The sitting room held its breath.
Snow tapped at the window like tiny impatient fingers, and the Christmas tree blinked green, gold and ruby in the dark. Beneath it lay a mountain of presents, neat and shiny and hopelessly still. At least, they were meant to be still.
From inside a parcel wrapped in red paper with silver moons, something scratched.
First came a pointed orange ear. Then a white-tipped snout. Then, with a soft pop, a magical toy fox tumbled out among the ribbons. He had orange and white fur, a bushy tail like a little flame, a tuft of orange hair sticking up between his ears, black button eyes and a cheeky grin stitched so wide it looked as if he had just thought of three naughty ideas at once.
He shook himself, scattering glitter. “Right,” he whispered. “Who else is awake?”
A square parcel rustled. “I am,” said a nervous tin robot from inside blue paper. “But I do not think I am supposed to be.”
“Supposed to is the dullest phrase in the world,” said the fox. He pawed at the robot’s ribbon and untied it with clever little jerks. “Come on. There’s moonlight on the carpet and secrets in the house. We can’t waste that.”
The tin robot sat up, its painted mouth wobbling. A wooden dragon poked its carved head from a green box. A knitted owl blinked amber bead eyes from a stocking. Even a packet of crayons rattled in their cardboard case as if they were whispering arguments in colour.
The fox stood on a drum-shaped present and raised his bushy tail like a banner. “Friends, tonight we are not waiting to be opened. Tonight we explore.”
“Explore where?” asked the owl.
The fox pointed his white paw towards the hallway, where the dark stretched long and blue. “Everywhere we have never been.”
⁂
They made a parade of it. The fox led, light on his paws, brave as a spark. The robot clanked behind him, trying to clank quietly and failing. The wooden dragon waddled with stiff dignity. The owl rode on the dragon’s antlers, and the crayons rolled after them in a rainbow bundle.
At the edge of the rug, the fox stopped. Beyond lay the floorboards: wide, polished, and terrifyingly creaky.
“I have calculated a ninety-two per cent chance of waking the humans,” said the robot.
“Excellent,” said the fox. “Then there is an eight per cent chance of glory.”
He ran.
The first floorboard groaned like a giant with a tummy ache. Everyone froze. Upstairs, a bed creaked. A grown-up coughed. The fox flattened himself, black button eyes shining.
Not yet. Not before we find it.
He had not told the others the real reason he had woken. Something under his cotton ribs had tugged him from sleep: a silver thread of magic, pulling towards the back of the house. It had whispered without words. Find the missing present.
The fox gave a friendly grin to the others. “Safe. Follow my exact steps, unless my exact steps are foolish, in which case follow my much better steps afterwards.”
“That makes no sense,” said the robot.
“That is how adventures begin.”
They crossed the floorboards in hops, slides and one dreadful moment when the dragon’s tail knocked a bauble from the tree. The fox leapt and caught it between his paws before it hit the ground.
The owl gasped. “You saved Christmas.”
“Only the shiny bit,” said the fox, placing the bauble carefully under the sofa.
Then the hallway clock struck midnight.
It did not chime. It whispered.
When the thirteenth gift is stolen, the house will forget the child.
The toys stared at the clock. Its hands were both pointing at twelve, but a third hand, thin and black as a spider’s leg, had appeared between them. It ticked backwards.
“Clocks should not do that,” said the robot.
“Nor should toys talk,” said the dragon.
“We are doing very well at being impossible,” said the fox, though his stitched grin felt suddenly too tight.
The silver tug inside him pulled harder, towards the kitchen. He darted ahead. “This way.”
⁂
The kitchen was cold and smelled of oranges, cinnamon and something metallic, like rain on a gate. Moonlight lay across the tiles in pale squares. On the table sat twelve presents for the children of the house, each labelled in careful handwriting.
The fox counted them twice. His tail bristled.
“There should be thirteen,” he said.
“Perhaps someone miscounted,” suggested the owl.
“I never miscount presents,” said the fox. “It is one of my best talents, after escaping boxes and looking innocent.”
On the table, a scrap of wrapping paper fluttered though there was no wind. It was black, not merry black with stars or penguins, but deep empty black, the colour of a cupboard when the door is shut. A single silver feather was stuck to it.
The robot picked it up. His tin fingers trembled. “This feather is not from the owl.”
“Definitely not,” said the owl. “Mine are wool.”
The fox sniffed the feather. Sparks popped from his whiskers. “Magpie magic.”
The dragon’s wooden jaw creaked open. “Magpies steal shiny things.”
“This one stole a present,” said the fox. “And perhaps something worse.”
At that moment, a photograph on the fridge changed.
It showed the family in the garden: two grown-ups, a girl with missing front teeth, a baby in a knitted hat. But as the toys watched, the girl’s face blurred. The fox sprang onto a chair, then the table, pressing his paws against the photograph.
“No,” he said. “No, no, no.”
The girl was fading from the picture, as if someone were rubbing her away with an invisible thumb.
“That must be the child who owns the thirteenth present,” said the robot.
The fox’s button eyes shone fiercely. “Then we get it back before the house forgets her completely.”
A tap sounded at the kitchen window.
All the toys turned.
Outside, perched on the snowy sill, was a clockwork magpie with silver feathers, glass eyes and a key turning slowly in its chest. In its beak it held a label torn from a present. The name on it was already smudging into nothing.
The magpie opened its beak, and a child’s laugh came out backwards.
Then the window latch clicked open by itself.
