Asking for Trouble: 1 (London Confidential)

by Sandra Byrd

Dear Jesus, please help me know what to say, I prayed. I’d spent an hour the night before looking up the word secret in an online Bible concordance, looking for wisdom for the decision I needed to make. A few verses stuck in my heart and mind. I hoped that the Holy Spirit would bring one to light as I talked with Father Christmas to let me know what to do.

  “Move along then.” A woman with a small boy nudged me from behind. He glared at me and then picked his nose.

  Merry Christmas to you too, I thought. The line shuffled for a few more minutes before it was my turn. “Would you like to go first?” I asked the woman behind me. I didn’t want to be rushed when it was my turn to talk, and her son looked like he was going to have a breakdown pretty soon.

  “That’s very decent of you,” she said. She eyed me carefully and kept her arm tightly around her son as they moved past me. No doubt she was wondering what a teenage girl was doing in line to see Father Christmas.

  Then I took my turn. I didn’t sit on his lap—of course!—but I did come close enough that our conversation would remain private.

  Chapter 46

  “Well, it’s the intrepid reporter,” Father Christmas said as I came closer. “With the eagle eye.” I looked closely at his. They were twinkling.

  I dived right in. “Speaking of eyes, how is yours feeling?”

  “Oh, my eyes are just fine, young lady,” he said. “Nothing at all to worry about. A few days of tender care by the missus, and Bob’s your uncle.”

  He wasn’t admitting anything, but he grinned. He knew that I knew. I liked being a reporter and knowing the inside scoop.

  “Are you here as a reporter or someone with a Christmas list?” he asked.

  “Both. I was wondering: can you tell me anything about secrets?” I asked.

  “Of course I can,” he said. “As Father Christmas, I hear lots of secrets. People whisper what they want for gifts, of course. But a lot of times they whisper a lot more than that. They tell me if their mum and dad are fighting and ask me to fix that for Christmas. They share their secret hopes, knowing that, as Father Christmas, I can be trusted to keep it all right in here.” He thumped his chest. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” he asked.

  I nodded slowly. “I do.”

  “Do you remember when you asked me what the best part of my job was?”

  I nodded. “You said helping other people, doing a bit of good when you can.”

  “That’s right. Now, do you think I can do more good as Father Christmas or as . . . say, a regular old postman?”

  I drew in my breath. He was as good as admitting it! But then I had to think about it before answering him. It began to snow lightly, and a few flakes stuck on his cheeks and mine. “As Father Christmas, I suppose. Because people believe that you have the power to help them. If you’re just, well, someone they see every day, they might not think you can.”

  “Even Jesus said that a prophet was rejected in his hometown. Right? Because they didn’t think anyone they knew could be that special.” Father Christmas knew the Bible? Well . . . I suppose it made sense that he would.

  “He did say that,” I agreed.

  “Now I’m not perfect like Jesus, of course, but the principle is the same. Do you see that, young lady?”

  “I do,” I said. “But then how do you get any credit? Don’t you care that people don’t know about the good things you do?”

  “Ah, but I am rewarded.” He smiled and pointed a finger upward, toward heaven. “I just have to trust that as I do good for others, Someone will notice.”

  I nodded. I was starting to understand what he wanted me to do. He wanted me to keep his secret so he could keep his secret—and keep doing his good deeds, too. I promised nothing, though.

  “You’re on your way to having both a reporter’s eye . . . and a writer’s heart. Now—what about your Christmas list? We’d better get moving before the queue behind you starts to grumble.”

  I laughed. “I’m mostly here to deliver this for my sister.” I held out the small red envelope that carried a Christmas card—and Louanne’s dearest wish. She’d written Father Christmas on the front and put our return address in the corner.

  He took it from me. “Do you know what’s in here?”

