“I don’t normally go on rescue missions without a weapon of some sort, so when those beasts growled at me, I gave them a bit of a shock.”
“Grandpa! You didn’t electrocute them…did you?” Teddy clapped his hand over his mouth.
“I didn’t mean to. They were very aggressive creatures who would have been put down anyway, had they been found by the authorities. I had visions about that night, you know…whilst in hospital. I dreamed I was still in the snow bed I made for myself outside the factory, but somehow I was buried inside it and couldn’t get out…” His forehead creased: a cold object lay on his hand. He was startled, as always these days, to see his wife’s prosthetic hand resting on his. Despite the fact that he had spent more than half of his life trying to convince Florence to get rid of the rubber hand she always kept hidden in her sleeve, he couldn’t get used to her new hand, not even after all these months. Even if Florence had demonstrated, on various occasions, how equally effective it was at weed plucking, sewing and popping pimples, he still flinched when it crept along his back and shoulders. The massages his wife gave him made the hairs rise all down his back.
Grandma snorted. “I can’t believe that devil – Benito Sanchez – was hiding in a circus! All the times I wanted to kill him – every time my hand ached…”
“You don’t have a hand, Grandma,” Teddy reminded her. “Not a real one.”
“Well, it still ached.”
“Amputated limbs can hurt even if they’re no longer there. That’s why they’re called ghost limbs,” Anaconda said dreamily.
Honey smiled; the story Grandma Florence told them of how she’d met Benito Sanchez in a back street restaurant well known to the mafia of San Juan, on her first ever spying mission, was incredible even after the novelty had worn off. Grandma had her hand amputated because she was trapped overnight in a walk-in freezer. She’d hated the Puerto Rican chef ever since, even if he was not directly responsible for her frostbite, but for hiding poison capsules in rabbit entrecotes.
“I suppose it makes sense,” Grandma’s dreamy voice droned on. “As a runaway dwarf with a broad South American accent, it would be more difficult to track him down if he was disguize az a clown.”
“Or hidden in a dark tent,” said Teddy.
“He was not the only one hiding secrets,” Grandfather Flaubert said, so softly that he was barely heard above the hiss of the wind and the clatter of the flower pots out on the patio. Then, with a deep sigh, he slumped deeper in his chair. “Let’s come clean with it, Florence.”
Greg’s mouth dropped open. “I thought we had come clean with it,” he said through his teeth, frowning at his mother.
Grandma wiped her mouth on a serviette, staring for a long while at the red lipstick stains. The lipstick looked like blood – and Honey gave an involuntary shiver.
“Telling the truth feels like pooping glass,” she sighed. “But we are family, and families should have no secrets.”
She cleared her throat, and glanced quickly at her husband. His triple chin nodded in approval.
44. Bombshell
The room turned dark as if touched by a magic wand.
The light bulbs went off, the television popped, and the microwave where the coffee milk was heating up went quiet.
Anaconda clapped excitedly. “I knew the mirror was haunted. I knew it!”
“I’ll just go up to the loft to see what’s wrong with the fuse box,” said Dad.
“Greg, we must sell this house to a ghost hunter. A haunted house is worth double its value. Then, we can move to a lovely chalet in Scotland…”
“Chess Cottage is worth more than any gold, sorry, ghost digger can afford,” Grandma Florence remarked.
“Chess Cottage is our home,” snapped Honey.
“Can someone hold the ladder in place for me?” called Dad from the hallway, a lantern in his hand.
“Me!”
“Me!”
Honey and Teddy raced each other to the ladder while Dad clambered up and vanished into the dusty darkness. In a few moments, lights flooded Chess Cottage and the decorations winked at them from around the room. Cheers erupted.
“How does this work?” Teddy pressed a button on the side of the ladder and it folded in two. “Cool!”
Dad’s head appeared in the hatch. “Hey, where’s the ladder – what have you done?”
“Pressed a button!”
“He ruined it!”
“Press the button again, Teddy,” said Dad, trying to sound calm.
