Page 50 of A Winter in Wonderland
Chapter 23
Christmas was fast approaching, only a few more Advent calendar doors away, and the excitement in the air was becoming harder and harder to ignore.
Guests seemed to be arriving in their hundreds every day, and we all worked hard to make sure every one of them left smiling and with a little extra magic in their hearts than when they arrived. Yes, even me. With not long to go now until Christmas was behind us, I was clawing my way to the finish line.
Even though Josh now knew my secret, I wasn’t worried. I trusted him. And besides, despite my internal screaming at times, I was doing nothing to give away that I wasn’t equally full of Christmas spirit as the rest of ’em.
Just sometimes, I had to work a little harder to keep up the show …
‘Esteri,’ I called, jogging over the snow as best I could dressed like the Michelin man. I’d just finished for the dayafter doing four consecutive snowshoe tours, and was heading back to the staff chalet from the activities’ lodge, where Daan had released the next week of rotas. And something was concerning me.
‘Esteri?’ I called again, and this time she heard me and turned.
‘Oh, hello!’
Catching up with her, we walked through the pine trees to the chalet together. ‘How was your day?’ I asked.
‘Great, as always. I was with a group over in the National Park all day, so a lovely mix. You?’
‘Snowshoeing.’
‘All day?’
‘Yes, but that’s fine. It’s my favourite, actually.’ Because there wasn’t a jingle bell or Santa suit in sight. ‘Esteri?’
‘Yes, Myla?’
‘Just wondering … You like cooking, right?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Do you fancy baking some gingerbread tonight, and maybe decorating it together?’ I was being totally casual so she wouldn’t suspect a thing.
‘Do you not know how to decorate gingerbread?’ she asked, seeing right through me like some kind of detective fromCSI.
‘What? No,of course, I just thought it would be fun. Roommate bonding.’
We reached the door of the chalet and Esteri held it open for me, usuring me into the boot room to de-Michelin man. ‘So it has nothing to do with the fact you’re rosteredon to help with the Mrs Claus gingerbread decorating day tomorrow?’
‘No, not at all. Iknowhow to decorate gingerbread, believe me, I am never more comfortable than when I have a piping bag in my hand— OK, fine, I’ve never done it before, please help me.’
Esteri chuckled and we took it in turns to pull each other’s boots off. ‘All right, well, even though I was hoping to have a nice relaxing evening of sauna and reading my book, I will help you.’
‘Thank you.’ I smiled gratefully.
‘But I doubt we have any icing in the chalet, so you and I will need to head back to the activities’ lodge and do some thieving.’
‘Good plan,’ I nodded, ‘under the cover of darkness.’
‘It’s dark now, in case you hadn’t noticed,’ she said, pointing at the Arctic night outside the window. ‘We’ll go back after dinner, when there won’t be as many people around.’
I was ready for our heist. Dressed in my dad’s bulky coat and only one layer of thermals underneath, Esteri and I snuck back over to the activities’ lodge where we pilfered a tiny amount of their vast stash of royal icing, piping bags and food colouring, and stored it inside my jacket.
Back at the chalet, Esteri whipped up a batch of gingerbread and had me use a cookie cutter she found to turn it into a mixture of hearts and snowflake shapes. The scent of ginger and cinnamon was enough to encourage various other staff members out of hiding, sniffing the air.
Before long, the first batch of cookies were cool enough, and Esteri had shown me how to make the icing, put it in a bag, and how to squeeze it out ever-so delicately to create pretty loops and waves bordering each biscuit.
‘Like this?’ I asked, my first snowflake done. I was pretty pleased. It wasn’t perfect but it was … icy.
