The Christmas Secret (Delightful Christmas #10)

Chapter 1

Charlotte

Charlotte Harding leaned forward over the picture book.

She grinned, eyes moving from little face to little face, making sure she had everyone’s attention.

She lifted a hand to tuck a strand of blonde hair back behind her ear, then said in a quiet voice, ‘And that’s why the mouse never forgot to put out his Christmas stocking again. ’

The children began to cheer, clapping with rapturous enthusiasm as they sat in a semi-circle around her.

One boy, Reggie, tried to take advantage of the distraction to snatch the paper snow angel out of the lap of Kate, sitting beside him, but Charlotte let out a gasp of surprise, and the clapping came to a gradual stop.

‘Reggie … now, now. Is that what Father Christmas would do? Would Father Christmas take? Or would Father Christmas … give?’

Reggie, cheeks reddening, shook his head. He handed the snow angel back to Kate, and then took his own, much more crudely made version, out of his lap and handed it to her.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Have mine. Merry … Christmas.’

‘It’s okay, Reggie,’ Kate said, giving him a forgiving smile. ‘You can keep it. Merry … Christmas to you too.’

Reggie smiled back. Charlotte looked from one ten-year-old to the other, wondering if she had just sowed the seeds for a long-time distant marriage. Probably best not to buy a new hat just yet, but you never knew.

‘And now, everyone, just as a reminder, you know what day it is, don’t you?’

‘Yes!’ the children called as one. ‘Day Lucky Seven!’

‘That’s right,’ Charlotte said. ‘The seventh day before the start of December. The countdown to the countdown. Right then, it’s time to get your coats and bags.

If anyone would like to, we’re going to start class picture time tomorrow, and the theme, of course, is Christmas.

If you have a picture of Father Christmas or anything else to do with this wonderful season, please bring it tomorrow and you can tell everyone about it. ’

The kids began to gather their things ready for home time.

Charlotte put her book away in the desk and checked her open notebook for tomorrow’s plans.

The classroom of course was already decorated, so the next thing on the agenda was to make original Advent calendars with special gifts behind each door.

Charlotte had an enormous bag of knick-knacks collected over the year: badges and fridge magnets, keyrings, pencil sharpeners, and buttons, everything handed out free at various events or bought in bulk online.

She had seventy-five badges from a festival planned for last July but cancelled at a week’s notice, thirty luminous bicycle spoke clips she had collected as a child, and recently found while hunting through her grandmother’s attic, two dozen bumper stickers for a new brand of wood-burning stove being released in time for Christmas.

People had told her she was like a maternal bird, collecting items to decorate her nest, but they didn’t understand the universal truth of Christmas.

It wasn’t the gift that was important; it was the giving.

When an Advent calendar yielded a new surprise, it didn’t matter if it was an eraser labelled Holsworthy Water Management Company or a luminous yellow bicycle spoke clip with Frosties on the side; that it existed at all was the greatest gift of Advent.

‘Ah, Ms. Harding … would it be possible to have a word? In my office?’

Mr. Wilson, the headmaster, was leaning on the door frame, almost swinging inside like a playful elf on a fairground ride.

With a triangular face, narrow jaw and wide forehead, towering shiny bald pate and circular, tinted spectacles, he would have looked like a cartoon character or perhaps a children’s television entertainer, had it not been for a mild stroke—one he liked to talk about at length in every staff meeting—leaving him with enough facial paralysis to frown but never to smile.

‘Certainly,’ Charlotte said, allowing a little playful singsong to enter her voice in the presence of the handful of kids still dragging their feet about getting their bags together.

Mr. Wilson’s presence was never a good thing, but with Christmas so close it was important to keep the children’s spirits up.

‘Um, right. I’ll be waiting. I’ll put the coffee on.’

‘At this time of year I prefer hot chocolate,’ Charlotte said, flashing a grin at little Christie Jenkins, small for her age, who always struggled to put on her oversized duffel coat. ‘Preferably with marshmallows.’

‘Ah, I don’t have any.’

‘I do!’ Charlotte said, reaching into her desk drawer and pulling out a packet of hot chocolate sachets and a bag of homemade marshmallows she had bought on a trip to the Lake District during half-term week.

‘You’ve always got to be prepared for the Christmas season, haven’t you?

Why don’t you go and get these prepared while I see the children off? ’

‘Um, right.’

She thrust the hot chocolate and marshmallows into Mr. Wilson’s hands, then began to usher the last kids out of the classroom.

Mr. Wilson stood there for a moment with the items at arm’s-length like a reluctant uncle forced to hold a newborn baby, then abruptly let out a ‘Humph,’ and backed out of the classroom.

The last boy to leave, Billy Toad, was struggling to get his rucksack on.

Charlotte hovered over him, willing to offer help, but the boy was determined to do it himself.