“I can’t reach!”
His sister pushed him aside. “Here, let me do it.”
“No!” Teddy was now hanging off the ladder like a monkey.
“Get away! Dad!”
“Let go!”
“Children, what’s going on?” came Grandma Florence’s voice from the dining room.
Something clattered heavily on the floor. It was the ladder.
“Now look what you’ve done!”
“Are you all right, Greg?” called Anaconda.
“Apart from being trapped in the bloody loft at Christmas, I’m fine!” Dad grumbled. His face emerged again, shrouded in spider webs. “What now?”
Teddy had an idea. “We could make a tower!”
Honey’s legs turned to jelly. “I don’t think…”
But before she could remember the time in the dormitory, when she’d saved the Santa Claus impostor from another draughty loft, she was hoisted up on Grandfather Flaubert’s shoulders, just like when she was a little girl.
Minutes later, Dad dropped to the floor, his face inches away from his father’s, and they stared at each other for a moment before Dad climbed off the soft mound of his belly and sat on a chair, wiping sweat from his brow.
“That went well, then,” he sighed. “I suppose the day couldn’t get any worse.”
Honey didn’t miss the look that passed between her grandparents, and braced herself for the worst.
With a steaming coffee before him, Grandfather Flaubert fixed his cracked glasses back on his nose and ran his hand through his hair. A jam doughnut had exploded in his breast pocket during the fall, and he looked as if he had been shot. He took it out and munched it thoughtfully. “We better start with the beginning. I’m sorry to say this, children, because I know how much you liked him, but Old Woolly, the Hanwell tramp, is dead.”
Honey spat her cappuccino all down her top. “Dead?! How?” This is not what she expected to hear.
“Can’t be! He loved Mum’s cakes and…and…he saved Kitty’s life when her collar got tangled in the brambles!” blurted Teddy.
“Dead?” Dad sat himself down. “I had thought that, but then, I saw him. He was sleeping on a bench…as always.” His voice trailed off. “I suppose it was a while ago… Come to think of it, the human foot…” he murmured.
Honey’s blood ran cold. “What human foot?”
Anaconda’s eyes went wide. “I can feel it – Woolly’s spirit is in the room!”
“Your father thinks he saw a human foot in the forest, the morning your mother vanished. He supposed some satanic ritual had taken place.”
Honey shivered, thinking of the Nenets and their terrible grunts.
“In fact, it was something even more monstrous than that. Old Woolly’s head was found spiked on a tree. He’d been beheaded; his body was never found.”
Honey shuddered.
Dad shook his head. “But I saw him after I saw the foot.”
Grandfather Flaubert coughed. “I was the tramp you saw sleeping on the bench that Christmas morning two years ago, Greg, when you went chasing after Al.”
“You followed Mum?” Teddy cried.
Anaconda raised an eyebrow, coffee cup in her hand. Dad was sweating.
“Crikey. Thoug
ht this was going to be a peaceful Christmas dinner.” Under his father’s piercing look, he sighed. “I suppose we have to come clean at last, don’t we, Papa…You remember, children, that Grandma and Grandpa slept over on Christmas Eve last year.”
Recounting the events of that dreadful morning, when the storm howled outside and the rain pummelled the windows, Greg experienced an immense surge of relief.
“So now you know,” he sighed.
“My poor son.” Grandma Florence squeezed his hand until his knuckles cracked. “All this time thinking you killed the little…”
“Mother!”
“What! She iz a little witch, isn’t she?”
“Mother, you’re breaking my hand. Ouch!”
“Sorry. I still didn’t get properly used to this.”
“It must be on ‘nut-cracking mode’,” Dad said crossly, rubbing his hand.
“It’s Teddy!” Honey jumped up, pointing at her brother, who was tapping the iPhone. “He’s using Touch Bionics!”
“I am showing Teddy how to control my iLimb. Grip twenty-one, Teddy. Shake – not break – hands!”
Teddy tapped the screen again and Grandma’s hand made a fist. Dad dodged as the punch knocked over a vase.
