“Er…okay,” said Teddy, who had no idea what ermine, confit, or brioche meant, but it must have been something French because Georgie suddenly sounded like Grandma when she recited the long, complicated and useless names of her dishes, and it must have been quite revolting, too, just as every French dish Teddy had ever tried. French food was supposed to be good but in his opinion it was just weird. Sometimes things sounded important and they weren’t – like roasted baby quail with cherry polenta – and sometimes things were better than they sounded, like burger and chips. Burger and chips! Teddy tried to think what he would do for a burger and chips right now.
First, he would tidy his room.
Then, he would kiss Grandma.
After that, he would give up his last scrap of dignity and discard his iPhone for a whole morning…day…WEEK!
But, there was one small problem. He didn’t have a room anymore. Or a phone. Or a Grandma.
“Walrus crackling. Whale steak. Kiviak – seal carcass stuffed with birds-take your pick at the all-you-can-eat Eskimo buffet!”
“Can’t wait,” Teddy mumbled, speaking, to his astonishment, the truth. Walrus crackling would taste like pork scratchings. The steak couldn’t be bad either, although whale was sure to smell fishy. Kiviak? Whatever it was, it sounded meaty and that was fine by him. And an all-you-can-eat buffet (ALL. YOU. CAN. EAT!), he had to admit, sounded fantastic, even if the actual things on the menu weren’t exactly chicken tikka or beef stir fry. He wasn’t used to skipping breakfast, and now he was experiencing the first effects from not drinking his usual mug of cocoa with two large slices of hazelnut spread toast.
His head was spinning.
His stomach was aching.
His mouth was watering.
Georgie frowned. “You better poach those eggs and take them to Santa at once. He likes to have breakfast in the bath. If you don’t hurry, you won’t get to eat any of the delicacies at the Reindeer Barbecue…you will be one of them!”
“Hey, don’t call me fat! And…and…how about a little demonstration, you’re the expert, shouldn’t you be…”
But Georgie didn’t answer, leaving Teddy to wonder if he couldn’t have been nicer to her – maybe pretend he was as enthusiastic about feasting on stuffed seal and grilled reindeer. She started mopping the floor vigorously. In fact, with her straggly hair and skinny frame, she looked like an overgrown mop herself.
Teddy cracked the eggs. He watched the yolks slip in the boiling water, and as they swelled, transforming more to miniature sailing boats than something edible, his heart began to pound as the realisation dawned on him. He’d seen Georgie before – on TV – she went missing last Christmas! The photograph of a neat little girl floated in his memory, a girl with a lovely smile and a shock of brown, glossy hair. She was kind of plump, too, more like the kind of girl who liked her burger and chips than the walking skeleton in front of him.
Soon, it would be him and his sister making the headlines – Teddy could see, in his mind, the horror on the neighbours’ faces as they read them: A year from a terrible tragedy in their family, two children go missing on Christmas Eve. And, despite trying very hard to stop them, the storm of ifs pounded on his brain like hail on a closed window…
If Mum opened her presents that morning, she’d have seen the bread maker Santa got her.
If she opened the Matryoshka doll, she would have found the ring.
If Teddy had woken earlier, if he had set his alarm clock, if…
Teddy’s heart ached.
Would he ever be found at the North Pole, or was he doomed to poach eggs and bake horrible pies for the rest of his life? Would he ever see Chess Cottage again, the sharp roof sticking over the pine trees, towering over the even line of the other houses? Would Grandma Florence and Grandfather Flaubert and Miss White all move in with Dad? The thought was depressing.
“The eggs!!” Georgie yelled.
The eggs had swelled and swelled until they looked like white balloons. Teddy scooped them out onto a plate.
Black Russian returned carrying a large mug of dark liquid. The bells over the door tinkled, and a rush of cold air slipped inside, sweeping away the cooking smells and enlivening the flames under the pot of broth.
“Fresh blood, straight from the heart…it’s how he likes it…Give him blood from anywhere else, and you won’t hear the last of it…not an easy job with the heart so hard to find under all that fat…phew!” The midget blabbered, opening and closing cupboards. “Has anyone seen the breakfast tray?”
