The Christmas Pig Read online

  “The thing,” said the Christmas Pig, “that will change everything! You won’t want to miss it! Wait—just wait—”

  And then, to Jack’s utter amazement, a shaft of golden light suddenly fell from the dark sky above, so that Crusher stood in a spotlight. The boot froze, then tried to escape the light, but it was no use: the column of gold began dragging him upward toward the Land of the Living.

  “How did you do that?” Jack gasped to the Christmas Pig.

  “I didn’t!” said the pig, looking quite as stunned as Jack felt. “But sometimes waiting works!”

  “Crusher’s been found!” they heard one of the Loss Adjusters cry from a neighboring street.

  “They’re here!” yelled the boot, struggling furiously to escape the column of light carrying him higher and higher over the snowy rooftops. “They’re here, right beside the st—”

  But his voice was drowned out by the other Loss Adjusters, who were shouting congratulations at their old friend.

  “Good for you, Crusher!”

  “We’ll miss you, old chum!”

  “Happy booting, buddy!”

  “Never mind the fond farewells!” shouted the grating voice of the mayor. “Keep searching—we’ve got Surplus to catch!”

  Jack and the Christmas Pig had just started to run up the nearest dark street when a dim light appeared to their left. A door had flown open, and an urgent voice said:

  “Quickly! Come inside—you’ll thank me later!

  We can hide you—”

  Chapter 29

  Poem and Pretense

  Without pausing to consider whether it was sensible to obey the voice or not, Jack and the Christmas Pig hurtled through the open door, which closed behind them.

  “—from that dreadful grater!” finished Poem.

  The hall of the house was dimly lit. Poem’s scribbled lines were barely visible.

  “You aren’t going to give us to the Loser, are you?” Jack whispered.

  “What kind of traitor do you take me for?

  You needed help, so I opened my door!”

  “Sorry,” said Jack, “I didn’t mean—”

  “We’re very thankful,” the Christmas Pig assured the poem.

  Poem smiled.

  “No harm done, dears. Suspicion’s common sense!

  Now come into the parlor—”

  They followed Poem into a small sitting room.

  “—meet Pretense.”

  Draped in a seat beside the fire was the strangest Thing Jack had yet seen in the Land of the Lost. In fact, he couldn’t make out whether it was a Thing, a person, or a ghost.

  He had the shape and look of a teenage boy (though shrunk to the size of Jack and the Christmas Pig), and you could see right through him. Gold medals hung around his neck and he had a lipstick kiss on his cheek; he was dressed like a rock star, with a black leather jacket and pointed boots. When he saw Jack and the Christmas Pig, this strange Thing jumped up and said, “Hi! My friends at my old school called me Rebel. I’ve got a girlfriend who lives in another town. She’s really pretty. We kiss a lot. These are the medals I’ve won for karate. I could kill you right now with my bare—”

  “Now’s not the time, Pretense! Please save your lies!” said Poem sternly.

  “These Things are running from the Loser’s spies!”

  Pretense scowled. “You can talk about lying! You’re completely made up!”

  “Great poems tell the truth—your fibs aren’t art!” said Poem in a dignified voice. Turning to Jack and the Christmas Pig she added,

  “He can’t help lying, but he’s good at heart!”

  Pretense glowered and kicked the edge of the rug. “I could kill someone with my bare hands, if I wanted,” he mumbled sulkily. “I could.”

  “Please sit down by the fire, get warm and dry,” Poem told Jack and the Christmas Pig, ignoring her housemate.

  “And then we’d like to help, Pretense and I.”

  “This is very kind of you,” said the Christmas Pig.

  “Yes, it is,” said Jack. “Thank you.”

  He took the armchair nearest the fire and stretched out his freezing hands and feet to the flames. Being made of paper, Poem was staying well away from the fire, but Pretense slumped back down in his chair and said, “Poem told me she’d met you two on one of Addie’s walking tours. I hate that address book. She’s an even bigger liar than I am!”

