The cubicles are just desks really, with aluminium dividers. The desks face the walls, so if we turn around we can see each other. The lights are fluorescent and I avoid looking up. The glare absolutely kills my eyes.
Around the walls are Christmas decorations. Tinsel and candy canes and crepe-paper streamers that Christine made herself.
A sound system plays faint Christmas carols, overlaid with the sounds of hammering and elves talking, as if we are really in Santa’s workshop.
Everything’s so fake. Like Christmas.
I hate Christmas.
I don’t want to sound like a Scrooge or a Grinch, but it’s a fact. I hate everything about it.
The silly flashing lights and the mindless Christmas music droning in the malls. I hate the lies we tell kids about a jolly fat man who flies around in a magical sleigh.
Everything.
What saddens me is the greed. It’s all about ‘me, me, me’. The kids that call me are the future of our society and the only thing they are interested in is more, more, more.
No wonder society is in such a mess.
I sometimes wonder if the reason I hate Christmas so much is because I loved it so much when I was a kid. When I believed the lies and counted the sleeps till the big day. When I couldn’t sleep on Christmas Eve with the excitement of what Santa was going to bring me overnight. When I left biscuits and milk out for Santa (and carrots for his reindeer).
Then I grew up and after that Christmas wasn’t fun anymore.
Every Christmas morning I felt sad remembering how Christmas used to be.
The Santa-line thing’s just a holiday job (obviously). I finished school last year and needed to earn as much money over the holidays as I could. Santa pays better than the supermarket or Macca’s. It’s only till Christmas, but I’ll take it while I can get it.
Next year I’m going to university, I think. I’ve applied for a few courses, and my Year 12 results are just about high enough to get in. I applied for human sciences. The precursor to medicine. I don’t really know what I want to do, but something medical would be good.
Something where I get to help people, and do some good in the world.
The world could do with a lot more good in it.
Two orange lights on the phone tell me there are more calls waiting. Well, kids, I’m sorry. It’s kind of busy here at the North Pole, okay? You’ll have to wait while I set myself up with my mineral water and throat lozenges.
I pull on my elf hat. Green and zig-zagged around the bottom, red on the top with a little brass bell on the end.
Why do we have to wear them? The kids can’t see us: it’s not a video phone. Maybe management thinks that makes us feel more elvish. Maybe they think the kids will hear the bell jingling as we talk.
I drag through about ten calls, listening to lists of presents that would overload Santa’s sleigh so badly it wouldn’t get off the ground. I’d quit this job if I didn’t need the money to buy Christmas presents of my own.
Then suddenly the phones go quiet. It won’t last. It’s just a break. But it gives me the chance to say good morning to my workmates and apologise for being late.
‘Don’t worry. I won’t tell on you,’ Mark says.
Christine just shakes her head and smiles. She wouldn’t rat me out either.
‘Any good ones this morning?’ I say.
Mark shrugs. ‘Boy called Richard wants a private island.’
‘I hope you let him down gently,’ I say.
‘With a thud.’ He laughs. ‘Told him Santa’s not an estate agent. Told him to choose something less expensive and more realistic.’
‘And did he?’ says Christine.
‘Oh, he only wants the moon now,’ Mark says.
‘The moon?’
‘Yeah, you know. That big round thing in the sky. I told him that was fine. His parents were listening. They can sort it out and buy him a moon globe or something.’
‘I had a girl who wants a magical flying ring,’ Christine says.
‘Like a frisbee?’ says Mark.
‘No, like a magic ring that enables the wearer to fly.’
‘How’d you worm your way out of that one?’ I say.
‘I was non-committal,’ Christine says.
Of course.
The phone rings again.
‘Who wants it?’ says Mark.
I put my hand in the air and jiggle around in my seat like an excited pre-schooler.
‘You always pick him.’ Christine puts on a sulky voice.
I roll my eyes at her and punch the button to pick up the call.
I put on my best elf voice. ‘Why, hello there, welcome to the Santa line!’
Silence on the other end.
‘Hello. Is this the right number for Santa?’
It sounds like a girl, but at this age it could be a boy.
‘You bet – you’ve got Santa’s direct line. What’s your name?’ I stick to the script on the response sheet. Some team of child psychologists probably spent years working it out.
‘This is Viola.’
‘What a lovely name.’ I’m on auto-pilot. ‘And what would you like for Christmas, Viola?’
‘A new baby brother.’
I roll my eyes again, thankful that she can’t see me.
‘Oh that’s lovely, Viola. And how old are you?’
I write down her answer, even though all the calls are recorded (for legal reasons). I don’t have to, but if I need to remember stuff later in the conversation, it is easier if I’ve got notes.
‘I’m six.’
I grit my teeth. ‘What a lovely girl you are, to wish for a new baby brother.’
‘I am,’ she says, and that opens the floodgates. ‘Everybody says that. Gamma and Pops, and Aunty Bec and Cousin Tonia. She’s seven. She wants a doll for Christmas. The one that wees itself and you have to change its nappy. Ewww! Is this really Santa?’
