Contents
Cover
Title
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Love Your Elf!
Acknowledgements
Copyright
CHAPTER
1
“Snowball hot chocolate for me.” Grace hopped down the cafe steps, narrowly avoiding a life-sized light-up penguin. “And a tea for you. Unless…” She wafted the red cup under my nose. Yes, it did smell of melted toffee, and yes, it did have tiny Rolos floating on the top, and yes, I’d normally do bad, bad things to get my hands on anything-very-tiny-that-should-be-normal-sized, but my best friend knew my rule…
“Tea for ever.” Aka, there was no way I was having a Christmas drink. It was a slippery slope. One minute I’d be developing a taste for candy-cane cream, and two weeks later I’d be wearing a light-up jumper and singing along to Mariah. “Thanks though.”
“Well, you know what they say…” Grace looked around at the festoon lights strung up along the ramshackle black-and-white shops on the high street. At the Christmas tree twinkling outside the big Marks and Spencer. At the light-up crackers that had been weaved into the streetlights, ready to be lit up. “… definitely not the most wonderful time of the year or anything…”
I ignored the hard prod she gave me in the ribs. What was it about lightbulbs that made everyone act weird? No one got emotional about torches?!
But Grace was resting her chin on her hands and smiling innocently in her way that couldn’t not make me laugh.
“See also…” I struggled to keep my face straight. “‘I wish it wasn’t Christmas any day’.” But my mistake was singing it to the correct tune. Grace waggled her finger at me in excitement.
“Seeeee!! Even Grinchy McGrinch-face has got some Christmas spirit buried in there.” I raised an eyebrow. “OK, OK.” She laughed. “Too soon.” But my eyebrow gave up, and instead I smiled. Grace would happily make tinsel a year-round house decoration if she could, so I needed to rein in my Scroogey vibes. Especially this year. “But be warned, I’m never giving up ho-ho-hope.”
Grace was the only one who knew my secret. The real reason why I hated everything red, gold, green – or anything even remotely gingerbread flavoured. The real reason I went into hibernation in November and didn’t come out till January.
When I was little, Christmas had been my favourite time of year. Right up until my parents, with their nice normal jobs in a nice normal library and something to do with nice normal pet insurance, decided to not just play music for a hobby but to release a song. And not just any song. “Love Your Elf!” – the world’s worst Christmas song ever. Cheesy lyrics? Tick. Sleigh bells? Jingly tick. Totally cringe music video with the final line delivered by an annoying child painted green, with curly bright red hair pulled up in high plaits, and dressed up as a Christmas elf EVEN THOUGH CHRISTMAS ELVES AREN’T EVEN GREEN? A massive, flashing, factually inaccurate big green-and-red tick.
