Santa Claws

by Gabriela Harding

  The teacher smiled, although Honey could see he didn’t want to. Like all teachers, he must secretly admire kids with spirit. Honey sometimes wondered if teachers wished they had more spirit as children when they were writing detention slips, or marking ink-stained books late into the night.

  “All in good time,” he said, glancing over the greasy heads of the pupils. “Now, I’d like to say a very warm welcome to our new friend.” Eyes turned to Honey, crouched timidly in the doorway. “And your name is…?”

  “Honey Raymond,” said Honey, in a funny voice.

  “Sir, she sounds like she ate a balloon.”

  “A real balloon, with helium, you know, helium?”

  “No, she sounds like she has no balls.”

  “She doesn’t have balls anyway, idiot. She’s a girl!”

  “She looks like a boy!”

  “Arghhhh!!”

  “What, Jay-jay? You sound a little high-pitched!”

  “My name’s not Jay-jay, fat boy!”

  “Well, good morning and welcome, Honey Ray-mond, and please excuse our ‘excellent’ manners. We’re savages, after all, here at the North Pole.”

  “Innit! Savages!” a boy yelled, making a karate move and flicking a small wooden object over his head. It spun through the air, hitting Honey on the side of her face. It fell on her lap and she saw it was the deformed limb of a toy doll.

  “We make handicapped toys here, too. Hare-lip, two-headed twins, elephant legs – you name it!”

  “Jamie, calm down,” Clementine sighed. “You’re killing her again!”

  “We’re killing her anyway, aren’t we, sir?” said Johann, rubbing his belly. “I’m a little peckish.”

  “Okay, fun over. Be serious, or the poor girl really will think we’re all cannibals.”

  “But we are. He is, anyway. How do we know the blood we drink is seal?”

  “And the meat could be poisoned.”

  “Yeah! We could die tomorrow!”

  “Maybe we’re dead now!”

  “Poison doesn’t taste so good.”

  “Deadly things taste nice. Like cigarettes, and cakes! That’s what everyone says!”

  The teacher sighed. “Honey, I’m Fridrik. Fridrik Helgarsson. And may I remind you, children, that you have been chosen. Chosen to lead a life of adulthood and importance, far from the corruption and social pollution of the world. Here, you have the opportunity to…”

  “…learn ancient skills and work for a wage.”

  “How many of you wished to earn your own money? Well, in Santaville, this dream is possible.”

  “Here, you are grownups. Your training begins in the morning, when some of you have to climb down ropes.”

  “It follows with work in the toy factory, where you learn that toys are just objects.”

  “There is nothing to gain from getting attached to lifeless things – or to living things, for that matter. You go to the School of Arctic Arts…

  “…where you learn about hunting and sailing and other survival skills used for hundreds, even thousands of years.”

  “…you have the chance to put theory into practice. In spring you start your real…”

  “Practicals!”

  “Hunting expeditions on dogsleds. Failure to pass these exams means, most often than not, death. Out in the wild, mistakes are paid for dearly.”

  “This is a life of adventure, and one day there will be enough competent adults in the world to carry on the ancient traditions of the Inuit people.”

  “If you want to live, you must obey.”

  “Executions are carried out at the order of Mr. Claws, known also as Santa Claws. He is a hunter and the owner of Ellesmere Island, Baffin Bay and Qaanaaq village.”

  “As a delegate of Santaville, I can assure you this is all in your best interests. When you finish your training you will be given a place to settle and live frugally.”

  “Just like millions of others before you.”

  One by one, the children delivered this speech. They clearly knew it by heart. Honey wondered if all was true. It sounded almost exciting. If she ever returned to Cuckoo School after this, it would be in glory. The shame of being Mr Raymond’s daughter would wash away forever. She saw herself riding in a dogsled, masked and dangerous, the sharp wind whipping her and making the snow rise and float like diamond rain. A life of adventure, something she always wanted. This fantasy made her heart ache, just like a memory.

  “Musk ox,” Erasmus patted the fur next to him, “warmest skin ever. Mum hung them all over the walls at home.”