“Here.” Georgie handed him a tray with Ho! Ho! Ho! written over it in bright red letters. “And, Midget, there was still a seal left in there.” She pointed to the small room Teddy had slept in. “You didn’t have to go all the way to the pantry.”
Phew.
“Was there?” The midget grinned. “I thought that was the little brat who didn’t make the journey. Was going to bury him later…in the oven.” He smirked. “What’s the matter with you? Why have you gone pale, London boy? I’m only kidding. Eskimos drink blood, you know. What about that delicious black pudding you have in England? Isn’t that blood, too?”
“Are you…an Eskimo?” asked Teddy, a little fearfully. After all, if Black Russian was an Eskimo, he drank blood.
Black Russian puffed up.
“I’m an arctic dwarf. Not many of us left now. Global warming. Modernisation. Cause of all evils. Think I’d be here in this kitchen if I had a choice? No sir. I’d be out there on the ice, by the springs, listening out for walruses. I used to be one of the renowned hunters of the North. For days on end I’d be out there, in my hunting hut. I’d shoot seals right between the eyes. One bullet is all it took. I would peel the skin off and eat the warm liver. Squash those soft eyeballs into my mouth.”
Teddy gulped. He wasn’t so hungry anymore, watching the dwarf’s hand search into his pocket for something…for a second, he thought it would come out with a seal eyeball, soft and gooey like the blueberry jelly they sold in the canteen at school, or like the squashy blob he got for his birthday when he was four, and that he could never quite scrape off from his bedroom ceiling.
Black Russian inspected the eggs, humming as he did so:
“Dashing through the snow
In a gruesome open sleigh
O’er the fields we go
Crying all the way
The rein-de-ers are dead
Turned to ice they say
And now we only hope and pray
That it stays frozen ‘til May!”
Still murmuring, the midget opened the freezer and used his knife to brush some snow over the eggs. Then, remembering something, he slapped his forehead.
“Shoot! The baguette! Run, boy, run! Remember, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside! Say it!”
“Cripsy on the outside, tender on the inside!”
“Crispy!”
“Cripsy!”
“Cris-py! Arrghh, never mind! Just go!”
Teddy, wrapped up in a parka and a facemask from the pile by the door, stepped outside. The snow was pouring from the dark sky, making it hard to distinguish the grim surroundings against the fast flowing snowflakes. In the distance, the contours of a wide, rectangular building, almost entirely buried under a thick blanket of snow, shifted in and out of view. But, worse than anything, a mouth-watering smell of fresh bread floated on the air.
The path was a tunnel through snow, sheltered by the kitchen’s sloping roof. Even through the thick mask, the cold ripped at his face. Dark-framed lanterns spilled their golden light down the glistening pathway, where Black Russian’s large footprints were disappearing quickly under his own. Even if every moment brought him closer to serving breakfast to an evil old man, who would be sitting in a bath, most probably naked, Teddy wanted more than anything to skate on the perfect
ice. He had never seen ice like this in London. It was hard and smooth like glass, flashing through the fresh snow like a bare bone through a wound.
The breathing of a sleeping creature reached him from the heart of the darkness, but it was just the even sound of snowfall which covered him head to toe in the few moments it took him to walk the length of the pathway, where a bright red door, the decorations on it frosted white, waited. Teddy knocked twice with a skull-shaped knocker, before pushing it open and, with a great clatter of bells, he slipped inside.
12. The Forbidden Bakery
After the bitter cold outside, the shop felt like an oven, although, seeing that a layer of ice coated the basket of loose bullets at the empty checkout, this was as far from the truth as it could possibly be. The long aisles stretched to his right and left, empty and quiet but for the sound of his footsteps. Teddy stopped to inspect the poorly decorated shelves, nothing like the brightly coloured products crammed on every available space in the London supermarkets. He opened a freezer full of dark seal meat and ran his fingers over the jars of walrus fat that looked strangely like the Marmite jars at home, wondering if Eskimos had walrus fat on toast for breakfast.
