Claude's Christmas Adventure

by Sophie Pembroke

  ‘Of course it is.’ Henri’s voice dripped with disdain.

  ‘It’s a genius idea,’ Daisy said, wrapping an arm around Bella’s shoulder, which Bella promptly shrugged off.

  ‘Did you find the key yet? So we can get the phones out?’ Bella asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Daisy admitted.

  ‘It’s astonishing how careless people can be with personal belongings,’ Henri added, unhelpfully. ‘Like keys. And dogs.’

  ‘You must have computers with internet on this ferry, right?’ Bella leant further over the counter, staring at Henri, and he took a step back. ‘Where are they?’

  Henri, stunned into helpfulness, gave them a map with the internet hub marked. Daisy trailed after Bella as she strode towards the computers.

  ‘So, how is this going to work, exactly?’ she asked, as Bella settled in front of the screen.

  ‘Easy. I’m going to set up a page called Find Claude, right?’ She was already typing away, the screen filling with text and images as she worked. ‘I’ll link it to my profiles and share it with my friends, and get them to share it with their friends and so on and so on.’

  ‘Until everyone we’ve ever met knows we’re negligent pet parents who left their dog at home.’ How exactly was this going to help?

  ‘Until even people we’ve never met are helping to search for Claude.’ Bella tapped a few more keys, and a picture of Claude from last Christmas, wearing a Santa hat perched between his dark ears, appeared at the top of the page. ‘And done!’

  ‘That was … amazing.’ Daisy scanned the screen. She liked to think that she was pretty good with computers, but she wouldn’t have thought of this. All she’d been thinking about was finding a way home. But since she couldn’t, Bella had done the next best thing.

  Find Claude! the page read, in big letters, under Claude’s picture. Beneath that Bella had written a paragraph about what had happened that morning. Then she’d started adding friends to the page, and sharing it everywhere.

  ‘So, now what do we do?’ Daisy asked, as Bella logged off the computer.

  ‘Now we wait for people to contact us and tell us they’ve seen Claude.’

  ‘Great.’ Waiting. Daisy’s favourite.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum.’ Bella squeezed Daisy’s hand with her own. ‘Claude will be fine.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’ Because, whatever she did, they weren’t going to get home before Christmas Eve. Which meant that Claude would be all alone tonight – and probably hating every minute of it.

  It seemed that Bella’s Find Claude campaign was their best chance of taking care of their favourite dog, even if they couldn’t be there themselves.

  By the time the sun had set – at, admittedly, the ridiculously early time of four o’clock – Jack still hadn’t returned with Claude.

  Holly had made two batches of mince pies (one with ordinary mincemeat, one with her speciality cranberry and apple one), assembled the pieces of her gingerbread house ready for decorating, prepped a batch of mulled wine (eggnog was, after all, more of an acquired taste, and she didn’t know if Jack had acquired it. But surely everyone liked mulled wine), sewn another string of festive bunting, and dug her second set of icicle lights out of the spare decorations box.

  She’d held off putting them up before now, because Maple Drive didn’t seem all that big on Christmas lights, and as the only one indulging in the festive display she didn’t want to overdo it. But it was Christmas Eve tomorrow and Jack had said he liked them, so maybe one more string, just under the dining room window, wouldn’t hurt.

  Besides, they looked cheery whenever she came home, like the house itself was welcoming her. She liked that.

  Slipping on her bright red coat, Holly picked up the coiled string of lights and headed out the front door, smiling at the sight of her sparkling bauble wreath as she did so.

  She attached the battery pack as instructed to the side of the window, then set about draping the icicles as evenly as possible under the windowsill.

  ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing, young lady?’ Holly froze at the sound of the voice behind her, then turned slowly to check there wasn’t some other twenty-something blonde being berated for her behaviour.

  Nope. Just her.

  At the end of her path stood the fearsome Mrs Templeton from number 13, hands on her hips, scowling furiously.

  ‘I’m … putting up Christmas lights?’ She was pretty sure that’s what she was doing, anyway. From Mrs Templeton’s tone, though, she might as well have been setting up a brothel in her front room.

