North Pole Reform School (16 page)

Dear Becky,

I wish Santa could help you. I really do. If it was up to me,
we would wave a magic wand and make your mummy better, but we can’t do that.
I’m sorry that there is no one in the world who can do that, not even Santa. I
know it’s hard, but you should spend as much time as possible with your mummy
and try to make this Christmas the best she has ever had. In the future, you
will always be able to remember it, and for a moment you might feel as though
your mummy is by your side again.

We will be thinking of you and sending you a special wish on
Christmas Eve.

All my love,

Elf Mistletoe (at the North Pole)

Dear Santa,

Daddy said my present request was too weird this year, and he
couldn’t get one so I should ask you for it instead. Santa, please can you
bring me a dolphin? A real, live, proper dolphin. Daddy brought me a giant
stuffed one, but it isn’t the same. I promise I will look after it always. We
have an inflatable paddling pool in the back garden that we can keep it in.

Love,

Cheyenne

At least that one makes me laugh.

Dear Cheyenne,

As much as Santa would love to provide you with a dolphin, I’m
afraid dolphins need more than an inflatable pool to survive. They need open
sea to swim in and plenty of fish to eat. I know it’s not the same, but perhaps
you could ask your daddy to take you to see one in an aquarium? Believe me, we would
all love a dolphin in our back garden, but it’s just not healthy for the
dolphin. They are much happier in the sea.

Love,

Elf Mistletoe. (North Pole)

And the next one:

Dear Santa,

Please help me. I don’t want toys and presents this year.
There are these boys at school who keep picking on me. They threw my bag into a
puddle, and my mum got mad at me for dropping it. I couldn’t tell her the truth
even though I didn’t drop it. Sometimes they kick me and punch me. I used to
bring money to school for treats but I don’t anymore because they always take
it. They call me names and push me sometimes. I can’t tell anyone because they
will laugh at me, and the boys have told me they will hurt me if I tell. Please
stop these boys. I don’t want toys or anything under the Christmas tree. Please
just make them stop. I want to feel safe again.

Love,

William

“This is like being an agony aunt for children,” Luke says.

“Santa doesn’t realise how lucky he is.”

Jingle smiles happily. “I’m glad I’m not the only one who
thinks so.”

“This is amazing. I mean, we might not be able to do much to
help these children, but it feels good. It feels like we’re helping,” I say.

“I’m glad I’m not pretending to be Santa anymore. It feels
better this way. It’s very freeing,” Jingle says.

Luke laughs. “Glad to be of service.”

I write back to the bullied boy.

Dear William,

This isn’t going to be what you want to hear, but Santa can’t
stop these bullies. The only person who can stop them is you. I know they have
threatened you and told you not to tell anyone. This is all part of their
routine. You have to be brave and tell someone. There must be an adult you
trust—your parents, or perhaps a teacher. I promise that no one will laugh at
you or think any less of you. They will know how strong you are for having the
courage to tell them. You have done nothing wrong, and you don’t deserve to be
treated like this. Please tell an adult and they will help you. I promise that
it won’t make the bullying worse. It will stop. You just have to find the courage
to take the first step.

Please find encouragement in this letter and know that Santa
and a whole gang of elves from the North Pole are on your side.

Love,

Elf Mistletoe

“Have they finally got to you too?” I ask Luke as we trudge
towards the dining hall when Jingle lets us go for lunch.

He shrugs. “I guess I’d never really thought about how much
it means to people. This has… I mean, you know, you get wrapped up in your own
life. My only care at Christmas is stopping any fights and not letting my
sister realise how shit our dad is. You get so wrapped up in it that you forget
there are other people out there who love it, and you forget that some children
think Santa is the answer to their prayers.”

“It’s shocked me,” I admit. “I pretty much thought that no
kids believed in Santa anymore. It’s surprising how many children turn to him
because they have no one else to go to.”

“I don’t like this Santa though. He’s really a bit of a
bastard.”

“I know. I thought Santa was meant to be happy and jolly.”

“I wish we could do something. It’s wrong to have someone
like this in a job as important as being Santa is.”

“Those are words I never thought I’d hear coming out of your
mouth,” I tell him.

He laughs. “Maybe they have got to me a little bit.”

CHAPTER 22

“Welcome to Christmas Past and Present. I’m Noelle.
I believe this is your last class before graduation!”

“It is?” Luke and I look at each other in shock.

“Yes, yes,” she says. “This is always the last stop before
they send you home.”

“Well, thank God for that,” Luke mutters.