Following the baking smells, Teddy walked briskly to the far end of the shop and found himself before a glass door and reading squiggly graffiti. The letters forming the words MERRY CHRISTMAS? seemed to be bleeding, and the exclamation mark had been replaced with a question mark, as if the Merry Christmas was more a question than a heartfelt wish. The dot on the question mark was simply a hole, around which the glass was shattered and wrinkled. Teddy swallowed; his heart pounding, he pushed open the door, and walked straight into… heaven!
The bakery was cramped and warm and fragrant, rich with every type of pastry you could think of. Loaves, cakes, biscuits, waffles, pretzels, decorated the shelves exquisitely. The frozen sea with iceberg-shaped candles was the tastiest looking cake Teddy had ever seen. There was no sign of the bakery assistant, and the rustle of paper bags, or the loud whirr of the slicer, comforting sounds Teddy was used to from the Cuckoo bakery in Hanwell, were completely absent. But then Teddy remembered that this was the North Pole, and almost at the same instant his eyes fell on a most peculiar announcement.
In the meantime, on the other side of the door Teddy had not yet noticed, the young woman left her embroidery on the armchair by the fire and got up. She walked past a small table where a huge hulk of black meat was defrosting, pressed the handle, and her ginger curls flashed in the doorway for an instant, something Teddy also missed because he was looking at a large wooden sign.
Teddy read the sign hanging from the low, smoky ceiling. The words were carved into the wood with deep, curly letters.
No Children To Be Served At Any time unless With a Note from the Chef. All those Who Disobey the Rules Will Be Sentenced to DEATH.
The terrible announcement was suspended from the ceiling by a rusty chain, a chain that – come to think of it – might be used to strangle those who disobeyed…
Death penalty for eating sweets?!
The miraculous fragrance in the shop took him back to the days when the magical, sweet-smelling mist of baking floated around Chess Cottage, drowning the stink of Dad’s annual pickles, carrying its powerful spell out of the windows and into the quiet, tree-lined streets.
But smells don’t feed a hungry stomach, and staring at such appetising pastries without being able to eat them was torture. Still, Teddy couldn’t help staring, drooling as much as on his last time at the dentist when he was stuck with his mouth open. Bread and croissants, pretzels, cakes and pies, muffins and biscuits, brownies and large chunks of smooth milk chocolate sat lazily on display, while chocolate mousse in brandy glasses, chocolate bars adorned with cinnamon sticks, glazed lemon and orange slices, smiled at him from the upper shelves. The cinnamon puff sitting invitingly on the counter was exactly like the ones Mum made, and it took all his strength not to reach out for it and bite through the nutty, syrupy filling.
Teddy was hungry. Too hungry to think clearly. So hungry he stopped hearing the squeak of the rusty chain, where the ominous notice was beginning to lose its meaning, the letters jumping out of place and mingling with each other to form something completely different:
‘Children to be served at any time no less than a ton of sweets. Those who rule disobey. Those with will may be sentenced to eat.’
Teddy giggled. Honey would find this funny, he thought, just as he stretched out his hand for the cinnamon puff. After all, there was no one behind the counter…no one but a clock who was clicking his tongue at Teddy: tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
“Shut up!” Teddy snapped. “You don’t know about being hungry. You’re just a clock…”
His fingers crawled up the icing, gooey and sticky and yum… and then he saw he was standing inside a shadow, the shadow of a person.
He drew back his hand, staring in horror at the fingerprints left on the pastry. The swinging of the chain above his head was suddenly very loud, and it was growing louder still…Teddy felt his ears might explode…
All those who disobey will be sentenced to death.
Or…
Those with will may be sentenced to eat.
Which one?
Teddy’s mind was frozen by fear.
He couldn’t think.
His heart pounded in his chest, in his stomach, in his throat, and if he opened his mouth to speak surely his heart would leap onto the floor like a bloody, blind animal…
Then he looked up.
A handsome man smiled at him from behind the counter. Long, blond hair spilled over his broad shoulders. He had thin, pale lips and a face covered in golden stubble.
