Page 92 of Kiss Me at Christmas
“Ah good, we have our Tiny Tim at last. Now we can begin. Places, please, everybody! Spit spot!” Gideon ordered.
People began hurrying in different directions. Ahmed took to the stage, as did the narrators: Carly, Hiroshi, Ricco, Winston, and Ernest (the Lonely Farts had been roped into playing bit parts because no one was safe from Gideon’s monomania for casting). Ricco and Isabel—aka Scrooge’s nephew and Roberta Cratchit—waited in the wings for the start of Scene 2. Hesther and Kingsley shuffled up beside them dragging Scrooge’s front door, which had been made to stand up by itself by wooden struts nailed into the framework at the back.
Harriet was in the opposite stage wing on her hands and knees, with her phone clasped to her ear as she held a meeting with the Special Educational Needs Coordinator at Foss Independent while trying to make sense of the black sacks of costumes Mallory had brought fromthe Great Foss Players archives and the donations from the public, which had been steadily growing since Gideon had given a shout-out from the local radio station asking for vintage Victoriana.
By the time the meeting had ended, she had separated the clothes into piles. The costumes left over from the Great Foss Players’ production ofLittle Womenthe year before last would come in most handy, while their outfits fromStarlight ExpressandCatswere less useful. She had a call with a parent in an hour and a stack of emails from Cornell that had come through so thick and fast that for a moment she thought her account had been hacked. She was coming to the conclusion that something was going to have to give, but she didn’t know which ball she could afford to drop.
“Miss?”
Harriet looked up, feeling dazed by her monumental to-do list, to find Billy standing above her. “Billy.” She smiled, mentally compartmentalizing her life. “How can I help?”
“There’s some people want to see you,” he said, jerking his head backward.
She looked around his legs to see a group of people dressed in combats and camouflage standing in the opposite wing. She gave them a wave and they waved back enthusiastically.
“Righty-ho,” she said, groaning as she got up off the floor. “I noticed you picked Sid up from after-school club again today. Are Tess and Arthur okay?”
“They’re fine. Stop asking.”
Hmmmm.Tell that to the nagging feeling in her stomach.
“Did I see Grace leave with you?” she asked.
“Yeah, she wanted to surprise Sid—she took us to the café on the corner for cake.”
“That was very kind of her.”
Billy shrugged.
“You would tell me if there was something wrong, wouldn’t you?”
Her phone blipped with a text, and in the short time it took her to check it, Billy had slipped away, no doubt to steel himself for his appearance as Roberta Cratchit’s careworn husband.
“Chains!” Gideon’s voice rang out. “Destiny, my sweet jewel, where are your chains? What is Jacob Marley without his chains?”
Harriet cast a glance across the way to see Leo and Sid sat on chairs on either side of Dhruv, a mass of gray paper chains draped across all three of them and snaking along the floor.
“We’re working as fast as we can, Captain!” Dhruv shouted in a Scottish accent. “But we’re running out of spit!”
Harriet sniggered as she slipped behind the stage on her way to meet the newcomers.
“Hello, I’m Harriet,” she said, smiling when she reached them.
A woman about her age with her hair pulled back in a high ponytail and a distinct air of the Tomb Raider about her stepped forward, smiling and holding out her hand for Harriet to shake.
“Hi! I’m Cassidy. We’re the Relic Hunters.”
Did not see that coming!
Cassidy must have seen her quizzical expression as she shook her hand because she added, “We’re detectorists. You know, metal detectors?”
“Oh, I see.” Harriet took her hand back. “Good to meet you. Are you detectoring around these parts?” She thought of the basement and what could be lurking under that dirt floor.
“No, well, yes, we are, but not here in this theater. We used to meet once a week at the community center—”
“Ah, say no more. This is pretty much the new clubhouse for community center evictees.” Harriet smiled warmly at the new group.
“I did recognize quite a few faces on my way through,” said Cassidy. “Anyway, we heard about what you were doing here, and we thought maybe we could help each other out. If we could borrow a quiet corner to hold our Relic Hunter meetings, we’d be happy to offer our services toward your play.”
