Making a List, Fixing It Nice

by Linnea West

  “Slow it down even more,” Robin said.

  Leon looked at her for a moment, his eyes searching her face. Everyone knew what was coming, but Leon still didn’t want to actually watch it. Robin reached over and hit the appropriate buttons.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “But we need to see what happened.”

  The video slowed down. Leon was sitting in his chair, eating a cookie. He put the metal ruler away, got up out of his chair and walked around his desk as if he were going to leave. Pausing for a moment, like he had just remembered something, Leon walked back to his desk and leaned across to grab the remnants of a cookie that were sitting on the top corner of the book.

  As he grabbed it, Cordelia watched closely. He bumped the top of the book in just the right place that it shifted everything. Leon had been the one to mess up the List, but he hadn’t known because he couldn't see what he had done. It had been an accident after all.

  A hush fell on the room. Leon turned and looked at each elf in turn, ending with Santa. Holding Nick’s gaze, Leon walked toward him.

  “I’m so sorry Santa,” Leon said. “I was the one who caused all of this trouble. I didn’t know and I certainly didn’t mean to. But I will make it up to you. I will fix the List and make sure Christmas gets back on track.”

  “It's alright,” Santa said. “We all make mistakes. I should tell you about the time I mixed up the bag of toys for North America with the bag for South America. I wondered why all of the children of Brazil had asked for sleds. Ho, ho, ho, but that’s a story for another day. For now, we will work to make a plan to fix all of this.”

  For the next hour, Leon, Clarence, Robin, Cordelia, and Nick sat together in Santa’s office and made a plan to fix the List. Egged on by the fresh chocolate chip cookies that Robin had promised Cordelia, they planned an around the clock, week-long schedule to put the List back in order. The Keeper of the List was finally getting a few assistants and in no time, the Christmas schedule would be back to its regular, chaotic normal.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Two weeks after the entire List debacle, Cordelia felt like she almost couldn’t remember it. They were a week out from the big night and back to the normal craziness of crunch time. One good thing that had come out of the mess-up with the List was that not only had Leon gotten glasses, but he and Robin had decided to be married. Cordelia had added matron of honor duties to her always growing to-do list.

  Now she was sitting in Nick’s office nook in front of the roaring fire, warming herself as she waited for Santa to return from his daily reindeer visit. She was flipping through the vacation booklets, trying to make herself care about picking one. Just like every other year, she didn’t actually care which beach they ended up on, just that they vacationed somewhere warm.

  The door opened and Nick hurried in, shutting the wooden door behind him and rushing to his chair. Rubbing his hands together in front of the fire, Nick smiled at Cordelia. His cheeks were an even deeper red than usual, which meant that he had probably accompanied the reindeer out on their training run. It would explain why he was late. Anytime Nick went flying with the reindeer, he lost total track of time as he sailed through the clouds.

  Nick started to open his mouth, but Cordelia cut him off.

  “You lost track of time,” she said at the same time as he made his excuse.

  He gave her a sheepish look. Even though he was old and gray as Santa always was, Nick still looked every inch the mischievous young man that he was at heart.

  “That’s alright,” Cordelia said with a smile. “It gave me a chance to look at the brochures a little more.”

  Nick perked up, sitting back in his chair and grabbing a cookie from the tin. He had been bothering her to make a decision ever since the List got straightened out. This year, he was insistent that she had to be an active part of the vacation decision making process.

  “Did you narrow it down at all?” Nick asked.

  Cordelia laughed. At the beginning of this vacation plan, Nick had handed her twenty different brochures. At first, Cordelia had figured that some were simply different brochures for the same place, but no such luck. They were for twenty different places. He had given her a decision to make that she not only didn’t want to make but also felt totally overwhelmed by. After much hemming and hawing, she had finally narrowed it down to three options. Cordelia wasn’t going to tell Nick that she narrowed it down mostly by spreading them all out on her desk, shutting her eyes, and pointing randomly.

