‘Thank you,’ I whisper to him.
‘Thank you.’ He tilts his neck back until he can look up at the giant nutcracker behind us. ‘Making wishes isn’t what’s magic here. It’s having something to wish for that makes all the difference. Hope. This has given them all hope. That’s something that’s been in short supply lately. For all of us.’
I know he means himself by that, but someone asks a question about the nutcrackers before I have time to analyse it too deeply.
James promises to go and collect a carful tonight and I promise to make up a thousand more flags. The atmosphere feels instantly brighter. Even Santa has left his bodily functions to their own devices and is now flicking a nail uninterestedly against a paving stone.
As everyone starts filtering away from the meeting area, they all stop to crack a nut in the giant nutcracker’s mouth, and this time, all our wishes echo each other’s – to save not just our own shops, but Nutcracker Lane as a whole.
Stacey goes to get their coats and Lily tugs at the bottom of my Christmas jumper and I crouch down so she can reach Rudolph’s nose and press it, making the big red bobble light up. ‘Auntie Nia, are you going to have to grow your hair?’
‘I don’t think so …’ I say carefully, waiting to see where her childhood logic is going.
‘Only every time you start growing it, you get it cut again, so I don’t think it’s going to go very well.’
Great. Even a seven-year-old has noticed my inability to commit to a fringe. Although I must be doing something right if she thinks I “get” it cut because what I actually do is hack away at it with scissors in the bathroom mirror and then regret it. And try to fix it, which inevitably ends up going horribly wrong until there are porcupines with better haircuts.
‘Mummy says you might have to because you’ve got your very own Flynn Rider now …’ She blushes as she says it, and I remember feeling exactly the same about Aladdin when I was her age. Crushes on cartoon characters are definitely a thing that carries across the generations.
‘Oh, honey, there’s no part of him that’s mine, but he does look like him, doesn’t he?’ I glance up at James and grin at him when he meets my eyes. ‘Hey, Disney Prince, come over here. This is Stacey’s daughter, Lily. She wanted to say hello because she thinks you look like Flynn Rider.’
I introduce them, but she still calls him Mr Rider when she thanks him for the nutcracker, and I’d be lying if I said my heart didn’t melt at how sweet and gracious he is with her, and how at least he waits until she and Stacey are out of earshot before looking at me in confusion. ‘Who’s Flynn Rider?’
‘Rapunzel’s prince. Tangled.’ I shake my head in despair. ‘So after the Christmas movies, we’re going to have to work on getting you acquainted with Disney movies then, are we?’
He grins and waggles his eyebrows. ‘I’m remarkably okay with that idea.’
I am too, but I still shake my head fondly. Honestly, never mind under a rock, anyone would think he’d been living as a wooden soldier for years.
Chapter 9
‘Where is he?’ I say for approximately the sixty-third time this morning judging by the look on Stacey’s face. ‘His car’s in but his shop’s shut.’
‘Honestly, Nia,’ she mutters from behind the counter where she’s crouched down folding up gift boxes. ‘If you spent as much time making Christmas decorations as you do looking for that man … At least if his shop’s shut, that flipping Santa isn’t dancing.’
‘I think I might buy you that for Christmas.’ I turn and wink at her and she pokes her tongue out at me. ‘Can you hold the fort if I go looking?’
She laughs and nods, and I’m hit with a wave of how grateful I am to be working with my best friend. I think she’s so surprised by the prospect of me actually wanting to spend time with a man that she never complains about the number of times I dash out to see him, or how at some point today, we’ve got to go and distribute nutcrackers to the other shopkeepers and there’s no time to waste given that it’s already the 8th of December.
I step out of Starlight Rainbows and look both ways, trying to decide where James might be.
Hubert and Carmen, sworn enemies yesterday, are now huddled in his sweetshop doorway sharing a plate of her chocolates with a cup of tea each. Before I have a chance to decide which way to go, they beckon me over.
‘He’s a good one you’ve got there,’ Hubert says.
‘I thought he was going to be a problem when I first met him,’ Carmen says. ‘He looked so uptight and like he belonged in an office. Not Nutcracker Lane’s usual type at all.’
Hubert nods. ‘He doesn’t let the arm stop him, does he?’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask in confusion.
‘The garlands.’ They nod in unison towards the top of the lane.
I thank them and head in the direction of the wish-granting nutcracker, and the question of what they mean is quickly answered as I come out into the entrance court and spot James, balancing precariously on a stepladder near the nutcracker, hanging a thick green garland intertwined with twinkling white lights from a low ceiling beam to the top of a lamppost where they always used to hang.
I fold my arms and look up at him. ‘What part of this counts as “taking it easy”?’
He obviously saw me coming because he isn’t even slightly surprised. ‘You don’t have to worry about me so much, you know.’
I probably don’t, but I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who knows quite how far his injuries extend and I can’t stop myself. ‘Can