The truth is we had no idea we were nearly done. Days have
merged into weeks, and we know we’ve been here for a while now, but they have
no calendars here. At least, not in places we can see them.

“I’m always honoured to have the last class. I think my
department is a lovely way to remember the North Pole.”

“What exactly is Christmas Past and Present?” Luke asks.

“Well, we’re the only department in the North Pole that
exists solely for the reform groups. Every other place you’ve been working in
is something that already goes on here. But with me, I’m only here to help you
on your journey to Christmas reform.”

I can feel Luke bristling beside me and I nudge him with my
elbow.

“Maybe I don’t want to be
helped on
my journey to Christmas reform
,” he hisses in my ear.

“If they’ve put you on my schedule, Luke, clearly you are
already reformed,” Noelle says, seemingly unaware of the fact she wasn’t meant
to hear that. And the fact that we haven’t even introduced ourselves.

“That’s debateable,” he mutters.

“Nonsense. You must have been doing well or you wouldn’t
have been sent to me. Now, if you’d like to come into my office, I’ll show you
what Christmas Past and Present really is.”

We follow her, and she takes us into a small room. On one
wall is a huge cinema screen.

“Wow. I bet you slack off in here watching Christmas movies
all day,” Luke says.

“Oh, no, dear. Watching Christmas movies is never slacking
off.” She says it completely seriously.

She directs us both to sit down and we do.

“Now then. Up until now, your jobs have been designed to
teach you the meaning of Christmas. It’s all been very physical with a lot of
elves lecturing you, I would imagine.”

Luke snorts. “You must’ve been to reform school yourself.”

“No, dear,” she says seriously. “Elves could never hate
Christmas.”

Luke rolls his eyes.

“Anyway,” she continues, “I’m here to
show
you how important Christmas is, and once was to
you yourselves. I think it’s a lovely thing to leave you with as we send you on
your way.”

“And just when will you be sending us?”

“I believe you’ll see Santa for your graduation ceremony
tomorrow.”

“Excellent.” Luke beams at me, but the smile I send him in
return isn’t so wide.

It’s not that I don’t want to get out of here. It’s not that
I don’t miss my family. It’s not that I don’t want to go home.

It’s that I don’t want to leave him.

I’ve spent the past however many days with Luke, and once we
leave here, we’ll probably never see each other again. He’ll go back to his
life and forget all about me. And I can’t bear the thought of him going back to
his father. What will happen when he gets back? I wonder if he’ll be in trouble
for coming here. I wonder if his father will have hurt his sister. I wonder if
he’ll get a beating for disappearing in the middle of the night, even though it
wasn’t his choice. I doubt his father will accept that a bunch of elves
kidnapped him.

It makes me shudder just to think of it, and I look up to
find Noelle looking at me curiously.

“I’m here to show you just how important Christmas is to families.
If you’ll just sit and watch the screen.”

We do, and it jumps into life. A film plays. We are shown a
front lawn.

Luke gasps.

There is a Santa Stop Here sign on the lawn and a little
girl is kicking it down.

“Gracie, honey, don’t,” a woman says, bending down to pick
the little girl up.

“I hate that stupid sign. Granddad would still be here if it
wasn’t for that stupid sign.”

“Now, that’s not true. Your granddad didn’t die because his
sign went missing. He died because he was ill. You mustn’t blame the sign.”

“That’s the last of it.” A man walks out of the house
carrying a box. “I can’t believe the council made us clear his house out so
soon before Christmas. It’s not like anyone is going to move here in the next
two days, is it?”

“You know what they’re like, honey.”

He grunts. “I just can’t believe he’s gone. We’ve never
spent Christmas without him before.”

The woman brushes her hand over his cheek and wipes away a
tear. “Things will get easier,” she says.

I don’t need to look over at Luke to know he’s crying. I
reach over and take his hand, and he squeezes mine back tightly.

The scene cuts. This time we are in a living room. It’s
decorated for Christmas with a big green tree covered in lights in one corner.
On the sofa there is a little boy looking bored and flicking a remote control
at the TV to change channels.

“Muuuuuuum!” he shouts. “Muuuuuum! I’m boooooored!”

A harassed-looking woman comes rushing in. “I know, Olly, I
know, but you’ll just have to amuse yourself for a minute. I’m cooking and
feeding your little brother.”

“I want to go outside! I want to build a snowman! Look, all
the other kids are out there. I wanna goooo!”

“I know, Ols, but you can’t until your bandages come off.
You know what the doctor said.”

“It’s not fair!”