  “You miss home? I thought you loved being here. You wanted to make the igloo, didn’t you?”

  He nodded. “We built it while you were asleep in the tent. Some thought you were dead.”

  “They say devils have nine lives.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Speaking of devils…who would skin a cat? I mean, this is totally out of order!” Honey held up the fabulous skin of a white angora cat, the tail sticking out awkwardly like an extravagant duster. Erasmus ran his hand over the dead fur. “Ermines. They’re only white in winter. In summer, they turn brown. They take the colours of their surroundings, to camouflage.”

  “Disgusting. To kill it, I mean.”

  “Black-tipped ermine tails decorate royal regalia.” Fridrik Helgarsson took the tail between his fingers. “Jewelled crowns, or sceptres. I’m sure your lovely queen keeps ermine tails in her fancy trunks.”

  Honey swallowed, muttering a very quick “Hmm.” She knocked gently on the wall nearest to her. “It’s the most difficult type of igloo, isn’t it? The big type.”

  “Five rooms, linked together by tunnels. We had a holiday home like this. That’s where my parents got wed. After Father died, we sold it. See, I don’t mind being here. Mum doesn’t have to worry about feeding me and one day, I’ll go back a real man.”

  How about her father? Would Honey be as sad as Erasmus if he died? He might be dead now, killed in the Ribena explosion. Would they have to sell Chess Cottage to survive? Or, worse, move to Grandma Florence’s villa in France, where the garden was full of either poisonous or carnivorous plants, and that had real gravestones in the driveway? Suddenly, the Ribena joke seemed like a very bad idea. She now saw how silly it was to leave the tent in the blinding snowstorm, too, and if she was still alive, it certainly wasn’t something to take credit for, but a most incredible stroke of luck.

  “Sir, tell us a story,” whined Clementine, a girl who looked or smelled nothing like the appetising fruit she was named after.

  “A ghost story,” suggested her friend, whose reddish hair sprouted from her cone-shaped head like corn silk.

  “A winter night tale? I might know just the thing. How about a snack first, though? Who’s hungry?”

  Taking the children’s cheering as a yes, Fridrik Helgarsson stepped out into the Arctic night – a slice of which Honey glimpsed through the ice-slab door. Stars glinted in the sky, pouring their milky light over the ghostly icebergs.

  Waiting for their dinner, the children played Would you rather.

  “Would you rather drown in a crack or have your whole body bitten by an arctic wolf?” Fern grinned when the boy hesitated to answer.

  “Arctic wolf bite!” he cried. “So I can show off my scars and give autographs.”

  “No one would see your scars. Or your autographs. Because you’d be dead.”

  “You don’t die from wolf bites,” the boy said. “But you can turn into a wolf or something. At full moon. It’s what happened to Jackson.”

  “No it didn’t. Jackson is dead. If you want to think he’s a husky, suit yourself.”

  “I didn’t say he was a husky! Santa’s huskies are evil, anyway.”

  “It’s because
he takes the blood out of them,” said Rong. “And then puts it back in. It makes them go crazy. They kill and everything. Look what they did to me.”

  “Okay, here’s one. Would you rather kill, or be killed?”

  “If I wanted to kill, you’d be dead,” Fern snarled.

  “Whatever.”

  “They’re a funny lot, these kids.” Erasmus smiled apologetically. He offered Honey something that looked like a hairy sweet, warm from his pocket.

  “You’re not a hundred years old, Erasmus. Stop being so wise.”

  “A crack is an open channel where the ice cracks and splits apart. If you fall into one, you get trapped under the ice.”

  Honey’s ‘sweet’ was covered in bendy bristles like a battered toothbrush.

  “Oh, it’s walrus skin. Polar chewing gum. Try it. Best fish flavour.”

  “I know.” Honey took a small cautious bite. “About the crack, I mean. Wasn’t I just rescued from one?”

  “Yes, dumb head!” Rong roared with laughter, pointing at Erasmus who turned the colour of mulled blood.

