In the Truth Pixie’s Cottage
aybe I’m dead, thought Miika. But if I’m thinking I’m dead, I’m probably not dead. I’m pretty sure thinking is a thing you need to be alive to do.
Then he noticed something.
All the pain had gone.
His banged-up body that had crunched so hard against the roof and then onto the street felt totally normal. In fact, if anything, Miika felt better than normal. It felt as though his whole body was being filled from the inside with a warm syrup. And there was a familiar but delicious smell in the air.
He opened his eyes.
And he realised he wasn’t out in the street any more. He was in the cosy little cottage where he lived with the Truth Pixie.
And there was the Truth Pixie herself, right in front of him, holding a large crumb of cheese to his nose. Miika gobbled it in one go.
‘What happened?’ he said.
The Truth Pixie shrugged. ‘I was sitting in the rocking chair, just reading a little bit. It was lovely and relaxing. The book I’m reading is that one over there. It’s called The Really Stupid Trolls Who Exploded. It’s very good. So clever. So many layers. Quite emotional. It reminds me of the hilarious time I gave a troll a hewlip leaf and made his head explode. I can’t wait to discuss it at the Pixie Book Club. Even though I’m the only member of the Pixie Book Club, so it will just be me talking to myself. Which, I suppose, now that I come to think about it, I could do any time I want, really.’
Miika shook his head. ‘I mean what happened to me?’
The Truth Pixie gasped and slapped her face as if she had only just thought about it. ‘Oh – to you! Um, I don’t know actually. Noosh carried you here and said you’d had a bit of a fall. But you seem perfectly fine now.’
‘A bit of a fall! I fell out of the sky!’
‘The sky? What were you doing in the sky?’
‘I, um, well . . . I was riding Blitzen. He was bringing me home. And, yeah, I slipped off his antler, and I landed on a roof, and it was really painful, and I felt like I was dying . . . but now I feel . . . fine. Better than fine.’
The Truth Pixie gasped again. And then smiled. And then giggled. And she kept giggling for what seemed like an hour.
‘What’s so funny?’ said Miika eventually.
‘I’ve just realised what’s happened to you!’ the Truth Pixie said eventually, calming herself down.
‘What?’ Miika asked, his nose twitching with worry.
‘Don’t you know?’
‘Know what?’
The Truth Pixie leaned in really close and whispered as if telling him the world’s biggest secret. ‘I think, my little mouse friend, that you’ve been drimwicked.’
t was true.
Miika asked the Truth Pixie to take him urgently to visit Noosh and Father Topo in their house on the Street of Seven Curves. ‘One moment,’ said the Truth Pixie, pointing at her book. ‘I just have one sentence left. You can never leave a story with just one sentence left. It’s very bad luck. I once knew someone who stopped reading a story right near the end.’
‘What happened?’
‘She died. I mean, it was seventeen years later. But you can’t be too careful.’
And so she finished reading The Really Stupid Trolls Who Exploded, wiped the tears from her eyes, put Miika in her pocket and ran down the hill to Elfhelm.
Once inside the elves’ house, with its sloping floor and crooked cupboards, things became clear.
Noosh, having found Miika lying on the street, had picked him up and had indeed cast a hope spell – a drimwick – and it had obviously worked because he stayed alive. And now he was pain-free! And Noosh was very excited about this because it was the first time she had ever performed a drimwick, but her great-great-great-great-great-grandpa wasn’t quite so impressed.
‘Now, Noosh, I have told you many times,’ said Father Topo, stroking his beard. ‘You should never attempt a drimwick without supervision. It says so in the first Book of Hope & Wonder.’
‘But you weren’t there! And Miika was in danger. I had to do something! I only put my hands around him and wished him to be warm, and strong, and always safe . . . I drimwicked him! I didn’t think I could because I know how hard drimwickery is – and I didn’t know if I had enough hope inside me – but I suppose because he is a mouse, he was small enough for it to work.’
‘So, I am drimwicked,’ Miika muttered.
‘Yes. You’ve received a hope spell,’ explained Father Topo. ‘Like the one I gave Nikolas. A drimwick is one of the very first spells in elf magic.’
‘It means that you are now part-mouse and part-magic,’ explained Noosh, who was playing with a spinning top. ‘In the way that Nikolas is part-human and part-magic. It’s all very exciting!’
Father Topo sighed as he checked on the gingerbread elves he was baking in the oven. ‘It is not exciting, Noosh. It is deeply worrying. There has never been a drimwicked mouse before.’
‘What could go wrong?’ asked Miika, in a voice that would have been pale and milky if voices could have colours.
It was at this point that the Truth Pixie joined the conversation. ‘All kinds of things,’ she said. ‘For instance, once there was a bear who was drimwicked, and she went quite mad. She spent entire days talking to snow and eating reindeer poo. It was very sad.’
‘Crikey,’ said Miika. ‘That doesn’t sound fun.’
‘Now, now, Truth Pixie,’ said Father Topo, taking the gingerbread out of the oven. ‘That was a very long time ago. And a most unusual case.’