We’ve got a standard answer for that, and I can say it without even glancing at the script. ‘Santa’s really busy at the moment sorting out his lists of who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. I’m one of his elves. So tell me. Have you been good this year, Viola?’
‘I think so,’ she says. ‘Most of the time.’
Well at least she’s honest. I am starting to like her.
‘What’s your name?’ she says. She had to ask, didn’t she.
‘Ah – Cheeky,’ I say (gritting my teeth). ‘I’ll make sure to put in a good word for you so Santa can put you on the nice list. Now, apart from a new baby brother, what else do you want for Christmas this year?’
‘That’s all, thank you, Cheeky. Thank you really very much.’
Okay. So she’s not so bad really. At least she’s not greedy. Compared to most of the callers.
‘Viola, I think you’re lovely,’ I say. ‘You’re sure you don’t want any toys, or games? Lollies?’
‘No, thank you.’
But she does want something. I know it. They always do. She’s hiding something.
‘A bike? A pony?’
‘A pony sounds cool. But no, thank you,’ she says.
Okay. I give up. A girl who doesn’t want any Christmas presents. That isn’t natural. She’s probably going to grow up to be a psychopath. Or a politician. I’ve got another call waiting so I can’t spend all day on this.
‘Cool,’ I say. ‘Now, Viola, just before you go, tell me why you want a new baby brother so much.’
‘Because my old one died,’ she says.
And the world stops.
‘Are you still there?’ she says after a while. I don’t know how long. Seconds? Minutes? It feels longer.
‘Hello?’ she says.
‘Cheeky?’
‘Hi, Viola,’ I manage, but my silly elf voice has dese
rted me.
‘Hi, Cheeky,’ she says. ‘Will you ask Santa for me?’
I am off script now. There are no prepared responses for this. ‘I can ask, okay?’ I say. ‘But I don’t know if he’ll listen to me about something like this.’
‘But he will! You’re one of his elves.’
I think about that for a moment. I glance around. Mark and Christine are both back on calls. Mark’s laughing at something. Christine’s listening intently and taking notes.
‘Viola, I need to tell you something,’ I say carefully. I’ll probably get fired for this. ‘I’m not really an elf.’
Next I’ll be telling her that there’s no Santa Claus, or tooth fairy, and that you won’t really see better if you eat your carrots.
‘Oh,’ is all she says.
‘Was it true what you just said about your baby brother?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘And it was really sad and my daddy’s really upset and Mummy’s crying a lot, but I thought if Santa brought us a new baby then we would all be happy again.’
I stare at the ceiling for a moment. The tube lighting hurts my eyes. It’s making them water. I cough to clear a lump in my throat.
‘Why did you say you were an elf if you’re not?’ she says.
I have to be careful. But I have to be honest. I can’t lie to this child. Not right now.
‘Viola, my name’s Steve. I work at a call centre,’ I say.
I glance around. Mark hasn’t heard. He’s busy putting on his Mrs Claus voice and picking his nose.
Christine heard me, though. She’s looking at me and frowning. I turn my back to her and focus on the little voice on the other end of the line.
‘What’s a call centre?’ Viola says.
‘Well, we answer the phone calls and find out what children want for Christmas,’ I say.
‘And then you tell Santa!’
Honest, yes. But there’s a limit.
‘Well – yes. We tell Santa.’
‘So please ask Santa about a new baby brother.’
Again I stare at the ceiling. The moment drags on. She waits, patiently. Silently.
‘I don’t think I can, Viola,’ I say.
‘But I’ve been good! I’ve been good most of the time. ’
‘I’m sure you have, but—’
‘Nearly always!’
I take a deep breath.
‘Santa brings toys and games,’ I say.
‘And puppies. I know ’cos Charlotte got one.’
‘And sometimes puppies. But not babies.’
There it is. Out in the open. The truth. There’s no way to let her down gently on this one.
‘Oh.’
‘Are your parents there?’ I say. ‘Are they listening?’
‘No. I wanted to surprise them. About the new baby, I mean.’
‘I’m really sorry, sweetie,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry that Santa can’t bring you a new baby. I’m sorry about your brother. And I’m sorry I lied to you about being an elf.’
‘But you told me the truth. So that’s okay,’ she says. ‘And it’s not your fault about the other stuff.’
‘What was your brother’s name?’ I say. I actually do want to know.
‘Elliot,’ she says.
‘How did Elliot die?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘He just died one day.’
‘How old was he?’
‘He wasn’t anything,’ she says.
That’s confusing. Is the dead baby real?
‘What do you mean by that?’ I say.
‘I mean he wasn’t three or two, or even one, yet. It was going to be Elliot’s first Christmas. I made him a card and everything. And Christmas is supposed to be the funnest, best day of the whole year but Elliot won’t get anything.’
And now I couldn’t read the response sheet if there even was a prepared answer. My eyes are blurry.
‘I’m sorry, Viola.’ It’s pathetic, but it’s all I can think of to say.
‘Do Santa and Mrs Claus have children?’ she says.
‘Just the elves,’ I say. I hate the lying, but—
‘But you’re not an elf,’ she says.
‘No. Not me.’
There’s a silence on the line. I let it continue. Viola can have as much of my time as she wants. The others can wait.
