When a magician (second class) chooses to do Christmas duty in the City of London, it's because he's hoping for a nice, quiet, seasonal time, not for ancient magic to break loose and the enchanted city to be filled with ghosts, monsters, wonder and danger. Not on his watch. Not when he's going to have to deal with it all on his own. That would be an all too magical Christmas.
An All Too Magical Christmas is a seasonal adventure story of magic, mayhem and mystery told in 24 instalments. It is written by Tobias Sturt and read aloud by Jon Millington.
Incident report YUL-XX/12
Section Twenty-Two
I think I have made evident in this report my opinion of pantomimes. Do I like them? Oh, no I don’t.
Actually I have been reprimanded several times now for being too negative in this report. That it contains more about what went wrong rather than what went right. I would like to point out that an awful lot went wrong. It is somewhat unfair to be told to report the facts, only to be reprimanded when all those facts turn out to be alarming. The world is alarming. It’s not my fault. In fact I would very much like it to be less alarming, preferably in my direction.
However, I need to be, apparently, more ‘solutions oriented’. What I take this to mean is that the people in charge don’t want to be told problems in case they have to take responsibility for them. On this point, I can reassure them that in my experience their chief expertise lies in shifting blame downwards, sliding it like snow off a tree branch down the back of someone else’s neck.
I am also confident that they will nevertheless take, indeed certainly have already taken, credit when something goes right. And something did go right after all, I am pleased to say and you’ll be pleased to hear. So allow me to orient you towards a solution.
It was a pantomime.
Not the solution I was hoping for, to be honest, but it was Father Christmas’ idea and he’s a hard person to say no to, as it turns out.
“An entertainment!” he boomed and all the children cheered and clapped, to my disappointment, “A pantomime!” and they cheered and clapped so more, which, if I’m to be honest, disappointed me even more.
“The sad tale,” said Father Christmas, “Of a poor, ragged wizard,” uh-oh, I could see where this was going, “Who needs to find the magic stone so he can save the children!”
“That’s not quite…” I began, but the children were all cheering and clapping again and I don’t think anyone could hear me.
“There goes the goose,” said Father Christmas, as a mouse elf ran past with a yellow cardboard beak strapped to his face, carrying a golden egg, “He’s got the magic stone!”
“That’s not how it happened!” I said, but Snegurochka, the young woman with the braids, hissed in my ear.
“Go on hedge wizard, chase him!” Then she planted her big foot in my bottom and kicked me into the circle of firelight. It's always confused me how people talk about how delightful the laughter of children is. It’s not. It’s cruel and rude.
I dutifully stumbled and staggered after the elf, though, as it zig-zagged back and forth across the courtyard, the children mocking every slip and trip I made. But more elves were racing around now, all wearing mouse-masks, even though they made them look, if anything, less like mice than they had before. They ran rings around me, the mice, and I could no longer keep track of the golden egg as they passed it hand to hand. There it was, no there! There! I whirled, dizzied, rushing back and forth pointlessly. At least the children were enjoying themselves.
Then more elves dashed in, dressed as soldiers, driving all the mice back into the shadows, and I found myself alone in the centre of the square. Then someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned, but there was no one there. For some reason the children found this hysterical. The other shoulder. No one there either. Even more amusing, apparently. I caught a gleam of gold out of the corner of my eye and turned, just catching a glimpse of the egg disappearing from view. Paroxysms from the stalls. I carried on turning, and there were braids flying past as Snegurochka darted behind me again. I suddenly switched, turned back the other way, but there was her big foot stuck out and down I went and the crowd went wild.
Snegurochka danced away from me, the egg in her hand, her foot flapping a taunting rhythm on the cobbles. I was just scrambling back to my feet when a fresh posse of mice, all wearing antlers on their heads, came thundering past, knocking down again.
“The Wild Hunt!” said Father Christmas, “Sure they presage something terrible! For where the hunt flies, winter follows!”
A blast of cold wind swept across the courtyard and the flames flickered. Shadows leapt stretching across the faces of the buildings and I suddenly noticed two lit windows high in one wall. Round windows. That winked at me. No, not windows. Eyes.
And an enormous black cat with a white mask round its eyes, bent down out of the darkness and opened her great red mouth at me, her fangs gleaming like slices of moon. I leapt to my feet and turned to run, but a single claw like a scythe hooked through the tail of my ragged coat, bringing me up short.
But there was Snegurochka again, this time with a bow in her hand and an arrow that glittered like an icicle shot past me, and another, and the giant paw was snatched back. I stumbled forward as Snegurochka fired over my shoulder, although I daren’t look back to see at what.
Then, through the trees around the square, came a jingling of bells and loud voice crying:
“Up there! On!” And into the dim light came rushing a sleigh, drawn by reindeer, with Father Christmas standing at the reins, a whip in his hand.
“Come along, Snegurochka!” he cried, “Climb up, little wizard!” I leapt for the sleigh, grabbing hold as he came skidding past, and was swept off my feet. Then Snegurochka had me and was pulling me aboard as we turned between the legs of the cat and with a crack of the whip, took to the air.
The sleigh curved and climbed around the circumference of the courtyard and the cat pounced after it. But we were faster, up, up across the roof, around the spire, and then off across the top of London.
And the cat followed. A great black shape, a bunch of shadow flowing from roof to roof. Then as we turned, it bunched and leapt for us, but already Snegurochka was hurling herself over the railings of the sleigh, diving through the air beneath, shooting out icy arrow after arrow. The Winter Cat tried to turn to catch her as she rolled down a pitch of roof and then she was up and leaping from steeple to cupola across the buildings filling the air behind her with arrows as the cat pounced after her.
“Merry Christmas, wizard!” said Father Christmas beside me and thrust a long, thin present into my hands, “Time to work some magic!”
I tore off the wrapping paper.
“My wand! Just what I always wanted!” I stood and turned, raising it, just in time to find the cat reaching up to swipe at me. I flinched, lost my balance, the claw caught the tip of the sleigh, it lurched and I was gone, over the railing and plunging towards…
...the cobbles of the courtyard. I was still in the Guildhall, Father Christmas standing in a cardboard sleigh beside me, Snegurochka holding a toy bow. But the cat was still there and loomed over me just as real and huge as it had seemed on the roofs of London. And it brought up a paw, shining claws unsheathed, and I brought up my wand instinctively and shouted the words of the first spell that came into my head.
And it blew up in my face. A great bang and a shower of sparks, and I sat down heavily, covered in soot and glitter.
The cat paused. And began to smile. And the children began to titter, and Snegurochka began to snort and Father Christmas began to chuckle, and the cat laughed. And it laughed and it laughed. It fell back on its haunches and laughed at the moon and it fell over helpless and it laughed at the trees and it’s legs waved in the air and it doubled over and it began to shrink. Laughing and quaking and shrinking, until it was a tiny little kitten, gasping for breath and giggling to itself on the cobbles.
“Enough to make a cat laugh,” said Father Christmas, “Quite a wizard, this one.”
And even I had to laugh at that.
An All Too Magical Christmas #22