North Pole Reform School (4 page)

“Don’t you ever get sick of it? I mean, we’ve been walking
around for ten minutes and I’ve already heard the same song three times,” Luke
says.

“Christmas music is beautiful and the band is very talented,
dear boy,” Navi says. “It helps to spread Christmas cheer.”

“Come on, everyone. It’s nearly dinner time, and you still
have to meet Santa.”

“Nothing will get you into the festive spirit like a full
belly on a cold day,” Navi says. “And a stitch in time is better than a poke in
the eye.”

CHAPTER 7

They lead us into a big building, and the first
thing that strikes me is that it’s like walking into a school canteen. Or the
first storey of hell.

Firstly it’s warm. Secondly it’s noisy. Very, very noisy.
There are elves sitting at every table, talking, laughing, and singing. Two
elves are playing a piano just inside the main entrance, doing a Bing-Crosby-
and-David-Bowie-style duet of “Little Drummer Boy”.

“Follow us. You must meet Santa,” Tinsel says as she and
Navi beckon us through the crowd. They lead us to a table, and sitting at the
table is Santa Claus.

Really.

Just as you would imagine him, maybe a little younger, even
though his white beard looks completely genuine, unlike my dad’s when he’s
dressed up as Santa for the store.

“Excuse me, sir,” Tinsel says to him. “I have this year’s
reform group with me. Would you like to meet them?”

“If I must,” Santa says. “I didn’t realise it was
that
time of the year already.”

“Well, it is December, sir.”

“I suppose it is. Fine. Bring them over if you have to.”

“They’re already here, sir.” She steps aside as if he hadn’t
already seen us.

“Great. More humans in the North Pole. Just what we need.”
Santa stands and curtly shakes our hands one by one while Navidad introduces
us.

When he gets to Luke, Navi whispers to him, “This is Luke
Wyatt, of Elf Ian Wyatt’s bloodline.”

I don’t know if Navidad understands the point of whispering
but we all hear every word.

Santa doesn’t let go of Luke’s hand when he shakes it,
instead he takes a step back and looks Luke over distastefully. “Yes, yes, I
see it,” he says eventually. “What are you doing here? Didn’t your grandfather
teach you anything about Christmas?”

“Yes,” Luke says. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“You must like Christmas. If you don’t like Christmas, then
you don’t like me, and everyone likes me.
Everyone
.”

Luke rolls his eyes at me as he steps aside.

“This is Mistletoe Bell,” Navi says when it’s my turn to
shake Santa’s hand. “She’s Derek Bell’s daughter, you remember, the team leader
from the Bristol branch of store Santas?”

“Not really,” Santa mutters uninterestedly.

“You spoke to him at last year’s Christmas party.”

“They all look the bloody same to me. All trying to emulate
me, and not very successfully, I might add.”

“Oi, my dad is a brilliant Santa.”

“But not as good as the real one,” Santa says. “Never as
good as the real one.”

I don’t know how to respond to that. Santa is not at all
like he’s supposed to be. He’s supposed to be happy and jolly. Friendly and
welcoming. He’s nothing like that. Santa strikes me as a bit of a bastard, to
be honest.

“What a disappointing group this year,” Santa says to
Tinsel. “One with elf blood and one with a pretend Santa as a father. Of all
the people to be ruining Christmas. What is the world coming to? Don’t these
people believe in me anymore?” It doesn’t seem to bother him that we can hear
every word.

“In all fairness, they are a little above the general
believing-in-Santa age range, sir.”

“Well, get them out of my sight, please. I dislike humans in
my North Pole, I don’t wish to eat my dinner with them standing there gawping.”

“Yes, sir,” Tinsel says. “We’ll take them to their own table
immediately.”

“Good.” Santa sits down again while grumbling under his
breath.

Mrs Claus is sitting next to him and she gives us a smile
and a cautious wave as Tinsel and Navidad herd us away. They seat us at an
empty table towards the end of the hall.

“Well, Santa seems like a delightful creature,” Luke says.
“Not quite the jolly ho-ho-ho type I’d imagined him to be.”

“Don’t pay any attention to him, dear boy,” Navidad says.
“He’s just stressed from all the Christmas preparations. It’s the elves you’ll
be working with anyway, not Santa.”

“Dinner will be served in five minutes,” Tinsel says
abruptly, as if to get us off the topic of conversation.