“I’m Fridrik.” The stranger’s voice was pleasant and polite, his eyes blue and cold like the iceberg candles. “How can I help?”
Was it possible? This man standing right there, not seeing Teddy trying to steal a cake? If so, it would be the narrowest escape Teddy had ever had, even more than when he made Grandma sick by replacing her toothpaste with a tube of shaving foam, so that every time she spoke she let out soap bubbles like a living bubble gun, and fast-flowing foam burst out of her mouth each time she had a drink.
Teddy shook the man’s hand. It was soft and smooth, slippery like a fish. He gestured to the sweets on the shelves.
“Cupcake? Apple pie? Plum crumble? Victoria sponge? Marble cake? Cinnamon puff? Which of these marvels takes your fancy?”
Teddy looked at the glazed cherry on the cinnamon puff, and swallowed. “I’d like a baguette, please. Cripsy on the outside…oh, and I haven’t got a note…he forgot to give me one.”
“How about you sit down first, and I’ll fetch you a nice glass of milk and a slice of cake?” said the baker, pulling out a chair. “You look like you could do with a bit of breakfast.”
Teddy thought these were the most beautiful words he had ever heard.
Minutes later, he was eating a chocolate brownie with his eyes closed. He washed it down with a mouthful of delicious milk.
“I’m Teddy, by the way,” said Teddy, rushing to take the baguette that the baker had carefully wrapped in brown greaseproof paper. He ran out of the door, waving goodbye with the giant packet. The bells tinkled, as they did every time a customer visited and left the shop, and the man stood for a while, smiling, before disappearing behind the door, where he was no more than a flicker of golden hair in the darkness.
13. Midnight Meeting
“Give me that.”
Black Russian snatched the baguette and, with a skilful stroke of his knife, sliced it in half, sending crispy crumbs everywhere. Georgie hurried with her dustpan and brush to sweep them up.Black Russian smiled, patting the girl on her frail back.
“I do like this little one. Always on her toes. Quick as a wink. One day she’ll make a fine bride for Santa Claws.�
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Teddy shivered. He was, as always, happy to be a boy. At least no one could ever think of him as a bride. The dwarf slapped his shoulder, something that was only possible because he was standing on a stool. Teddy started so violently that the chef had to clutch the edge of the sink for balance.
“Hey, what’s the matter with you? Daydreaming, eh? There, fetch the butter from that drawer over there, by the fire. That’s it. Keep it anywhere else and it gets hard as a rock. Master likes soft, creamy butter on his bread, bad teeth, you see. Bite anything hard and they pop out like fish eyes out of their sockets when I get them ready for soup. Ha! Hurry or he’ll come chasing after us, and I wouldn’t want to be in your skin then, London boy! Go on, give me that baguette and get out of the way. You’re so clumsy, he might get annoyed and drown you in the bath. Trust me, you don’t want to drown in his bathwater. It wouldn’t be much of a loss, useless as you are, but, well, there’s enough dirt on Master to turn any water muddy, oh, and he farts in the bath, too…”
Farts in the bath?! Teddy tried to picture Santa sitting in a mud bath bubbling with underwater trumps, but all he could see was a large pig lying face up in a tub wearing the swimming costume Mrs Rachelle dressed her pet pig in on sunny days.
He buttered the long slices of crispy baguette.
“All done?” barked the chef, picking up the loaded tray and pointing the bright light of his head lantern at Teddy. “I better be off, then,” and he yanked a heavy cupboard aside to reveal a stone staircase. The passage was dark and breezy, with the sound of dripping water coming from deep within, along with a sharp stench, stronger than the fish stink in the kitchen, worse even than the odour of rotten pickles he knew so well.
Teddy popped his head round the door and watched the flicker of light trembling on the cavernous walls. He heard footsteps – Black Russian’s – and the faint clatter of plates and mugs, then the light vanished and there was just the silence and the dark staring back at him. He pushed the cupboard back to the wall, and the kitchen looked again just as it did before – with counters and stoves and cooking gear – but now Teddy knew there was a secret way out.
Santa Claws Page 11