“That was self-defence, grip number nineteen,” Grandma explained.
“That’s going off at night,” mumbled Grandfather Flaubert. “And I’m locking that bloody hand in the wardrobe before it strangles me!”
Grandma cackled.
“So you knew about Mum all along, Grandma? And you didn’t say a thing?” said Honey.
“What for, puppet? Mind you, I didn’t know, your grandfather did. I forbade him to tell me. Luckily, it waz me who hacked into her email that night. I had the feeling she waz brewing something. And I waz right. Her devious plan was all there, in black and white. Flaubert and myself spent the night plotting. At dawn, when he opened the window to smoke his pipe, bingo. The rubbish truck was parked outside, and the idea came to me in a flash. I made him go ahead, to make sure there was no one around when we got hold of her and pushed her into the back of the truck…”
“What!” Honey gasped.
“Where were you taking Mum?” cried Teddy.
“Where do you zink, mon cher? To the rubbish dump, where she belongs.”
Grandfather Flaubert chuckled. “Grandma’s joking. We used our connections to find a place in a Swiss sanatorium for the mentally infirm. We were willing to pay the extravagant sum of 30,000 francs a year to keep her there until she recovered. We meant no harm – but we knew we’d have to tie her up. She waz as crazy as a box of frogs, children. But it didn’t go according to plan. When I saw your father coming down the path, I pulled the newspaper over my head and called your grandmother…”
“You were the one driving the rubbish truck downhill, weren’t you, Grandma?” said Honey.
“Please tell me the driver’s all right, Mother,” Dad muttered.
“Yes, yes, he’s absolutely fine. Well, he waz a little stunned at first…”
“Especially when he woke up among rotting rubbish,” Grandfather Flaubert snickered, “and realised someone else was at the wheel of his truck!”
“I remember that truck from the film Fridrik showed us,” said Honey.
Greg nodded. “I did wonder what on earth that truck was doing in the park. Rolling downhill at full speed, too, headlights on, in broad daylight.”
Grandma Florence grinned. “I took my inspiration from a cartoon. Who would have guessed it would work so well in real life? I blinded Al with the headlights, so you could give her the final blow with the umbrella. Then, I changed gear and, mon Dieu it felt like riding a wild horse when the truck shuddered forward. Greg always said there was a chance that the bridge would collapse in the event of an earthquake. So, I made the earthquake happen. Mind you, the shore was steep, and I wondered if I waz to come to an ugly end in that dirty river. The breaks worked perfectly, though, and there I waz – parked awkwardly on the bridge of the hill. You didn’t see me, son. You were running…Your father came and helped me out of the cabin. Fridrik fished Al out of the water and dragged her back into their makeshift tent. Her neck wound was superficial – I suppose you couldn’t kill someone with an umbrella even if you tried. A dwarf from the circus was a renowned criminal doctor, one who escaped from his motherland China through a complicated network of treachery, after being caught doing illegal experiments on his patients. He helped give her a blood transfusion with blood stolen from Ealing Hospital. Apparently, the security at that hospital is not so good.”
“Nor are their strawberry jam doughnuts,” said Flaubert. “I tried them that morning to keep me going for my long wait in the cold. Their Canteen for the Sickly was the only place open at 4 a.m.”
“The security of Icelandic prisons isn’t the best, either,” Anaconda said suddenly, and all eyes turned to look at her as she held her iPhone at arm’s length. A flash of lightning lit up the room. “In fact, Icelandic prisons are very unsafe, even those classed as ‘high security’. Apparently, ten prisoners have escaped from Kvíabryggja prison in Iceland,” she read.
A peal of thunder rattled the window frames.
“Now, before everyone gets too excited, let me tell you that the prisoners we are thinking about are not in that particular prison,” Dad hurried to explain. “Kvíabryggja is a farm prison, possibly the nicest in the world. Fridrik and Al were taken to Litla-Hraun, since many of their crimes were so vile and their own children testified…well. Litla-Hraun is a maximum security prison outside the town of Eyrarbakki, the only prison of its sort in the whole country. See, Iceland is a country with barely any crime.”
