A Winter Flame Read Online Free Page A

nose.
    ‘My name is Phoebe May Tinker,’ she said. ‘Is your nose real? Do you have high blood pressure?’
    Santa spluttered and moved swiftly on. ‘And what am I going to bring you on Christmas Eve?’
    Still staring at his veined conk, Phoebe replied, ‘Well, you won’t be bringing me anything, because you’re not Santa, are you? The real one will be bringing me a bike with a
basket and a Snow White princess costume.’
    Santa looked mightily relieved to be rescued by another elf making an entrance through the door at the back of his half of the shed holding a camera. This poor elf was plagued with acne and Eve
just hoped that Phoebe didn’t draw attention to it.
    ‘Your ear’s just fallen off,’ said Phoebe, reaching down to pick up a plastic pointed ear.
    ‘Cheers,’ said the spotty elf with a heavy sigh. ‘Elves’ ears are always doing that.’
    ‘Your ear can’t fall off if it’s real. And this one is quite obviously plastic,’ humphed Phoebe, and her unimpressed face showed as she posed for a snap with Santa. The
elf disappeared again to process the photo whilst Santa delved into his sack and pulled out a pink package with ‘Girl – under 10’ written on it. It didn’t take an idiot to
see it was a book, but that was okay because Phoebe loved books. She had ripped off the paper before Santa had even started to say, ‘Put it under your tree at home.’ Her lip curled over
to see that the book was
Thirty Facts You Always Wanted To Know About Aircraft.
    ‘Oh dear,’ said Santa, baring his teeth. He reached into his sack again and pulled out another book labelled ‘Girl – under 10’. This time he made sure he asked her
to put it under her tree before she opened it. Santa’s cheeks were growing as purple as his nose. There was a vein in his neck throbbing so much that Eve thought they ought to get out before
it exploded.
    Eve took Phoebe’s hand and led her out of the back of the shed where the spotty elf with the dodgy ear was waiting for them, holding a photograph of a very unsmiling Phoebe and the
tattooed Santa.
    ‘That will be five pounds please,’ he said, holding his palm out.
    ‘Do you eat a lot of chocolate?’ Phoebe asked, staring up at his face.
    Oh God, thought Eve. ‘Er, isn’t a photo included in the price?’
    ‘Ooh no,’ said the elf.
    ‘It’s okay, I don’t want it, Auntie Eve. He’s not the real Santa,’ said dear Phoebe. But Eve paid up. She wanted this photo very badly. She would put it on her desk
as a reminder of the start of it all – the moment when she realized that Great Aunt Evelyn wasn’t as barmy as she first thought.

Chapter 4
    As hoped for, Phoebe was totally and utterly unimpressed by Shite Christmas. In the car on the way home, Phoebe was only too happy to give a list of all the things she hated
about it: plastic reindeer rather than real ones, no husky ride, very ugly elves with droppy-off ears. Although she did give the chicken nuggets nine out of ten.
    ‘Phoebe, if I had a theme park like that, would you help me choose what sort of things I would need?’ asked Eve.
    Phoebe’s face lit up as if someone had switched on a 1,000 watt lightbulb behind her eyes. ‘Oh, Aunt Eve, can I? Will you have a reindeer like Comet in the
Santa Claus
films
that pumps?’ And she giggled and made some very impressive farting noises. She was only seven after all.
    ‘Well, er, not sure about the reindeer,’ Eve brushed over that one quickly. She had seen Aunt Evelyn’s plans for a reindeer enclosure but that wasn’t going to happen.
They would smell and need feeding and cleaning out and all that complicated stuff. Far too high maintenance. And possibly a health and safety hazard too with those antlers. She didn’t want to
get sued because a reindeer had kebabbed a small child.
    ‘You need ice cream,’ said Phoebe. ‘Lots of ice cream. And chicken nuggets. But you could call them something much more Christmassier, like—’ she mused