moment, Addie, who’d just stopped outside a building with a little clocktower and double doors of polished wood, turned to talk to the crowd again and at once spotted Poem lurking at the back.

  “Poem!” she cried. “Run along, now, dear, the mayor told you you’re not allowed on my walking tours anymore!”

  “Oh, sorry to intrude, that slipped my mind!” said Poem, grinning at Jack.

  “Goodbye, dear, truthful Addie! You’re so kind!”

  Poem drifted away. Addie hitched her wide smile back onto her flowery face and said, “A little tip for newcomers: you should avoid Poem—she’s mad, quite mad. And she lives with somebody even madder! I’ve been trying to get them both Adjusted to Disposable, but no luck so far. Now, I’m going to knock on the town hall’s door, and if we’re very lucky, the dear mayor will show us—”

  But before Addie could knock, a square cheese grater came bursting out of the double doors, almost knocking Addie over. He was wearing a smart black tricorn mayor’s hat, and behind him came an assortment of Loss Adjusters who looked slightly different to the usual kind. All wore black balaclavas, with the usual “L” badge on the forehead. Even though most of their faces were concealed, it was still easy to see what kind of Things they were. One was a magnifying glass, another was a net, and the third was an enormous hobnail boot.

  “Oh no,” whispered the Christmas Pig. “It’s the Capture Team!”

  “Trouble!” roared the mayor, who was brandishing a piece of paper. “The rumors are true! There are Things down here that shouldn’t be! I’ve just received a description: a cuddly pig and an action figure in pajamas!”

  Chapter 27

  Mayor Cheese Grater

  The mayor had barely finished saying “pajamas” when the Christmas Pig seized Jack’s arm and tugged him sideways up an alleyway. There being nowhere else to hide, the Christmas Pig snatched the lid off a shiny silver dustbin with the mayor’s coat of arms on it, and both he and Jack jumped inside, pulling the lid back over themselves. Jack was so scared it took him a moment to notice how very clean the empty dustbin was: apparently, even the insides of bins were regularly polished in Bother-It’s-Gone.

  “Settle down, settle down!” they heard the mayor shout, because the crowd had begun talking loudly at his announcement. When there was silence again, the mayor said, “Now, listen! That pig and action figure are breaking the law, and when the law gets broken, it gives the Loser an excuse to break the law back! Ten years ago, to this very day, the Loser came crashing into Bother-It’s-Gone, kicking in the fronts of houses and lifting off roofs, and it’s not going to happen again, not on my watch!”

  “W-why did he come here last time?” said a terrified voice that Jack recognized as Lunchy’s.

  “Because the last mayor broke the law!” shouted the cheese grater. “Mayor Pinking Shears was her name! She felt sorry for Surplus, so she let some of it sneak off the Wastes to hide in our attics! The Loser got wind of what she was up to and he ran into town, smashing apart houses! He scooped up all the Surplus and ate it, and gobbled up a few Things that had done nothing wrong, as well, and last of all he grabbed Pinking Shears and took her off to his lair, screaming as she went, and she’s never been seen again!

  “That’s when I became mayor,” roared the cheese grater, “and from that moment on, the law’s been kept! Once a week, the Loss Adjusters and I conduct a thorough search of this town, to make sure there’s no Thing here that shouldn’t be! Right, everyone go straight home, and no loitering! Addie will tell newcomers where their houses are—you’re to stay indoors until I give the all clear!”

  Jack and the Christmas Pig remained squashed up in the bin, which was a very tight fit, listening to the crowd dispersing.

  “What if the gold watch tells them he saw us?” whispered Jack. “Or the poem? Or Lunchy?”

  “Then we’ll be in deep trouble,” the Christmas Pig whispered back. “But they all seemed like good Things. Hopefully, they won’t tell.”

  After a few minutes, the tramp of Things heading home had faded away. Now all that remained were the voices of the mayor and the Capture Team.

  “They wouldn’t be stupid enough to come right into the center of town,” said the mayor confidently. “I suggest we spread out and work from the outside in.”

