CHAPTER 18
It’s almost dark but not particularly cold for a December evening as I go outside and see Blizzard fighting to get one plastic chair from on top of another in one of the stacks of chairs that are all around her.
“Need any help?” I ask, trying to smile.
“Oh thank god, I was just about to give up,” she says. “And hey, what’s wrong with you?”
I hadn’t realised it was so obvious.
I shrug. “It’s a long story.”
“Good job we’ve got plenty of time then.” She pauses for a moment. “I had a feeling something was wrong all day. I wasn’t sure you’d show up this afternoon.”
“No choice,” I mutter.
“Come on, I’m sick to death of these chairs. Let’s go inside for a break.”
I follow her as we go back into the hallway and Blizzard sits down on the floor next to Rudolph and pats the spot next to her for me to join her. I do, and Blizzard pats Rudolph on the rump again and says “On guard, Rudolph,” to him like he’s real.
“Don’t worry, no one will bother us now, so come on. Spill.”
I stare at her blankly for a moment, wondering how she can possibly think that telling a plastic reindeer to be “on guard” could stop anyone bothering us, but I decide not to ask. Instead I sit there and tell her the whole sorry story of this year, from Mum and Dad splitting up and Dad moving out to Mum meeting this awful man on the internet and letting him move in with us.
“He’s why I have to come here,” I tell her. “Because my dad doesn’t want me to be alone in the house with him, so I have to stay here until Mum is home too. Not that I really mind, but usually I’d be home watching TV by myself right now.”
“Well, I’m glad you have to come here,” Blizzard says. “I wouldn’t have met you otherwise.”
I nod, feeling that familiar warmth they make me feel with comments like that spreading out gently.
“But then last night I overheard them talking,” I say. “Seth was asking Mum to move away with him. And she was considering it. And I just don’t know what to do. I can’t leave this place, I love it here, and I love my dad and my school and my friends and I just don’t want to leave.”
“Have you told your mum?”
“No, of course not. If I told her, she’d know I was eavesdropping outside their room. And it wouldn’t make any difference anyway. She must be completely blind if she doesn’t already know how much we love it here, and yet she’s still thinking about taking us away.”
“Can’t you stay with your dad?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, he moved out of our house and got a flat, and the flat is hardly big enough to breathe in. We can barely go there for an afternoon, let alone live there. And I don’t think he can afford anywhere bigger, and he probably couldn’t afford to look after us either.”
“How come? I mean, I’m not trying to be nosy, but it seems like your dad has a pretty good job. He must be making a bit of money?”
I shrug. “I’ve heard him say that Mum took it all in the divorce. I know he bought the house years ago and he was broke for years because he put so much into that, and now the house is Mum’s. The man is nearly fifty-years-old and working overtime and extra shifts like a teenager because he has no money. I don’t think he’d want us to stay with him all the time anyway. He works too much to look after us.”
Blizzard nods.
“I don’t think I realised how serious it is between Mum and Seth,” I continue. “I was going to try and get rid of him. I don’t even know how, just annoy him and play some practical jokes on him, anything to make him so annoyed he goes to stay somewhere else, but I didn’t realise Mum was serious enough about him to consider moving away with him. I thought she was just doing it to make Dad jealous, but if she really likes him that much then I don’t think any of my plans are going to work.”
“What about you?” Blizzard asks. “What do you think of him? I get that you don’t like him, but is he, like, a decent bloke apart from being in the middle of this situation or is he just a bit of a jerk in general?”
Once again, I wish I could be more like Blizzard. She’s beautiful and mature. Even the way she talks is mature, and I feel like a little girl next to her. And with most people that would make me not like them, but it doesn’t with her. She doesn’t treat me like I’m a little girl even though I feel like I am sometimes.
“I don’t like him,” I say. “He’s… secretive. Like he’s got something to hide. And he’s just a bit strange and creepy in general. Like, he drives this huge limousine, says that he’s a chauffeur for a very important man who is only in town this month but when we asked him, he wouldn’t say who his boss was. And he wouldn’t let Pippa go inside the car because he said he’d just cleaned it but it totally looked dirty to me. And he works really strange hours and seems to spend most of his time lying on our sofa with his feet on the coffee table saying his boss hasn’t called yet. There’s just something about him, you know? I don’t trust him.”
“Sounds like your mum would be better off without him anyway,” Blizzard says thoughtfully.
“Definitely. It’s just a shame that she can’t see that too.”
