Page 9 of All Foxed Up

“To be fair, I would’ve tossed it in the bin otherwise,” I said.

“You got the kids very annoying presents.”

“They begged me. Have you heard them when they want something? And then there’s the big shiny eyes thing. Powerful stuff.”

“And last night you helped me make all the stupid food people are probably not going to eat and you knew that, but you did it anyway, to help me out.” She gave me a long look.

I paused then, my throat growing thick.

“To be fair, you did have that weird vein thing jumping on your forehead.” I tapped mine to illustrate. “So I think we were all just a tiny bit terrified you were going to have an aneurysm if we didn’t.”

“Hols—”

“But you’re forgetting one thing.” I looked her square in the eye. “I don’t need to go on a journey of self discovery.” One eyebrow lifted. “I know what to do with my no no square.”

“Fuck, Holly—”

“I worked out how to ring the devil’s doorbell in middle school. Do you need help? I can show you if you like?”

When she shoved me, we were right back where we usually were, me cracking jokes like an idiot and her sighing.

“No, because this year we’re gonna find a guy or some guys who’re gonna ring your doorbell for you,” she said, pushing me towards the picnic tables. “And you’re not gonna know what hit you.”

She said those words in a long suffering tone, but that pendant? It grew warm to touch, the eyes flaring bright green for just a second. I frowned at it, having seen my share of weird stuff come through the shop before, which meant I should’ve shoved the necklace in my pocket, left it there until I got home and could ask my nanna about it.

Instead I did a very dumb thing.

I put it around my neck and did up the clasp, the pendant feeling warm against my skin. Because I had been holding it, that’s what I reasoned, but I was about to find out just how wrong I was.

Chapter5

“Oh my god, the rockmelon…” Natalie gasped.

Sven had insisted on ‘helping’ as we all carried the Christmas food over to the picnic table in the park adjoining the beach, so I had given him a small container of snacks to carry, thinking he would be fine. He wasn’t fine. With all the skill of a three-year-old, he’d managed to find the one tree root in his path and went stumbling forward, only to drop the box and spill the contents all over the ground. I had a split second to mourn all that hard work before we rushed forward.

“Mummy…!”

Sven’s face had transformed, becoming a mask of misery. He knew he’d stuffed up, though thankfully he wasn’t hurt, but Nat dropped down to his level.

“Hey… Hey, it’s OK.” She held his shoulders firmly and his tear filled eyes met hers. “You were doing such a good job of helping.”

“But… ground!”

The boys seemed to lose their words the moment they got upset, his little finger jerking in the direction of the spilled snacks.

“It’s OK. You don’t even like rockmelon,” she said, then turned him around. I watched her fit his body to hers, her arms cradling him close. “And look. The ibis like rockmelons.”

Ibis, or bin chickens as we like to call them in Australia, would like to drink our brains from our skulls with their creepy narrow beaks, I was fairly sure, but the birds clustered closer, seeing the spread before them and fighting to get their piece.

“You gave them a Christmas present,” she explained.

“I wanna give the bin chickens a present!” Kai said in a stroppy tone, stomping over. The ibis barely fluttered their wings. They were fairly sure they could take on a tiny bear cub and still get to feast on succulent fruit, so they kept on eating.

“They don’t need any more presents,” Alaric said, scooping him up. “Just like someone else I could mention, they’ve got a whole lot of presents already.”

I saw the mutinous look in Kai’s eyes, the moment where he was about to put his foot down, but then Alaric dug his fingers into his son’s ribs, getting him giggling before swinging him over to the picnic table.

Crisis averted, now it was go time.

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