  “Pretense, you never spoke a truer word,” said Poem approvingly.

  “To hear her talk, you’d think she’d only heard

  Of Disposable and Bother-It’s-Gone.

  Embarrassing, the way she carries on!”

  “So there is another town, apart from Disposable and Bother-It’s-Gone?” asked Jack.

  “Of course! The one beyond the golden door!

  Which Addie knows, of that you can be sure.

  But Addie likes to think herself a queen—

  The most important Thing there’s ever been!

  And so she tells herself it can’t exist,

  That wondrous place, the City of the Missed.”

  Jack and the Christmas Pig exchanged excited looks.

  “The City of the Missed, did you say?” asked the Christmas Pig.

  “That’s right. We know it well, Pretense and I,

  For once it was our home—I’m going to cry.”

  Sure enough, a single tear leaked out of Poem’s eyes and made an inky trickle down her page.

  “Why aren’t you still there?” asked Jack.

  Poem moved a little closer to the fire and smoothed herself out to show them the many crossings-out and corrections all over her body.

  “As you can see, I’m just an early draft,

  Imperfect trial of my poet’s craft!

  And when she lost me, oh, her grief and rage!

  ‘I need it back!’ she stormed, ‘that precious page!’

  She swore my loss meant she could write no more!

  And so they sent me through the golden door

  And put me on a train of royal blue

  And treated me with kindness, for they knew

  How deeply I was missed—but soon that changed.

  My poet tried again, she rearranged

  My words, my rhymes, my meter—finally

  She knew she’d made a better poem than me.

  The Loss Adjusters came and brought me here

  Where I’ll remain forever, for I fear

  I’ve now become a curiosity,

  No longer does my poet cry for me.”

  As Poem wiped her inky eyes, Pretense sighed and said, “Poem and I have been friends since we met in the City of the Missed. My owner was a teenager. He had to move to a new school, miles away from all his old friends. He felt lonely, and frightened of that bully, Kyle Mason, so he made me. He pretended he could do karate and had a girlfriend and a cool nickname back in his old school . . . but the other teenagers soon saw through me. He didn’t want to lose me: he was forced to. Losing me made him feel lost, at first. He missed me dreadfully, so I was sent through the golden door in Mislaid, just like Poem.

  “But as time went on, my owner began to miss me less. He slowly realized it was better to tell the truth and have people like him for who he really was. That’s when I was Adjusted and sent to Bother-It’s-Gone. One day, I daresay, he’ll be ashamed he ever had me at all, and when that day comes, I’ll be shoved out onto the W—”

  “What was that?” said the Christmas Pig, and Pretense fell silent. From a few chalets away came shouts and bangs.

  “Uh-oh,” said Pretense. “They’re searching this street.”

  Chapter 30

  The Tunnel

  We’ve got to get to the City of the Missed!” said Jack. “Because—”

  “
Don’t tell us why, it’s safer far that way,” said Poem.

  “The less we know, the less we can betray.”

  “Will the train be back soon?” asked the Christmas Pig.

  “Not for hours,” said Pretense. “Your best chance is to cross the Wastes of the Unlamented on foot, but that’s very dangerous. The Loser has his lair in the middle of the Wastes, and he hunts Surplus by night. Of course,” he added, perking up, “if I came with you, I could karate chop him to death—”

  “Not now, Pretense, they’re running out of time,” said Poem. Turning to Jack and the Christmas Pig again, she said,

  “You’ve just one hope: a secret friend of mine,

  Though some may call her cracked, she’s loyal and brave,

  And many are the Things that she’s helped save.

  For I’ll confess, now we’re all safe inside,

  You’re not the only Surplus we’ve helped hide.

  Sometimes, from the Wastes we give Things shelter

  They need a break from running helter-skelter!

  We’ve also sometimes helped Things run away,

  It’s crazy for a hunted Thing to stay

  In Bother-It’s-Gone, with our horrid mayor,

  Who rules by fear and doesn’t care what’s fair.