‘Okay, I know what else I want for Christmas,’ she says eventually.
‘I’m glad,’ I say. ‘What is it?’
‘I want Santa to take some presents to Elliot up in heaven. He can fly up to heaven, can’t he?’
‘Well – yes. I’m sure he can.’
‘Elliot would like a toy. Something soft like a lion that he can cuddle. But not something he’s going to chew. And don’t get him a puppy. I don’t think he’d look after a puppy very well.’
‘I’ll pass that on to Santa straightaway,’ I say.
‘Puppies are a lot of work,’ she says. ‘Charlotte told me.’
‘And Charlotte’s absolutely right,’ I say.
‘Thanks, Steve,’ she says.
‘No, thank you, Viola,’ I say.
‘For what?’
‘Well, all day long I answer the phone here and listen to kids wanting all kinds of expensive toys or bikes or games or just complaining about the presents they got last year.’
‘That’s a bit mean,’ she says, then quickly, ‘of them, I mean. Not you.’
This child is worried about hurting my feelings.
I say, ‘I get worried about the world and then I get you on the line. And now I’m not worried so much.’
‘Hmmm,’ she says.
‘I wish Santa could bring you a new baby brother, but he can’t,’ I say. ‘And I can’t even say Happy Christmas because I know it will be a sad one for you this year. But I do know that Elliot was lucky to have you as his big sister.’
‘Have a good Christmas, Steve,’ she says.
‘I will,’ I say.
I know when it’s going to rain, by the smell and the feel of the air.
I know when I walk into a room that one of the windows is open, even if the drapes or blinds are closed. I can tell by the temperature and the faintest breath of air currents.
I know where a person comes from by the sound of their accent.
There’s nothing psychic about any of this. It’s just intuition. It’s an ability, or maybe a willingness, to be aware of tiny clues, subtle traces, information that other people ignore or are too blind to see.
But I can’t tell you the winning numbers in next week’s lottery. Or when you’ll meet the girl or boy of your dreams.
Or when you’re going to die.
That’s a lie. I can tell you when you’re going to die.
It’s when you finish reading this story.
I’m sixteen. Old enough to get into trouble; sensible enough to avoid it. Most of the time. Yeah, I do some dumb things. Who doesn’t? Yeah, I kissed a few boys I shouldn’t have. Yeah, I got drunk once (had no idea of the effect it would have and just about ended up in hospital). Yeah, I tried cigarettes (just about choked).
But these are little things. Insignificant compared with what happened to me on a class trip to Fremantle. Hardly worth mentioning compared with what’s going to happen to you. The moment you started reading these words, you signed your own death warrant.
I’ll string this story out as long as I can, so you can live just a few moments longer. But sooner or later it has to end. And when it ends, so do you. I wish I could stop it. I desperately wish I could save your life. But I can’t.
Stop reading, you die.
This story is cursed. Yeah, I know how crazy that sounds. You don’t have to believe me. You could stop reading, just to prove that I’m wrong. But I wouldn’t advise it.
&nb
sp; There’s nothing you can do, there’s no one you can call. Stop reading, you die.
That’s another lie. When you started reading this story it opened a connection between my mind and yours, between my emotions and yours, between my soul and yours. And the curse passed through.
Actually there is one way you can stop reading and still live. I’ll tell you about that later.
I said I’d string this story out as long as I could, so let me tell you how this started for me. How I got ‘infected’. It wasn’t in some ancient Egyptian tomb. This was no mummy’s curse. It was much closer to home than that.
Evil is all around us. It brings temptation, it slips in during unguarded moments. It turns otherwise good, normal people into monsters.
Have you never looked at the picture of a murderer on the news and wondered how they turned from some fresh-faced young kid into a psychotic killer?
Evil does that. Slipping through the cracks in our souls. Devouring the goodness and purity it finds inside. What’s left after evil has finished feeding on your soul is the breeding ground for psychopathy and murder.
The evil that infested me, and therefore this story, came to me first in a dream.
Like I told you, I know when it’s going to rain. I know where to find lost things. So when I dreamt of the book, I thought it was just another of my intuitions.
But what appeared in that dream felt wrong. It smelt wrong. The way a dead bird in the hedge starts to smell after a few days, or the way that creep who’s following you home from school looks when he stares at you. Wrong. Just plain wrong. When I woke up I was relieved to find out that it was only a dream and I promptly forgot about it.
Until I passed the bookshop.
Already this sounds clichéd, I know. The musty old bookshop, the teenage girl, led into a place of evil.
But it wasn’t like that. This wasn’t an old bookshop; in fact it was brand new. So new that it hadn’t been there the last time I went to Fremantle and that was less than twelve months ago.
So I live in Perth. Western Australia, just in case you don’t know where that is. We were in Fremantle on a class trip to visit the old prison. The massive stone walls that surround the place were built by convicts back in the 1850s. Those walls concealed years of horrors. Hangings, floggings, suicides. Some say the prison is haunted. I suspect worse. Much worse. If ever there was a place for evil to leak into our world it would be a place like Fremantle Prison.
Stubborn Seed of Hope Page 11