  ‘In case it has escaped your attention, Maple Drive is not the sort of street that encourages Christmas lights.’ She spat out the last two words as if they tasted bad.

  And in case it escaped your attention, this is my house and I can do whatever I like to it.

  She should just say that. It was true, after all, and it wasn’t like the street belonged to Mrs Templeton or anything. And hadn’t she decided to be more herself, and less the Holly that Sebastian had wanted her to be, now he was gone?

  But this was her home. And maybe it wasn’t the way she’d planned, when she’d moved here with Sebastian, but in some ways that just made it even more important to fit in. She was alone here now. If Mrs Templeton rallied the neighbours against her, they could make her life miserable. Run her out of town, even! All over a set of Christmas lights.

  Holly shook away images of her neighbours chasing her with flaming torches, and concentrated on placating Mrs Templeton.

  ‘I’m sorry you don’t like them,’ she said, sympathetically. ‘But really, it is just one very small string of plain white lights.’

  ‘Two strings.’ Mrs Templeton nodded towards the bedroom window lights. ‘Two strings of wholly unnecessary lights.’ Holly winced.

  ‘But don’t you think they brighten the place up a bit?’ she tried. After all, wasn’t that basically the job description of lights? Brightening things up? Even Mrs Templeton couldn’t argue with that, surely?

  ‘I think they make the street look tacky.’

  Right. Of course she could.

  ‘I’m very sorry you feel that way,’ Holly said.

  ‘So you’ll take them down?’ Mrs Templeton’s scowl didn’t lift for a moment.

  Holly sighed. Maybe she should try appealing to the woman’s humanity. If she had any. ‘The thing is … I live alone here, apart from my cat. And that can get rather … lonely. And the lights, well … it’s just nice to have something to welcome me home during these cold winter nights. Even if it is just battery-powered,’ she joked, then smacked a hand over her mouth at the thought, as the innuendo caught up with her. Oh, why couldn’t she just stop talking before she got to the embarrassing parts?

  Mrs Templeton took a moment longer to catch on, but then her eyes widened and her mouth opened into a tiny, tight O shape.

  ‘Well,’ she said after a second. ‘Well, I’m sure it’s none of my business what you get up to in the privacy of your own home, but out here on the street I am still the neighbourhood watch captain for Maple Drive, and I say that those lights have to go!’

  ‘Right. Of course. Sorry.’ Her cheeks burning, Holly ripped out the drawing pins holding the lights in place, and started coiling the string back up. ‘I’ll take down the upstairs ones now.’

  ‘Good. Right.’ Mrs Templeton turned on her heel and marched away, pausing at the join between Holly’s front garden and hers to cast back a suspicious look. Holly sighed. So much for trying to fit in. Before she knew it, Mrs Templeton would be telling the whole street that Holly Starr really was opening a brothel in her front room.

  Lights in hand, Holly headed inside, slamming the front door behind her. She stomped up the stairs, opened her bedroom window wide, and began gathering in those lights as well.

  Then, surrounded by icicles, she sat on her bed and tried very hard not to cry.

  This had been a mistake. All of it. Meeting Sebastian in that blasted bar and falling fo
r his charm. Moving to Maple Drive with him and buying the house when they’d only been together less than six months. Deciding to stay here even after Sebastian left. Telling her parents that of course she didn’t mind if they spent the money they’d got back from her wedding insurance on a Caribbean Christmas cruise instead, since she ‘wasn’t going to be needing it.’ God, she’d even reassured them that she’d be okay on her own for Christmas. That she had friends she could spend it with, and hoped they didn’t ask for their names, since she didn’t think Perdita would be an acceptable answer.

  But most of all, Sebastian. He was the biggest mistake she’d ever made in her whole stupid life, and he was still making her miserable, four months after he left.

  Sebastian would have hated the icicle lights too. And Perdita’s Christmas jumper. And mulled wine.

  Really, she’d had a lucky escape. All that time she’d wasted imagining her perfect future with him, not realising that they had nothing in common, that everything she dreamt about he’d have shuddered and turned his nose up at.

