“Me … vocal lead.” He hit his chest. “Mum, rocking that banjo.” Was that a thing?! “Tess on drums.” She hadn’t played in a zillion years. “Billy on … tambourine and general dancing, and Grace, Sam, you can have whatever parts you want.” Mr W steadied himself on the dashboard. “First live performance together in almost ten years!” Dad turned to the back seat, where I was aggressively shaking my head. “C’mon, Grolly! Tell me that wouldn’t bring a tear to the eye.”

It really would bring a tear to my eye.

“Well, I for one would love to see it,” Mr W said politely. “And I know my dad would have too. The infamous Brussel Shouts I’ve heard so much about? At the even more infamous Bromster Village Hall?” Oops. I still needed to send over the official booking form to the village hall, especially now we had forty people confirmed. I could do it on the train. Mr W leant through the gap between the front seats. “Grampy G would be so very proud of you two…” He paused, his voice choking up. Dad put his hand on Mr W’s knee. We all knew how tough the last year and a half had been. Mr W shook his head and smiled again. “Did I tell you, I had a call from the hospice yesterday? They’re getting a volunteer photographer to come down and film it too. The residents want to live stream it all for their own Christmas party.” Uh-oh. His voice was really going. “Dad couldn’t have asked for anything he would have loved more.”

Grace reached round the front seat, pressing her face against the head rest, to give her dad a big cuddle from behind. “It’s going to be awesome. I promise. And just imagine all the fun they can have with a thousand pounds?!”

That meant making over six hundred pounds on the night, but Grace was sure we’d do it. And I was sure I’d never seen Grace put her mind to something and not make it happen. Which reminded me, I hadn’t heard back from Ru about any prizes to raffle off. Maybe I should ask again? We’d been sending messages all week, although I’d avoided saying yes or no to meeting up this weekend. I wasn’t sure what the Jingle-protocol was, so wanted to wait until I’d chatted to Grace. But that hadn’t happened. Yet. I was sure it would be fine, though. A Jingle Lady was still allowed to make friends. Good-looking, nice friends who had spent the week checking on how Grace was doing, asking after Derek, and sending all the celebration gifs when I told him I’d sent off the lyrics to Zaiynab.

I started to type.

Heyyyy. Just left for Edinburgh.

Nope. Sounded like a message Mum would send. Maybe more casual…

Wassup Ru

Immediate delete.

Why don’t ponies like carols? Because they’re a little horse.

Nope nope NOPE.

“You OK there?” Grace leant over.

“Yup yup, just…” I waved my phone like I was constantly messaging my huge network of friends. Not just Grace or my family.

“Zaiynab?” Grace asked. I nodded sheepishly. And felt dreadful. And quickly sent any old message.

Hey Ru. Early morning question. Any news on raffle prizes #nopressure #althoughactuallymaybethereis

And hid my phone out of sight. I had six hours on the train up to tell Grace. And once we were on board and the train started rumbling north, the snow getting heavier and heavier, the fields racing by getting whiter and frostier, and every second further away from home, from Simon, felt like a better time to bring it up.

“Now, you will be careful when we get there?” Mr W was reading an article about Sleigh Another Day’s battle for Christmas number one. I could just see a photo of Maeve peeping out of the corner. “I hadn’t realized how enormous this whole film thing was. And Edinburgh is a big city, you know…” He said it like we had never left our little village, like we’d never even seen a car. “Full of…”

“Beautiful castles?” Grace said innocently. “Trams? Cute Christmas markets?” She nodded seriously. “Yes. It’s a scary world out there.”

Mr W raised an eyebrow. “That’s not what I meant, Gracey. You’re both very capable young women. I meant” – he tapped at his paper – “all these Hollywood types you might be mingling with.”

“I’d love to do more than mingle with Joseph D Chambers,” Grace snorted. Her dad clutched his tea. “Jokes, Dad!” A joke that looked like he would take five years to recover from. He tried to compose himself.

“Well, if you come back with a…” He took another look at the article. “… diamond ear-jazzle.” He squinted at the table and muttered, “I don’t even know what that is – like Stormoo…”

“That’s a dog, Dad,” Grace said calmly. “Stormy’s dog. And anyway, no I won’t.”

