North Pole Reform School (5 page)

“There are no good Christmas movies,” Emily says. “They’re
all bad omens.”

“Shh,” Joe says suddenly. “Did you hear that? It was a…
quack!”

“Stop it, Joe,” Emily squeaks. “It’s not funny.”

“Why are you being so cruel to everyone?” Luke asks him.
“The way I see it is since we’re all in this together, we may as well be civil
to each other.”

“I don’t think we are in it together. I think you know more
than you’re letting on, Elf Boy.”

“Stop calling me that, and for the millionth time, I don’t
know anything more than you do.”

“Luke is right,” I say. “Whatever is going on here, fighting
with each other isn’t going to help. We’re all here and none of us know why or
how. Maybe if we stop making fun of each other and trading insults, we can work
together and figure it out.”

“Maybe you’re in on it too,
Mistletoe
,”
Joe says with an emphasis on my name. “Elf Boy over there has elf ears and you
have an elf name, and they keep going on about your father having been here.
And I totally saw you and Elf Boy getting cosy earlier.” He turns to Hugo and
Emily. “Those two are in on this together.”

“No one’s in on anything,” Luke says sharply.

“I believe them,” Emily says.

“This is ridiculous,” I say. “This whole situation is
completely laughable, except it’s not. I don’t know what’s going on here,
neither does Luke, and I’m pretty sure that the only chance we have is if we
work together to figure it out.”

“She’s right,” Hugo pipes up. “We shouldn’t fight with each
other. We’re all locked in here, we’re all dressed up in stupid costumes, and
we’re all stuck watching stupid films and hearing stupid Christmas carols.”

“I hate you all and this TV is shit.” Joe throws the remote
down on the floor. “There’s a football match on tomorrow, and now I’ll never
get to see it.”

“That explains why you’re so pissed off,” Luke says.

“Do you think we can break out?” Hugo asks.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Luke says. “I think we need
to look around some more before we try anything. I couldn’t see anything
tonight, but that glass did seem pretty solid. There must be a way in and out,
but we have no hope of finding it tonight.”

“What about the polar bears?” Emily asks. “And the zombies?”

“Do you think there are really zombies?” Hugo asks.

“You know, I was pretty close to believing what they were
saying until they mentioned the zombies,” I say. “I mean, zombies living in the
North Pole because they find Christmas music soothing? Really?”

“Technically zombies aren’t living,” Emily says.

“Living or not, they don’t exist.”

“I don’t know what to believe, but I think they might just
be scaremongering us, you know? Don’t try to break out or the zombies will eat
you.” Luke makes an exaggerated growling noise and does a “Thriller” dance
move. “I was saying earlier I don’t believe in zombies, but I don’t believe in
elves or Santa’s Village in the North Pole either, and yet here we are with no
other explanation.”

“I think it could be some kind of elaborate prank…” I say.

“Maybe it’s a reality TV show!” Emily says excitedly. “Have
any of you signed up for something like that? Wait, none of you are famous, are
you?”

“No,” everyone replies at once.

“Don’t they need, like, contracts and permission to do a
reality TV show?”

“Hidden camera then? One of those hidden camera prank
shows?”

“But how?” Luke asks. “Why? How’d they get us here? Where’d
they get all those elves? I mean, they were real, right, they weren’t an
optical illusion?”

“Yeah… they were real. They couldn’t have faked that.”

“So you’re all saying… you think this is for real?” Joe asks
slowly.

“I don’t see any other explanation,” Luke says.

“So there might really be polar bears and zombies outside?”
Emily asks.

“And ducks,” Joe says.

Emily hits him again.

Personally I wish she’d hit him harder.

“Look,” Luke starts. “I don’t know either way. What I’m
saying is that we need to find a way out of here. I don’t know what’s going to
happen tomorrow or what these schedules they keep talking about are, but
whatever we have to do, whether we’re split up or together, what I’m saying is
have a look around. Don’t make it obvious, but if you can see out of the glass,
have a look, see what it looks like out there. Keep an eye on the elves, see
where they’re going to or coming from. There has to be a door somewhere. They
got us in somehow if nothing else. Whatever Tinsel and Navi say, there has to
be a way out and we will find it, we just have to work together.”

“That’s a good plan,” I say.

