CHAPTER 8
It’s still only four-thirty pm so I still have time to kill. I wander past some more shops and all I keep thinking of is that Santa. Something about him sparkled and not in the sparkly vampire sort of way but in the “I’m spreading joy and happiness” kind of way. Oh god, that doesn’t make sense. All I know is that I look forward to coming back here tomorrow and seeing him properly set up. He brought so much stuff with him that it will be kind of cool to see what he’s going to do with the place. And I look forward to Pippa seeing it all at the weekend. Or on Friday night when we come for the big Light Up.
I can hear an engine running outside, almost like a motorbike is zooming around the car park, which is very much not allowed, and if I can find out where it’s coming from then I can go and tell Dad.
I’m on my way to the south entrance. It’s the one that all the delivery drivers use so they’re not getting in the way of the customers, and the car park is very off limits to anyone other than staff. I’m sure that’s where the revving noise is coming from. I haven’t even got there when I see something very strange. It’s a few planks of wood, nailed together like a shelter and decorated with tinsel. It almost looks like the Santa’s grottos we usually have from the Santas that don’t put any effort into the role. But it must be for some other purpose, because it’s tucked away in a back hall that only people using the back entrance would ever see, and Santa is always in the middle of the mall where everyone will see him. And this looks nothing like the grotto I’ve just seen Santa carrying in.
I get the feeling that I shouldn’t be caught spying around here, so I take my security hat off and keep to the shadows. There’s no one around, but I can still hear the revving noise coming from the parking lot, so I sneak towards the door and take a peek out. To my surprise, outside there is another man dressed as Santa, this one standing on the pavement in the parking lot, waiting for someone who is driving a motorbike towards him with a big sack on the back. It doesn’t look like safe driving practices.
I watch as the man on the bike pulls up and hands Santa his sack, and hear Santa growl something at him—I can’t make out the words but I can definitely pick up the growling—and the man on the motorbike speeds off again. Then Santa starts stomping towards me, well, towards the door but I happen to be in the doorway, and I take that as my cue to move. I slink back into the shadows but I can still hear Santa growling into his mobile phone at a volume barely below yelling. Whether he is outside or inside the mall, that’s no way for a Father Christmas to act. I can just about make out what he’s saying as he comes closer to the entrance. He’s having a moan about someone who was supposed to pick him up and how he had to get a lift with Henry on the back of a bloody motorbike because someone (I assume the person on the other end of the line) was too busy spending time with their bloody girlfriend to do their job. This Santa is, well, horrible. I wonder if he’s going to be working here too, but surely he can’t be. There can’t be two Santas in one mall. It simply wouldn’t work. Maybe he’s working somewhere else and they’re just letting him use this corridor in the mall for, I don’t know, storing his things? Yeah, that could be it. Maybe they’re letting him store his things here overnight. Or maybe he’s come to the wrong place.
Santa bangs his way through the door, slamming it behind him like it says not to do on all the signs as it’s a fire exit and the handle rattles too much and causes a disturbance. He’s just slipping his phone back into his pocket and walking up the corridor when he stops and looks around. I press myself as far back into the wall as I can get. I don’t want him to see me. Somehow I don’t think he’s in a very good mood. He’s standing still now and looking around. It’s like he knows I’m here. I can see his nose moving. He’s standing still and sniffing. It’s like he can smell me. Sure enough, when he starts walking again, it’s pointed and with purpose until he slows down and stops directly opposite me. He turns slowly with a sneer on his face.
“Little girls who eavesdrop get coal for Christmas,” he growls.
“I’m not eavesdropping,” I say, stepping out of the shadow. “Actually I work here. I was just, er, cleaning up.”
“I’m sure you were,” he says. But it’s obvious that he thinks otherwise. “Little liars get coal in their stocking too. You think I don’t know that shopping centres don’t hire little girls?”
“I’m not a little girl,” I say. “My dad works here and I help him out.”
Santa snorts.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Seriously, kid, what do you think it is?”
I roll my eyes. “Not that it’s important or anything. Besides, I think you might’ve got the wrong place, we already have a Santa working here. We don’t need another one.”
He laughs at that, but it’s not a jolly ‘ho ho ho’ like it should be. It’s a highly practised evil ‘mwha ha ha ha’. I don’t like it.
“Well, this year you have two. If children don’t like the other Santa, they can come to see me instead. I’m far more interesting than the old fellow with the beard, as you’ll find out.”
Isn’t it funny how you can take an instant dislike to someone? This Santa, for example, I already know that I don’t like him. I’ve said three sentences to him, and I already know that I don’t like standing here alone with him, that I don’t want to bring Pippa to see him, and especially that I don’t want him working in this mall.
“Well, you can’t set up here,” I say. “It’ll confuse the children.”
“Oh, boo hoo, the poor little children won’t believe in Santa anymore. Listen, kid, the children will come to me, you’ll see. Your old, fat, bearded man will be a thing of the past.”
“That’s not true,” I tell him. “Christmas is about tradition.”
“Christmas is about getting presents and drinking too much. The sooner you learn that, the happier you’ll be. Then maybe you can stop moping around darkened hallways hoping for something better.”
“What?” I ask, but secretly I’m thinking how did he know that? How did he know that I was moping? It’s not that obvious. I was careful to school my face in public.
“You’re moping. What ten-year-old hangs around dark hallways in shopping malls? If you were normal, you’d be out there dragging Daddy into toy shops to look at Barbie dolls. Instead, you’re lurking and trying to make yourself feel important by helping Daddy out. Trying to make yourself worth something in case Mummy thinks you’re expendable like she did with Daddy.”
I stare at him. I open my mouth to say something, but I have no words. How dare he speak to me like this?
“Don’t worry, Kaity, Mummy still loves you. She won’t suddenly stop and make you leave like she did with Daddy.”
“I... You... You have no idea what you’re talking about. How do you even know my name? I didn’t tell you.”
“I’m Santa, Kaity. I see you when you’re sleeping. I know when you’re awake. I know when Mummy divorces Daddy and Kaity cries herself to sleep every night.”
“That’s not true,” I lie.
He smiles, but it’s more like a smirk than a smile. “I’m sure it’s not. Maybe I’ve got you mixed up with some other K-A-I-T-Y. Yeah, that must be it.”
I simply stare at him. I have absolutely no words to respond.
“Maybe you should run along and tell Daddy, Kaity Kait. You—”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap.
This is freaking me out. This whole encounter is freaking me out. Who the hell is this guy and how does he know all this stuff?
“Look, Kaity, it’s been lovely to meet you,” he says in a sickeningly fake sweet voice. “But as you can see I’m very busy and I have lots of work to do to set up for business, so please, give my regards to your father who, by the way, is on the naughty list this year, and come back to see me when I’m all set up and handing out presents and toys to everyone who passes, ‘kay?” He gives me the fakest grin in the history of the world and walks away.
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