  “Oh good, I was leaning toward Brazil,” Nick said, grabbing one of the pamphlets. “I need a change from just the straight tropical island vacations we’ve been doing recently. I think two weeks in Brazil is the winner.”

  Cordelia sighed, smiling at her husband. She didn’t really care where they went, but she was glad the decision was made. She still had a to-do list that was a mile long and Nick had been bugging her for a while to make a decision. Now she could cross that off of her list.

  Reaching over, Cordelia poured each of them a cup of hot chocolate. It was steaming hot and holding the mug warmed Cordelia down to the depths of her soul. She loved living at the North Pole, but being cold 12 months of the year had a few drawbacks. At least she could look forward to their two weeks in Brazil to thaw out before she was ready to be back in her winter wonderland.

  “Cordelia, I had something I wanted to talk to you about,” Nick said.

  He set his cookie down, which was not a good sign. Cordelia took another slow sip of hot chocolate and steeled herself for whatever it was that Nick had to say. She wracked her brain trying to figure out what it might be about.

  “It’s come to my attention that during crunch time, there are large chunks of time where I have absolutely nothing to do,” Nick said. He folded his hands over his bowl-full-of-jelly belly. “I couldn’t help but notice that at the same time, you seem to have mostly no downtime. I have a feeling that those two things might be related.”

  Cordelia cleared her throat, trying to figure out how she was going to respond. He was right, of course, and she wasn’t embarrassed about it, but she did feel a little sheepish. Looking at Nick, his blue eyes twinkled at her over his glasses. He wasn’t mad, but he was certainly entertained.

  “All this time, I thought I was just so speedy at getting things done to have all of that downtime,” Nick said. “But once we got that whole List thing figured out, I sat back and thought about my day and the things I wasn’t doing that were still magically getting done.”

  Cordelia smiled to herself. Here she was being called out and she couldn’t help but laugh. She should have figured that at some point, she would have taken on so much that there would have been nothing left for Santa himself to do.

  “I suppose I could turn a few things over to you,” she said with a smile. “I just really wanted you to focus on Christmas Eve and not on making sure your boots got shined. Did the List mess really make you realize all of this?”

  “That and Clarence showed me a copy of your schedule and to-do list,” Nick said.

  He smirked as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Cordelia laughed and swatted his hand. Of course, Clarence showed it to him. It had been Clarence’s mission in life to be actually in charge of her schedule and one way he could do that was by making sure Santa took a few things off of her plate.

  “Oh that elf, I’m gonna get him,” Cordelia said, raising her fists as though she were going to fight him.

  “Ho, ho, ho, well you can’t blame the guy,” Nick said. “When you’re busy, it means he’s just as busy.”

  Santa had a point there. Cordelia might be in the driver’s seat, but poor Clarence was always along for the ride. In a way, Cordelia was glad that she could turn a few things over to Santa. The more things she took over, the more things fell through the cracks or were only done halfway. Now, Cordelia could focus on doing fewer things but focus on doing them better.

  Cordelia took a deep breath and sank back into her armcha
ir. The knit blanket was wrapped around her legs and she was feeling so cozy that if she let herself, she could take a little nap. Instead, she reached over and grabbed her mug of hot chocolate to take another big sip. The rich liquid filled her mouth with sweetness. She tried to forget that they were still in crunch time. She had told Clarence to come to get her, but not for a half hour. She needed time to relax with Nick.

  So when the double door flew open, Cordelia did not expect to see Clarence rushing in. She checked her watch, wondering if she had somehow taken a nap and lost track of time. But no such luck. It had only been ten minutes since she came in to relax.

  “Mrs. Claus, I’m so sorry to interrupt,” Clarence said.

  Cordelia was immediately on edge. It took quite a lot for the Head Elf to address her by her title instead of her first name. She searched Clarence’s face to try and get a hint of what was going on, but besides a sense of panic, it didn’t betray anything.

  “What’s wrong Clarence?” Santa asked.