Even if Grandma Florence was happy about her parents going to a horrible prison, Honey always hoped they would be allocated to Kvíabryggja. She’d looked the prison up: it was located in an idyllic place by a river, there were no bars or fences, and prisoners did farm work to manage their stress levels. This way, it was easy to imagine that it was a holiday her parents had taken, and not a place they were held as punishment for crimes like kidnapping, use of illegal substances, breeding of dangerous animals, cannibalism and murder.
They stood no chance, though. A farm prison did not exactly fit Alfrid and Fridrik Helgarsson’s profiles. Honey blinked back to reality. None of this seemed true, as if her life was only a dream she still had to wake up from.
The doorbell rang.
“Not another cake, iz it?” Grandma Florence rolled her eyes.
“I’m afraid not,” said Anaconda, her eyes narrowing at her mirror. “In fact, I think I saw something in the mirror.” Her finger pointed at the shadowy glass with a long, black nail.
“The dogs?” Grandma guffawed, as Teddy went to open the door.
“No,” Anaconda answered quietly. “An owl.”
Honey shivered. Last year, Dad laughed at Anaconda’s story of how an owl roosted in a tree for days, but it turned out it did mean a premonition when the string of kidnappings swung by number 16, Cuckoo Lane. Honey was now less sceptical of such signs. Only the other day, she had the impression that her shadow acted strangely, as if it had a mind of its own and wasn’t a lifeless reflection that mirrored her every move. She wondered if she wasn’t turning into a version of Anaconda, her spirit-friendly stepmother. Honey had read in a medical magazine a theory that claimed living with a schizophrenic person could make you schizophrenic, too. Maybe that’s what was happening to her: living with someone who spent most of her time trying to catch glimpses of another world, had made Honey see things she would have never noticed before.
“Who’s the letter for, love?”
Teddy stood in the doorway, white smudges of Eton mess on one side of his mouth, brown ones from his second portion of dessert on the other.
“It’s a letter,” he said.
“For?�
��
Teddy watched her carefully. “Snædis Helgarsson.”
All eyes turned to Honey. Her cheeks turned the same colour as the strawberry cake on the shelf behind her.
“Alors, what are you staring at? Her mother iz allowed to write to her, izn’t she?”
Honey took the letter, her heart leaping, beside herself with joy at the sight of the beautiful handwriting. “Sometimes it’s hard to know who I really am,” she said, touching her eye patch. “I don’t look the same, and my real name is not Honey Raymond, but Snædis Helgarsson.”
“There’s nothing wrong with someone having more than one identity. Put that letter away, Honey. You can always read it later. Let me show you something first, and then we can all open our presents,” said Grandma Florence. “You get two sets of presents this year.” She left the room, coming back moments later with a large suitcase which she held above her head and clicked open. Honey gasped in surprise. The room filled with a sound like flapping wings, as if a flock of birds had been let loose inside it. The noise was coming from the suitcase, which wasn’t full of birds, but passports: many small, shiny rectangles in different colours, beautiful gold letters engraved on the covers, their corners battered from much use. Honey kneeled on the floor, opening and reading them at random: The Republic of France, The kingdom of Denmark, United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, United States of America, Independent State of Papua New Guinea, Commonwealth of Australia, New Zealand…All of them had Grandma’s photograph and a different name: Myra Brown, Alexandra Ryan, Siobhan O’Reilly, Erlin de Vreis, Mona Nikinu, Claudine Vrais and finally, Florence Flaubert.
“Which one is your real name, Grandma?” Teddy asked, holding a passport with the photo of a younger Grandma, a floral turban on her head, the name Mulubwa Chomba printed beside it.
“That, my dear, is a secret I will take with me to the grave.” She winked.
Honey thought of the tombstones in her grandparents’ front garden, and a question she’d always wanted to ask slipped from her tongue.
“How do you and Granddad know the year of your death?”
Santa Claws Page 33