“What is it?” Hugo asks.

“It’s the Christmas special,” Navidad says. “You’ll love it.
Everyone loves the food here.”

“I don’t wish to eat my dinner with you humans gawping,” Joe
mimics Santa.

“I can see that getting old pretty fast,” Luke whispers in
my ear.

“Please don’t mock the boss, Joe,” Tinsel scolds him.

I personally wonder if Joe is feeling all right since he
just met Santa and he didn’t ask him his annoying red cube joke. So far it
seems he likes to ask everyone he meets.

I can’t help but look around for a while. There’s constant
noise: chattering, laughing, and singing. The elves on the piano have moved on
to “Lonely This Christmas”, and a few others are singing along like some kind
of elf choir. I wonder how they don’t get sick of Christmas songs. How they
don’t get sick of everything Christmas, really. They can’t truly do this all
year round, can they?

Another bell rings, and elf waiters flood out of the
kitchens and start serving everyone. There are so many elves I don’t even
realise they’ve come to our table.

“Dinner is served,” an elf waiter announces as he sets a
plate down in front of each of us.

I stare at it. It’s two mince pies and a candy cane. “What’s
this?”

“It’s a mince pie, duh,” Joe says, butting in.

“Dinner,” Tinsel says as she tucks in happily.

“It’s two mince pies and a candy cane.”

“And yule log for dessert. Isn’t it great?”

“One of the many awesome things about the North Pole is that
we get to eat Christmas food all the time,” Navidad says.

“What if you don’t like Christmas food?” Luke asks.

“Well, you’ve come to the wrong place,” Navi replies with a
laugh.

“I believe we also have apple pies available if you’d
prefer?” Tinsel offers.

Luke waves his hand in a
don’t
bother
motion.

“Wow, this is like the best mince pie ever!” Hugo says.

“Mrs Claus is a wonderful cook.”

“She made all this? By herself?”

“Of course, Mistletoe. She’s Mrs Claus.” Tinsel says it like
that explains everything.

Oh well.

I eat the pies on my plate and suck on the candy cane. I
hate both mince pies and candy canes. My mum loves them, so they’re things that
are always in ample supply in our house at this time of year.

Next they bring us out a huge chunk of yule log each. It’s
chocolatey and creamy, so I eat that happily. Chocolate is something I can
always get behind no matter what time of year it is.

“Do you guys eat like this every day?” Luke asks.

“We sure do,” Navidad says.

“Do you ever have the big Christmas roast dinner?” Joe asks.
“That’s the best bit about Christmas, the roast. I like a nice roast, I do.” He
glances at Emily. “Usually duck.”

Emily whacks him on the arm.

“We have a traditional roast on Christmas day,” Tinsel says.
“Just because it’s a really special occasion.”

“How can it be a really special occasion if you celebrate it
all year round?” Luke asks.

“We don’t celebrate it all year, we prepare for it and enjoy
it all year round.”

We’re all silent for a while, listening to the elves singing
and chattering. I can’t even comprehend how surreal this all is.

When dinner is over, if you could call two mince pies and a
candy cane dinner, Tinsel and Navi start leading us back to our quarters.

Luke falls into step beside me. “Hi.” His green eyes sparkle
under the Christmas lights.

“Hi,” I say shyly.

“So this place is messed up, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Really strange.”

“I feel like you’re the only normal one here. Is that
weird?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Nothing has been exactly normal
today.”

“Tell me about it. I wish I could figure out what’s going
on.”

“Are you buying everything they’re telling us?” I ask
quietly.

He shrugs. “It’s too impossible to believe, and yet I have
no other explanation. The fact is I’m in a cold, snowy place, surrounded by
elves. You and I both know that shit like this doesn’t exist, but somehow we’re
looking at it, you know? I’m not a kid, I haven’t believed in Santa since I was
like, four years old, but I just met him. So either this is for real or they’ve
put a hell of a lot of time, money, and effort into a very elaborate prank.”

“I’m leaning towards the prank angle,” I admit. “Not that I
know who would do it or why they’d want to, but none of this makes sense to
me.”

“Me neither, but these elves… they
do
remind me of my grandfather, and he wasn’t a prank, and neither are my ears,
sadly.”

“Your ears are cute,” I say, then blush from head to toe
when I realise what I’ve said.

Luke smiles. “Thank you. And for the record, Mistletoe is a
pretty name, but I can see why you dislike it.”

