runners. It looked ancient and there were faces carved on the wood, nasty crude grinning faces that looked quite out of place.
Parents were yelling and trying to pull their children away, but they weren't having much luck. The children were gravitating towards it like flies to jam.
Mr Crumley ran towards the terrible thing, waving his hands.
‘Stop that! Stop that!’ he screamed. ‘You'll frighten the Kiddies!’
He heard a small boy behind him say, ‘They 've got tusks! Cool!’
His sister said, ‘Hey, look, that one's doing a wee!’ A tremendous cloud of yellow steam arose. ‘Look, it's going all the way to the stairs! All those who can't swim hold onto the banisters!’
‘They eat you if you're bad, you know,’ said a small girl with obvious approval. ‘All up. Even the bones. They crunch them.’
Another, older, child opined: ‘Don't be childish. They're not real. They've just got a wizard in to do the magic. Or it's all done by clockwork. Everyone knows they're not really r—’
One of the boars turned to look at him. The boy moved behind his mother.
Mr Crumley, tears of anger streaming clown his face, fought through the milling crowd until he reached the Hogfather's Grotto. He grabbed a frightened pixie.
‘It's the Campaign for Equal Heights that've done this, isn't it!’ he shouted. ‘They're out to ruin me! And they're ruining it for all the Kiddies! Look at the lovely dolls!’
The pixie hesitated. Children were clustering around the pigs, despite the continued efforts of their mothers. The small girl was giving one of them an orange.
But the animated display of Dolls of All Nations was definitely in trouble. The musical box underneath was still playing ‘Wouldn't It Be Nice If Everyone Was Nice’ but the rods that animated the figures had got twisted out of shape, so that the Klatchian boy was rhythmically hitting the Omnian girl over the head with his ceremonial spear, while the girl in Agatean national costume was kicking a small Llamedosian druid repeatedly in the ear. A chorus of small children was cheering them on indiscriminately.
‘There's, er, there's more trouble in the Grotto, Mr Crum—’ the pixie began.
A red and white figure pushed its way through the crush and rammed a false beard into Mr Crumley's hands.
‘That's it,’ said the old man in the Hogfather costume. ‘I don't mind the smell of oranges and the damp trousers but I ain't putting up with this.’
He stamped off through the queue. Mr Crumley heard him add, ‘And he's not even doin' it right!’
Mr Crumley forced his way onward.
Someone was sitting in the big chair. There was a child on his knee. The figure was… strange.
It was definitely in something like a Hogfather costume but Mr Crumley's eye kept slipping, it wouldn't focus, it skittered away and tried to put the figure on the very edge of vision. It was like trying to look at your own ear.
‘What's going on here? What's going on here?’ Crumley demanded.
A hand took his shoulder firmly. He turned round and looked into the face of a Grotto Pixie. At least, it was wearing the costume of a Grotto Pixie, although somewhat askew, as if it had been put on in a hurry.
‘Who are you?’
The pixie took the soggy cigarette end out of its mouth and leered at him.
‘Call me Uncle Heavy,’ he said.
‘You're not a pixie!’
‘Nah, I'm a fairy cobbler, mister.’
Behind Crumley, a voice said:
AND WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR HOGSWATCH, SMALL HUMAN?
Mr Crumley turned in horror.
In front of — well, he had to think of it as the usurping Hogfather — was a small child of indeterminate sex who seemed to be mostly woollen bobble hat.
Mr Crumley knew how it was supposed to go. It was supposed to go like this: the child was always struck dumb and the attendant mother would lean forward and catch the Hogfather's eye and say very pointedly, in that voice adults use when they're conspiring against children:
‘You want a Baby Tinkler Doll, don't you, Doreen? And the Just Like Mummy Cookery Set you've got in the window. And the Cut-Out Kitchen Range Book. And what do you say?’
And the stunned child would murmur “nk you” and get given a balloon or an orange.
This time, though, it didn't work like that.
Mother got as far as ‘You want a—’
WHY ARE YOUR HANDS ON BITS OF STRING, CHILD?
The child looked down the length of its arms to the dangling mittens affixed to its sleeves. It held them up for inspection.
‘Clubs,’ it said.
I SEE. VERY PRACTICAL.
‘Are you weal?’ said the bobble hat.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
The bobble hat sniggered. ‘I saw your piggie do a wee!’ it said, and implicit in the tone was the suggestion that this was unlikely to be dethroned as the most enthralling thing the bobble hat had ever seen.
OH. ER… GOOD.
‘It had a gwate big—’
WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR HOGSWATCH? said the Hogfather hurriedly.
Mother took her economic cue again, and said briskly: ‘She wants a—’
The Hogfather snapped his fingers impatiently. The mother's mouth slammed shut.
The child seemed to sense that here was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and spoke quickly.
‘I wanta narmy. Anna big castle wif pointy bits,’ said the child. ‘Anna swored.’
WHAT DO YOU SAY? prompted the Hogfather.
‘A big swored?’ said the child, after a pause for deep cogitation.
THAT'S RIGHT.
Uncle Heavy nudged the Hogfather.
‘They're supposed to thank you,’ he said.
ARE YOU SURE? PEOPLE DON'T, NORMALLY.
‘I meant they thank the Hogfather,’ Albert hissed. ‘Which is you, right?’
YES, OF COURSE. AHEM. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SAY THANK YOU.
‘'nk you.’
AND BE GOOD. THIS IS PART OF THE ARRANGEMENT.
‘'es.’
THEN WE HAVE A CONTRACT. The Hogfather reached into his sack and produced
— a very large model castle with, as correctly interpreted, pointy blue cone roofs on turrets suitable for princesses to be locked in
— a box of several hundred assorted knights and warriors
— and a sword. It was four feet long and glinted along the blade.
The mother took a deep breath.
‘You can't give her that!’ she screamed. ‘It's not safe!’
IT'S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY'RE NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE.
‘She's a child!’ shouted Crumley.
IT'S EDUCATIONAL.
‘What if she cuts herself?’
THAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON.
Uncle Heavy whispered urgently.
REALLY? OH, WELL. IT'S NOT FOR ME TO ARGUE, I SUPPOSE.
The blade went wooden.