“I agree,” Emily says.

Joe just rolls his eyes.

“I’m tired,” Hugo says. “I’m going to bed.”

It doesn’t take long before everyone follows him.

Sleep that night is interesting, although it has to be said
that the bed is surprisingly soft and comfortable. For what looks like a prison
bed, it feels like sleeping on a cloud, and I suspect there is some elf magic
involved in that too.

CHAPTER 8

The sound of Noddy Holder shrieks through the
building the next morning. It’s early. Way too early. And “Merry Christmas
Everybody” by Slade is apparently our alarm call because it’s blaring so loudly
the bed is shaking. It’s followed by the sound of jingling bells as Tinsel and
Navidad come in and start chirping about how we’re wasting the day by sleeping.

“The early bird catches the penguins,” Navi says.

They’ve brought a plate of mince pies for breakfast, and
eventually we are all dressed and sitting on the sofas eating.

“Now then,” Tinsel says. “This whole experience is to help
you. You’re miserable, you hate this time of year, and you’re making all those
around you miserable too. That’s not helping anyone. We’ve brought you here to
show you how good Christmas can be and so you can atone for the problems you’ve
caused.”

“That’s—”

“Don’t tell me it’s ridiculous, Mr Wyatt.” Tinsel points the
candy-cane wand at him. “Or that it’s nonsense or anything else you were about
to tell me. Now, let’s go through the actual reasons you’re in this situation
and the actions that have brought you here.”

“Can I ask a question?” I raise my hand.

“If you must.”

“Do you do this every year? Yesterday you mentioned another
group you’ve had. We’re not the first, I take it?”

“No, far from it.” Tinsel almost giggles. “We’ve been doing
this since before any of you were born, even Joe.”

“What if we don’t learn?” Joe asks. “You keep saying we’re
here to learn, well, what if we don’t? Quite frankly, I think this is all a
load of bull, I’m still not convinced that someone hasn’t slipped something in
my beer, and I don’t like the idea of having to atone for something I don’t
know I’ve done.”

“We’ll get there, Joe, don’t worry,” Tinsel says. “I’ve
never known such an awkward group as you lot. Questions, questions, questions, and
then butting in and interrupting before we can even answer. You don’t know what
you have to atone for? Well, it’s far past time that we all sat down and worked
it out. Mr Wyatt, as you seem determined to be cheeky, why don’t you tell us
all exactly why you’re here?”

“Because you think I’ve ruined Christmas?”

“Exactly right, dear boy,” Navi says.

I can tell that Navi likes Luke. The way he keeps calling
him “dear boy” but doesn’t say it to anyone else. Maybe it’s the elf relative
thing.

“Okay.” Luke grins. “Apparently I’m here because I have
this… thing. I
hate
tacky Christmas decorations.
Whoever decided that a glowing plastic Santa on the roof or a blow-up snowman
on the lawn was aesthetically pleasing or socially acceptable needs to be
whacked round the head with an inflatable reindeer. We have neighbours across
the street who have everything you could possibly think of—reindeer, snowmen,
five giant Santas, two Christmas trees, and about ninety thousand
lights—plastered from top to bottom of their house and covering every inch of
their lawn. If you’ve ever seen the movie
Deck the
Halls
, it’s like Danny DeVito in that, but worse. Much worse. And these
lights never go off. They flash and they twinkle, and one of the Santas shouts
‘Ho Ho Ho, Merrrrrrrry Christmas’ all day, every day, and all night long. The
reindeer play the tune of ‘Rudolph’, and something—there’s so much shit I can’t
even work out which one—is playing ‘Jingle Bells’. All the time. It’s driving
me out of my mind. Do you know we had to buy blackout blinds to shut out the
light because it keeps us awake at night?”

“And what did you do about it?” Navi encourages him.

“It’s just a joke,” Luke says. “It’s not like I’m actually
stealing anything, they’ll get them back after Christmas.”

“Tell everyone what you’ve been doing.”