  And so I urge you both to trust my friend,

  For she’s a Thing on whom you can depend.”

  “When you say your friend’s ‘cracked’—” began Jack, worried.

  “A little mad—but you two need a guide.

  Without her you’ve no chance. Many have tried.”

  “Then please,” said the Christmas Pig as the noises of the Loss Adjusters grew even closer and louder, “introduce us to your friend!”

  Poem gestured for Jack and the Christmas Pig to follow her. Pretense jumped up, too, and came after them into Poem’s bedroom.

  “I could come with you—and I could get my girlfriend to help!”

  “Just shift that rug and open the trapdoor,” Poem told Pretense sternly.

  “Then close it once we’ve gone. You know the score:

  Do your favorite thing when the doorbell rings!

  Pretend you’ve never seen these wanted Things!”

  Pretense opened the trapdoor beneath a rug. Poem dropped into the hole beneath—being so light, she couldn’t really hurt herself—whereas Jack and the Christmas Pig climbed down the ladder inside.

  “Good luck!” Pretense called after them. “And I do have a girlfriend, and she’s much prettier than Kyle Mason’s!”

  The trapdoor banged shut and Jack, the Christmas Pig, and Poem set off along a narrow tunnel that ran steeply downward, leading to the bottom of the mountain they’d climbed earlier on the wooden cart.

  “Who made this tunnel, Poem?” asked the Christmas Pig.

  “A solid silver spoon, or so Things say,” said Poem,

  “It happened long ago, before my day.

  He thought it quite beneath him, this small town,

  And so, by night, he dug and dug, straight down.

  The warnings of his friends that fool dismissed,

  His only goal: the City of the Missed.

  He never understood it’s not your cost

  That matters in the kingdom of the Lost,

  But whether you once touched a human heart,

  And how it hurt them when you had to part.”

  “And did the spoon reach the City of the Missed?” asked Jack hopefully.

  “He reached the Wastes of the Unlamented,

  Soon, his foolish plan the spoon repented,

  A-hunting came the Loser ’cross the plain,

  The silver spoon was never seen again.”

  The threesome continued down the steeply sloping tunnel in silence for a long time, until finally they reached a door in the rock, beside which hung a thick rope.

  “Now ring the bell. Old Compass won’t be long,

  She always heeds the summons of my gong.”

  The Christmas Pig pulled the rope and a tinkling bell sounded on the other side of the door. After a few minutes, they heard something like a metal wheel turning over rock. The Christmas Pig opened the door a crack and Jack heard a hearty voice say, “More fugitives, eh, Poem?”

  “Please help them cross the Wastes, my dear old friend.

  Without your aid, they risk a gruesome end.”

  “’Course I’ll ’elp, ’course I will!” said the merry voice. “You know ’ow much I loves adventures! Wantin’ to go to the City of the Missed, I s’pose? Most Fings want to go there. Well, nicest city, innit?”

  “We would like to go there, yes,” said the Christmas Pig.

  “Well, I can get you to the gates,” said the voice, “but I can’t get you inside. Will that do?”

  “Yes, that’s great,” said Jack.

  He and the Christmas Pig left the dark tunnel and stepped onto the Wastes of the Unlamented, at the foot of the mountain. The snow was falling thicker than ever.

  Jack turned back to Poem. “Thank you, Poem.”

  She leaned down to whisper a final word in Jack’s ear.

  “The Loser hates the power of Christmas Eve.

  He swears, once midnight chimes, you’ll never leave.”

  “What?” said Jack, startled.

  But Poem had already closed the door.

  Chapter 31

  Compass

  Compass, who stood balanced on her brass edge, was only half as tall as Jack and the Christmas Pig. Her glass was cracked and instead of pointing north, as it should have done, her pointer was hanging slightly askew.

  Jack was so worried by what Poem had just whispered that instead of saying “hello” to her, he turned to the Christmas Pig and said, “Poem says once it’s midnight Up There, I’ll never be able to leave the Land of the Lost!”