“Well, I could always help you with that, you know?”
I look at her, and unbelievably she blushes. “Well, being Santa’s elf all day will get a bit boring, helping to get rid of your mum’s evil boyfriend could be fun,” she grins.
“You think it will work then? If I—we—were to annoy him so much he leaves?”
“You’re looking at it from the wrong angle,” Blizzard says. “We don’t have to annoy him into leaving, what we have to do is find a way to get your mum to see what you and your sister see in him. Playing pranks and trying to annoy him is going to achieve nothing but to make him annoyed. Getting your mum to see that’s he’s not all that is a bit more complicated but ultimately more rewarding. And I happen to have a few getting rid of an evil boyfriend plans up my sleeve.” She winks at me and her red hair swishes as she turns her head.
“How do you know all this stuff?” I ask. “I mean, your dad looks like the happiest person on earth and your mum is the maker of Mrs Claus’s Cookies, they can’t be unhappy. You can’t have done this yourself, so how do you know so much?”
“I told you. I get around. I travel. You pick things up.”
“Things like how to get rid of unwanted boyfriends?”
“I work with elves, Kaity. They’re cheeky little gits, but they know all the tricks.”
There’s a moment of silence and you could cut the tension with a knife. Blizzard is obviously realising that something she shouldn’t have said has slipped out.
“I… Wait… You work with elves?” I ask. Right, Kaity, because you couldn’t just keep your mouth shut and not get involved, could you? If she wants to believe she works with elves, let her. What’s the harm in it?
Blizzard sighs. “Kait, look… We’re friends, right? And you can keep a secret, right?”
I nod. “Yeah, of course. On both counts.”
“Okay,” Blizzard says. “Then I’m going to have to tell you something that no one else knows. Something that you can’t tell anyone else, no matter what, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, wondering just where she’s going with this.
“Kaity, this whole Santa thing, me and my dad. It’s real. My dad is the real Santa Claus.”
I just stare at her. Quite frankly, I’m getting a little worried.
“But that’s…” I don’t even have words to finish that sentence. Insane? Impossible? “There’s no such thing as Santa,” I finish lamely. “It’s just a myth.”
“It’s not a myth,” she says. “We don’t know how that rumour started, but we’re actually quite glad it did otherwise the paparazzi would never leave us alone. But it’s all for real, Kait. We live in the North Pole, with elves who work throughout the year making toys for children. My dad and I deliver them every Christmas Eve.”
r /> “But that’s impossible,” I say. “And I suppose you fly around the world in one night on a sleigh with a magical reindeer?”
“With eight magical reindeer actually.”
I snort. “Oh come on, you can’t really expect me to believe that there is a Santa Claus. It’s too impossible for words.”
“But I thought you’d understand,” she says. “You’re always going on about the magic of Christmas, and I know how much you love this time of year. I thought if anyone would believe in it, it would be you.”
“Well, yeah, but… How do you know I’m always going on about the magic of Christmas? Yeah, I believe it, but I barely say that out loud to anyone.”
“I’m Santa’s daughter,” she says. “I know a lot of things. We can keep an eye on people throughout the year. We do have to do the naughty and nice list after all.”
“Riiiight,” I say. “And I suppose that’s really Rudolph?” I wave my hands towards the plastic reindeer we’re sitting by.
“Pfft, of course not, don’t be silly,” Blizzard says.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Rudolph’s in the stable at home, that’s just his spirit.”
“Riiiiight,” I say again.
Blizzard shrugs. “Okay then. Well, I thought you were open-minded enough to believe in us, but I guess I got that wrong. It was nice meeting you.” She goes to stand up but I put my hand on her arm to stop her.
“Wait, please,” I say. “I am open-minded. It’s just a lot to take in, just give me a minute, okay?”
She seems to relent and settles back down against the wall.
“So you’re… really Santa’s daughter?”
She nods.
“And he’s really Santa?”
She nods again.
“And you live in the North Pole? With elves? And Mrs Claus of Mrs Claus’s Cookies fame is actually Mrs Claus, wife of Santa Claus?”
“Affirmative,” Blizzard says, rolling her eyes.
“But how is it possible? How is it possible to live in the North Pole? I thought it was uninhabitable for anything besides penguins and polar bears? No humans can survive there... Can they?”
“I already told you, it’s the magic of Christmas. And it’s not the North Pole of the physical realm…”
I decide not to even ask.