“Well, it started off harmless enough. I was walking home
from college in the dark and there was no one home, so I moved a few things
around, made it look like Santa was humping the reindeer and stood the snowman
on its head. The neighbours came home, put everything back right, and seemed
completely unfazed. I did it again and they did the same again. I thought they
might take it as a hint that it’s annoying the ever-loving crap out of their
neighbours, but they just came home and put it all back straight again. This
was last year, by the way. So next time I took something. I didn’t break it or
anything, just unplugged it and took it away. There’s this old allotment and
broken-down sheds near the house, so I took one of the snowmen and hid it in
there. It was one less thing to twinkle at night and the neighbours didn’t even
seem to notice, so I did it again. And again. I know what you lot are getting
at, but it’s not like I’m harming anyone, it’s not like I’ve stolen the decorations
for good. I snuck out one night in January and dumped them all back in the
middle of their lawn. Nothing was damaged, nothing was missing, and no one was
any the wiser.”

Tinsel consults a clipboard in her arms. “And what have you
been up to this year, Luke?”

I get the feeling that she and Navi already know. I suppose
they must do or we wouldn’t be here. She probably has every single offence laid
out on that clipboard and now she’s just testing us.

“It kind of… magnified,” Luke says eventually. “I started to
steal people’s decorations. Not just my neighbours’ this time, but seriously
there was a bloke with a bloody glowing Santa Stop Here sign on his lawn by the
end of October. Two whole months before Christmas is just plain ridiculous. I
was walking past and there was no one around, so I took it. Again, not for
good, he’ll get it back if he can find it. I stashed it in a tree near his
house—I’m sure someone will spot it eventually. Anyway, since then, I just kind
of take decorations if the opportunity presents itself. They’re so tacky and
rubbish. They’re not even nice quality—most of them look like a pound shop’s
finest work. I’m not being a snob here, but the decorations are crap. It’s not
like I’m doing any harm. I haven’t really stolen them; I’ve just moved them.
The owners will find them eventually, or if they don’t I’ll go back in January
and put them back where I found them. It hardly counts as ruining Christmas,
does it?”

“Personally, I think Luke should be commended for doing a
public service,” I say.

“Why thank you.” He nudges me with his elbow and grins.

“But what Luke hasn’t thought about and the reason we’ve
brought him here is how what he calls his harmless actions have affected the
people he has taken things from,” Tinsel says to all of us.

“I would think it’s had a marvellous effect on their
electricity bill,” Luke says with a smirk.

I can’t help but giggle.

“Luke thinks that taking, borrowing even, the decorations
from people’s lawns is harmless,” Navi says. “But we think it isn’t. Maybe the
decorations were bought for kids, Luke. What if the kids were upset when you
took them?”

“The kids will get over it,” Luke says. “They were probably
too busy dying of embarrassment anyway.”

“This is stupid,” Joe says. “I don’t care. I don’t like
those bloody awful decorations either. Who cares if he pinches a few? It’s
quite a good idea actually; I might even try it myself.”

Luke crosses his arm over his chest and does a mock bow.

“No, no, no. I understand that Christmas decorations aren’t
to everyone’s taste, but stealing them is not the way to go about it,” Tinsel
says.

“They’ll get them back,” Luke protests.

“Luke, you’re here because you have to learn that what you
think are harmless actions are actually not harmless to other people. It’s not
harmless to the families you’ve taken decorations from. Christmas has been
ruined because you think it’s okay to steal other people’s property just
because you don’t like it.”

“How?” Luke snorts. “How has taking a shiny, flashy,
obnoxious decoration ruined someone’s Christmas?”

“Well, for example, the man with the sign on his lawn? The
sign was for his four-year-old granddaughter. She loved it and begged him to
put it up early in case Santa got so busy that he missed her—”

“Just as an aside, that would never happen,” Navi
interrupts. “We have a huge team of elves to make sure that Santa doesn’t miss
a single child.”

“Yes, thank you, Navi. As I was saying, the man’s
granddaughter was so upset when it went missing that she cried until he went
out and bought a new one.”

“How is that my problem?” Luke asks. “He didn’t have to buy
a new one. He could’ve made up some story that Santa had already noted it down
or something. He could’ve made a new one himself with a bit of cardboard and a
marker pen. I don’t see how a man having to buy another obnoxious sign could’ve
ruined Christmas. And I only took that sign in November. It isn’t Christmas
yet. How can you say I’ve ruined that man’s Christmas when it’s another three
weeks away?”