  “Yeah, I’ve ’eard that rumor, too,” said Compass, before the Christmas Pig could answer. “The Loser finks if ’e can stop you two being found before midnight, ’e’ll get to keep you forever and ever. I don’t know why, because that’s not ’ow it usually works. Lost is lost and found is found, don’t matter when any of it ’appens.”

  But Jack had an awful feeling he knew why the Loser believed this, and he could tell by the expression on the Christmas Pig’s face that he did, too. If Christmas Eve was the one night in the year a living boy could get into the Land of the Lost, mightn’t it also be the only night when a boy could return to the Land of the Living? But as Jack couldn’t say any of this out loud without revealing to Compass that he was human, he kept quiet.

  “What’re your names, then?” Compass asked, looking from one to the other.

  “I’m Christmas Pig,” said the Christmas Pig, “and this is Pajama Boy. He’s an action figure.”

  “With the power of sleep and dreams,” said Jack.

  “Hm,” sniffed Compass. “Well, you won’t be getting much of either tonight. Sleeping’s asking for trouble. Off we go, then!”

  And without further ado, she rolled off so fast that Jack and the Christmas Pig had to jog to keep up, slipping and sliding over the snowy rubble of the Wastes. Jack’s bare feet were soon very sore from running over the sharp, icy stones.

  “Now, I’ve gotta warn you, there’s some very strange Fings out ’ere on the Wastes,” Compass called back to them. “Some of ’em are nearly as bad as the Loser ’imself!”

  “Really?” said Jack nervously.

  “Oh, yeah. See, nobody cares these Fings ’ave gone—in fact, some of ’em were lost on purpose, and I can’t blame their owners! Some Fings really ain’t worth keeping!”

  She came to a sudden halt and turned to look at them, frowning.

  “’Oo’s rattling?”

  “Oh, that’s me,” said the Christmas Pig, who’d been clutchi
ng his stomach as usual, trying to stop his beans jumping around. “I’ve got beans in my stomach.”

  “Well, keep ’em as quiet as possible, won’t you?”

  “I’ll try,” said the Christmas Pig, gripping his tummy even harder.

  They jogged off again. Compass’s metal edge made so much racket rolling over the flinty ground that Jack thought it a bit unfair for her to tell off the Christmas Pig for his tummy beans. As though she’d read his mind, Compass called back to them, “It ain’t ideal, being made of brass, because the Loser’s got very sharp ’earing, but to tell the truth, I quite enjoy the thrill of it when ’e shows up! Don’t worry, though,” she added, seeing Jack’s frightened glance at the Christmas Pig, “nobody’s ever been eaten while they’ve been with me! I love cheating the Loser out of captures. ’E ’ates me, you know.”

  “How were you lost, Compass?” panted the Christmas Pig.

  “Dropped by a backpacker,” said Compass cheerfully. “As a matter of fact, that was the second time ’e’d dropped me. The first time, ’e cracked my glass and knocked my needle off its pivot, and I didn’t work very well after that, so when ’e lost me again in a jungle, ’e didn’t even bother looking for me. Now I’m rusting away at the foot of a banana tree, and I doubt I’ll ever be found. ’Oo’d want a broken compass?”

  “But you do know the way to the City of the Missed?” panted Jack. He already had a stitch in his side, because he was running so fast.

  “Oh yeah, don’t worry about that,” said Compass airily, “although we might zigzag a bit, to keep life interesting. Anyway, I’ve found new ways of guiding Fings since I arrived on the Wastes. Can you guess what they are?”

  “No,” said the Christmas Pig, who was hurrying along as fast as his lower trotters could carry him.

  “I make up stories with morals and I invent mottos. Would you like to ’ear one of my mottos?”

  “Yes, please,” panted Jack, because he could tell that was what Compass wanted him to say.

  “‘Nor’ nor’ west is all very well, but only the wise go sideways,’” said Compass proudly.

  Jack didn’t understand this at all, so he was glad when the Christmas Pig said, “Very true.”