All Wrapped Up

  All his normal grace has disappeared, and in its place is awkwardness. Ungainliness. Complete lack of coordination and control.

  A vague sense of humiliated panic.

  It’s like watching a jellyfish abruptly stand up and attempt to go for a long walk before remembering it doesn’t actually have any legs.

  And it’s startlingly familiar.

  Just obviously not this way round.

  “Hey, Harriet,” Nick says, scrambling again and only succeeding in ending up in a slightly different gummy position. “This is fun, isn’t it?”

  His legs are splayed wide, his cheeks are bright and his woolly hat has slipped down over one eye: all of the black curls on one side of his head are sticking upwards. His nose is red and shiny, his green scarf has unravelled and I’ve never seen him look so deeply uncool and uncollected.

  Or so completely adorable.

  “Nick,” I say, still shocked, “you can’t skate?”

  He clears his throat and tries to stand up again. The movement ends up twisting him in a little circle so he’s stuck to the side, facing in the opposite direction.

  “Apparently not,” he says wryly over his shoulder. “It’s exactly as hard as it looks. Who knew?”

  “Wait – you’ve never even been skating before?”

  “I’m from a small town in Australia,” he says, wincing up at me. “Not so much ice down there. I kind of assumed I’d be able to pick it up as I went along.”

  I stare at him in amazement.

  I can’t believe this.

  Is he telling me …

  Am I to understand that …

  Wait.

  Have I got the upper hand in a romantic situation, for the first time ever? Do I get to tell him what to do?

  Oh my God.

  I don’t want to sound too smug or triumphant or mean-spirited, obviously.

  But this is the best first date ever.

  With a (completely unnecessary) little hop in the air, I slide confidently in front of Nick and stop with another elaborate swoosh. “Here,” I say, beaming at him. “Let me help you.”

  And I hold out my hands.

  Here’s the most romantic Christmas fact I know:

  In 1913, a couple were fined fifteen dollars for kissing in the streets of New York City on Christmas Day.

  Taking inflation into account, that’s $360.31, or £231, just for locking lips during the holidays.

  I totally understand how that couple over a hundred years ago felt.

  Right now I’d consider it an excellent investment.

  With every following second that passes, I want to kiss Lion Boy just a little bit more.

  He is literally the worst ice skater on the planet.

  And I’m including Bambi, an actual lion and a cat I saw crossing a pond on YouTube in that evaluation.

  The first time I try to grab his hands, he somehow slides round, clutches at nothing and ends up with a loud oomph on his bottom.

  “Are you OK?” I ask urgently, bending down.

  “Body’s intact,” Nick grins sheepishly, taking his hat off and rubbing his increasingly bonkers curls. “Pride may be permanently broken.”

  Second time, he inexplicably ends up with his face pressed against the barrier and a hand round another guy’s ankle.

  “Sorry,” he mumbles, then clears his throat and jokes: “Can I just say you have very nice socks. Are they cashmere?”

  He gets shaken off with a prompt what-the-hell?

  Apparently twenty minutes of laughing is the minimum daily requirement for a long and healthy life.

  I’m going to live to three hundred and seven.

  By the third attempt – when Nick ends up on the floor with a loud and cartoonish woah woah wooooooaahh, accompanied by whirly arms and on-the-spot running – I’m giggling so hard I can’t stop an aggressively loud snort from popping out of my mouth.

  “Harriet,” Nick laughs as I lean over to offer him a hand, “did you just oink?”

  “No,” I snort again, trying unsuccessfully to drag him up off the floor and instead tugging him along the ice like some kind of out-of-control Christmas sleigh. “In Sweden a pig’s oink is called a noff. Maybe I am noffing.”

  “Or buu buuing. That’s what it is in Japan.”

  “Hunk, that’s Albanian.”

  “Well, thank you very much,” Nick laughs. “You’re not so bad yourself, Manners.”