I can’t help but think he has a point.

“The man couldn’t afford to buy a new sign. He lived on a
basic pension and could barely get by. The sign was a treat for his
granddaughter, and because you took it, he had to buy another one, which he
couldn’t afford.”

“Again I say, he did not have to buy another one. He
could’ve made one, he could’ve told the kid a story about it, hell, he could’ve
told the kid’s parents that he couldn’t afford one and made them buy it if it
meant that much to the kid.”

“The man died, Luke. The man died because he spent another
forty quid he couldn’t afford on the sign for his granddaughter. Because of
that money going, he couldn’t afford to pay his heating bill, and he couldn’t
afford as much food as he needed. He caught a cold which turned to pneumonia
and he died in hospital last week.”

There’s a collective gasp around the room.

“Jeez, that’s…” Luke starts but he’s lost for words. “I’m
sorry, I really am, but you can’t blame his death on me. I’m sorry he died, but
no one made him buy another sign. If you want anyone up here for ruining
Christmas, maybe you should be looking at the criminal shops that charge forty
quid for a sign like that. Plus, you say he caught a cold. Anyone can catch a
cold. I didn’t go over to his house and sneeze on him. You do not get to stand
there and tell everyone that I killed a bloke when it’s not my fault.”

“No one’s blaming it on you entirely. You are correct in
that there were many contributing circumstances, but when something like this
happens, it’s usually because of a domino effect and it was you who knocked
over the first domino, Luke.”

“Maybe you should get his family up here for not caring
enough about their dad to check on him, or for just expecting him to pay for
signs to keep their kid happy when they should have known he couldn’t afford
it.”

“It does seem a little bit unfair to blame just Luke for
that,” Joe says. “Shouldn’t you be going easy on him because he’s one of your
own kind?”

“I’m
not
one of them,” Luke
snaps. “And I’m not responsible for the death of that guy.”

“It’s not just one person, one house, that you’ve stolen
decorations from.”

“You telling me I’ve killed more people? How about everyone
else here? Are they all responsible for killing people too?”

“We’ll get to them in a minute.” Tinsel’s voice softens.
“We’re dealing with you at the moment. Luke, no one’s saying you killed a man,
but you have to be aware your actions can have indirect consequences.”

Luke shrugs, but I can tell this has upset him.

“There are others too. You took a sleigh and reindeer from a
house on Alwood Road. That decoration has been passed down through the family
for generations. It belonged to their dad who died in the summer. This was the
first Christmas they had put it up without him. It was very important to them,
and they are incredibly upset that it’s gone missing.”

“So let me go and I’ll go and get it from the hedge I
stashed it in and give it back. Hell, I’ll even knock on the door and apologise
if you want. I don’t know what you want from me. I’ll stop stealing
decorations, okay? I’ll go and get them all and put them back and I’ll never do
it again. Happy now? Can I go?”

“It’s not that easy, Luke. You’re just saying that because
you think it’s what we want to hear, not because it’s what you think is right
or because it’s what you genuinely want to do.”

Luke huffs.

“The answer is for people to stop putting the decorations up
in the first place,” Joe says.

“People are entitled to do whatever they want on their own
property. You all know that. If they do something that really bothers you, like
the neighbour’s house was obviously bothering Luke and his family, you should
have talked to them quietly about it or even complained to the council.”

“Oh yeah, have you seen the state of local councils lately?”
Luke asks. “It would have taken them three years to get back to me and then
they would have responded with ‘that’s out of our jurisdiction, sorry’.”

“Even so, there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about
things,” Navi says. “And these aren’t the only cases. Every decoration that
Luke has taken has had some effect on the people they belonged to, not all of
them as major as the man who died, but they have still had Christmas changed
for them in some way.”

Luke sighs.

“This is why you’re here,” Tinsel says gently. “All of you
have done something that has upset Christmas for other people. No one is saying
that Luke killed a man, none of you have, but you have all been part of,
directly or indirectly, ruining someone’s Christmas, and we’re here to change
that. You’re here to learn that everyone is entitled to enjoy Christmas in
their own way, whether it be with one Christmas tree and spending time with
family or whether it’s with gaudy decorations on the lawn. Just because you
don’t like Christmas, you can’t force that on other people.”