The Creeps: A Samuel Johnson Tale

XI

In Which We Learn Why People Should Just Call Their Children Simple Names Like Jane or John—Especially John, Which Is a Very Good Name. Manly. Heroic, Even.

THE INTERIOR OF WRECKIT & Sons was still in the process of being redesigned, but Dan and the dwarfs could see that it was going to be pretty spectacular when it was finished. Already some of the displays had been set up: there was a giant teddy bear at least twenty feet high that dominated the cuddly toy section, and a train set that followed a circular track suspended from the ceiling of the second floor. There were dolls piled in corners, and toy soldiers, and cars and trucks and spaceships. There were board games, and a sports section, and books. What there didn’t seem to be, Jolly noticed, were any computer games. Walking into Wreckit & Sons was like stepping back in time.

“It’s not going to last a week, never mind until Christmas,” said Angry. “Where are all the PlayStations and things?”

“Somebody should tell them that electricity has been invented,” said Dozy. “It might come as a shock, but they’ll be glad to know.”

In addition to the missing games consoles, Dan and the dwarfs could see no sign of any workers.

“I have a funny feeling that I’m being watched,” said Jolly. “I was thinking of nicking something, just to keep my hand in, but I don’t think I will after all.”

They all shared his uneasy sense of being under surveillance, although they could see no sign of cameras or security guards. There was no sign of anyone at all. They had arrived at the side entrance, just as a message had instructed them to do after Dan had called the number at the bottom of the advertisement. There they found the door unlocked and a handwritten note instructing them to proceed to the top floor via the main stairs.

It was Mumbles who caught a flash of movement in a corner as they neared the final flight of steps.

“Oberare!” he said.

He walked warily to the corner. There was a small hole at the base of the wall. He knelt and peered into it. He had the uncomfortable sensation that, from the darkness behind the wall, something was peering back at him.

“What is it?” said Angry.

“Umsall,” said Mumbles.

“Small?” said Angry. “It was probably a rat. These old buildings are full of rats.”

But Mumbles didn’t think it was a rat. He had only caught the slightest glimpse of it as it fled, but it had looked like a very small person.

If he hadn’t known better, Mumbles might even have said it was an elf.

• • •

The dwarfs were stunned into silence when they reached the top floor. The entire space was in the process of being transformed into the most spectacular of Christmas grottoes. Frost glittered on the trunks and branches of the immense silver trees supporting the ceiling, and a pathway that felt like marble wound over the floor while snow fell from above.

“It melts,” whispered Dozy. “When it touches your skin, it melts!”

And it did.

Somehow, the entire area had been lit so that it looked bigger than it was. It was like being in some great northern forest in the depths of winter. It even felt cold. As they progressed through it, the dwarfs saw the shapes of reindeer passing by. They appeared so real that the dwarfs could almost have reached out and touched them, running their fingers through the deers’ fur.

At the heart of the forest was a cabin made not of logs but of old stones. Smoke poured from its chimney and was lost in the darkness above, which glimmered with stars. Looking up, Jolly had the sense of being just one small person on one small planet in a vast, icy universe. It made him vaguely depressed, so he went back to looking at the cabin instead.

Angry was testing the stones with his hand.

“This cabin must weigh a ton,” he said. “What’s underneath it?”

Dozy tried to remember the floor plan of the store.

“I think it was more soft toys. I could go and check.”

“Well, I wouldn’t hang about down there if I were you,” said Angry. “If this thing falls through the floor it won’t be just the toys that are soft. It’ll reduce little kids to jelly.”

A man appeared from a doorway to their right. He wore a black three-piece suit with a gray tie and a slightly soiled white shirt. His face was blankly pleasant, like a greeting card without a personal message inside.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “Can I help you?”

Jolly looked at the note in his hand.

“We’re here to see Mr. Cholmondeley,” said Jolly.

“Chumley,” said the gentleman, his expression unchanged.

Jolly examined the note again.

“No, it’s definitely Cholmondeley.”

He handed it to Angry to check.

“That’s it,” said Angry. “Cholmondeley. It’s here in black and white.”

“It’s Chumley,” said the man. A small frown line had appeared on his forehead.

“Listen, mate,” said Angry, “are you saying we can’t read?”

“Not at all. The name is simply pronounced ‘Chumley.’ ”

“Then why is it spelled ‘Cholmondeley’?” asked Jolly.

“It just is,” said the man.

“Well, that’s nonsense,” said Angry. “That’s like spelling a name S-M-I-T-H and calling yourself Jones.”

“No,” said the man, with some force, “it isn’t.”

