‘Save Nutcracker Lane,’ he reads aloud. ‘This Christmas, I wish … One for all and all for one … Christmas magic is in the air …’ He shuffles through the flags and banners in his hand and looks between them and me, confusion on his face. ‘Are you going to enlighten me?’
‘We’re going to fight Scrooge with an army – a nutcracker army.’
‘We are?’ I don’t need to look at him to see the raised eyebrow as we start walking across the car park again.
‘You inspired me the other day, talking about the community banding together to save the nutcracker. If they’ve done it once, they could do it again.’
He does a half-snort half-laugh. ‘I’ve never inspired anyone in my life, so thank you.’
I want to say I’m sure that’s not true, but we step down from the pavement onto the tarmac and the trolley clatters down the step behind me, making me jump because I’d forgotten I was pulling it. I seem to forget a lot when James is in the vicinity, including my own name and how to breathe.
I give myself a shake. ‘The point is that no one knows how much trouble Nutcracker Lane is in because no one comes here anymore. If people in the local community knew, people like me who loved this place in years gone by, people like that woman with the snowglobe-collecting grandson who wanted to bring his own children here one day, people who had wishes granted by the wish-granters or still have photographs up on their mantelpieces of their children with Santa here, or fond memories of the sleigh rides, or who were helped out by the gift donations Nutcracker Lane used to collect for local charities … If people know that this time next year, whatever part of this place that survives is going to be very different … maybe they wouldn’t let it go. So we’re going to take your little nutcrackers, attach these flags to their hands and send them out into the community.’
‘Under their own power? Do you have a magic spell to make nutcrackers sentient?’
Maybe. ‘We’re going to put them out there. Everywhere. We’re going to hide those little nutcrackers in every conceivable place. We’re going to line them up along the lane, create a chain carrying the banners running through every shop window, and outside too. I’ll get in touch with the local paper and ask them to run a story on the nutcrackers that are appearing everywhere. I was thinking on the way up this morning – garden walls, garden gates, trees, bushes, and hedges. On lampposts and flower pots and gathering around the recycling bins and waiting at bus stops and sitting on park benches.
‘I’ll print out a thousand more flags, and we’ll give each shopkeeper a box of the nutcrackers to distribute. Everyone comes from different areas, so we’ll cover more ground if the others get involved too. If people find these nutcrackers and start talking about them, they might come back to visit this place. At least people will know that Nutcracker Lane won’t always be here. Magically appearing nutcrackers will get people talking. Parents will tell children about the good old days here and maybe children will want to come and see for themselves. You can’t ignore a fifteen-centimetre nutcracker if it appears at your garden gate.’
He shakes his head, a huge smile on his face. ‘You’re incredible. You’re the brightest spark I’ve ever met.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know, but nothing seems impossible with you around. Even a nutcracker army.’
I blush. ‘I’m going to call a staff meeting at five tonight. Will you come?’
‘You don’t honestly think I’d miss it, do you? I’ll bring a box of the nutcrackers I’ve got here and collect the rest from the warehouse tomorrow.’
‘Thank you. Seriously, James, thank you so much. I couldn’t do this without—’ I let out a shout of joy as we approach the entrance and grab his arm excitedly. ‘The nutcrackers are back!’
He smiles as I lift up my trolley and rush over to the floor-to-ceiling glass windows surrounding the entranceway. Inside, in exactly the same position as they used to be, is the family of nutcrackers in size order, lined up from the biggest at five-foot to the smallest at a few centimetres, including the one James and I fought over in the storage room the other night.
When I look up, James has let himself in the door and wound the key in the one that plays “Little Drummer Boy” and the tune filters out to me as the nutcracker’s drumsticks start moving mechanically up and down to his drum. It’s a sight I haven’t seen for years and never thought I’d see again. The tune was my father’s favourite Christmas song, and there used to be something comforting about hearing it played as you walked in or out of Nutcracker Lane.
And there’s only one person who could’ve done this.
‘You found them,’ I say as he stands in the doorway, holding it open so we can hear the music.
‘You don’t know that I had anything to do with this,’ he says, but his smile says otherwise. ‘I’m a Grinch, remember?’
‘I know.’ It’s all I can do not to throw my arms around his neck again, but how many times can you inappropriately hug someone in one morning? I reach out and stroke the green fur of the Grinch’s face on his jumper again, trying to make him realise I’m rubbing his chest, not the jumper. ‘But you’re the best Grinch I’ve ever met. I thought you were going to sell them.’
‘I couldn’t. Not with knowing how much you liked them. I figured they deserved to be back in their rightful position for their …’
He trails off but I can finish the sentence for him: ‘… final year.’
He nods, and I stop rubbing
