Santa jumps into the sleigh and motions for me to follow him. Even as I do, I realise how insane this is. It’s not like the sleigh can really fly or anything, it must just be a—
“Aaaaaah,” I scream as we take off. The reindeer gallop down the street and the sleigh lifts smoothly into the air.
“Take the first left,” I tell him when we’re about ten feet above the ground and rising by the second. I turn back and wave to Mum and Pippa, who are standing in the doorway with their mouths open in shock.
I know the feeling.
“I can’t believe I’m flying in Santa’s sleigh,” I say.
“I’m sorry it’s in such bad circumstances,” Santa says. “Blizzard actually wanted to bring you for a ride. We were going to come and get you this evening as a surprise. I just didn’t expect her to go missing on me.”
“We’ll find her,” I say.
“Which one is your dad’s balcony?” Santa asks as his building comes into view.
“That one,” I point to it. “Three flats from the top.”
“I’ll pull up next to it. You hop off and get him, will you?”
“Aren’t you worried about people seeing you?”
Santa taps his nose knowingly. “Trust in the magic,” he says, and I figure that he must have some kind of shield or invisibility cloak on.
The surprise on Dad’s face when he hears knocking from the balcony door is nothing compared to the shock when he sees Santa’s sleigh and three reindeer idling in mid air outside.
“Blizzard’s gone missing,” I say. “There’s no time to explain. You have to come with us, we need you to go through the security tapes from last night and see if they picked up anything.”
Dad nods mutely.
“Sorry for the surprise, Andrew,” Santa says as Dad grabs his keys and coat.
“Is that... safe?” Dad asks eventually.
“Oh yes, quite safe. I fly around the world in it every year. Please get in. We have no time to waste. It is of the utmost importance that we find Blizzard and fast.”
I jump from Dad’s balcony back into the sleigh and Dad closes the door behind him and follows me.
“This is too mad for words,” Dad says as we take off towards the mall.
“Mum and Pippa just saw it too,” I say.
“Wow, I bet your mum was happy about that. If your reindeer left hoof marks in the lawn she’ll never speak to you again.”
The mall isn’t far and we land on the roof, out of sight of the public.
“Well, this certainly explains how you’ve been getting to work every day,” Dad says. “You are really Santa, I take it?”
“Yes,” Santa says. “And Blizzard is my navigator. Without her the sleigh won’t fly around the world tonight and Anti-Claus will have ruined Christmas for everyone.”
“Anti-Claus?” Dad asks.
“The other Santa. The one who paid for his spot here. He wants to destroy Christmas for us. Blizzard and Santa came here to stop him. Mum’s boyfriend Seth is working for him.”
“That’s not a surprise,” Dad says sarcastically. “I did wonder about him. We’ve had a few complaints about the toys he was giving out, but well, they were free, what do people expect us to do about it?”
We slide down the rain guttering one at a time and land perfectly on our feet in front of the back door.
Dad laughs. “If Don only knew how right he was. We had a little joke that you came to work in the sleigh and slid down off the roof.”
Dad switches off all the burglar alarms and we all file into the eerily silent building. It’s always strange being here this early because it’s usually such a busy place, and to see it empty is creepy. Dad hits the switch to turn all the lights on, and we file into his office. He sits at the computer screens while Santa and I crowd in behind him. After a while he finds the right place in the tape he needs.
“What time did Blizzard leave the hotel?” Dad asks.
“Ten,” Santa says. “Definitely ten.”
“Okay so we’ll start from there,” Dad says as he begins forwarding through the tapes in slow motion. Each screen in front of Dad shows a different area of the mall, a couple of different angles on the same area. There are sixteen screens altogether.
“You two keep an eye on all of these. Here, Santa you keep watching this side and Kaity you keep watching that side. We’re unlikely to miss anything then.”
Sure enough, once the tape is about twenty minutes in, I spot a blaze of hair crossing the parking lot and we all turn our attention to that screen. The tape is freaky, recorded in stop motion and now going in slow motion too. It’s jumpy and hard to follow, but we can easily see Blizzard walk across the parking lot. She’s digging her keys out of her pocket and you can clearly see wires going into her ears where she’s listening to her Ipod and not concentrating on her surroundings at all. She doesn’t even seem to see the black car that she walks around, and when she stops at the door to get her keys out, she doesn’t hear or see the looming figure that comes up behind her. The very familiar looming figure that steps up behind her, slips a bag over her head and pulls her backwards into a very familiar black car. A very familiar black limousine.
I knew he was trouble.
“This is the idiot your mum’s been dating, I assume?” Dad says and I nod.
“And he works for the guy who’s been playing Santa down the west corridor?”
I nod again.
“And they’ve kidnapped your daughter,” he says to Santa.
Santa is staring at the now empty screen, the limo pictured on it having long since zoomed off into the distance with Blizzard in the back.