The Christmas Pig

2021·2.82 MB·english

by  Rowling J.K.

www.hachettechildrens.co.uk
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Also By J.K. Rowling
PART ONE: Dur Pig
Chapter 1: Dur Pig
Chapter 2: Mum and Dad
Chapter 3: Changes
Chapter 4: Holly Macaulay
Chapter 5: Holly’s DP
Chapter 6: More Changes
Chapter 7: Not Jack’s Dad
Chapter 8: The Toilet Roll Angel
Chapter 9: Christmas Eve
Chapter 10: The New Angel
Chapter 11: Lost
Chapter 12: The Christmas Pig
Chapter 13: The Night for Miracles and Lost Causes
Chapter 14: Shrunk
PART TWO: Mislaid
Chapter 15: Beneath the Tree
Chapter 16: Mislaid
Chapter 17: The Three Doors
Chapter 18: The Prisoner
Chapter 19: Horsey Things
Chapter 20: The Wicker Donkey
PART THREE: Disposable
Chapter 21: Disposable
Chapter 22: Adjustments
Chapter 23: The Plan
Chapter 24: Lunchbox
PART FOUR: Bother-It’s-Gone
Chapter 25: Bother-It’s-Gone
Chapter 26: Addie the Address Book
Chapter 27: Mayor Cheese Grater
Chapter 28: Crusher
Chapter 29: Poem and Pretence
Chapter 30: The Tunnel
PART FIVE: The Wastes of the Unlamented
Chapter 31: Compass
Chapter 32: The Broken Angel
Chapter 33: The Story of the Blue Bunny
Chapter 34: The Bad Habits
Chapter 35: The Loser
Chapter 36: Thistles
Chapter 37: Train Tracks
Chapter 38: The City Gates
PART SIX: The City of the Missed
Chapter 39: The City of the Missed
Chapter 40: Followed
Chapter 41: The Performers
Chapter 42: The King’s Invitation
Chapter 43: The Palace
Chapter 44: The Royal Family
Chapter 45: The King
Chapter 46: Power’s Plan
Chapter 47: The Last Two Guests
Chapter 48: Flight
Chapter 49: The Story of Hope
PART SEVEN: The Island of the Beloved
Chapter 50: The Island of the Beloved
Chapter 51: The Truth
Chapter 52: A Famous Friend
Chapter 53: The Sleigh Ride
Chapter 54: Return to the Wastes
PART EIGHT: The Loser’s Lair
Chapter 55: The Crater
Chapter 56: The Loser’s Lair
Chapter 57: The Last Hope
PART NINE: Home
Chapter 58: Found
Acknowledgements
About the Author and Illustrator
The Ickabog is coming …
Copyright
To David – J.K. Rowling
For Sandy and Lola – Jim Field
ALSO BY J.K. ROWLING
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Quidditch Through the Ages
(Published in aid of Comic Relief and Lumos)
The Tales of Beedle the Bard
(Published in aid of Lumos)
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
(Based on an original story by J.K. Rowling,
John Tiffany and Jack Thorne. A play by Jack Thorne.)
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (The Original Screenplay)
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (The Original Screenplay)
The Ickabog

Dur Pig
Dur Pig was a small toy pig made of the same material as a soft towel. He had
little plastic beans in his tummy, which made him fun to throw. His squishy
trotters were exactly the right size to wipe away a tear. When his owner, Jack,
was very young, he fell asleep every night sucking Dur Pig’s ear.
Dur Pig got his name because when Jack started to talk, he said ‘dur pig’
instead of ‘the pig’. When new, Dur Pig had been salmony-pink, with shiny
black plastic eyes, but Jack couldn’t remember Dur Pig looking like that. Dur
Pig had surely always been as he was now: greyish and faded, with one ear stiff
from all the sucking. Dur Pig’s eyes fell out, leaving tiny holes in his face for a
while, but then Jack’s mum, who was a nurse, sewed little buttons in place of the
missing plastic beads. When Jack came home from nursery that afternoon, Dur
Pig was lying on the kitchen table wrapped up in a woollen scarf, waiting for
Jack to take off the little bandage covering his eyes. Mum had even made Dur
Pig a set of medical notes: ‘DP Jones. Operation to attach buttons. Surgeon:
Mum.’
After his eye operation, everyone started calling Dur Pig ‘DP’ for short. From
the time he was two years old, Jack would never go to bed without DP, which
often caused problems, because when bedtime came, DP was usually nowhere to
be found. Sometimes it took Mum and Dad a long time to find DP, who turned
up in all kinds of places: hiding inside one of Dad’s trainers or scrunched up in a
flowerpot.
‘Why d’you keep hiding him, Jack?’ Mum asked every time she found DP