  Honey ate the raw walrus skin. It was delicious. She couldn’t hold back a moan of satisfaction, one of those throaty warbles that exploded around the dinner table in Chess Cottage when Mum’s cooking proved too perfect for words.

  “It gives you energy,” said Erasmus, chewing noisily.

  “Because that’s exactly what you’re missing, Erasmus. Energy. Weren’t you born with an engine in your bum?”

  “At least I wasn’t born with half a brain, pirate-face!”

  As laughter tinkled around her, Honey had a good look at the children. They were wild, mean and brutal, but after all, they’d saved her life, and, whether she liked it or not, they were bound to share the same fate until she thought of some lucky escape – hopefully something a little cleverer than wandering alone in a storm.

  Elton was a boy of about ten, who must have been fed bitter lemons as a baby, because his mouth curled in a grotesque grimace that made every smile seem unnatural. The other six boys looked pretty much alike, not only because of the fairly similar parkas and fur trousers, but because they all carried the same expression of hopelessness on their ashen faces. They were called Jamie, Fred, Zachary, Dmitri, Johann and Jerry.

  Four of the girls – Fern, Clementine, Mirabelle and Nico – could have been quadruplets, due to the same waxen complexion and button noses that twitched to the scent of meat like rats’ noses but minus the whiskers. A thick layer of grime coated their skin, and they gave out an unpleasant odour, so strong not even the biting polar air could mask it.

  Rong looked sinister. Her name was just as wrong as her looks. She was so badly scarred, having been attacked by a dog, that the only thing left of her eye throbbed like a small squashed worm in the empty eye socket. And Erasmus looked a little like her, too, with pale yellow skin and a permanent squint in his eyes, as if he was forever wary of the harsh winds.

  “Meet Rong, my worst enemy,” Erasmus sniggered. “I think she might fancy me, actually ouch!” Rong had whacked his face with a bogie-stained mitten. In the heat, the secretions on the mittens used as handkerchiefs softened, and now Erasmus’s cheek was wet with snot. He wiped his face and licked it off his hand.

  The children screamed.

  “Delicious,” he said.

  Just then, Fridrik Helgarsson crawled in with a stuffed bag, and whoops of excitement replaced the shrieks of protest.

  “To say thank you for your hard work. Nothing spectacular, so don’t get too excited. A late Christmas dinner.” His eyes twinkled as he laid out the food, mainly meat and bread.

  “She didn’t work hard.” Nico gave Honey a venomous look.

  “That’s not fair,” her friend, Mirabelle, whimpered. “We did the work, so why’s she eating the food?”

  “Life isn’t fair. I’m sure this beautiful walrus would rather swim under the ice than rot in your bellies.”

  “Walrus is what Mum gave the pregnant bitches,” Erasmus muttered.

  “Then you’d be used to it,” sneered Rong.

  “Sir! Rong called me a bitch!”

  “Yay! A polar picnic!” Erasmus’s complaint was quickly drowned by ripples of applause as the children gathered around the food spread generously on the musk-ox skin.

  “Caribou?” the handsome teacher held a paper bag to Honey. It looked like a regular paper bag that might have been filled with sweets, but for the meaty smell rising from the dark bottom, where the paper was almost see-through with grease.

  Honey picked a piece of caribou.“I’ve never eaten reindeer before. It’s not too bad, really.”

  Fridrik smiled. His teeth were white like snow. “That would be because your body is craving fat. Here, people rely on meat, because there isn’t much else. Fat helps you build the supply you need to survive cold and hunger.”

  “Chocolate is good, too,” said Honey, remembering the chapter ‘Explorer’s Sweet Tooth’ from her book, ‘How to Survive in Extreme Weather’.

  “Indeed. Do you eat a lot of chocolate in London, Honey Ray-mond? You don’t really need it in the muddy season you call winter. I have to chuckle when I see you lot waddling about in the mud like little ducks.”

  “You’ve been to London?” Honey helped herself to another piece of meat.

  “Oh yes. Quite a few times. Not very pleasant excursions, though I made sure I enjoyed myself. By eating copious amounts of black pudding, for example.”

