All Wrapped Up. Holly Smale
Well, Merry Christm—”
“But as it’s you … I heard the most amusalazing story the other day. Do you want to hear it? Do you have a piece of paper and a pen handy?”
I blink a few times.
“Umm,” I say vaguely, watching Nat pick up a sugar mouse and then pointedly bite its head off. “Sure?”
“Ready?” He clears his throat ostentatiously. “Oh, my dear, once upon a time seven little boys made seven little snowmen and oh can you believe each hand had nine fingers so—”
“What were they made of?”
“Sorry, Bunny?”
“What were the snowmen’s fingers made of? Because it can’t be snow – I’ve tried that and they don’t stay on. And you can make arms out of sticks or brooms, but fingers are really tricky.”
There’s a pause, and then a long sigh.
“I don’t think you quite understand the point of this story, Twinkle-face. Maybe I’ll try a simpler one.” Wilbur clears his throat. “Oh every Christmas time seven elves prepare seven stockings but oh zero of them have time to wrap more than nine gifts—”
“Seven elves?” I interrupt again. “There are approximately two billion children in the world, Wilbur. Even with nine gifts each that wouldn’t be enough to—”
“Oh for the love of brandy pudding,” Wilbur exhales. “Do you want this story, poppet, or do you want to spend Christmas cuddling your oversized teddy bear instead?”
I blink. How does he know about my teddy b—
Hang on. Oh. Seven elves. Seven snowmen.
Oh seven seven.
A wave of disbelief smashes over my head.
Oh my God. Wilbur’s telling me Nick’s mobile phone number and I’m too busy correcting him to actually notice. My love life is about to go down the pan thanks to my chronic pedantry.
I am such an accurate idiot.
Fast as I can, I rip the back off a Christmas card. It’s from Granny Manners and it has red bows stuck all over the front of it. In fairness, it probably needed destroying eventually anyway.
“Shoot,” I say, grabbing one of Nat’s eyeliners. “There were nine gifts, how many fingers? Or was it stockings?”
“I’m texting it to you now,” Wilbur says in defeat. “Don’t say it came from me.”
A rush of gratitude whooshes over me.
“Thank you thank you, Wilbur. You’re the best.”
“You bet your tiny jingle-bells I am,” he laughs. “Merry Christmas, my little Snow-socks. Now go get him.”
Which is exactly what I intend to do.
There’s just one hurdle standing between my romantic Christmas destiny and me. And she’s looming directly over me with her hands on her hips and the string tail of a mouse dangling out of her mouth.
It’s really quite distracting.
Nat looks exactly like our cat Victor after he’s been on a successful hunt in the garden. Except high on sugar and pink food colouring, and therefore a lot more dangerous.
“This,” my best friend says crossly, taking a step towards me, “is exactly why I’ve been stuck to you for four days, Harriet Manners.”
Ha. Told you that’s why she’s really here.
“Natalie,” I say quickly, holding my phone over my head as the text received sound pings. “Did Jane Bennet just sit around, waiting for Bingley to call her? No. She went to his house, uninvited, and pretended it was to see his sisters and got the flu and stayed there for weeks, remember?”
Nat frowns. “That’s the example you’re using? Seriously?”
I clear my throat: OK, point made.
“How about Lizzy Bennet?” I say, quickly tapping open my messages. “Did she just sit around, waiting for Darcy to make the move?”
“Nope,” Nat says, taking another step. “She got on with her own life and started making out with Wickham instead.”
Sugar cookies. Thanks to a plethora of well-made and accurate Hollywood adaptations, she’s right again.
“Cinderella?” I say desperately, stabbing at the number Wilbur has sent me. “She went to the ball without being invited, right? Breaking the rules worked for her just fine.”
“Harriet,” Nat says, holding her hands out. “Firstly, Cinderella’s the least cool fairy-tale heroine ever invented. Secondly, you are not a rule breaker. And thirdly, do you really want to talk to someone who doesn’t want to talk to you?”
I stare at her in amazement.
Of course I do. I want to talk to people who don’t want to talk to me all the time.
My best friend clearly doesn’t know me at all.
Besides …
“But you’re wrong,” I say in confusion. “He’s been waiting for the right moment. And that moment is right now. Just watch.”
With a final burst of confidence, I hit call number and beam smugly at Nat as it rings twice.
There’s a tiny click.
“Hello?” a familiar, warm, twangy Australian voice says. “Nick speaking.”
And it’s like magic.
With just three words, every gorgeous romantic moment from the last couple of weeks comes racing straight back.
“Hey, Nick,” I say brightly as something in the middle of me starts spinning happily like a Christmas bauble, glittering all over. “It’s me.”
Then there’s a pause long enough for me to fully register the significance of what I’ve just done.
“Sorry,” Lion Boy says eventually, “who?”
There are 1,025,109.8 known words currently in the English language.
‘Who’ was the only one I wasn’t prepared for.
I put my name and number into Nick’s phone myself, with my own fingers. Which means that he didn’t just fail to use my details in the last four days …
He actually deleted them?
“It’s Harriet,” I say stupidly as Nat puts her hands over her mouth in horror. “Harriet Manners.”
Norwegian scientists have hypothesised that Rudolph’s red nose is probably the result of a parasitic infection of the respiratory system.
Judging by my current glow and sudden inability to breathe, I should be able to lead Santa through the night quite safely for some years to come.
“We kissed a few days ago,” I clarify into the aching silence, and then add in a panic: