But today wasn’t a school day.

      It was Christmas Eve. The most exciting day of the year. And this year it was the most exciting Christmas Eve there had ever been. At least for Little Mim. Because today he was going to see the Toy Workshop along with all the other elf children. You see, once Father Christmas’s sack had been filled with all the presents for the human children, the elf children were allowed to pick whichever toys they wanted. And Little Mim had never been to the Toy Workshop.

      ‘It’s Christmas Eve!’ he yelped as he jumped onto his parents’ bed. His parents’ bed, like most elf beds, was as bouncy as a trampoline, so the moment he jumped on it he bounced so high he hit his head on the ceiling and tore through a red and green paper chain that had been put up as part of the bedroom’s many Christmas decorations.

      ‘Little Mim, it’s too early,’ moaned his mother, Noosh, from beneath a tangled mess of dark hair. She pulled the pillow over her head.

      ‘Your mother’s right,’ said his father, Humdrum. He put on his glasses and nervously looked at his watch. ‘It’s a quarter past Very Early Indeed.’

      Very Early Indeed was Humdrum’s least favourite hour of the day, especially today, because he had been working so late. He felt like he had only just got into bed. Which he had. He loved being the Assistant Deputy Chief Maker of Toys That Spin or Bounce, which paid a reasonable one hundred and fifty chocolate coins a week and was a nice kind of job to have. But he also loved sleep. And now it was his son who was spinning and bouncing, such was his excitement.

      ‘I love Christmas! It makes me feel sparkly!’ he was saying.

      ‘We all love Christmas, Little Mim. Just try and get back to sleep,’ said Noosh, from under the pillow. The pillow was embroidered with the words ‘It’s Always Christmas in Your Dreams’. Noosh was tired as well, as this was an equally busy time of year for her too. She had been up late talking to reindeer.

      ‘But, Mum! Come on. It’s nearly Christmas. We shouldn’t do any sleeping near Christmas. So we can make it last longer . . . Come on. Let’s build a snow elf.’

      Noosh couldn’t help but smile at her son.

      ‘We build a snow elf every morning.’

      Humdrum had fallen back asleep and was snoring. Noosh sighed because she knew this meant she wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep now. So she took the pillow off her face and got up to make Little Mim breakfast.

      ‘What were the reindeer saying?’ asked Little Mim, as he ate his jam and gingerbread on a wooden stool in the small kitchen. He was staring at a portrait of Father Christmas that had been painted by local elf artist Mother Miro. It was one of seven portraits they had of him, and even though they knew Father Christmas was very embarrassed whenever he went to an elf’s house and saw his own picture, they found it comforting having his strange bearded human face around.

      ‘The reindeer didn’t say much. They were very quiet. Comet seemed worried, which was unusual. And Blitzen was doing something strange.’

      Mother Noosh was the Daily Snow’s Chief Reindeer Correspondent. Her job was to write articles about reindeer. The trouble was reindeer were really bad at interviews. The most you could get out of them was a grunt or a sigh or that funny kind of truffling sound that reindeer sometimes made. There was rarely a scandal unless you counted Blitzen doing a poo on Father Vodol’s front lawn. (Father Vodol was Noosh’s boss. And he had forbidden her from writing about that.) And a reindeer-related story never got near the front page, although there had been a little bit of interest in the fact that Cupid and Dancer kept falling in and out of love. And the annual School of Sleighcraft Reindeer and Sleigh Race had once made it to page four, but that was about it. Everyone knew that whichever elf had chosen Dasher would win, as he was the fastest reindeer by quite a way. It was officially the most boring job at the whole of the Daily Snow and Noosh wanted a more exciting role. Like Gingerbread Correspondent, or Toy Correspondent. But the thing she wanted to be more than anything was Troll Correspondent. She desperately wanted to be Troll Correspondent. It was the most dangerous of all jobs, because trolls were big and scary and had a long history of eating elves. But it was also the most important job, and by far the most exciting. And she wished every day that her boss would give her that job, but he never did. Father Vodol was a very grumpy boss. In fact he was the grumpiest elf in Elfhelm. And he hated Christmas.

      ‘What do you mean?’ wondered Little Mim, as his mother added ten spoonfuls of sugar to his cloudberry juice. ‘Why was Blitzen acting strange?’

      ‘He kept his head down. He kept looking at the ground. And he wasn’t looking for food. He seemed quite worried. They all did. And last year they had all been excited. And anyway he looked at me and made a sound.’

      Little Mim laughed because he found this funny. But Little Mim found everything funny.

      ‘A bottom sound?’

      ‘No. A mouth sound. It was like this . . .’

      Noosh did the sound. She put her lips together and made a truffling kind of worried-reindeer sound. Little Mim stopped laughing at this because it was quite a troubling kind of noise.

      Little Mim had finished eating his gingerbread so, while his mother went to stand under the watering can in the bathroom, he played with a jigsaw. The jigsaw was another picture of Father Christmas. It had five thousand pieces and usually took Little Mim half an hour, which was quite slow for an elf. But then, just as he was working on piecing Father Christmas’s red coat together, something happened. Parts of the jigsaw were disappearing, dropping into blackness. There was now a hole where Father Christmas’s mouth should be. And the hole kept getting bigger as jigsaw pieces kept falling through the floor.