The screen was faced in my direction and there was a call coming through with a picture of a girl standing on a beach, her back to the camera. Super cute. Although what was that name?! “Better Half A ”.

I had to swallow to stop myself snorting. Seconds ago he’d been pretending not to be a cheesy romantic, but he was as bad as Grace!

“Sorry.” He snatched the phone and cut the call. Which didn’t seem that nice a way of dealing with your “better half”. “I’ll call her back in a bit.”

“You sure…” I said as it rang again. But he just cut it.

“Yeah, it’s nothing urgent.” I couldn’t help but notice he flicked “Do Not Disturb” on.

But I had enough drama right now, without getting caught up in someone else’s.

“So…” he said, extra cheery. Had he noticed the weird silence too? “You haven’t told me. Who is my mysterious popcorn attacker?”

But something about how he cut the call had taken me back to feeling even less like sharing than normal.

“You can call me Dasher,” I said calmly. “And I already know you’re Kyle…”

He looked confused with my mind-reading skills, but then followed my eyes down to his name badge.

“I prefer Rudolph actually.” He grinned. If Grace was here she’d say it was a cute grin. But unlike Grace, my heart was password protected. Triple security locked. The safest way. “Ru to my friends.” He held his hand out. “Nice to meet you, Dash.”

“You too, Ru.” I shook it back. I guess it was nice to meet him too – I hadn’t thought about small elves or red-carpet not-rampages for at least two minutes, which felt like some kind of record. And once the weirdness of the call faded and we started chatting, we didn’t stop. I think it was something to do with all the stress of today, this week, combined with the safety of him having no idea who I really was, and us never seeing each other again, that after my bombshell that in the UK we put pyjamas under our pillows, and him going in deep on how Brits were meant to wash their faces when our hot and cold taps were separate, I ended up telling him all about Grampy G’s Grotto. We’d had loads of ideas for the party, and I was really looking forward to Grace finally getting to do her Nutcracker dance – she was pulling out all the stops as Simon had never seen her in action. Ru said it sounded awesome, and way better than his Christmas, which was working till Christmas Eve then heading back to America just after. He didn’t seem bothered about leaving the UK, and I got the impression his parents moved loads for their jobs. He didn’t go into detail, but apparently it was something to do with this cinema chain, which I guessed was how they’d swung him this job. And somehow that led me on to how annoying Jess (sharing real family names was too risky) was and how I was going to be stuck sharing a room with Tilly for ever, and how I was still waiting to hear back from Zaiynab about The POWR. Ru asked if he could see some of my lyrics, but I gripped my fingers round my notebook in my pocket and told him I didn’t have any with me. But as I explained how much I’d love making music, I realized I’d told him more than I had to a single person back home since I’d moved. Well, except Grace, but she didn’t count as she was basically me.

“That’s so cool, Dash. Although, shame you haven’t got any stuff with you. Not even on your phone…” Ru said, knowing full well I would do. But I didn’t react. “I can’t even write good text messages, let alone lyrics.”

I shrugged awkwardly. “Well, the band haven’t said yes so…” Maybe my lyrics were rubbish after all? And talking about it with anyone who wasn’t Grace felt all niggly like when I wore my pants that had shrunk. Time to move on. “Did I tell you there’s a house in my village that puts up over two hundred Christmas lights?” Ru didn’t need to know it was mine.

“Intense. Are all the neighbours into it?”

“I’m definitely not,” I said truthfully.

Ru stretched his legs out. “When I was little, my grandparents used to do this thing where they hung a pickle ornament on the tree—”

“Like a mini Branston?” His grandparents sounded like a match for my mum and dad! But he looked as confused as me.

“Are we talking the same language?” He turned his phone round and showed me a picture he’d just googled.

“Oh, a gherkin!”

“Well, yeah.” Not sure why he was looking at me like I was the confusing one, when he was the one hanging small cucumbers on a tree. “And on Christmas Day, the first one to find it got an extra present from Santa.” He smiled. “It used to be chaos…”

I could imagine. In my house there would be branches and baubles flying everywhere.