‘So, what do you think will happen to me?’ Miika asked the wise old elf.
Father Topo placed the gingerbread elves on a tray and offered them to everyone.
He even broke off a little bit and gave it to Miika. Gingerbread might not have been as tasty as cheese, but it was a million times better than mushrooms and Miika was always grateful for it.
‘What I think will happen to you,’ said Father Topo. ‘Hmmm . . . Well, I think that rather depends on you.’
‘On me? Oh no.’
Father Topo nodded. ‘Yes. You see, a drimwick basically brings out the qualities that you already have. Your potential. It means you will get a chance to find out who you really are. A drimwick gives different people different powers, but one thing is for sure, little Miika, your life will never be the same again.’
A Mouse Called Bridget the Brave
ridget the Brave was the only other mouse Miika had met since arriving in the Far North.
He had met her on a day when he was feeling particularly lonely, as Nikolas had been helping to organise the Elfhelm snowball contest and the Truth Pixie had been writing a book of poetry.
That was a few months ago.
And now they were good friends. Miika knew this, because he had asked her about seventy-two times.
‘It does feel good,’ thought Miika aloud, right now, ‘to have a friend of the same species. Hey, on that subject . . . do you know why there are so few mice around here?’
According to Bridget the Brave, there were other mice but most had found it too cold in the Far North and had headed south. Or they had been eaten by a snowy owl called Snow Owl.
‘Gulp,’ gulped Miika.
‘Exactly,’ said Bridget the Brave. ‘But I haven’t seen any trace of Snow Owl for a long time, and to be honest, the fewer mice there are, the more food there is for us.’
They were walking through the Wooded Hills, on a snowless and well-trodden path, looking for mushrooms.
‘That’s true, Bridget the Brave. But don’t you ever get bored of mushrooms?’
Bridget the Brave stopped and sighed the longest sigh in the whole of mouse history. ‘Of course. I am totally, totally bored of mushrooms. But I’m not like you. I don’t have all your elf contacts. I can’t just go up to an elf and do a cute little face and get them to give me cheese! In fact, every time I go into Elfhelm they chase me away.’
Miika looked at his friend. She seemed muddier and scruffier and wilder than ever. He couldn’t help but feel a little bit annoyed at this.
‘Well,’ said Miika, ‘it’s not my fault that you, um, tried to rob the Elfhelm Cheese Shop.’
Bridget the Brave tutted. ‘Tried! There was no tried. I successfully robbed the Elfhelm Cheese Shop. It’s just that they caught me. Stupid, do-goody elves!’
Miika didn’t like it when Bridget the Brave talked like this. And she talked like this quite a lot, but what he hated even more was the thought of losing her as a friend.
‘Yeah,’ said Miika, trying to impress her. ‘Do-goody elves.’
But then up ahead he saw someone.
‘We should probably be quiet,’ said Miika, pointing at an elf boy in a blue tunic crouched amid the trees, picking up pine cones. ‘As quiet as mice. Because, you know, elves have feelings too!’
‘He can’t hear me. And I don’t care.’
‘Elves actually have very good hearing. And understand ninety per cent of animals, including mice. Isn’t that right, Kip?’
The elf boy turned around at the sound of his name, as he placed another pine cone in his basket. He smiled. And nodded. And said nothing, just carried on collecting cones.
Miika realised the wind had blown cold, because Bridget the Brave was now shivering.
‘S-s-such a w-w-weirdo,’ whispered Bridget the Brave, stuttering with cold.
‘He’s actually been through quite a lot,’ Miika told her.
‘And? Why would you care?’
‘I don’t,’ pretended Miika. ‘Not at all.’ Bridget the Brave spotted a bright-green mushroom near a hewlip bush and scurried towards it. Miika followed and sat next to her amid the snow-dusted leaves.
‘It’s s-s-s-s-s-so c-c-c-c-c-cold today,’ said Bridget the Brave melodramatically.
‘Is it?’ said Miika, who felt perfectly warm.
‘Yes! It’s f-f-f-f-f-freezing. It’s the coldest day of summer.’
Miika quickly nodded. He wondered if it was because he had been drimwicked that he wasn’t feeling the cold weather. ‘Yes,’ he lied. ‘Actually, now you mention it, it really is quite cold, isn’t it?’
‘So,’ said Bridget the Brave, with her mouth full of fungus, ‘what have you been up to, Miika? There seems to be something different about you.’
Miika felt worried. He didn’t want to tell his friend about having been drimwicked. It was bad enough – in Bridget the Brave’s eyes – that Miika lived with a pixie and knew elves and was friends with a human. If he told her that he was now drimwicked and had magical powers and could maybe live for ever then Miika doubted that she would still want to be friends with him.
‘Oooh,’ said Miika. ‘What have I been up to? That’s a good question. What have I been up to? What have I been up to? What have I been up to? Not much, really . . . Just, you know, sitting. And sleeping. And existing. And trying to keep out of the cold. It’s been a very normal time. Totally normal. Normal to the power of normal.’
And in a way, Miika supposed, this wasn’t really a lie. Or not a big lie anyway.
