Hiding From Seagulls Page 17

  The Man of Christmas

  He stood before us looking unfriendly. I was reminded right away of the rhyme named The Night Before Christmas.

  He had a broad face and a little round belly,

  That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

  This Santa's belly was not shaking and he definitely was not laughing.

  Despite my low view on Santa I knew right away that the man stood above me was not Santa. At least he was not the Santa I recognised from home.

  “Well children I guess you have come all this way,” Santa spoke leaving his door open and waddling into his office.

  Oddly as I watched him I wondered. Did Santa drink at every house? That could not be true. He would never have time for the toilet breaks. Mr Huntington barely gets through an hour before heading off to the toilet. Santa gestured for us all to sit. It felt a little like sitting in the head teachers' office.

  “I am a busy man children. So what I want to know of you be this. Why?”

  “Why did you sneak in here? Why is the duchess interested in you? And mainly why is there a guy in a bear suit dancing around in my back yard. Why? Why? Why?”

  As he said that last bit of his sentence the old headteacher-like Santa slammed his fist down and looked at us all. None of us met his gaze right away.

  “The Duchess sent you after us and we got a message to meet you,” I offered weakly.

  “We thought if we knew where the Duchess was we could convince her to let us go home,” Madeline added.

  Santa's face softened.

  “My dear girl. The Duchess does not have me go after unclassified like you. She comes to me for information. I see everything you see. I know each of you at your best and I know each of you at your worst.”

  “Has she got the information on us?” Madeline asked.

  “I am rather afraid she has,” Santa replied without sounding bothered or concerned.

  “What will she do with the information?” Rob asked.

  Santa looked over those glasses pushed down to his nose and looked inconvenienced again.

  “She classifies you. That is all.”

  Not fazed by what Santa had said I decided to give him the reason we were in his office in the first place.

  “Where is the Duchess? Can you take us to her?”

  The Man of Christmas grunted and shook his head.

  “It would seem you children have come a long way for nothing. My elves will see you out. Good day to you.”

  Madeline pushed her way to the front of our group to face the Man of Christmas. Now she did meet his gaze as she spoke.

  “Did you know that there was a Christmas story where a man refuses to say Merry Christmas and instead chooses to say good day? That man saw the error of his ways.”

  “Once again, good day children,” The man of Christmas snapped unmovable on his decision.

  Simon took Madeline's shoulders and guided her to the left a little so he could address Santa

  “You know what. Where I come from the way you look, the red suit and the beard, it represents something. It represents the joy in giving. It means something to people. You are instantly recognised anywhere as the Man of Christmas. I think you get some of that here too. Otherwise why have the elves down there making computer chips for music players?”

  “Children, the elves are making memory chips that I hide in music players to save all your details on to and really I can not help you.”

  It looked like Madeline was going to try again but Simon had already moved towards the door.

  “Don't bother Madeline, in fact none of us should try this. I think it is clear to all of us now that this is not an organised school outing. The fact is that we have ended up somewhere foreign to us, somewhere we know nothing about.”

  I turned my focus away from Santa to face Simon. He had held onto the pretence of the school trip longer than any of us.

  “I think that because it is somewhere we know nothing about we have to respect it.” Simon shifted his weight from foot to foot as he spoke. “By that I mean it is different here. I think that we need to respect that it is different to what we are all used to and that perhaps we have no right to change it.”

  I think for the most part he was right. The others joined him in heading towards the exit when the Man of Christmas spoke.

  “Simon you are a wise young man. Children, I hope you listened to what he just said,” he then put some papers down in a neat pile and turned his attention to us all once more.

  “Everyone knows where the Duchess is. The big castle made of sand on the island just of the beach. That is where you will find her.”

  Raheam had mentioned an island but I wondered how we would get there. An island in the middle of the ocean hardly seemed like a place that Raheam could drive the bus to. Then the Man of Christmas spoke as though he had read my mind. Which he probably had on account of him knowing everything and being sort of, well, Santa. He glanced up one last time from the papers on his desk, pulled that inconvenienced face, gave a sigh then said.

  “You had better go get Ted. I will take you as far as I go, and keep my name out of it.”

  The excitement and fear were building as I went to collect the man bear who was still outside dancing with his snowman’s hand.