Charlotte watched with sympathy as he struggled to get his arm into the second rucksack strap, the strap frayed so badly that it was held together by a combination of string, paperclips, and several attempts of sewing that were layered over each other, each one a different colour, as though the threads had been taken from other, discarded clothes.

She knew that Billy’s mother had to take the donation bags offered to low-income families at the local supermarket because several times she had noticed an uncommon brand of German chocolate bar in his lunch box that Charlotte had donated herself.

She wished she could help him somehow, but other than surreptitiously taping the broken spines of his textbooks during lunchbreak and gluing the soles of his pre-loved plimsolls, she wasn’t sure what else she could do, other than wish him a regular ‘Merry Christmas!’ with enough fervour that she hoped would translate into a bit of good luck.

‘See you tomorrow, Miss,’ Billy said with a smile, and Charlotte patted him on the shoulder, wishing she could take a tissue and wipe the smear of playground dirt leftover from lunchtime off his face, then waved to his departing back as he hurried from the classroom.

The sudden calm was almost jarring. Charlotte sighed as she moved among the desks, pushing chairs back into place, picking up the handful of pencils and erasers left behind, using one to rub a scrawled picture of an unidentifiable cartoon character off one desktop.

Then, going to the window, she stood and watched as her kids hurried across the playground to the waiting buses and parents’ cars.

‘Uh … Ms. Harding? The hot chocolate’s getting cold … is it okay to have a quick burst in the microwave?’

Mr. Wilson was leaning in through the door again. Charlotte was convinced that had he been able to smile, right now he would have. She grinned, tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear again, and nodded.

‘Ten seconds should be enough. But it’s okay, I’m coming now.’

She was supposed to be mopping up the stragglers with playground duty, but her excuse was an audience with their esteemed headmaster.

By the time she reached his office, Mr. Wilson had scrambled back behind his desk.

He slid a steaming cup of hot chocolate across the desk to Charlotte, then took a sip of his own.

Also unable to wince, the flare of his eyebrows was the only indication that he either liked or hated it.

Charlotte, always positive, decided to believe the former.

‘What did you need to see me for?’ she asked.

‘Ms. Harding, please sit down. I apologise for interrupting you. This won’t take a minute.’ He leaned forward, steepling skeletal hands. Charlotte wondered whether he kept his fingers in the freezer overnight. ‘I’m afraid I had a call from Mrs. Toad. You know, William’s mother?’

‘Oh. Oh, right.’

Ruddy-cheeked and bonnet-wearing, Clarice Toad looked like a housekeeper from a Dickens novel.

The first time she had seen the year’s new register, Charlotte had assumed it was a misspelling of Todd, but nope, Toad it was.

And “Clarice” was like gruel-flavoured icing on an oatmeal cake.

At the conclusion of every parents’ evening, Charlotte had the urge to go home and write a poem about her.

She couldn’t work out what she did for a living, only that it had to involve washboards and cold, windswept mornings.

‘You remember her, don’t you?’

‘Well, yes. I mean, a little. Billy’s mother. Yes.’ Standeth by the swirling drain; ye circles define thy daily strain. She smiled again. ‘Of course. A lovely lady.’

‘Well, I’m afraid I had a call from her this morning.’

‘You did?’

‘Ah, yes. And she had a small request.’

‘Really? Nothing too serious, I hope? I mean, Billy’s struggling in maths a little, but I can go a little slower, maybe give him some private help at the end of lunchtime—’

‘No, Ms. Harding, nothing like that. It’s just—’

He leaned forward, and she leaned in to meet him, peering into his eyes. He looked so tired, so worn down by the trudge and drag of life, she wanted to massage his shoulders, or maybe knit him a scarf. Something to cheer him up a little bit, make the grind of the days a little less wearing—

He coughed, seemingly a little flustered. ‘Well, Ms. Harding, I’m afraid she asked me if you could tone down the Christmas stuff a little bit.’

Charlotte sat back, the rear legs of her chair hitting the floor with a thump. ‘What?’

‘Just a little … in particular this business about Father Christmas visiting all children. She mentioned that money was tight, that Billy might not get a visit from the big man this year, that—’

‘No. That’s not right.’

‘Ah … what’s not right, Ms. Harding?’

Charlotte shook her head. She leaned forward again.

‘You do know, don’t you, Mr. Wilson, that Father Christmas doesn’t care about poverty?

That all he cares about is whether a child has been good this year or not?

And Billy has been a very good boy. He’s raised his voice once or twice out of turn, but compared to some of the boys in my class, he’s a positive angel.

Father Christmas would never forget him.

Just in case there’s any misunderstanding, though, I’ll write him a letter as soon as I get home. ’

‘Uh, Ms. Harding … write who a letter?’

Charlotte sat up in her chair, her face set. Silly Mr. Wilson. He was so … grounded. His own childhood was so long ago that he had forgotten the magic of it all.

‘Father Christmas, of course,’ she said. ‘Who else?’