Mistletoe and the Lost Stiletto

all well.

‘Ask me again in February,’ she replied with a slightly hysterical laugh. ‘When the January sales are over.’ Then, pulling herself together, ‘It’s just a bit of a headache. I’ll take something for it when I get back to the office. Come on, there’s no time to waste. Let’s get you changed.’

‘Changed?’

‘Into your costume,’ she said, opening a cupboard and revealing a rail of short green tunics. Then, glancing back at her, ‘Didn’t they tell you anything…’ she looked at her clipboard ‘…I don’t seem to have your name.’

‘Lu…’ Noooooo!

Pam looked up. ‘Lou? As in Louise?’

Gulp.

‘Yes! Louise.’ Whew. Pam was still waiting. ‘Louise… Braithwaite.’ It was the first name that came into her head. ‘And you have got a CRB Certificate, Louise?’ Pam asked, pen poised to tick boxes, going through the motions.

‘A CRB Certificate?’

She sighed. ‘You can’t work in the grotto without a criminal records check. I did explain the situation to Garlands. If you haven’t got one…’

Grotto?

The penny dropped.

Pam had mistaken her for an elf.

Out of the fairy tale frying pan, into the…um…fairy tale fire…

CHAPTER THREE

‘DIDN’T Garlands explain?’ Pam asked.

‘It was a bad connection…’ so bad it was non-existent ‘…I must have missed that bit. But I have been CRB checked,’ she said. ‘I worked in a day-care nursery before… Well, until recently.’

Oh, boy, Lucy Bright. The ability to look someone in the eye and tell a big fat lie had to be catching. His Frogginess would be proud of her.

Not that she’d lied about having a CRB Certificate. It wasn’t under the name Louise Braithwaite, of course, but it was the real deal. She’d had to have one for the day job at the nursery while she’d been studying at night school. She’d worked as a waitress in the local pizza parlour on her free evenings and at the weekends to earn the money to pay for her course.

Much good it had done her.

She’d applied for hundreds of jobs before she’d got an interview for a clerical assistant post at the Henshawe Corporation. The fact that there had been an interview panel for such a junior position had thrown her, but it had been very informal. They’d been incredibly impressed at how hard she’d worked and encouraged her to talk about her ambitions.

She still remembered the stunned silence when she’d finished telling them passionately that she wanted to prove herself. Make something of herself, be someone. And then they’d applauded her.

When, the following day, they had called her to offer her a job, she’d thought herself the luckiest woman in the world.

‘I realise that Garlands know what they’re doing, but I still have to ask,’ Pam muttered. ‘It’s been so difficult since the new laws about working with children were introduced. We normally get in drama students at Christmas but not too many of them have had the foresight to get a CRBC. I don’t suppose they see themselves doing a Christmas gig as one of Santa’s Little Helpers when they get a place at RADA. That’s why I called Garlands.’

‘They supply elves?’ she asked, which got her an odd look.

‘They place temporary nannies.’

‘Just kidding.’ Whew…

Pam stared down at her feet. ‘What happened to your shoes?’

‘I broke a heel in a grating.’ The truth, the whole truth and almost nothing but the truth…

‘Oh, bad luck.’ They shared a moment of silent mourning, then, pressing on, ‘You’re a bit buxom for an elf,’ she said, looking at her doubtfully, ‘but beggars can’t be choosers. There should be something that fits.’ She held one of the tunics up against her, then thrust it at her, piling the rest of the costume on top. ‘You’ve got small feet. These should do.’ She put a pair of soft felt bootees on top of the pile and then took a small plastic pouch out of a box and added that to the pile. ‘The elf make-up pack. Rouge for your cheeks, a pencil for freckles-you’ll find a picture of what’s required inside. And there’s a pad to remove your nail polish. You can change down here,’ she said, leading the way down a short flight of steps. ‘Find a spare locker for your clothes and be as quick as you can.’

She opened a door and Lucy found herself confronted on one side by a vast locker room that seemed to stretch to infinity and on the other by a room providing not only loos and basins, but showers, too.

She quickly crammed her coat and bag into an empty locker, stripped off her dress, tossed the shredded tights in a bin. There was no time for a shower so she dunked her feet, one at a time, in a basin of warm water to wash off the street dirt, half expecting Pam to burst in with the real elf at any minute.

She didn’t but, until she did, she was grateful for being in the warm and, more importantly, in a very neat disguise.

She dabbed circles of rouge on her cheeks, scattered a few freckles across her nose, then a few more, before removing the nail polish that had been applied at great expense just hours ago. A shame, but clearly elves didn’t have bright red nails.

Finally, she donned the costume, tucking her hair out of sight under the pointy felt hat and regarded herself in a handily placed mirror.

It wasn’t a good look.

The green and white striped tights made her legs look fat and the tunic was doing her bum no favours. Right now, she didn’t care.

Diary update: The day has gone from bad to surreal. I’ve been mistaken for an elf. Not an entirely bad thing since I’m off the streets and I’ve been supplied, free of charge, with a neat disguise. It’s just temporary, of course, like the new name. What I’m going to do when Hastings & Hart closes at eight o’clock is my next problem. But with luck I’ve got three hours breathing space to work on a plan, always assuming the real elf doesn’t turn up in the meantime.

Three hours to get my breath back after a very close encounter with Mr Tall, Dark and Dangerous.

Lucy ran her tongue over her lips to cool them, then shook her head and stuffed her phone and her locker key into the little leather pouch on her belt before presenting herself for inspection.

Pam sighed, adjusted the hat so that a little more of her hair showed. ‘You’ve been a little heavy-handed with the freckles.’ Then, frowning, ‘Is that a bruise?’

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Someone caught me with a bag,’ she said.

‘The Underground just gets worse… Never mind.’ She took a small camera from her pocket. ‘I’ll just take a picture for your ID. Say cheese…’

‘Cheese.’

‘Great. I’ll log you into the system later. Sort you out a swipe card.’

‘Swipe card?’

‘It’s how we keep track of staff. How we know who is working, how long they’ve worked and that they’ve left the premises at the end of the day. You’ll need it to get out and, hopefully, get in again tomorrow.’

‘Oh, right. Absolutely.’

‘Come on. I’ll take you to meet Frank Alyson, Deputy Manager of the toy department and Chief Elf, and then you can get started.’

She passed her over to a tall lugubrious man wearing a long green tunic. She sort of sympathised with him. It couldn’t be much fun being a middle-aged man with his dignity in shreds, but walking around Santa’s grotto in a suit and tie would undoubtedly compromise the illusion.