“Yes,” said Angry, with equal force, “it is.”

It was left to Dan to intervene.

“It’s a posh thing,” he explained to the dwarfs.

“Oooooh,” they said in unison, nodding in understanding. Posh people did things differently. Everybody knew that. Jolly had heard that posh people were born with silver spoons in their mouths, which probably explained why they all talked funny.

“Right you are then, guv,” said Jolly. “We’re here to see Mr. Chumley. Mr. St. John-Chumley.”

“Sinjin,” said the man.

“Bless you,” said Jolly.

“No, I didn’t sneeze,” said the man. “It’s Sinjin.”

“Beg pardon?” said Jolly.

By now the man had started to look decidedly irritated.

“It’s my name!” he said. “It’s Sinjin-Chumley. How hard can it be?”

The dwarfs crowded around Jolly, and all four of them examined the name on the note, running their fingers beneath it, pronouncing the syllables and occasionally glancing up at the gentleman standing before them as though trying to equate his name with the peculiar jumble of letters before them.

“Actually, pretty hard,” said Angry at last. “You might need to have a think about that one. Don’t take this the wrong way, mate, but you’ll never get anywhere in life if you have a made-up name that doesn’t sound the way it’s spelled. You’d better hang on to this job. If you lose it, you’ll never get another. It’s always easier to hire someone whose name you can say without hurting your tongue.”

Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley gave Angry a hard stare.

“I take it that you’re here about the job,” he said, in the tone of a man who is hoping that he might be mistaken.

“We were ‘invited to attend for an interview,’ ” said Jolly.

“Indeed. Well, do come in. It shouldn’t take long.”

Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley stepped aside to admit the dwarfs into his office. It was small, and contained only a desk and a chair. The shelves were entirely bare, and there was nothing on the desk except for a single sheet of white paper, a pen, and a small, sad-looking artificial Christmas tree with a red button on its base. Angry, who couldn’t resist a red button when he saw one, pressed it. Immediately the tree began to bob from side to side and “Jingle Bells” emerged from a hidden speaker.

“What language is that?” asked Angry.

“I’m not sure,” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley. “I think it might be Urdu, or possibly Serbo-Croat. It’s difficult to tell. We found a box of them in storage when we began fixing up the shop.”

“Do you think they’re going to be big sellers?” asked Dozy doubtfully.

“Possibly, if the shop was situated in a country that spoke Urdu or Serbo-Croat,” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley. “Otherwise, probably not. I do wish you hadn’t turned it on, though. It takes a while for it to finish the song.”

They all tried to ignore the tree as the interview began.

“Now, which job might you be applying for?” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley.

The dwarfs exchanged looks. They were in a toy shop. It was coming up to Christmas. The shop had a Christmas grotto. They were hardly there to audition for roles as Easter bunnies.

“Elves,” said Jolly. “We’re here to be elves.”

“Not Father Christmas?” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley.

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Are you trying to be clever?” asked Jolly.

“Not at all,” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley. “I can’t just assume that because you’re gentlemen of, er, reduced stature you’re only here to be elves. That would be wrong. It’s all equal opportunities now, you know. I could get into terrible trouble for saying to you, ‘Oh, you must be here about the elf job, then.’ I could end up in court.”

“But we are here about the elf job,” said Angry.

“Wouldn’t you at least like to think about being Father Christmas?” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because we want to be elves. We’re the right size for elves. It’s not, if you’ll forgive the pun, much of a stretch for us.”

“Well, I have to offer you the chance to apply for the job of Father Christmas. It’s the rules.”

“We don’t want to be Father Christmas.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t you like to try one little ‘Ho-Ho-Ho!,’ just a teeny one?”

“No!” said Jolly. “We want to be elves.”

Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley scowled at him.

“What’s wrong with being Father Christmas? Don’t you like fat people?”

“What?” said Jolly.

He was confused. Beside him, the singing Christmas tree continued to sing. It seemed to know a lot more verses to “Jingle Bells” than Jolly did.

“Are you saying you don’t want to be Father Christmas because he’s fat?” Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley persisted. “Are you fattist? You know, we can’t have people working here who are fattist. We won’t put up with that kind of thing, do you hear? We won’t put up with it at all. How dare you come into this store and say unpleasant things about fat people!”

“But—” said Jolly.

“Don’t you go making excuses! You should be ashamed of yourselves. I’ve a good mind to call the police.”

Angry stared very intently at Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley. The singing Christmas tree continued to chirp away merrily. Angry was starting to hate it.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but are you a mad bloke?”

“Oh, and I suppose you don’t like them either!” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley. “What if I was fat and mad, eh? What then? I suppose you’d come after me with pitchforks and flaming torches. You’d want me hidden away from sight, locked up in a cell somewhere with only bread and water!”

“Locked up might be a start,” muttered Angry.

“I heard that!” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley. “Don’t think I didn’t!”

He opened a drawer in his desk, removed a hammer, and brought it down hard on the Christmas tree. While the dwarfs watched, he continued hammering at the tree until it was reduced to little shards of green plastic. From somewhere in its workings, a final faint tinkle of bells could be heard before the tree expired. Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley moved a bin into place with his left foot and used his right hand to sweep the remains of the Christmas tree into it. They fell on the remains of lots of other Christmas trees. From what Angry could see, the bin contained nothing else.

Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley restored the hammer to its drawer, opened another drawer, and took a Christmas tree from it. He positioned it in precisely the same place occupied by the previous tree.

“Right,” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley. He smiled. “Where were we?”

There was a long, careful silence.

“A job?” said Jolly. “For us?”

“Of course! Elves, by any chance?”

“Er, if you like.”

“Oh, fine by me. You seem just the sorts. Very festive. Very small. We like our elves small. Doesn’t work if they’re big. Doesn’t work at all. This week good for you to start? Nine until six on regular days, an hour for lunch, two tea breaks of not more than fifteen minutes each, although for the grand opening on Thursday you don’t have to get here until sixish. Don’t eat too many biscuits: they’ll make you fat, and we don’t want that, do we? Fine for Father Christmas, but bad for elves. Bad, bad, bad! Sign there.”

He pushed the pen and blank sheet of paper toward them.

“There’s nothing on it,” said Dan.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley. “All friends here.”

“What about money?” said Jolly.

“Oh, I don’t take bribes,” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley. “That would be wrong.”

He leaned forward, placed a hand against his face, and whispered conspiratorially.

“And you’re supposed to offer me the bribe before you get the job,” he said. “Doesn’t work otherwise. Bear it in mind for next time, eh?”

“Er, no, I meant that we do get paid, don’t we?”

“Oh! I see! Ha! Forget about the bribe stuff, then. Only joking. Our secret, eh? Yes, money. How much would you like? A lot? A little? How about something in between? What about ten pounds an hour?”

“That sounds—” Jolly began to say, when Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley interrupted him.

“Okay, eleven.”

“What?”

“Twelve, but you drive a hard bargain.”

“I think— ”

Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley puffed his cheeks and wiped his brow.

“Thirteen, then, but that’s my final offer.”

“If you’re—”

“Fourteen, but you’re robbing me, ho ho! You’re stealing me blind!”

The dwarfs had no problem stealing anybody blind, but on this occasion they weren’t even trying. It bothered them. It didn’t seem fair somehow.

“Listen—” said Angry, but Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley was too quick for him.

“Fifteen,” he said. “That’s it. I can’t go any higher than sixteen. Seventeen’s my last and final offer. Absolutely. Eighteen it is.”

Angry reached for the pen. Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley grabbed it before he could get to it.

“Nineteen!” he said. “We need elves!”

“Give me the pen,” said Angry. “Please.”

Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley burst into tears and buried his face in his hands.

“All right then, twenty,” he said, in a muffled voice. “Twenty-one pounds an hour, but you’ll be making more than I am.”

The dwarfs eventually managed to sign for twenty-five, but it was a struggle, and two of them had to hold on to Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley’s arms while the others wrestled the pen from him. They left him in his office, and closed the door behind them. From inside came the sound of “Jingle Bells” in a foreign language, followed almost immediately by an intense burst of hammering.

Nobody came to show Dan and the dwarfs out of the store. They had to find their own way back to the street, and they were so troubled by their encounter with Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley that only later did they notice that, throughout the course of their meeting with him, he had not blinked once.

• • •

Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley sat back in his chair. He was very relieved that the dwarfs were gone.

“I think that went well,” he said to the Voice in the Wall. “I don’t believe they suspected a thing. I acted entirely normal.”

Twenty-five pounds an hour, said the Voice in the Wall. Do you think I’m made of money?

Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley shook his head. Whatever the Voice in the Wall was made of, it wasn’t money. Money didn’t smell that foul.

“They were tough little negotiators,” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley. “Very tough indeed. They wore me down.”

They won’t live long enough to collect a penny of it, said the Voice in the Wall. Still, it’s the principle.

“I’ll be more careful next time,” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley.

That’s nice, said the Voice in the Wall, and Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley, who couldn’t remember his past, failed to hear in its tones the sound of his very short future coming to an unhappy end.