  He didn’t even like Christmas.

  Really. She was so much better off without him.

  Except that without him meant being alone.

  Holly stared at the sad strings of unlit icicles lying against her duvet cover. Inside, without their little bulbs gleaming, they were useless. Surplus to requirements. Just like she’d proven to be to Sebastian.

  The thing is, Hol, I thought I wanted to get married. Really I did. I mean, they say that’s the best way to get up to the next level at the company – show that you’re serious and all that. But now I’ve got this new job offer over in Dubai … Well, we don’t need to any more, do we? And you’d hate it over there. Far too hot for you. You’d burn in minutes. So maybe it’s just best for both of us if we call it a day. Don’t you think?

  Best for both of them. Like he was doing her a favour walking out on the life she’d imagined for them.

  But since it turned out that all he’d wanted her for in the first place was a promotion … Holly shuddered. Lucky escape. She really had to concentrate on that part.

  How had she not seen it sooner? Maybe she was just a rubbish judge of character.

  It wasn’t being without Sebastian that bothered her most, though. It was wondering if she’d ever get another chance to do it right.

  Well, she knew one thing. Hiding away in her bedroom, crying over sodding icicles, wasn’t going to get her anywhere. And neither was apologising to Mrs Templeton, and letting the old bully dictate where she could and couldn’t hang her lights.

  This was her house. Just hers, now that Sebastian had gone. She worked damn hard to keep up the mortgage on her own, supplementing her teacher’s salary with the income from her online craft shop, and cake orders from friends and family. She deserved to decorate it any damn way she pleased.

  And what pleased her right now was bright. And gaudy. And everything else Mrs Templeton hated.

  Hell, she’d hang light-up vibrators from the bedroom window right now if she had them.

  Well, maybe not that. But she did have a priority account with next day delivery at a really fab online decoration store …

  It was time to move on – from Sebastian, and being the sort of woman who said yes to a man who only wanted her to further his career. From being the Holly he walked out on, leaving her feeling that she hadn’t done enough to keep him.

  That was bollocks.

  She was ready to be herself again – the Holly who loved Christmas, who made things rather than buying them, who dressed her cat up and took her for walks on a sparkly pink lead sometimes.

  Sebastian hadn’t deserved her. She didn’t need him, and she didn’t even need her parents here to coddle her through her first Christmas alone. They deserved their own life, too. She’d rather be alone, being herself, with a chance of one day finding someone who loved her for who she really was, not in spite of it. Because, actually, she was kind of awesome. And one day, someone was going to realise that. And until then …

  It was time for Holly Starr to sparkle again.

  Starting with the icicles.

  She was going to hang them from every window on the front of her house. And then she was going to go online and order lawn decorations. Because this was her Christmas too – and she was doing it her way.

  ‘Last house,’ Jack said, looking down at me sympathetically. We were back on Maple Drive, at least; I could see my home across the road. In fact, the house Jack was heading for was just next to number 12. ‘Then we’ll go back and see Holly. Get you off this lead.’

  Thank goodness for that. My dignity had reached a new low, being paraded around with pink sparkles around my neck. Not to mention the fact that my paws were smarting from so much walking.

  I am not, typically speaking, much of a ‘walking’ dog. A quick stroll once or twice a day suits me just fine. Not several hours delivering mail all around the county.

  Still, this last house had potential. As we approached the front door, interesting smells floated out to greet us. And when Jack knocked and the woman inside opened the door, the smells only grew stronger.

  I’d never smelled smells like these before. These were even more interesting than those inside the box of interesting smells that got me into all this trouble in the first place.

  I had to know what they were.

  The woman who opened the door was older than most of the people on Maple Drive – older than Mrs Templeton, even. Her dark grey hair was short around her ears, and her face lined a bit like mine. Her eyes were tired and a little sad. Under all the interesting aromas coming from her house, I thought I could smell a kindred spirit – someone as lost and lonely as me this Christmas.

