North Pole Reform School (14 page)

We make our way back through the trees hastily. The glass
rattles a few more times before we get further away. I haven’t heard any
shattering yet, so we stop to catch our breath.

“Well, that was fun,” Luke says.

“Oh yeah. Let’s come out here and get attacked by zombies
every night.”

He laughs. “Didn’t find my exit though, did I? Funnily
enough, I have no wish to find out if that glass breaks now.”

“I can’t believe it’s real,” I say. “I mean, zombies aren’t
real. They’re horror-film fodder. They don’t exist. And yet we’ve just come
face-to-face with one.”

Luke shrugs. “I’ve given up on what might be real or not
real. None of this was real until I came here. Now I don’t see any other explanation.”

“What are we going to do now?”

“Let’s go back,” he says. “They didn’t give me a curfew, but
we’ve been out for hours. I don’t particularly want anyone finding us over
here, especially with a zombie trying to fracture the glass.”

“I meant about you. You can’t try to break that glass. You
can’t go out there. That zombie meant business.”

“I’ll figure something out.”

“Luke…”

“Don’t, Mis. It’s okay. I dealt with it well enough before.
I just have to get home before he hurts my sister, and then nothing will have
changed.”

That’s exactly the problem, I think.

He squeezes my hand when we get back to the main street. The
adrenalin has worn off, and I suddenly feel tired to the bone.

“Thanks for listening tonight, Mis. I mean it. I didn’t mean
to tell you all that. No one else in the world knows that. I really didn’t mean
for it to come out. But thank you. For being there and for listening.”

“I want to help,” I tell him. “I wish there was something I
could do.”

He smiles a slow, sad smile. “It’s the way life goes. I’ll
be all right, don’t worry.”

But of course I’m going to worry. Luke’s going to break out
of here, and without even thinking of the zombies or the polar bears that might
be outside this dome, he’s going back to a father who hurts him.

I want to do something.

I just don’t know what.

Wenceslas gives us a disapproving look but doesn’t say
anything when we get in. It’s almost midnight, and everyone else is in bed. I’m
about to say goodnight to Luke when he pulls me to him and hugs me hard.

“Thank you,” he whispers again.

I don’t know how to respond.

I don’t sleep much that night. I keep thinking about Luke
and getting the overwhelming urge to hug him.

I want to tell him I like him. I want to tell him someone
cares.

I want to do something.

I don’t want him to go home to that.

CHAPTER 20

“Good morning! Welcome to the Naughty and Nice
Intelligence System!” an elf chirps as we walk through the door of the building
Navi has directed us to. “I’m Poinsettia! I’ll be your training advisor today!”

It’s way too early for this kind of excitement.

“Luke, Mistletoe,” Luke grunts.

“Ooooh, what a lovely name!” Poinsettia reaches over and
tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. “So Christmassy!”

I wonder if half these elves realise we’re here because we
hate Christmas? Also, if they have any concept of personal space?

I instinctively take a step back, but she doesn’t seem to
notice.

“Follow me—I’ll show you to our office!”

Every sentence that comes out of her mouth is a high-pitched
chirrup, and I wonder how many sugar cookies she’s eaten this morning. We
follow her up the stairs, and although every building we walk into here is
surprising in some way, this one takes the cake. It’s a huge, white, open-plan
office. Rows and rows of cubicles with an elf sitting in each one. When the
door shuts behind us, most of them look up and give us a wave. It looks like a
normal office, although the cubicles are smaller than they would be for a
human-sized person. Poinsettia leads us through the rows and into an office
separated from the rest of the cubicles by glass walls.

“This is where you’ll be working,” she says. “With me!”

“Yay!” Luke says sarcastically.

There are two big desks in the office, and she goes to sit
behind one and pats the other. It has two chairs behind it, so Luke and I take
one each.

“Now then,” she says happily. “I’m sure you know what the
naughty and nice list is. Nice children get a toy from Santa; naughty children
get a lump of coal in their stockings. As I’m sure you’ve heard, Santa makes
this list and checks it twice. Well, the first part is a lie. It’s the elves
who make the list. Santa just sits on his bum all day drinking hot chocolate
and taking all the credit. He does, however, check it twice, and it was on that
final check last year where we ran into problems. The new Santa was, shall we
say, enthusiastic about the job. Some might even say overly enthusiastic. He
checked it twice, he might even have checked it three times, but he didn’t take
enough time or look into the cases on an individual basis. He didn’t trust us
elves to do the job. First year in the job too, the bloody nerve of him.”

I catch Luke’s eye and he grins at me.

“I take it you aren’t overly fond of Santa around here?”
Luke asks.