  His tone told Cordelia that he was also on edge. Clarence was not acting normally, but at least this time they would face whatever it was together.

  Clarence glanced nervously toward Santa and then looked back at Cordelia. He was looking for permission to say whatever it was in front of Santa. Cordelia nodded at him. Whatever he had to say, both Mr. and Mrs. Claus could hear.

  “Well, I hate to interrupt you, but I’m afraid we have a little problem on our hands,” Clarence said.

  He was wringing his hands as he spoke barely above a whisper. Cordelia swiveled around and leaned out of her chair toward the nervous elf.

  “What is it?” Cordelia asked, wishing he would just say it.

  “It’s the sleigh,” Clarence said. “There’s been a slight malfunction and I’m afraid it might not be ready for Christmas Eve.”

  “But I was just in the sleigh!” Santa said.

  He stood up and walked toward Clarence. The Head Elf shrank back, not afraid of Santa, but not liking that he had to be the bearer of bad news.

  “That’s just the problem,” Clarence said. “One of the sleigh elves was doing the post-flight checklist and found that there were several major problems after you took it out for a test run. We are not sure what happened, but we know it needs to be dealt with.”

  "Couldn't it just be normal malfunctions?" Cordelia asked. She really knew nothing about how the sleigh worked.

  "That's just the thing," Clarence said. "One or two small problems would be normal. There are approximately eight small problems and three major ones. That is very much out of the realm of normal. There is something strange going on here."

  Santa looked at Cordelia. It looked like they had another mystery to solve if they wanted Christmas to happen as scheduled.

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  Don’t worry, Mrs. Claus will have more mysteries to solve. Make sure you join my weekly email newsletter for word on when the next book comes out!

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  Haven’t got enough Christmas yet? Make sure you check out Christmas Shop Murder

  Tessa Schmidt, lover of all things seasonal, is happy to hear that Shady Lake is going to have their very own Christmas shop. Sue Peterson is going to turn the Used-A-Bit, her second hand store, into a Christmas shop set to open on Black Friday. Tessa’s family owns a bed and breakfast and she has decided to undertake the large task of decorating for the holidays, so the new shop is just what she needs. Unfortunately, the landlord of the building has died and the new landlord, Claire Freeman, is not willing to cut Sue any slack on her past due rent. Once December is over, Sue’s store is out and Claire’s self-service dog washing and grooming salon is moving in.

  As if Tessa isn’t busy enough decorating and working at the bed and breakfast along with volunteering to help Sue set up the Christmas shop, her mother slips on a patch of ice and breaks her leg leaving, all of the family holiday preparations to Tessa. Tessa has so much on her plate that it is almost overflowing.

  But then Black Friday comes and Claire is found dead in the Christmas Shop just before the grand opening. Multiple people close to Tessa come under suspicion, so once again she finds herself investigating a murder to make sure that everyone can be home in time for Christmas. Will Tessa be able to solve the murder while maintaining her holiday cheer?

  Christmas Shop Murder is available now on Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited.

  Other Books in the Series

  Other Series:

  Small Town Minnesota Cozy Mystery Series

  Halloween Helper’s Cozy Mystery Series

  For all other series by Linnea West, click here.

  About the Author

  Linnea West lives in Minnesota with her husband and two children. She taught herself to read at the age of four and published her first poem in a local newspaper at the age of seven. After a turn as a writer for her high school newspaper, she went to school for English Education and Elementary Education. She didn’t start writing fiction until she was a full time working mother. Besides reading and writing, she spends her time chasing after her children, watching movies with her husband, and doing puzzle books. Learn more about her and her upcoming books by subscribing to her weekly newsletter.

  Note From the Author: Reviews are gold to authors! If you’ve enjoyed this book, would you consider rating it and reviewing it on Amazon? Thank you!

  Copyright

  Making a List, Fixing it Nice by Linnea West

  © 2019 Mikki Tuohy

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

  Linneawestbooks@gmail.com