  We’re both giggling so hard now my tummy is starting to hurt, and we have to pause to give us both time to calm down.

  Finally.

  I’ve finally found a boy who thinks pigs from other countries are as romantic as I do.

  With the help of me, another side barrier and a kind passer-by with a larger overall body mass, Nick eventually manages to wobble upright, holding tightly on to both my hands to steady himself.

  Then he clears his throat.

  “Manners,” he says, swaying slightly, “I have a confession. This isn’t going as planned at all.”

  “Were you supposed to be swirling me around the rink in a remarkably casual lift by now?”

  “Pretty much. And maybe spinning around in a spotlight on my own in the middle, with you watching in rapt admiration.”

  “Intermittently blowing kisses at an enormous crowd of onlookers?”

  “Exactly. And possibly doing really high scissor-kicks randomly at passers-by just to show how simultaneously assertive and flexible I can be.”

  We both start giggling again.

  “Seriously, though,” he says, shaking his head and teetering slightly in the process, “I thought I was bringing you here because it’s romantic.”

  I glance around us.

  Frank Sinatra is still playing softly in the background. The carousel spins. The tree glows. Toffee-apple and cinnamon smells are drifting across the rink, and the little white lights are shining against the ice.

  So far, so spot on.

  “But –” he coughs – “I’m beginning to wonder whether I actually brought you here because deep-down I assumed you’d be bad at ice-skating and I could therefore play the, er … well, hero.”

  I laugh loudly.

  Unusually for me, I know that already. I realised the second I knew we were coming here.

  You thought that would happen too, right?

  Luckily, thanks to an obsession with Disney on Ice when I was a very young child, I got a year’s worth of ice-skating lessons for my birthday and practised every Wednesday night religiously.

  OK, I wasn’t a very young child.

  It was eighteen months ago.

  The point is: I’m not ridiculous at every physical activity ever invented. Just the vast majority of them. (Plus obviously I’ve had little pop-out wheels built into my trainers since I was five: I knew they would come in handy one day.)

  Nick’s expression is now a combination of chagrin, shame and a desire to crawl into the nearest hole in the floor he can find. “I’m a bit of an idiot, aren’t I?”

  As I said earlier, everyone has the capacity to surprise us.

  And that includes Lion Boy.

  “Yup,” I agree with a broad smile, squeezing his hands. “You are officially an idiot.”

  For the first time, it feels like we’re on equal footing.

  Literally. If he goes down now, I do too.

  “You were supposed to say no,” Nick laughs, squeezing back. “I don’t think you’re playing this date properly, Harriet.”

  “Everyone’s an idiot sometimes. I’m just glad for once it’s you.”

  Nick shouts with laughter. “I didn’t even know bicepy was a word.”

  I playfully lift my chin. “For the record, Nicholas, etymologically the biceps brachii muscle is where the word for all muscles comes from, because the Latin musculus means ‘little mouse’ and when the arm flexes the bicep it looks just like one. So I stand by what I said.”

  We both laugh again and stick our tongues out at each other at precisely the same moment. r />
  Then we squeeze hands.

  Apparently all the gifts in the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ song would equal 364 separate presents. This moment is so completely perfect, I’d exchange every single one of them to be where I am now.

  Although I wouldn’t want to spoil it by causing a festive pile-up.

  “Come on,” I say with a grin, letting go of one hand and turning in an efficient manner to face the ice rink again. We’re right in the busiest spot, and two people have already wound up with a crunch on the floor next to us. “Let’s skate.”

  I’m not going to lie.

  I may be holding on to Nick’s hand slightly longer than I probably have to. We may have our shoulders pressed together a little bit closer than is strictly necessary.

  His arm could be slightly too tightly around my waist for compulsory balance purposes.

  What can I say?

  Education should be taken very seriously.

  “Now,” I instruct as he wobbles for the umpteenth time, “find your centre of gravity.”