“Oh, we aren’t allowed to say that. The elves love Santa. It’s
just that this most recent one is, er, perhaps a law unto himself would be the
best way to put it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s a little headstrong. Last year was his first year, and
he came in all high and mighty. Thought he knew the job better than anyone and
had no time for elves who have been working here for years. He didn’t trust us
with the N and N list and insisted on checking it twice, but the problem was
that he didn’t check it well enough. He didn’t have time for all the paperwork,
you see. He took every case at face value, and that’s not what we do at the
North Pole. He put far too many children on the naughty list, but you can’t
argue with him. He is Santa, after all, as he repeatedly told any elf who
questioned him. But it doesn’t matter now. This year, because of his actions,
we have been forced to do a hefty review of the list. There must have been so
many disappointed children last year. Can you imagine waking up to only a lump
of coal on Christmas morning?” She shudders.

“Oh yes, that must be terrible,” Luke mutters.

“Well, we can’t let it happen again. This year we’ve changed
the way we do things and have become the N and N Intelligence System. All the
elves you see out there monitor each child on a daily basis. They are alerted
immediately to naughty behaviour, and then they supervise the situation until
Christmas. Personally, I am at the tail end of the review of the naughty list.
This is what you’ll be helping me with today.”

She pulls her candy-cane wand out, and with a flick of her wrist,
it extends across the room and she taps on the glass with it. Another flick and
it returns to normal size and she pops it back in her pocket.

An elf scurries in with a mountain of files. He deposits
them on our desk and scurries away again.

“There we go,” Poinsettia chirps. “That’s your work for the
morning. Those files are some of the children Santa put on the naughty list
last year. Please review them and decide whether they should stay there or be
moved to the nice list.”

We both stare at the mountain of files on the desk.

“This is crazy,” Luke says. “How the hell are we supposed to
do that?”

“Simply read through them. You’ll get all the facts from
each file. You then decide if the child is naughty or not. And don’t do what
the last moron from your group did and mark them all as naughty because he
simply hates children
,” she says, deepening her voice.

“Joe,” Luke and I say together.

“Yes,” she says. “What a horrible creature. He did nothing
but complain about paperwork and insist on telling every elf in the office the
most ridiculous joke that wasn’t even funny.”

“But how will we know?” I ask.

“You’ll know. Just write nice or naughty across the front of
the file and put them in separate piles. You are welcome to ask me for help, of
course, but I have my own work to do. Come on then, let’s get down to it or
we’ll be here all day.”

“We could’ve started half an hour ago if someone wasn’t so
bloody chatty,” Luke whispers in my ear.

I kick him under the table, but I can’t help but grin back
at him. Luke has a knack of saying exactly what I’m thinking.

I’m sure that Poinsettia must have heard him because the
elves always seem to hear whispering, but she doesn’t say anything. To be
honest, it seems that the only things the elves do hear are the things you don’t
want them to.

We take a file each, and when I open mine, the face of a
little boy stares out at me.

Name: Alfie

Age: Six

Offence: Rode his bike into his sister

Date of offence: July 6th

Comments: None

“This is insane. How do you know all this stuff? How do you
have a close-up picture of this kid?”

“We have surveillance and a task force working around the
clock. This is one of the most important parts of Christmas. No expense is
spared when it comes to sorting the naughty from the nice children.”

“So, this kid. Is this it? I mean, it says date of offence
in July. Has he done anything bad since then?”

“If he has, it will be in the file.”

I leaf through it, but there’s only the photograph and the
one-page report. “There’s nothing,” I tell her.

“Then he hasn’t reoffended since July. You really should be
able to work this out for yourself, Mistletoe.”

“But it’s stupid,” I complain. “How do you know it wasn’t an
accident?”

“If it was an accident, he wouldn’t be on the naughty list.”

Luke is barely hiding his laughter behind his own file.

I kick him again. “If you’re so smart, what have you got in
yours?”

“I’ve got a kid who hid her dad’s car keys so he couldn’t go
to work.” Luke laughs. “She goes on the nice list.” He slaps the file shut in
satisfaction and scrawls “NICE” across the front of it.

I roll my eyes. “Well, I don’t think this kid deserves to be
on the naughty list because of that one little thing. Besides, maybe the sister
provoked him.”

“Whatever you think, Mistletoe. It’s your call,” Poinsettia
says.

“But what if I’m wrong?”

Luke is still laughing and I kind of want to kick him again,
but it’s good to see him happy after last night, even if it is me he’s laughing
at.

“Go with your heart. It won’t be wrong,” Poinsettia tells
me.

“It might be.”

“Oh, for Frosty’s sake, Mistletoe. I wouldn’t have given you
this job if I didn’t think you could do it. Just bloody get on with it!”

“I didn’t think elves were allowed to swear,” Luke says.

