A Winter Flame Read Online Free

like to think that they do.’
    ‘I think some of them eat rather a lot of chicken nuggets,’ thought Eve, looking at the gigantically fat elf operating the till. He had fingers like thick pork sausages and a
selection of chins on display.
    ‘What would you imagine elves eat, Phoebe?’ asked Eve, biting down on a chip.
    Phoebe considered the question and Eve could almost hear the cogs turning in the big brain inhabiting that little head.
    ‘I think lots of soup and nice bread,’ said Phoebe eventually. ‘And Polar Bear pie.’
    Eve coughed and nearly choked.
    ‘Not sure I’d like to eat a nice fluffy polar bear,’ said Eve, hoping to implant some environmental friendliness into the small girl.
    ‘It wouldn’t be made of polar bears, silly,’ tutted Phoebe. ‘It would be called Polar Bear Pie because it was their favourite.’
    ‘Ah,’ said Eve. And phew.
    ‘And lots of ice cream,’ added Phoebe, after some more thought. ‘I think elves would like lots of different flavours of ice cream.’
    ‘Oh yes, they would, wouldn’t they?’ nodded Eve, thinking,
Bless you Phoebe, you’re saying all the right things.
Who needed to pay marketing consultants when you
had Phoebe May Tinker in your corner? Seeing a theme park through the eyes of a child was the best way forward.
    ‘And they’d drink snowberry juice,’ said Phoebe, reaching for the tomato ketchup in the sauce-covered plastic bottle.
    ‘What’s that?’ asked Eve.
    ‘It’s very cold and white,’ whispered Phoebe, as if imparting a great secret.
    Snowberry juice.
Eve liked the sound of snowberry juice. She envisaged something sweet and slushy and – as Phoebe had said – icy cold.
    The only ice creams available in the Elf Café were Magnums and Cornettos. Eve thought of her cousin Violet who owned a beautiful little ice-cream parlour in Maltstone. Violet, whom she
hadn’t seen half as much as she should have liked and was going to make up for that. ‘White Christmas’ might have been a disaster, although it pulled in visitors because it had a
certain novelty value, but it really wouldn’t take much to trump it.
    Eve’s head was churning with ideas. The theme park didn’t have to be all about Christmas – there was so much more to winter than Santa and elves. And thank goodness for that,
too, because Eve’s brain wouldn’t have been whirring that much over a park full of all that sort of twinkly tat.
    The husky ride was closed until further notice, much to Phoebe’s disappointment. They did, however, go into the doggy stables to look at the huskies, two of which were snarling German
Shepherds and vicious enough to have Santa’s leg off as soon as look at him.
    ‘Let’s go and try Santa again,’ said Eve, hoping to cheer Phoebe up. She had been so looking forward to having a husky ride.
    The
Prisoner: Cell Block H
elf was still on sentry duty outside Santa’s grotto – or rather his B&Q shed with some cotton wool balanced precariously on top of it. The queue
was long, but Eve noticed that it was going down quite quickly. As she neared the front, she saw that the shed was divided into two –
two
Santas. How the heck was she going to explain
that one away? Luckily this was Phoebe.
    ‘I don’t think either of these are the real Santa,’ whispered the little girl, as one of the Santa’s heads popped out of the front door to see how long the queue was.
Underneath the very bad beard and wig ensemble, his dark-brown hair could clearly be seen, and his youthful unlined face.
    Blimey, chuckled Eve to herself. I must be getting old if Santa looks young.
    The convict-elf eventually directed Phoebe and Eve into the right-hand side of the shed with a flick of her head. Their Santa had a big red nose and make-up on his hands, which didn’t
quite cover up the LOVE and HATE tattoos.
    ‘Ho ho ho,’ he said, doing the fakest laugh in the world. ‘And what’s your name, little girl?’
    Phoebe’s eyes were glued to his