Page 89 of Kiss Me at Christmas
He shook his head. “No. I’m going round the back.”
Before Harriet could stop him, he tore off down a narrow alleyway. All she could do was follow. Another alleyway, overgrown with weeds, ran behind the gardens. Billy looked along the rows of back gates.
“Which one is Grace’s?” he asked in frustration.
Puffing to catch her breath, Harriet counted along from the end.
“This one,” she said, walking over to a rickety wooden gate and opening the latch.
Like the front garden, the back garden was small and neat, with a square of lawn surrounded by flowerbeds and a brick path leading to the back door. Billy ran ahead down the path and pressed his face to the kitchen window.
“She’s here!” he shouted back. “She’s on the floor! Grace!” he yelled, banging on the window.
Harriet rushed to the window while Billy began trying the handle of the door, but it was locked. Grace lay crumpled in a heap on the kitchen floor, her eyes fluttering. A glass bottle was smashed nearby one of her slippered feet, and a puddle of milk pooled around her. A bag of flour on the table had been upset and some had spilled like a layer of snow.
“We’re here now, Grace,” she shouted through the glass as she dialed 999. “I’m going to call for help.”
James arrived on the scene just as Harriet was finishing up the call. At his expression, she turned from the window to see that Billy had begun to scale the drainpipe. Harriet’s heart gave a lurch of alarm.
“Billy! What are you…? Come down! I don’t wantto have to order two ambulances!” Under her breath, she whispered, “For flock’s sake!”
“She’s all alone!” Billy shouted back.
They stood at the base of the drainpipe looking up. Billy was too high up even for James to grab him.
“That looks dangerous, mate,” James reasoned. “The ambulance will be here soon, why don’t you leave it to them?”
“I’m not leaving her!” Billy panted. His foot slipped on the pipe, sending rusted paint flecks fluttering down.
“Son of a biscuit!” she swore. “Please be careful!” To James, she added, “Oh my god, this kid’s going to give me a heart attack. I think I’m going to puke.”
But Billy had already reached his destination. He swung his feet onto a ledge, grabbed hold of the wooden window frame, and posted himself through the open window of the upstairs bathroom. A loud bump, then some after-clatters and the sound of things rolling around on a linoleum floor, and then Billy’s voice shouted, “I’m okay!”
“Oh, sweet baby cheeses.” Harriet let out a breath and bent her head to her knees to try and get some blood back into her brain.
James moved back to the window, and Harriet stood up in time to see Billy enter the kitchen and kneel at Grace’s head. They couldn’t hear what he was saying, but the wan smile on Grace’s face made them both puff out sighs of relief. Billy stroked the hair away from her face and gave her hand a squeeze before jumping up to unlock the back door.
A bowl sat on the kitchen table half-filled with flour and sugar. Next to it was a pot of ground ginger.
“I was making gingerbread men for Sid,” Grace mumbled. “And then I came over dizzy. I must have fallen. I need to get up.”
Billy, who was kneeling back beside her, rested his hand on her shoulder. “Just stay there for the moment, yeah? Let the paramedics check you over first.”
“Fuss and nonsense,” she argued, but her heart wasn’t in it, and she stayed where she was. “How did you get in?”
“I climbed up the drainpipe and in through the bathroom window.”
She gave a snort and patted his hand with her own, which still trembled from the shock of her fall.
“Stupid boy. I suppose you think you’re Spider-Man now.”
“Little bit,” Billy smirked.
Several hours later they were all back at Grace’s house again to settle her in. The doctor at the hospital had diagnosed an inner ear infection, which had caused her to lose her balance. It was plain bad luck that her head had met with the corner of the dining table as she’d gone down. Aside from a few bumps and bruises, she had been declared fit as a fiddle.
“The biggest bruises are to my ego,” Grace complained as James and Harriet fussed around her small sitting room, plumping cushions and keeping up a steady stream of tea. “D’oh, just stop it, I’m not an invalid. I’m sixty-five, not a hundred!” she snapped, flapping her hands at James as he pushed a footstool toward her, though she did grudgingly plop her slippered feet up on it.
“You gave us all a scare,” Harriet called from the kitchen as she unpacked the foodie gifts that had been arriving at the house for the last hour.