“Are you kidding? It’s got to be the worst name in the
world. I get nothing but insults in school.”

“Yeah, well, try having to hide these ears from your
friends. It’s not fun.”

“Bloody Christmas,” I say.

He laughs. “I don’t think you’re supposed to say things like
that here. It’s probably their equivalent of the F-bomb.”

I’ve been so distracted by Luke that I don’t even realise
we’ve taken another turn.

“This is a side of the dome,” Tinsel announces.

I look up and in front of us is a wall of curved glass. It
stretches way above our heads, so far up into the night sky that you can’t see
where it ends. The side curves so far behind the trees that you can’t see an
end to that either.

Luke walks forwards and taps it a couple of times. He
shrugs. “Glass. Feels pretty solid.”

“It’s very solid,” Navidad says. “Don’t you worry about
that—nothing can get through it.”

Emily is peering out, her hands around her eyes to block out
reflections.

“You won’t see anything,” Tinsel tells her. “Firstly, it’s
too dark, and secondly the visibility is poor in this blizzard.”

“There might be ducks out there.”

I think it’s sweet that Hugo goes over and takes hold of her
hand. “Ducks would die in that weather.”

It seems to make her feel better. Until she says, “But they
might be inside the dome with us. They might have followed me here.”

Joe bursts out laughing. “Paranoid much?”

Tinsel gives him an angry look.

“Hey, can you see any zombies?” I ask.

“The zombies don’t usually come this close to the dome.
Sometimes you see one wandering around if they come closer to hear our music.”

“God knows why,” Luke mutters and if Tinsel didn’t hear him
then she probably wonders why I’m grinning.

“And this seriously goes all the way around?” Emily asks.

“Indeed it does. There’s another visible side behind the
reindeer stables, but other than that the barriers are quite far away in the
forest. We might be elves, but we do need our space after all.”

We head back after that. Tinsel and Navidad stop outside the
door of the building we first woke up in.

“Elf Wenceslas will let you through,” Navidad says. “Take it
easy tonight. Get to know each other, watch some TV, and have an early night.
Talk to Wenceslas if you need anything, and don’t even think about trying to
sneak out in the night because you won’t get anywhere and he will know.
Wenceslas knows everything.”

“I thought he was too busy looking out on the feast of
Stephen,” Luke says and everybody laughs.

Everybody except Tinsel and Navidad.

“Don’t forget we’ll be here first thing in the morning for
an in-depth discussion of what you’ve all done to ruin Christmas,” Tinsel says.
“I suggest you spend some time tonight thinking about it.”

“Remember not to judge a book by another man’s fridge
freezer,” Navidad says as they shoo us into the building.

After saying goodnight to Wenceslas, who doesn’t look like
he’s moved an inch since we left, we traipse up the stairs to the room we came
from.

“Seems like elves don’t believe in elevators either,” Joe grumbles.

I go into my room and get out of my coat and boots. When I
come back out, everyone is sitting on the sofa. Everyone except Luke, who is
pacing around the room.

I like him. He’s got lovely eyes, and he’s definitely the
most normal person here. And he seems to think I am too, which makes me feel
warm despite the freezing temperatures.

“These outfits suck,” I say.

Luke groans. “I have never been more uncomfortable in my
life. If my friends saw me now, I’d never live it down.”

“This TV is broken.” Joe shakes the remote in his hand. “All
I can get are Christmas movies.”

“That figures,” Luke mutters.

“You try it, Elf Boy.” Joe shoves the remote towards Luke.

Luke points it at the TV and sure enough, each channel is
showing a Christmas movie. “Who wants to bet this never changes? Christmas
movies, all day, every day, no doubt done on purpose.”

“They’re elf channels,” Hugo says. “I’ve never heard of any
of them—they must only get them up here.”

Luke gives the TV a distasteful look. “I get forced into
watching
It’s a Wonderful Life
every Christmas
with my family, I have no desire to watch it again.”

Joe takes the remote back and tries it again. “Well, it
looks like our choices are Christmas movie, Christmas movie, or Christmas
movie. Personally I think looking at the blank screen is better than watching
The 12 Dogs of Christmas
.”

“
The Santa Clause
is on this
side,” Hugo says. “That’s a good one.”

“If you like Christmas so much then why are you here?” Joe
snaps at him.

“I don’t, I just remember watching that film before and it
was good.”