  I shook my head. “No, though I did want to peek,” I admitted. “I don’t, uh, know exactly how this Father Christmas thing works. But I put my mom’s e-mail address on the back of it. Just in case, you know, you needed some help getting whatever my sister needed. Because I think it’s really important to her.”

  “Thoughtful,” he said. “But . . . what about you? What would you like?”

  I started to say, “Nothing.” But then I thought, Take a leap. Take a chance, Savvy. I could hear the little girl in line behind me start to cry, so I knew I needed to hurry.

  “I’d like . . . a really good friend.” The words rushed out. “A guy who likes me for myself. A way to help others. A ministry. And . . .” Should I say it? I’d be sharing a secret of my own, then.

  “A Wexburg Academy Times pen,” I said.

  “That’s it?” he joked.

  I grinned. “Yeah, short order. I know.”

  At that, the little girl behind me rushed up and dived into Father Christmas’s lap. My audience was over.

  Chapter 47

  Monday at lunch, the newspaper table was abuzz. Last week’s sport column had been a hit too. Nearly two-thirds of the papers had been taken by the time I’d picked them up, and we were hoping that maybe this week all of them would be gone.

  “Good work scoring a small advert from the chemist,” Jack told Hazelle in front of everyone, and he shot that smile in her direction.

  She grinned—and blushed. Aha! Hazelle is not immune to Jack’s charms. I’d never before seen her lower her eyes and—almost—bat her unmascaraed eyelashes. There might be a side to her that I didn’t know about.

  “So when will we find out who the mystery advice columnist is?” asked Rob, one of the printers. “We’re going to have another column for this week, right? I’ll need it soon if we’re going to get it in the edition.”

  “Assuming that Mr. Abrams agrees to keep the column and the headmaster agrees to keep the paper, all will be revealed right after holiday break,” Jack said. “To great fanfare!”

  “I’m dying to know who it is!” Melissa said. “He or she has done a splendid job.”

  I smiled to myself. I could see it all now. We’d be in the newspaper office and I’d be standing in the back, unnoticed, as usual. Jack would call everyone to gather around. Then he’d ask me to come forward, and the rows would part. As the entire staff wondered why I was going forward, I’d sit down in the chair. I’d stick out my foot, and Jack would slip the glass slipper on it. No, no, that wasn’t right. I’d hold out my hand, and he’d stick my brand-new WA Times pen in it. Everyone would gasp. Hazelle would run crying from the room, and I’d track her down and try to be friendly.

  A loud voice next to my ear snapped me out of my dream and back into the present. “Tomorrow is deadline,” Jack reminded us. He shot me the tiniest little look out of the very far corner of his eye. Enough that I would see it, but I doubt anyone not looking for it would have noticed a thing.

  I know. I know. I still hadn’t written the column on secrets.

  “I’ve also got a little space next to the Father Christmas article,” Rob said. “Enough room for a little advert or a sidebar of interesting Christmas facts.”

  Or amazing inside information on Father Christmas.

  “Hey, Savvy.” Melissa’s hair swished as she turned to face me. She always smelled a little like grapefruit. I thought it was her shampoo. I needed to find a signature shampoo too. “Got any big plans for the holidays?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Hanging out.”

  “Sounds low key,” she said. Then she bit into her wrap sandwich. “Maybe after the holidays I can go over a couple of my articles with you. You know, show you some style marks. We can talk about how to set up
research and the like—find an unusual angle, squeeze information from unwilling interview subjects, and all that.”

  She’d given me my first paper opportunity that didn’t involve a delivery bag when I interviewed Father Christmas. And now she was offering to help me even further. Truth be told, she’d been a really good friend.

  Was I the kind of person who scooped a really good friend?

  Chapter 48

  The verse directing the answer to this week’s Asking for Trouble column came to mind right away. I looked it up—Luke 6:31—but I knew it anyway. I wrote the column and, somewhat reluctantly, e-mailed it to Jack at 5:10 p.m. Tuesday.