  “Yuck.”

  “Yes, Honey Ray-mond, I’ve seen a fair bit of the world and, you know, nothing is better than being in harmony with nature.”

  “Why do you say my name like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know…like you don’t like it.”

  “Well, maybe because it’s a French name – a French name for a London girl.”

  “I’m half French,” said Honey.

  “I see.” Fridrik cocked an eyebrow. “And the other half…?”

  “Nothing I care to talk about.” In truth, Honey had no idea – none at all – where Mum was originally from. She’d been in London all her life, adopted, she claimed, as a young child, but when Honey asked about her adoptive grandparents, her mother said they were dead.

  When the meal ended, the snarling, sucking and slurping sounds dying off in a chorus of burps, the children drank warm caribou milk from a huge thermos.

  “I hope you enjoyed your little feast,” said Fridrik Helgarsson, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “I’m sorry if it wasn’t so much. I have to obey orders, just like you. Children should be kept as skinny as possible, with just enough fat on their bones to survive the cold. Mr Claws thinks that animals work better when they are kept starving.”

  “We’re not animals!” Honey said indignantly. “We’re children!”

  “I know that. I don’t believe I’m treating you like animals. In fact, I had a child of my own, once…” His voice trailed off, and he quickly cleared his throat. Was Honey imagining it, was it the way the light flickered in his pupils, or had his eyes really become teary? “Now, this is the story of Snædis, the goddess of the sea.”

  A child of his own?

  Him?

  No way. He was, well, far too cool to be a parent – one of those gorgeous dads who look like eternal teenagers. After all, weren’t dads meant to be dull, ridiculous, tedious, in other words, dry as dust? And they were meant to be old, too, and kind of…thick. Just like Greg Ray-mond. It was his fault things had turned out this way in the first place. He never proposed to Mum. He left them alone at Christmas. He had a girlfriend, and he’d readily chosen her over them.

  Silence fell. The wind howled in the background, and the story began.

  Honey watched as Fridrik’s long-fingered hand brushed away a few strands of
golden hair, and thought of how helpless Dad would be out of his comfort zone, where playing chess was the most challenging thing he had ever done in his flavourless life.

  16. Tonraq’s Tale

  It was late, but Honey had no intention of going back to the freezing dormitory. She dreaded climbing the ropes. She dreaded spending the night in the coffin-bed, with the iron frames that clunked in the chilly draughts. She dreaded having to listen to the mice scurrying on the filthy floor. What if the mice climbed the ropes? She’d read somewhere that mice’s saliva contains some kind of anesthetic, so she might not even feel the bites until it was too late.

  The bad smells would be worse in the heat of the igloo, but so be it. You couldn’t have everything. Honey dreamed of a large tub filled with foamy hot water. Being able to soak her tired muscles would be heaven. But for now, just the comforting sounds of the flames, like a gentle and steady breath, and the sweet warmth melting in her skin like butter, was enough.

  The fire snorted in the kerosene stove, hissing and spitting. The snow walls sizzled.

  Fridrik Helgarsson filled a pipe and began to puff away. When he spoke, it was in a voice that sounded ancient, and so different from his own, it made Honey look up in surprise.

  “Snædis was a stunningly beautiful girl. She lived in Qaanaaq Village, a thousand years ago. She dreamed of getting married and starting a family of her own, like all girls do. She wanted a husband to hunt for her, someone to bring animal skins for her hut. Her father, a renowned hunter by the name of Tonraq, arranged for her to marry his apprentice. The groom received a good bride price, and Snædis, trusting her father, married willingly. Little did she know, at her wedding, while the whole village feasted on raw meat, huddled together in the party igloo…”

  “Why did they eat raw meat?”

  “Good question, Zachary. The word Eskimo means ‘raw meat eater.”

  “Ha!” shrieked Rong, pointing at Erasmus.

  “Shut up.”

  “The French eat their meat raw,” said Honey. It was true. Grandma Florence snacked on raw cubed beef in her sumptuous kitchen in Côte d’Azur, she’d seen it, and no one there thought it was weird.