“Just get on with it, both of you. Christmas is creeping up
on us hour by hour, and the more chattering we do, the more children may end up
on the naughty list when they don’t deserve to.”

I find it quite funny how she can go from flittery and
squeaky to strict businesswoman when it suits her.

I write “NICE” across the front of Alfie’s file and open the
next one.

Name: Chad

Age: Ten

Offence: Insect-related destruction

Date of offence: Ongoing

Comments: A truly unpleasant little boy

I have no idea what insect-related destruction might be, and
even though it doesn’t sound like a particularly bad thing in my book, I mark
him as naughty and move on.

Name: Milo

Age: Thirteen

Offence: Hit a teacher

Date of offence: November 3rd

Comments: See file

I start leafing through his file. I’m not sure which is
worse—the pictures in the file or how the elves got such personal pictures. The
pictures are of the boy, taken while he is standing in front of a mirror,
bruises marring his torso. There is one of him sitting awkwardly on his bed,
crying and clutching his arm to his chest. My breath catches in my throat when
I come across one of his house. Through the curtains you can see the silhouette
of a grown man raising his arm to the little boy.

It makes me think of Luke and what his life must be like. I
look over and give him a sad smile when he meets my eyes.

This boy is like Luke. His dad is beating him up. He’s on
the naughty list for hitting a teacher. I know without a shadow of a doubt this
is what Tinsel meant when she was talking about not taking things at face value
and finding the reason behind it. Yes, this boy hit a teacher, which obviously
isn’t good. But he doesn’t know any better. His own father hits him. He
probably doesn’t realise that it isn’t normal. He’s probably grown up thinking
that the way to get what you want is to hit someone.

I fight the overwhelming urge to reach over and hug Luke. I
knock my foot against his gently, and he looks up and smiles at me again. It
makes me feel better that he’s okay, even if he’s not
really
okay. Maybe this boy will be okay someday too.

But he’s certainly not staying on the naughty list. I write
“NICE” across his folder. I think about him on Christmas morning. I wonder if
his father will buy him any presents. Somehow, I doubt it. It suddenly hits me
that the only present he’ll get will be the one from Santa. The one the elves
in the factory make. I realise this boy is a perfect example of what they were
saying. Some children have no one who cares about them. This little boy will
wake up on Christmas morning, and it makes me feel better to know he’ll have at
least one present. He’ll know that someone cares about him, even if he doesn’t
know who it is. It’s me. It’s us.

Tears fill my eyes and I push the file away.

“Bathroom,” I mutter to Poinsettia, and I run out of the
office and down the stairs. I don’t go to the bathroom though. I go out the
door and into the snow. There’s a windowsill and I sit down on it, despite
being freezing. My hat and coat are still upstairs. I wipe my eyes and try to
hide my face when Luke comes out the door a few seconds later.

“Hey.” He crouches down in front of me. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I’m being stupid.”

“Paperwork getting to you, huh?”

“No, it’s just… some of those kids. It’s really sad.”

“Yeah, I get that. Santa has a real nerve putting them on
the naughty list when they don’t deserve it.”

I realise being on the naughty list means that poor little
boy only got a lump of coal for Christmas last year. It makes fresh tears fill
my eyes. “I wish we could give them two presents to make up for last year.”

“I don’t think it works like that, Mis.”

“I know. He just… doesn’t deserve that.”

“Who?”

“A little boy. I was reading his file. He’s like you. His
dad is hurting him. It just… I don’t know. Got to me, I guess.”

“I’m not some poor little battered kid. I can hit back.”

“He just reminded me of you.”

“Yeah, well, forget it, all right? I don’t want anyone
knowing about that. It’s my business.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone, Luke. It doesn’t mean I can’t
care about you. I don’t want you to go back to that.”

“I
have
to go back to that.”

“That’s the problem.”

“So you’re crying over me and some little kid you’ve never
met because we have abusive fathers?”

“No, I just… We should tell the elves. Maybe they can help.”

“What, like they’ve helped that kid?”

“What?”

“Think about it, Mis. That kid is on the naughty list.
Someone has put him there. It might not have just been Santa last year. Some
other elf has read through that file and done nothing about it. Whatever ‘elf
task force’ they have down south to get all those pictures, they haven’t done
anything. You can read his file and
want
to
help, but at the end of the day, there’s sod all you can do about it. And the
same goes for me. My only way out is to get a decent job that pays enough for
me to take care of my sister too, so that’s what I’m doing.”

He’s right. I know he’s right. All we can do is read his
file and send him a present. I wonder about Luke. I wonder if he was on the
naughty list. I wonder if he ever got a present from Santa and thought that
someone cared about him.

“It just makes me realise how important Christmas is,” I
say.

“Congratulations, I think you just graduated from North Pole
Reform School.”