  Dear Asking for Trouble,

  I was walking in the village today, and I saw my older sister’s boyfriend come out of the jewelry store with a ring box. They’ve been dating a long time. Maybe at Christmas he’s going to ask her to marry him! Should I tell her what I saw so she can be prepared, just in case? Or keep the secret?

  Sincerely,

  Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend

  Dear Diamonds,

  Some secrets are meant to be told, and some are meant to be kept. The first question to ask yourself is, would telling the secret do more harm or more good for the people involved? If telling a secret would do good—for example, if someone is stealing or being hurt—then the secret needs to be told. If sharing the secret would actually hurt the people involved, then it needs to be kept.

  Next, ask yourself, if it were me, what would I want done? Doing for others what you’d like done for yourself is a good rule of thumb. If you’d bought a hush-hush gift, would you want someone to spoil the surprise?

  I think you know what to do. The right thing.

  Happy Christmas!

  Asking for Trouble

  The good news was God had given me an answer—He’d given me wisdom when I’d asked Him for it. And He’d shown me how to sneak little bits of His truth into my answer, without people even noticing.

  The bad news was He’d also shown me what I needed to do next. Something completely unexpected. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t see how it was going to work out for the best. But I guess that’s what faith really is about.

  Chapter 49

  When I went to pick up the newspapers on Thursday—the last day of school before the Christmas holidays—they were almost gone. I headed back to the newspaper office. With it being so close to the holidays, there weren’t many staff members there.

  “Five!” I thwapped the papers down on the counter. Rob cheered and pumped his fist in the air. Melissa and Jack danced in a little circle, and I stood there with my Au Revoir bag—slightly tatty and wet, but empty.

  “Can’t see how the headmaster can’t let us go forward,” Melissa said.

  “I can’t either,” Jack said. “At the very least, he’ll give us some more time to prove ourselves, and we can.”

  As a reward, I pulled a candy bar out of my bag and took a bite. “What’s that?” Hazelle asked.

  “Chocolate bar. Flake,” I said, proud that I was eating British candy—er, sweets—now.

  She snorted. “How appropriate. Your new nickname, maybe. Flake for a flake.”

  Melissa, who was standing nearby, must have overheard. She reached into her bag. “No, given Savvy’s taste in delivery bags—and the clothes she wears on nonuniform days—I’d say this is a more appropriate sweet.” She tossed something to me and I read the writing on the tube. Smarties.

  I turned and grinned at her. “Thanks, Melissa.”

  “I mean that in both the British and American sense of the word,” she said. “Happy Christmas, Savvy.”

  “Happy Christmas, Melissa,” I said. Hazelle had already turned her back on me.

  Oh, if only I could live up to Melissa’s faith in me.

  Melissa nodded and went back to the filing cabinet. Rob went to clean the ink off of the presses, and Jack came near to me. “Can you meet me at Fishcoteque in half an hour?” he asked.

  “Let me check.” I texted my mother, who said it was okay. “Yes,” I said. “See you there.”

  Chapter 50

  Soon I was walking through the cobbled village lane, my Au Revoir bag neatly rolled and tucked inside my school bag. Kids were running around excitedly, playing catch with a small ball in spite of the slick surfaces. Our next-door neighbor Vivienne drove by and even waved at me. I waved back. She had a special place in my heart now that she’d helped Mom out. I hadn’t exactly forgotten her comments about my guitar playing, but, well, no one’s perfect.

  When I got to Fishcoteque, I pushed open the door. It was nearly deserted for once—probably because it was so close to Christmas.

  “Hello, luv. How have you been?” Jeannie asked me.

  “Merry Christmas,” I said. “I’ve been pretty good.”

  “What’re you doing here? Should be home wrapping gifts,” she said. “We’ll be closing in about an hour, for the holidays.”

  “I’m meeting someone,” I said. At that moment, Jack pushed open the door and waved at me.

  “I’ll get us a booth,” he said.