  I’m trying not to notice the warmth where our fingers are touching. There isn’t room in my head for interesting facts about fingertips or nerve endings right now.

  I have some giddy floating to attend to.

  “Got it,” he says, frowning hard and wobbling into a cautious L-shape.

  “Stand straight,” I suggest, pushing tentatively at the small of his back and trying not to notice another tingle shoot straight through my hand. “You look like you’re trying to surf.”

  “I am,” he sighs patiently. “That makes infinitely more sense to me. I significantly prefer my water in liquid form.”

  I laugh. “Now keep the blades facing forwards in parallel, apply your weight equally and let me pull you forwards?”

  He nods as I start tugging him gently across the ice, like a slightly less broken sleigh.

  “Shift your weight from foot to foot as smoothly as you can.”

  Nick obediently does as he’s told.

  “Lean forwards and keep the pressure on the blades on the outer ridges.”

  He follows suit, still staring adorably at his feet with great intensity, as if they’re small animals he’s never seen before.

  “Now blow a raspberry,” I command. “And do the funky chicken.”

  Nick glances up quickly.

  Then his face clears and he shouts with abrupt laughter. That’s exactly what he said while guiding me through my first ever fashion shoot in Moscow.

  Let’s be honest: I’m unlikely to get the upper hand again. This may be the only chance I ever get to pay him back for it.

  “I’m afraid I can only manage a strawberry,” he says, blowing his tongue out and waggling his arms. “It’s really cold.”

  He grips my hand a little tighter.

  Slowly, we start to wobble our way round the glowing rink. Sticking to the sides at first, and then gradually working inwards as he gains confidence.

  And as we pick up speed and hit a natural rhythm, I can feel Nick start to relax. With every smooth turn and every neatly timed swish of our feet, I watch his face slowly light up. Just as mine does the first time I learn anything new.

  Like the fact that the world’s biggest stocking is 106 feet and nine inches long and holds a thousand presents.

  Or that approximately three billion Christmas cards are sent every year in the US alone.

  Or that the average age of a Christmas tree is fifteen years old.

  Which is exactly my age now.

  You know what?

  Maybe somebody should just prop me up in the corner instead. I’m so happy and sparkling, nobody will be able to tell the difference.

  Finally, when we’re breathless and worn out with giggling, we slow to a stop by the Christmas tree. Trying to make sure that we’re not plonk in the middle of everybody else in the process, obviously.

  Frankly, there’s romance and there’s just getting in the way.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Nick grins triumphantly, wrapping his arms around me. “This was a genius idea of mine.”

  He lost his hat some time ago.

  His huge black curls are matted and fluffy, his gloves are soaked, his coat and trousers are still covered in bits of ice and there are little dents in his lips from where he’s been biting them so hard in concentration.

  So I’m just going to let him have that.

  “Speaking of dates,” I smile, “where did the girl with pink shoes go? Are we meeting her here?”

  “Nope,” Nick grins, pulling me a little bit tighter. “Cancelled. How about your date with ‘Victor Hugo’ tomorrow?”

  “Postponed indefinitely.” I shake my head. “He died in 1885 so it was really easy to let him down.”

  Nick laughs loudly, then puts a finger under my chin and lifts it towards him. “We make a good team, Harriet Manners.”

  And as I stare up at him and catch the lime-green smell that’s already starting to feel comfortable – the little mole on his cheek I think I could draw on a map – I realise it’s not a question, because we do.

  Somehow, we balance each other out.

  When Nick slips, I know how to lift him back up. When I panic, he understands how to pick me off the pavement again.

  We make each other laugh.

  And as I stand on my skate-toes and Lion Boy leans down towards me, it feels as if every Christmas light in London is turning on at once: flickering until I’m covered all over with a million-watt glow.

  Because I’ve suddenly realised there isn’t a single embarrassing moment of this story I’d want to change. Every time I’ve been myself, it’s brought me closer to Nick, and all of our differences hold us together.