  The Capture Team agreed and they heard them moving away, calling to other Loss Adjusters to come and help search. The loudest noise of all came from the hobnailed boot, which made a menacing metal clunk with every step it took.

  “That boot’s name’s Crusher,” the Christmas Pig whispered in Jack’s ear. “One of your socks told me about him. He’s a favorite of the Loser’s. Crusher’s allowed to stamp all over Things if he catches them. After that, even if they’re found, they’re too broken to be of any use.”

  Jack slightly wished the Christmas Pig hadn’t told him this.

  “Did you hear what that watch started saying, before Addie stopped him?” the Christmas Pig went on.

  “Yes,” said Jack. “He came from a third town.”

  “Which makes sense,” said the Christmas Pig, “because—”

  “There were three doors in Mislaid!”

  “Exactly,” said the Christmas Pig.

  “So DP must be in the last town!” said Jack.

  “Yes, he must,” said the Christmas Pig. “You know, I think our best hope is to try and sneak onto that train and hide, and let it take us to the other town. But we’ll wait until dark. We’ve got no chance if we get out now.”

  And so they waited for nightfall.

  At last, when they thought it was dark enough, they tried to get out of the bin, but somehow they’d become wedged in together. After a lot of wriggling, Jack managed to clamber out, and then he had to tug quite hard on the Christmas Pig’s trotters until he came free, and they both toppled over onto a pile of snow, the Christmas Pig on top of Jack.

  “Thank you,” panted the Christmas Pig. “Sorry about that. My beans had settled.”

  “It’s okay,” said Jack, who was now both chilly and wet again. He got up, brushed himself down, and they crept off in the direction of the station, making sure to keep to the shadows.

  They’d only gone a short distance when the mayor’s voice came booming suddenly over loudspeakers on every corner. “Attention, all Things! Attention, all Things! We believe the Surplus pig and action figure have moved into the center of town under cover of darkness! Bolt your doors! Shutter your windows! Anybody helping the Surplus will be given to the Loser!”

  Everywhere Jack and the Christmas Pig looked, the jewel-bright patches of light from the curtained windows were blacked out, and they heard the clicks of hundreds of bolts being driven home. When Mayor Cheese Grater had repeated his warning a second time, a ringing silence fell over the town of Bother-It’s-Gone. The Things that lived there seemed suddenly too scared even to
talk inside their own houses.

  Jack’s breath made a cloud of mist in the icy air as they stole ever closer to the station. Shivering, he realized he’d left his blanket behind in the mayor’s bin, but all he cared about now was getting out of Bother-It’s-Gone, which no longer felt a friendly, cozy place at all.

  The station was in sight, just across the road, when they heard a rough voice up ahead. The Christmas Pig pulled Jack into a dark doorway and Jack held his breath, so the mist wouldn’t give them away.

  “You four—follow Spyglass to the western section. You lot—go with Net and search the east. The rest of you, follow me.”

  Jack heard the Loss Adjusters setting off in different directions, and again, the loudest noise of all was the stomping of the gigantic hobnail boot called Crusher.

  When at last the sounds had died away once more, Jack and the Christmas Pig crept out of their hiding place and headed into the station.

  But all Jack’s hopes were dashed: the toy train had gone.

  “Oh no—now what?” Jack whispered through his chattering teeth.

  “Now,” said a low menacing voice right behind them, “it’s crushing time.”

  Chapter 28

  Crusher

  Jack and the Christmas Pig whirled around and at once, Jack realized that Crusher the hobnail boot had tricked them: he’d stamped in place to make them think he’d gone away. The boot came hopping nearer, and he was soon so close that Jack could see how two of his shoelace holes had become cruel little eyes. As the nails in his sole glinted in the moonlight, Jack thought suddenly of Mum. If he were stamped on and broken by Crusher, he’d never see her again. Without realizing what he was doing, Jack reached out and grabbed the Christmas Pig’s trotter.

  “Wait!” the Christmas Pig begged Crusher, gripping Jack’s hand in return.

  “What for?” sneered the boot, hopping nearer.

  “For . . . for the thing that’s about to happen!” said the Christmas Pig.

  “What thing?” growled Crusher.