Page 35 of The Selkie Santa

The lights blinded Noah for a moment, but luckily, he couldn’t see all the faces in the audience.

There were wolf whistles. Catcalls.

Someone called, “Get your gear off, Santa.”

Shit, this was embarrassing. But then Harper ran out and curtsied and blew kisses and everyone cheered madly.

Once he got going with his lines, Noah found his nerves evaporating. He was quite enjoying himself as he strode around the stage, calling “ho ho ho” and swishing his tail around.

The Gift Gizmo machine started to gurgle and gripe and burp and belch.

First, they used fairy dust. He let the canister out and glitter went everywhere.

“Well, the fairy dust isn’t working, Let’s add dragon flames,” Noah said, dutifully reciting his lines. “Who thinks we should add dragon flames?”

“Yes!” everyone shouted.

Noah went and grabbed the canister of dragon flames and aimed it at the Gizmo machine.

Smoke went everywhere, and the flames looked rather too real.

An ominous burning smell filled the theater.

“Oh dear, I think they gave us the wrong canister,” Harper said, looking up at him out of wide eyes.

Noah looked back at the Gift Gizmo machine. The conveyor belt was on fire.

A couple of the props guys came running out with fire extinguishers and started squirting at the flames, to shouts of glee from the audience.

Suddenly there was a whoosh overhead. Water started to spray from the ceiling, and within seconds Noah and his elf were standing in the middle of the stage, soaking wet.

Harper’s wings were bedraggled. Her hair hung in wet streams around her face, and her mascara had run.

Noah knew he didn’t look any better. His Santa outfit was soaked and sticking to his big selkie frame. His beard was a soggy white mess around his face.

Now what?he wondered, standing there dripping.

“Hey, Santa, take that wet shirt off!” someone heckled from the audience.

“Yeah, let’s see therealSanta.”

Suddenly all the old folks were cackling away like a bunch of harpies.

Noah grinned sheepishly and made to leave the stage. There was a lot of booing.

“Show us what you got, Santa!” Louder this time.

Noah looked around. Harper was nowhere to be seen. She’d already skedaddled to get out of her wet elf outfit.

But then he saw Biff on the edge of the stage, waggling their eyebrows, arms crossed.

“Go on,” Biff said, “make me smile.”

There was a challenge if ever he’d heard one. With a grin, Noah walked back to center stage, peeled off his bedraggled beard and threw it on the ground.

Loud whoops ensued.

Then he unbuttoned his shirt and with a suggestive swing of his hips, stripped it off and threw it aside with a flourish. The audience erupted into another round of wolf whistles and catcalls.

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