“So,” Blizzard says. “You think I’m crazy?”
I shrug. “Not crazy exactly. But you’ve got to admit it’s pretty hard to believe. If Santa is real how come everyone believes he’s just a myth?”
“Because it’s too hard to explain rationally. People aren’t open to things that don’t work from practicality and logic. When people first got wind of our organization back in the 1920s they started looking for us and our jobs became extremely hard. When people didn’t find the evidence they were looking for, they decided that if it couldn’t be explained by logic then it must be a fairy story. We decided not to correct that assumption so we could get on with our jobs in peace. It works. No one comes looking for Santa. No one tries to catch him out and throw him to the paparazzi because no one believes he’s real, so we get on with making toys in peace and quiet and every Christmas Eve we fly out and deliver them. One time in the 1940s, the government sent military helicopters, trying to catch Santa on Christmas Eve. They nearly got him and all the reindeer killed trying to avoid them. As long as we let everyone carry on believing that we’re nothing more than a fairytale, then we’re safe from that kind of thing.”
“But don’t… Don’t the parents buy the presents? How do they explain the presents just appearing under the tree?”
“Well, Santa only provides one present. And we make sure it’s something the parents haven’t already bought. Of course the children know who it’s from, but it’s usually just explained away by the people old enough to not believe in Santa. Even you must’ve had a random present under the tree that says ‘love from Santa’ on it, but everyone just assumes it was put there by a visiting relative or neighbour or someone else who’s forgotten to mention they put it there?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I shrug.
Thinking about it, every year Pippa and I get a present that Mum and Dad don’t seem to know about. Mum always says it must be from your grandpa, and Dad always says it must be from Uncle Steve or maybe Bob across the road slipped it in, but no one really knows who to thank so you just open it anyway and it’s usually something quite cool and almost handmade-looking like a model train or a Russian doll. “Those presents are really from Santa?” I ask.
Blizzard nods.
“But why? Why go to all the effort to make a present for all the kids in the world when no one knows you exist and no one ever says thank you?”
“Because it makes people happy,” she says. “Not everyone can afford lots of Christmas presents or the most expensive toys. We make something simple for every child, and those that don’t get much from their families hopefully realise that there is someone else out there who cares about them. And those who can afford the moon hopefully come to realise that sometimes simple is better than the ten storey three thousand piece doll house they got from their mum and dad.”
What she’s saying somehow makes sense, even though the logical part of my brain is screaming at me to get away from the crazy chick, I start adding things up. The way Santa knew my name the first time I saw him. The way he always seems to know when I’m near even though he can’t see me. The way I’m almost positive the Christmas tree cowered into the corner when he told it off. The way he’s really going all out with his decorations and stuff, and the way Blizzard seems almost too ethereal to be completely normal.
It’s like she senses when things fall into place in my brain.
“You believe me,” she says. It’s a statement and not a question.
I sigh. “I don’t know. I mean, it kind of makes sense but…”
“But you’ve spent your whole life thinking it was only little kids who believed in Santa and now you’re wondering if you don’t too.”
I shrug. “Well, you certainly seem to know more than you should do.”
“I told you, we see things.”
“Okay,” I say finally. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why everything? Why tell me? Why come here? Why now? Why does the real Santa want to pretend to be Santa in a shopping mall for the month of December? If he’s really Santa, doesn’t he have better things to be doing at this time of year, and if—”
“Okay, slow down,” she says. “First of all, yes he has things to do in December but nothing that can’t be delegated to the workforce. Some elves have been promoted from the production line to take over Santa’s duties this month. Of course the main job is to deliver the presents on Christmas Eve night and only Santa and I can do that but we’ll be finished here by then anyway.”
“There are really elves?”
“Yup,” she grins. “Probably exactly like you imagine them to be too. Shorter than most people, petite in general, fondness for wearing green clothes and pointy shoes and hats with jingle bells on.”
“And you,” I say. “You’re really Santa’s daughter?”
She rolls her eyes. “I thought we’d covered that.”
“Well yeah, but,” I glance around. “Not to sound rude or anything, but isn’t he a bit old to have a twelve-year-old daughter?”
She laughs. “He’s not as old as he looks and I’ve been this age for seventy years.”
“Okay,” I mumble. “So why? Why come here? Why tell me who you are?”
“I told you for three reasons. One is because you need my help. Two is because we need your help. And three is because I like you and I’d like us to be friends and how can we be friends if I’m keeping this huge secret from you?”