“Fine.” He looked flustered. “Or your head filled with nonsense. Says here Cate and Bry Chambers paid two BILLION to send their dogs’ ashes into space.” Wow! Cate and Bry were going to be there? They were husband and wife Hollywood royalty! Grace grabbed the paper out of her dad’s hands.

“Honestly, Dad, you have nothing to worry about.” But Grace looked at me, jiggling with excitement in her seat. “Cate and Bry! Stormy and Stormoo. Maeve and Joseph?! Mols, iss this actually life!!!!”

And instead of looking cross, Mr W laughed. Maybe it wasn’t just me that loved seeing Grace get her sparkle back.

But sitting doing nothing was hungry work, and when we whizzed through Penrith, I went for another drinks run. I finally checked my phone.

Ru had replied.

Ru: I’m on the hunt. And greetings from Ed-in-borooo.

Ru: Want to meet? By the Christmas Tree Maze? 7pm?

So he still wanted to meet? What should I say? What would a Jingle Lady say? “No” probably – but then I might run into him anyway. But if I said “yes”, then I needed to speak to Grace ASAP.

But maybe that was it! Meet him with Grace. Then there would be no Jingle Lady awkwardness. Just three friends hanging out. Jingle People!

Me: Sure! You can meet Grace.

He started to type. And stopped. And started.

Ru: Awesome. I’ll see if I can find some Leebrecooken.

Ru: That’s not how you spell it. I realize this now.

I couldn’t work him out. He’d only ever been really nice to me. Funny, helpful with the fundraiser, potentially dislocating his shoulder to get me out the locked room. But I couldn’t help but feel like there was something he was hiding – and I couldn’t put my finger on what.

And I couldn’t put my finger on why I felt a weird knot of butterflies when I thought about him.

Or why was it impossible to walk down a train aisle without semi-sitting on at least five strangers’ laps?

“If we don’t have the most festive weekend of our lives,” I said, sliding into my seat next to Grace, my hands dripping with hot chocolate from where I’d splashed it everywhere, “then we’re doing this trip wrong.” Grace had spent the week showing me super cute pictures of Edinburgh at Christmas time. “Eljiah’s team have done a Christmas tree maze. And there’s a snow globe that’s so big there’s a cafe in it!” It was a huge see-through dome lit up with icy blue lights, with snow whirring in it.

“You’re the best you know, Mol.” Grace fiddled with the sleeve around her paper cup, her glittery gold nails sparkling. The tiny reindeers I’d drawn on them looked awesome. “And just, thank you. For everything. The fundraiser. Being my Jingle Lady wingwoman through the whole ‘situation’.” She meant Simon. Guess she still hadn’t told her dad then. “This…” She nodded at her dad, who had just put on the Christmas jumper Dad had bought for him and was taking a smiley selfie.

Maybe now was the time to tell her about Ru. I sipped my drink. Here went nothing…

“Gr—”

“Don’t forget these!” Grace and I leapt back as Dad slammed down a Celebrations tin. He was wearing reindeer antlers, making him seven feet tall and needing to crouch to stand up. “Thought our fellow pass-en-gerrrrs” – why could he never say words normally? – “might appreciate some.”

Was he really going to wander the carriage semi-squatting, wearing reindeer antlers handing chocolates out to total strangers? Yes. Yes he was. But … people didn’t give him a horrified look. Something about a grown man in a bad jumper and antlers offering free chocolate at Christmas made people … smile. And chat. And soon everyone was wishing complete strangers a merry Christmas. No one even complained when he sweet-talked the conductor into letting him get out his pocket speaker to play Christmas tunes for the last hour and a half of the journey – and by the time we rolled into Edinburgh, the carriage was in a full singalong to “Winter Wonderland”. It was Grampy G and Mr W’s favourite song and they used to lead a singalong every year at their party. I soaked the moment in – even though I hadn’t had much choice, maybe these film events hadn’t been so bad after all?

Maybe despite all the stress, I was keeping my promise to Grampy G?

Maybe I really could help Grace have an awesome Christmas after all.

CHAPTER

11

I stepped off the train into the freezing-cold Scottish air, feeling the most full of Christmas cheer I had since I’d found out about the film.