You see, despite the fall and the near-death experience and the drimwick nothing really had changed. If Miika did have magical powers, he hadn’t discovered them. Except, well, he really did feel warm and Bridget the Brave really didn’t, so maybe that was all that had happened.
She suddenly stopped chewing on her mushroom. ‘Oh no,’ she said.
‘Oh what?’ wondered Miika.
‘Oh look!’
Miika looked to where she was pointing and saw it. A large black ball in the snow, a short distance into the trees.
Bridget the Brave rushed over to inspect it, with Miika close behind.
‘You know what this is, don’t you?’ Bridget the Brave asked.
‘What?’
‘It is deadly danger, that’s what.’
It didn’t exactly look like deadly danger, thought Miika. It looked like a big ball of black mud. But then Miika noticed something sticking out of it. Something hard and bone-white. A small skull. A delicate skull. A mouse skull.
Bridget the Brave looked up to the sky nervously. ‘You see, Miika, this ball of dirt isn’t just any old ball of dirt. This is an owl pellet. And you know what an owl pellet is, don’t you?’
‘What?’ said Miika in his pale voice.
‘It’s the most disgusting thing in the whole of nature. Coughed up by owls. All the things their stomach can’t handle. All the fur and the hair and the bones. And l-l-look at the colour. It’s totally black. That means it’s fresh. Which means Snow Owl must be around here, somewhere. She’s probably watching us right now.’
iika gulped.
He had always thought the terrifying stories of Snow Owl weren’t true, because Bridget the Brave had a habit of exaggerating and making things up. Like the time she said she had made a brown bear run away by giving him a really cross look. But there was no arguing with a giant ball of regurgitated undigested mouse!
As he turned away from the monstrous sight, he saw something even worse.
Sitting on the branch above them was something frost-white and oval and feathery, speckled with tiny black markings. Something with large, yellow unmoving eyes staring straight at them. Something pristine and beautiful and terrifying.
‘She’s there,’ whispered Miika. ‘It’s Snow Owl.’
‘Run!’ squealed Bridget the Brave – or, in that moment, Bridget the Not So Brave.
And the two frightened mice watched in horror as the owl lifted up her vast wings and swooped into the air, straight towards them.
ven the fastest mouse in the world can’t run faster than an owl can fly. And neither Miika nor Bridget the Brave were the fastest mouse in the world.
They were a long way from Bridget the Brave’s tree hole and there were no other tree holes in sight. They froze with fear.
‘We’re going to die!’ said Bridget the Not So Brave.
It was hard to argue, when a giant snowy owl was swooping down towards them. And unlike reindeers, owls were pretty easy to understand.
‘I can see yoooooou,’ screeched Snow Owl. ‘And soooooon I will taste yoooooou. Yoooooou can’t escape. But doooooo run. I like a warm lunch, I doooooo.’
The two mice started to run, but it was really hard to run in deep snow. And then Bridget the Brave got one of her feet caught under a twig.
‘Miika! My best friend in the whole world! Save me! Help get this twig off me! Please! I’m scared!’
‘I’m coming,’ said Miika, scampering back towards his friend.
But it was too late.
Snow Owl was inches off the ground, just above Bridget the Brave. ‘Ta-wit-ta-woooooo, how do you doooooo?’
Miika stared at the owl and for a moment did nothing except wish. He wished harder than he had ever wished in his life. And what he wished was for the owl to GO AWAY.
As he wished he felt his whole body grow strong, and he had that warm syrupy feeling again. And just as the owl’s clawed feet were about to sink into his friend, Miika found himself staring harder than he had ever stared in his life. As he stared at the owl, he felt the whole world disappear. In that moment, there was only him and the owl and one single hope – for the creature to go away.
Then the most remarkable thing happened.
A sudden blast of bright golden light appeared immediately in front of the owl, like a tiny little sun, and this tiny little sun pressed into Snow Owl’s chest, and she shot backwards as if hit by a cannonball. As Miika kept staring, he realised he was the one with this power. The power to move Snow Owl. After the owl shot back in mid-air, Miika held her in one spot, a little distance away, high above Bridget the Brave, hovering like a feathered sculpture.
‘Leave us alone,’ Miika said, with his voice but mainly his mind. ‘Don’t ever try to hurt us again. Or my magic will finish you. Do you understand?’
The terrified owl was clearly in a state of shock. ‘I doooooo.’
‘Good. Now go. Fly away and don’t come back. And if you haven’t disappeared out of sight after I count to ten, you’re in BIG TROUBLE.’
Miika let the bird free, with his mind, and the owl flew away faster than a blizzard wind.
ridget the Brave could hardly speak. Her mouth opened and closed and opened and closed and opened again. ‘What . . . did . . . you . . . do?’
‘I think I might have saved your life. No big deal.’
‘Miika! You just made light appear out of thin air! How? What? How? That was impossible!’
And Miika remembered something he had once heard the wise old elf Father Topo say . . .
They scurried back to Bridget the Brave’s tree hole, passing Kip and his basket full of pine cones, and Miika began to explain everything to his friend.