“Sounds fun.” I smiled, thinking back to the first year we’d got a real Christmas tree, and Tess and I had slept in the lounge so it would be the first thing we saw when we woke up.

“It was,” Ru said, with a soft smile. For two people who didn’t like Christmas, it seemed like we both used to. A lot.

Eurgh. Stupid Elf Song. Stupid everything.

I shimmied my shoulders, trying to shake off the festive, and sat up. Now was NOT the time to start feeling nostalgic – it was the time to make sure I avoided everything Christmassy until this whole stupid film had gone away.

It was like Ru read my mind. He grinned, as if the memory was long gone. “Not as awesome as having fish and chips for breakfast though. Genuinely happened in Camden a few weeks ago.”

And we got stuck into a (heated) debate about whether fat chips or thin ones were superior (OBVIOUSLY THIN ONES) right up until a buzzer rang and we realized the time. 7:55 p.m. The real world crashed back in.

Five minutes till the film finished.

Five minutes until my parents were on a mission to check I hadn’t keeled over and died in a vat of popcorn.

Five minutes until Ru risked meeting them in full concerned flow for my fake food poisoning, when right now he thought they were busy trimming reindeer hooves (I’d had to get inventive).

“I better head.” I stood up. “Although…” I sat down again. “I’ve locked us in, haven’t I?”

But after we both tried pulling, pushing, leaning, even giving the handle a talk on positive mental attitude, the door still wasn’t budging. And there were more footsteps outside. And Stormy yelling, “No one listens! Signing autographs is emotionally drraaaaining.” Followed by, “And someone needs to get a pooper scooper.”

In desperation, I asked Ru to give me space as I vented my stress on the handle, but when it didn’t work I called him back over. He was faffing about with a popcorn container.

“Guess there’s nothing for it.” He rocked back on his heels. “Three…” Was he really going to attempt a run? He crouched down into a semi-sprint position. “Two…” Then he stood up. “Although, before I potentially break my shoulder, you do definitely need to leave, right?”

“Yeaaahhh.” I looked at the heavy wooden door. “But it’s not breaking-bones level of urgent.” Maybe minor fracture, but not break. There was always plan B: staying here until Mum and Dad had gone to notify the police of my disappearance and they brought in a battering ram, or at least a key. Or plan C: slowly dying in this room, and my final resting place being on the bed of floor popcorn we’d tried to clear up. Which actually, now I’d considered it, sounded quite good and could be upgraded to plan A.

“Cool, in that case … ONE!” Ru thundered towards the door. Almost as fast as me down the red carpet, his left shoulder dipped forwards. “ARRRRR!” he yelled, bracing for impact.

I braced for impact! But the door swung open.

Wide open. And Ru fell right into the hallway, straight on to the feet of Elijah, who was holding the handle.

Elijah looked at me, then at the crumpled pile of human on the floor. Immediately his face turned from confused eye twitch to pure thunder.

“You!” Elijah pulled at Ru’s T-shirt, yanking him back to his feet. He looked him up and down. “You, Kyle, are coming with me.”

“But…” began Ru, but Elijah was already marching him off towards where some other ushers had just gone into a staffroom. I ran out into the corridor, watching as Ru tried – and failed – to apologize. We hadn’t even said bye.

But Ru looked back. And mouthed just one thing. Not “bye”, but “popcorn”.

Right.

And just like that he disappeared through the door marked “STAFF”. The last I’d ever see of him. And for a split second I was alone.

Until the doors into the screen sprang open, the low murmur of noise became a loud roar of chatter, and people spilled out in all directions.

The film had ended! And I hadn’t found a single thing to use for a raffle prize! I was a terrible friend. I ran back into the room for one last look. As much as I’d love a vintage cinema chair it was going to be hard to fit one in a pocket, so I grabbed a couple of branded popcorn containers. Slinking back out, I pulled my hood up and shrank back against the wall, scouring the heads for Grace and practicing my “I’ve miraculously recovered from my sudden burst of food poisoning” face.

My phone pinged.

Tess: Look what I just found. Enjoy

I opened the video. It was a loop of someone in a black hoodie looking like she was about to stab Maeve with a giant sign that said “Joseph D Chambers be my Christmas present!”