“It’s only until your burns are healed. It’ll pass in no
time, you’ll see.”

Oh no. I knew the little boy looked familiar. Last time I
saw him, he was being carted off in an ambulance. Because of me. Because of
that stupid school Christmas tree.

A timer starts going off.

“Time to change your dressings,” his mum says.

The boy starts crying.

“Oh, please don’t cry, Ols. It’ll be over before you know
it.”

“But it hurts,” he wails.

“I know it does, but it won’t take long. You know it was the
only way we could have you home for Christmas, otherwise you would have had to
stay in hospital and have your bandages changed in there four times a day. We
have to prevent infection and stop the skin sticking as it grows back.”

I shudder.

I feel quite sick actually.

I did that. That boy is in pain and that family is going to
have a rotten Christmas because of me.

“Don’t you think we feel bad enough?” I stand up and shout
at Noelle. “We don’t need to see this!”

“Actually, it’s exactly what you need to see. Please sit
back down, Mistletoe.”

I grumble, but I do sit down again.

“This is like a sodding
Christmas
Carol
, this is,” Luke says. “You’re gonna be bringing out some ghosts in
a minute.”

“No ghosts,” Noelle says. “Just a slideshow now.”

She fiddles with the remote again. “Damn thing is playing up
today,” she mutters.

Eventually the screen is filled with a picture of a smiling
family.

“No,” Luke says quietly.

It takes me a while to realise that the smiling family
sitting around a dinner table is Luke’s. He’s a young boy, reaching over for a
piece of turkey. A baby girl sits in a high chair, clapping. His mum and dad
are smiling at each other.

It’s replaced by another picture. This time it’s of me as a
little girl sitting on my father’s lap. He’s dressed as Santa of course, and
we’re in his grotto at the supermarket. We both look happy. I’m waving a
reindeer-antler headband around. I must have liked Christmas then.

The next photo is of Luke again. He’s got a Santa hat on,
and he’s making a “shh” motion at whoever is behind the camera. He has a bulging
stocking in his hand, and he’s pushing open the door to what is obviously his
sister’s bedroom.

“I used to deliver her presents,” he whispers to me.

I nod.

The next picture is of me and my sister, sitting in the
middle of the living room floor in a sea of torn wrapping paper. The whole
family are sitting around and watching us with smiles on their faces. It’s
clearly Christmas Day, and looking at the picture, I can’t remember why it was
ever that bad.

More photos pop up. They all show the same thing. Luke and
me looking happy with our families at Christmas.

And this is the last thing they choose to show us before we
leave tomorrow.

Sneaky bastards, those elves.

“That’s it,” Noelle announces. She points the remote at the
screen and presses a few buttons.

“Oh dear, it appears to be stuck. Hang on.” She jabs at the
remote again, and eventually the pictures of us disappear and various shots of
the village come up.

“What is this, like, CCTV or something?” Luke asks.

“Exactly, yes, this is one of the— Blimey, the zombies are
eager today!”

I jump in my seat as a black-and-white CCTV video comes up.
It’s of outside the dome. The camera is inside—you can tell it’s filming
through the glass—but there are zombies everywhere. They’re milling around
outside. Some are doing the same swaying movement that Luke and I had seen the
other night.

“Are there usually that many of them?” Luke asks.

“No, it’s quite unusual. They’re out there, for sure, but
they don’t usually come this close to the dome.”

“Well, they certainly are today.”

“They can probably smell that we have humans in. Obviously
we don’t have humans here very often—it’s just elves and the zombies don’t seem
very interested in elves. Santa is the only human around here.”

“I hear that’s debateable,” Luke says.

Noelle laughs. “We’re forbidden from speaking badly about
the boss.”

“Of course you are.”

“Those zombies,” I say. “Should we worry about them?”

“Oh, no, dear. Of course not. They can’t get in.”

“Even that many of them?”

“Our glass is indestructible.”

I nod even though I don’t feel very reassured.

“I’m sorry,” Noelle says. “You weren’t supposed to see that.
Please don’t let it bother you. We’re quite used to them around here. They’re
not doing any harm.”

“I think that dance may say otherwise,” Luke says.

“I didn’t know the village was under surveillance too.”

“It’s only a recent development. The new Santa decided we
weren’t keeping a close enough eye on things.”

“Of course he did.” Luke grunts.

Noelle manages to get the zombie images turned off the
screen and smiles at us brightly. “I do believe that this completes your
reformation. Congratulations, and enjoy your last night here.”

Luke gives her a wink. “We will.”