Just as well she hadn’t! I couldn’t speak!
I really had written Christmas off too early. I did a celebratory dance on the bench, not caring who saw.
I was in The POWR!
No one at school had found out about Elf Girl.
This was my last film event.
Grace was getting over Simon.
She knew about Ru.
I could probably find a way of talking Mum and Dad into not being on The One Show. Maybe my peace offering could be that they play Grampy G’s Grotto, after all? It was only Mr W’s friends and family coming anyway.
Yes, yes and YESSSSSSS.
I pressed play on my voicemail just as I spotted Grace running over.
“I got in to The P—” I started to say. Well, more shout.
But I stopped as the voice on the other end of my phone played. I hadn’t been listening properly.
Did she say she was called Sue? Not Zaiynab?
From where?!
Panicking, I put my finger in my other ear and went back to the start.
“Ringing back about the snow machine query…”
Uh-oh. This didn’t feel good.
“What? What?!” Grace mouthed, excited to know what the news was. “Put it on speaker!”
CHAPTER
12
We’d been waiting here so long I could no longer bend my fingers, and my ears were nearing cryogenic freezing. It was time to face it. Ru wasn’t coming.
Just when I thought he might be different Ru was turning out to be just another low-level Simon. I’d even messaged to ask if he was bailing, and he hadn’t even bothered turning his phone on to get any of my messages. Not cool.
But it was the reminder I needed. This is why I was a Jingle Lady. This was exactly why I never let myself get close to anyone but Grace.
I trudged over to the cabins to find Grace. She’d gone inside to defrost and watch the interviews with the cast that they were streaming live from one of the chalets. One of the influencers had grabbed them and I could hear Maeve chatting away about having to kiss Joseph, and Grace making an “ooooooh” as she did.
I hadn’t told Grace about the village hall call yet. She was having such a good day – I was just going to have to find another venue and get it sorted before she knew there had been a problem, I didn’t want her to worry about a thing.
I’d listened to the message again when she’d gone to take photos of the reindeer (Derek sneezed aggressively at me and I fled). An annoyed Sue said they’d sent me a booking form but had never got it back. She was right. A flashback to the half-filled-in form on my laptop came back to me. And now they’d hired it out to the “Santa Paws Fur-stive Finale!” – a pet charity’s annual fancy dress competition. I’d rung Sue and begged to even just share the venue, but she said that last year they’d had trouble with one of the hamsters so needed to keep it “invite only” for health and safety reasons.
I was such an idiot. But I was going to fix it and had already emailed every venue on my original list. But all I’d got back so far were three “no”s. And one asking if a £2,000 hire fee “sounded good”. No! It sounded terrible. Is this how Mary and Joseph felt with the innkeeper? Although, was I comparing my bad party admin to giving birth to the son of God? Glad I was keeping it in perspective.
I dropped my head back against the outside of the Portakabin. There was no way I was going to not find a venue, even if I had to build one, brick by brick. I wasn’t going to let Grace down and we were going to raise that thousand pounds for Holly Hospice. So I couldn’t just stand here worrying about it – or the fact that Dad was currently wandering round Edinburgh joining in with buskers and handing out sweets like an oversized elf (I know, cos he’d sent a video) or that I was turning into a human ice cube. Grace and I needed to finish filming. Then I needed to get the all-clear from Elijah that our deal was done, so I could put this stupid film behind me and focus on Grampy’s Grotto.
I knocked on the open door of the cabin.
“Is now an OK time to drag you away?” I peered in. Grace and Jack, my make-up saviour, were sipping hot drinks, gathered round an iPad.
“I will never be ready to be dragged away from Joseph.” Grace sighed as she stood up.
“If I see him, I’ll be sure to tell him … to hang on to his personal items and call security.” Jack laughed as he pulled Grace in for a hug. “… I mean, say hello to this gorgeous dancer from Bromster.” Grace beamed. Guess she loved Jack as much as I did. “Now, Miss Molly. You said your best mate had the Nutcracker dance down, but come on!” He snapped his fingers three times. “More talent in her little toe than some of these people have in their whole bodies. And that’s when she’s frozen! Imagine a defrosted Grace, not in long johns.” Mum had snuck some into my case. “Incredible!”
But we had work to do, so said bye, and headed to the maze, diving straight into a therapeutic session slagging off Ru for being a total let-down. Grace also filled me in on the make-up kit Jack donated to the raffle and I changed my mind at least twenty times about whether to tell Grace about the venue. But we were so busy chatting we forgot the rule of keeping left in mazes and ended up totally lost. Each tree had been decorated with something different. My favourite was the one covered entirely in dog decorations – but now we’d walked past it four times the novelty was wearing off. We stopped to take a picture of us looking lost by it, which was when we heard a crunch of footsteps on wood chippings.
Was there some dark hair sticking out over the top of one of the smaller trees?
Some hair belonging to Harry of “I swear I didn’t post that” fame?
“Oi!” I shouted. Into a branch. One of the dancers from Strictly popped up. “Argh!” I gasped in their face. “Not you.” She disappeared back into the hedge. Today really was very weird. “Harry…” I shouted. “Harrrry!!!!”
“Aren’t we mad at him?” Grace whispered, confused.
“Half mad.” He did keep saying it wasn’t him. “But you can interrogate him, and if anyone can get us out of a maze, it’s him.”
She looked impressed. “Is he super clever?”
“Who knows. But he is very, very tall.”