  I turned back to the counter.

  “Dishy, that one is.” She smiled at me. “Nicely done.”

  “Oh, uh, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s just, uh, a friend,” I stammered. I could feel the heat rush to my face.

  “Mm-hmm, righto,” she said. “The usual, then?”

  “Just two Fantas,” I said and pulled my wallet out of my bag.

  “If I can make a suggestion, you should always let the chap pay. Trains ’em right from the start,” she said. “But I’m old fashioned, I know.” She took my money, got my change, and I was on my way.

  I slid into the booth across from Jack.

  “Thank you,” he said as I handed him a Fanta. “So, as you can guess, the column is definitely going strong. As I told you in my e-mail, I thought your response to this week’s question was spot on. Appropriate for the situation they wrote in about, and an answer all the readers can apply somewhere else to themselves. Well done!”

  “Thanks.” I felt the blush coming back. I was no less resistant to his praise than Hazelle, apparently.

  “So, the column is a go. Here’s how it’ll work. You’ll write two columns a month. I’ll pull all the questions people submit out of the box at school or from the e-mail account I’ve set up, and then you and I will go over them together and decide which are to go in the paper. You’ll be able to write them up, do promotion as the youngest Auntie Agatha ever, and the paper will fly out the door!”

  I sipped the rest of my Fanta and resisted the urge to indulge in a little imaginary moment about how the “youngest Auntie Agatha ever” promotion would look. Then I answered, “It all sounds great . . . except for one part.”

  “And that is . . . ?”

  “I don’t want my identity to be known. I want to remain secret.”

  Jack said nothing for a moment. “Why? You can have your own desk in the paper office. You’ll have your own WA Times pen. You can do publicity for us. People will know your name.”

  “It’s all because of Father Christmas,” I explained. “Remember when Melissa sent me to interview him?”

  Jack looked confused but nodded.

  “Well . . . along the way—” I chose my words carefully so as to tell the truth but not let his secret loose—“he told me something. I asked him why it mattered to him that people didn’t know who he was. He told me that, you know, he did more good as Father Christmas than if people knew he was a regular bloke. So if I remain secret, then people will really believe that I have good things to say. But if they know who I am, then they might see me get a poor grade from time to time or make a mistake in a friendship or something. And the mystery will be gone.”

  Jack nodded. “Yes . . . yes, I can see the wisdom in that. Actually, that proves to me that you really are the right person for the job. Thinking of the readers—and the paper—before yourself. You meant what you said in this week’s column
about keeping secrets, didn’t you?”

  He’d never know, unless I shared it with him, how much it was going to cost me to learn each lesson before I could write a column about it.

  “I really meant what I said,” I answered. Maybe someday I’d tell him the rest. But not now.

  The restaurant crew came out and started cleaning the floors—an obvious hint to us that we should be moving on. And who could blame them? They had their own Christmases to prepare for. Jack and I stood up, and I looped the straps from my book bag over my shoulder.

  As we reached the door, he hugged me. “Thanks, Savvy. You’ll still deliver the papers, right?”

  I nodded. “Yes. The ever-faithful delivery girl.”

  He pulled away and smiled, and this time I knew that smile was only for me.

  “Well done, Savvy.” He waved as he began to walk away. “Cheers.”

  I started down the street toward my house.

  Okay, Father Christmas, I thought. I’ve come through for you. I hope you come through for Louanne.

  Chapter 51

  The next night, Christmas Eve, we pulled into an overflowing church parking lot—the church that Dad and Louanne, and, okay, Giggle, and I had checked out not long before.

  “Ready?” Dad shut off the car engine.

  “Ready,” I said. Please, Lord, let this work for us.

  We walked inside the double doors, and a man in a wheelchair held out his hand and warmly greeted us as we entered. His kindness made me feel welcome right off. The hallways were decorated with strings of lights, poinsettias, and greenery all the way down to the sanctuary.