“Okay,” I say. “Okay. So why come here and dress as Santa for a month when you really are Santa? Doesn’t that defeat the object?”
“Well, first of all, Dad loves children. He loves nothing
more than meeting children and sitting with the snivelling snot bags on his lap rattling off their wish list for Christmas, so he does pop into malls around the world when he gets a chance, but it’s usually only a one or two day stop. This year, well, that’s what I want to talk to you about. You see, there’s this guy. He’s got a bee in his bonnet about Christmas. He doesn’t like it and he wants to ruin it for everyone else. Every year for the past three years he’s been setting up as a Santa in a mall, and while we’re not a hundred percent sure of what exactly he’s been doing, what we do know is that the town he chooses has a pretty rotten Christmas that year. We heard a rumour that he was coming here this year, so Dad and I decided that the only way to stop him was to come here and catch him in the act. So here we are.”
“Oh no, really?” I ask. “Is he here? Have you found him?”
“We’ve found him, so have you unfortunately, but there’s not much we can do about it yet. He’s here but he hasn’t done anything wrong. As of yet, anyway.”
“So have I?” I ask, repeating her words almost to myself.
And then I realise who she’s talking about.
“Oh my god, the nasty Santa,” I say. “He wants to ruin Christmas for us?”
Blizzard shrugs. “That’s him. He calls himself Anti-Claus.”
“God,” I say. “No wonder he wanted to pay for his spot in the mall. Dad said that even though his bosses had already hired your dad as the main Santa, this guy came along and wanted to pay for a spot, even the crappy little alleyway he’s set up in now. I thought that sounded a bit odd.”
“That’s Anti-Claus all right.”
“So what are we going to do about him?”
“Well, that’s the hard part and the part where you come in. There’s really not much we can do about him, other than keeping a very close eye on him and catching him in the act if he does do something wrong. In January, Dad and I went to the town where he struck last year and tried to find out exactly what he’d done, but we didn’t get much out of them. Most people wouldn’t talk to us. In fact a few flat out ran away when they saw Dad. The ones we did talk to, well it was mainly incoherent mumbling about things that didn’t make any sense, so we gave up. We tried to track him throughout the year, but he dropped off the grid sometime mid February. One of the elves heard a rumour from someone who knows someone who works with Anti-Claus that he was heading here this year, so Dad decided prevention is better than cure and here we are. It’s definitely the nasty Santa as you call him, just walking down that alleyway you can feel it, and his habits make sense anyway. No one sensible would want to be Santa Claus in a back alley where no children will ever see him. He’s obviously there for other purposes. We’re just here to try to make sure those purposes don’t come to fruition, and if they do, then maybe we can help. And that’s why we might need you too. You have access to the security cameras, don’t you?”
“They’re in Dad’s office,” I say. “I can watch them but I can’t manipulate them or anything.”
“No, but you can keep an eye on him from there, maybe better than we can. Dad is still completely committed to being the mall’s Santa so he expects to be busy a lot of the time with the children, but I’m acting as his elf, so I can slip off and keep watch on what the Anti-Claus is doing, and you can watch him from the cameras and tell us if he’s up to anything. Maybe your dad will even let me come into his office and watch too seeing as we’re friends.”
“There’s one snag with that plan,” I say. “When I met him the other day, Dad said he didn’t see because the cameras don’t cover that far into that corridor.”
“Well, I suppose it’s possible Anti-Claus moved the camera or covered it or something. We could get your dad to check it.”
“I don’t know, I guess I can ask him to have a look at it. I’ll tell him someone was screaming down there or something and he needs to check it out.”
“I was also wondering if you wanted to be one of my dad’s helpers too sometimes. We have to wear elf outfits, but we basically just have to get the children to queue up nicely and help the parents, stuff like that, but we also have to keep a sneaky eye on the Anti-Claus. It wouldn’t have to be every day, just on weekends or something, whenever you’re around and not doing homework.”
“I’d love to actually,” I say. “I really like your dad. I guess you can’t fail to like him seeing as he’s Santa Claus and all that, but yeah, I’d love to help. Maybe it’ll take my mind off all the stuff with my mum and Seth too, and I’ll get to be here with my dad.”
“Right,” she says. “And in return, well not really in return because I’ll help you with your Seth problem anyway, but hopefully together we can stop this guy with any plans he might have of ruining Christmas.”