  Clearly, it was my duty to keep her and whatever those brilliant smells were company.

  I waited until Jack reached into his bag to pull out a parcel, knowing that at that moment he had to loosen his hold on my lead for a second while he juggled packages and the strange electrical device that people had to write on.

  With exquisite timing, I tugged free, weaving through the woman’s legs and darting towards the interesting smells with what I imagined might be the last of my energy.

  Well, if I had to collapse with exhaustion, I just asked that it be within tasting distance of those smells.

  This house was the same layout as mine, and as Holly’s, but it felt very different, even from the doorway. There were no Christmas decorations up for a start that I could see – not even a tree towering in the hallway like at ours. (Daisy had spent a whole evening hanging shiny things on it, then wouldn’t let me play with even the little ones I could reach at the bottom.) But there were other things – ornaments and other types of shiny things set out on every shelf and ledge. Jay would have knocked all of those off with just one quick game of Flying Zebra, the mix of catch and fetch he’d invented to us to play with one of the twins’ many soft toys.

  The smells weren’t coming from the ornaments, though. I dashed through the hallway before Jack or the woman could stop me, and towards where I knew the kitchen would be. Kitchens are always good for interesting smells.

  This kitchen table was a little lower than ours, and had a bench that even I could clamber up onto. With my hind legs on the bench, I placed my front paws on the table and breathed in deeply. Those were the smells I’d been looking for all my life. I didn’t know what they were, but I wanted them. Badly.

  ‘Claude!’ Jack’s voice was stern, and my ears flattened a little against my head. I had a feeling I might have been a bad dog.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Nordmann,’ Jack said, following the woman into the kitchen. ‘He’s not actually my dog. I’m just looking after him for the day, until we can find his owners.’

  ‘Call me Kathleen, please.’ The woman – Kathleen – didn’t sound cross, at least. I edged a little closer to the packet with the smells in. ‘He belongs to the family across the street, doesn’t he?’

  ‘The McCawleys,’ Jack confirmed
, and I felt my heart tighten at the word. They were just a name to Jack, and not even that to Kathleen. But to me, they were my world.

  I missed them. I’d even consider giving up the interesting smells, just to have Jay here with me.

  I reached out a paw to the paper wrapped around the smells. I said consider, after all. And it didn’t look like Daisy, Oliver and the children were coming back any time soon.

  Might as well make the most of my adventure while they were gone.

  ‘He seems very interested in my gingerbread men,’ Kathleen said. She reached over and plucked the paper from the table, just before I managed to knock it to the floor to explore its contents.

  I gave a low growl of disappointment, and Kathleen chuckled. ‘I wonder if this was what you came rushing in here for? Or perhaps it was the pot pourri in the hallway. That smells quite Christmassy, too.’

  She took a plate from the dresser shelf, and lay it on the floor. Then, to my surprise – and Jack’s, from the look on his face – she placed a piece of gingerbread onto it. It looked just like the pictures on the wrapping paper around the twins’ Christmas present – right down to the sweetie buttons!

  I risked a quick glance at Kathleen, then at Jack, then dived on it.

  Gingerbread, for the record, is glorious.

  ‘Well, he certainly seems to like that!’ Jack said, laughing.

  ‘Can I offer you some too? Or maybe a mince pie?’ Kathleen asked. ‘I’ll even let you sit at the table to eat it. And make you a cup of tea to go with it, if you like?’

  ‘I shouldn’t …’ Jack started, but Kathleen had already fetched a second plate and put a mince pie and another gingerbread man on it. I’d tried mince pies last year, and been very sick. They were nothing compared to gingerbread.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘My daughter has sent me this giant hamper of Christmas treats – puddings and biscuits and chocolates – but really, it can’t make up for her not being here this Christmas. To be honest, I’d be grateful for someone to share it with. Please, stay.’ She sounded almost desperate for the company, I thought. Obviously, Kathleen was looking for people to belong with – just like I was. And hadn’t Jack said he wanted to find somewhere that could be home? Seemed to me, Kathleen’s house with its gingerbread men was a pretty good start.