  So even if we wobble, something tells me it’ll be OK.

  This kiss is just the beginning.

  Read on for more geekery …

  Richard’s Top Five Christmas Jokes

  1. Who hides in the bakery at Christmas?

  A mince spy!

  2. What do angry mice send to each other at Christmas?

  Cross Mouse cards!

  3. What do you get if you eat Christmas decorations?

  Tinsilitis!

  4. What says OH OH OH?

  Santa walking backwards!

  5. What does Santa suffer from if he gets stuck down a chimney?

  Claus-trophobia

  Minc’t Pie

  London 1543

  Cut the best of fleshe from a Legge of Mutton, welleth off the bone, and parboyl until softe. Put it to Suet and rip it small, adding Salt, Cloves and Mace and spreading welleth. Take many Currants, clean Prunes, Raisins and diced Dates and some Orenge-pils and rub together. When all is goode, put it into a coffin, or into divers coffins, and bake until the shade of new corn. When golden, crack lid open and throw Sugar on top.

  Serveth with love.

  Verdicts:

  Literally the grossest thing I’ve ever seen – Nat

  LOL where did you get the coffin and mace? – Dad

  I’m not buying an entire leg of mutton, Harriet. You can have a beef steak – Annabel

  Awesome – Toby

  Thanks for giving me all of them – Hugo

  Harriet’s Letter to Santa (aged 5)

  Richard’s Letter to Santa (aged 35)

  Holly Smale’s Festive Q & A

  What’s your favourite Christmas song?

  ‘White Christmas’ by Bing Crosby. It’s charming and old-fashioned and everything I love about Christmas wrapped up in one song. I played it on repeat while I was writing this story.

  What was the main present you always asked Santa for as a child?

  Weird fact: I had a massive phobia of Santa as a child. I used to start crying on Christmas Eve because I was so scared of him, and propped a chair against my bedroom door so he couldn’t come in. As a result my parents always assured me that my big gifts were coming from them – not the “horrible old man” – and my sister and I left our stockings in the living room. So Sa
nta and I weren’t on speaking terms, unfortunately.

  Favourite winter accessory?

  Earmuffs and mittens on a string so I don’t lose them. And a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, to carry with me at all times. Chocolate counts as an accessory if it’s round, right?

  If you had to watch one Christmas film every single Christmas, which one would you pick?

  It’s A Wonderful Life, and I do watch it every single Christmas. I also read The Night Before Christmas every year from a battered up picture book I’ve had since I was eighteen months old. Christmas for me is all about tradition and nostalgia.

  What would you love to find under the Christmas tree this year?

  A round-the-world plane ticket with unlimited stops, please.

  What do you love more – wrapping presents or unwrapping presents?

  Roughly equal. I’m terrible with my hands – I have no coordination at all – so wrapping presents is a stressful, messy and exhausting process: I have to stick bows all over the ripped bits. But I love the whole ritual of it and the anticipation. Unwrapping is also fun, but it’s over very quickly. I’m a ripper then too.

  Which celebrity would you like to meet under the mistletoe?

  Jimmy Stewart. As long as I have a time machine as well, obviously.

  Would your friends say you’re easy to buy for?

  I’ve just asked around: apparently not. In fact, I’ve just been told I’m a bad combination of particular, mercurial and brutally honest (and I’m a terrible actor). Apparently it’s a competition each year to see who can get me a gift I’ll genuinely like. Sorry, guys.

  What’s your favourite Christmas memory?

  When I was little, my parents would give my younger sister and I a 4am start-time on Christmas morning before we were allowed to wake them up (incredibly generous of them, in hindsight). I remember whispering with her outside the door, obsessively checking the clock and counting down from 100. Then my dad would mumble sleepily, “come on then,” and we’d race in and jump on the bed in the dark with our full stockings in our hands. I can still remember exactly how magical and exciting that was, and how happy it made us all.