Holly Smale - All Wrapped Up

Although frankly, of the three options, it’s the one I’d vote for.

“Not a law law,” my best friend admits reluctantly. “But it’s the law of dating and everybody knows it.”

“ I didn’t know it.”

She nods as if this goes without saying. “Everybody apart from you. And maybe some random Inuit girl who’s been buried under a pile of ice for the last twenty billion years and is still waiting for some idiot to ring her.”

I laugh. “In fairness, the big bang only happened fourteen billion years ago, so the universe not existing yet is probably a legitimate excuse.”

“It’s the only legitimate excuse,” she growls.

“And maybe Nick doesn’t know the rules either,” I add, ignoring her. “Statistically, the average phone is broken within eleven weeks. There are many possible reasons why he’s not calling.”

“Sure,” Nat says darkly. “Maybe his fingers have been snapped off and fed to a party of hungry Christmas elves.”

I laugh. I love my best friend when she gets angry and protective. She starts staring into space and muttering threats like Batman.

But it’s just not going to work.

Nat can be as cynical as she likes – there are way too many love chemicals currently rushing through my body for me to feel anxious. I am bouncing on a fluffy Christmas marshmallow of my own biological optimism.

It’s kind of funny, really.

We both knew that eventually a boy would enter the equation for one of us first. It’s just that in ten years of friendship, we never guessed that he might be for me.

“Have a little faith in romance,” I say reassuringly, jumping up and skipping to the switch in the wall. “Trust in the magic of the season, Nat. Nothing’s going to go wrong. It’s Christmas .”

Grinning, I switch the tree lights on with a tiny pop.

And – with a burst of ‘Joy to the World’ – my phone starts ringing.

Seriously.

My precognitive skills are totally wasted as a budding model. With my startling ability to see the future, I should at least be employed as some kind of psychic.

Although statistically most give forty-eight-hours’ warning before something happens, so I’d definitely be one of the cheap ones.

Sticking my tongue out at Nat, I grab my phone from where it’s been perched on the arm of the sofa. It’s a mysterious unrecognised number, and I’m so shiny now it’s hard to tell which is more twinkly: me or the T-rex.

“Nick?” I beam into my phone.

“Sadly not, my little Elf. Although you can bet your sparkle-chickens I’m working on it. I keep trying to curl my hair like his, and then I am forced to remember I don’t really have any.”

Nat’s making a frantic who-is-it ? face, so I mouth back Wilbur and try not to notice the I-told-you-so eye-roll. For a few seconds I can feel my supreme confidence wobble slightly.

Four days is quite a long time.

I could have done half of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the time it’s taken the first recipient of my lips not to contact me.

“Wilbur, have you got a new number?”

“No, this phone belongs to the agency, Baby-cinnamon-socks. I dropped mine down the toilet. Nearly went from being my number one form of communication to my number two, if you know what I mean.”

Then my modelling agent breaks into peals of tiny bell-like giggles.

“ Any who,” he continues, “I’m just calling to see if you got the new fashion contract from Yuka Ito before the Christmas holidays start. That is not a designer who waits, even for little baby Jesus.”

“Sure,” I say, making a cut-it-out face at Nat. She’s formed a gun with her hands and is pointing it angrily at a tiny cupid hanging on the tree. “My parents signed it, it’s all fine and it’s in the p—”

I stop abruptly.

Ooh. I’ve just had a brilliant idea. A brilliant, inspired, really quite obvious idea I’d have had ages ago if I wasn’t so busy having a happy festive meltdown.

And also writing hilarious legal Clauses for Santa.

“Wilbur, do you have Nick’s phone number? Could you maybe give it to me?”

Nat stops shooting Cupid and her eyes go very round. In fairness, this is definitely, definitely not in the dating rules. She’s told me so about a billion times, vehemently.

The girl must never contact the boy first. Ever.

Especially if he disappeared so quickly he didn’t actually give her his number, so she couldn’t call him in the first place.

“They’re not rules, ” I hiss at Nat for the trillionth time, holding my hand over the phone. “They’re guidelines. ”

“Darling,” Wilbur laughs, “if I gave Nick’s number to every girl who rang asking for Nick’s number, I’d basically be a telephone directory. Also, as he’s one of our models, it’s data protected.”

“Oh.” I can feel myself collapse slightly again. “Of course. Sorry. Well, Merry Christm—”

“But as it’s you … I heard the most amusalazing story the other day. Do you want to hear it? Do you have a piece of paper and a pen handy?”

I blink a few times.

“Umm,” I say vaguely, watching Nat pick up a sugar mouse and then pointedly bite its head off. “Sure?”

“Ready?” He clears his throat ostentatiously. “ Oh , my dear, once upon a time seven little boys made seven little sn ow men and oh can you believe each hand had nine fingers so—”

“What were they made of?”

“Sorry, Bunny?”

“What were the snowmen’s fingers made of? Because it can’t be snow – I’ve tried that and they don’t stay on. And you can make arms out of sticks or brooms, but fingers are really tricky.”

There’s a pause, and then a long sigh.

“I don’t think you quite understand the point of this story, Twinkle-face. Maybe I’ll try a simpler one.” Wilbur clears his throat. “ Oh every Christmas time seven elves prepare seven stockings but oh zero of them have time to wrap more than nine gifts—”

“ Seven elves?” I interrupt again. “There are approximately two billion children in the world, Wilbur. Even with nine gifts each that wouldn’t be enough to—”

“ Oh for the love of brandy pudding,” Wilbur exhales. “Do you want this story, poppet, or do you want to spend Christmas cuddling your oversized teddy bear instead?”

I blink. How does he know about my teddy b—

Hang on. Oh . Seven elves. Seven snowmen.

Oh seven seven.

A wave of disbelief smashes over my head.

Oh my God. Wilbur’s telling me Nick’s mobile phone number and I’m too busy correcting him to actually notice. My love life is about to go down the pan thanks to my chronic pedantry.

I am such an accurate idiot.

Fast as I can, I rip the back off a Christmas card. It’s from Granny Manners and it has red bows stuck all over the front of it. In fairness, it probably needed destroying eventually anyway.

“Shoot,” I say, grabbing one of Nat’s eyeliners. “There were nine gifts, how many fingers? Or was it stockings?”

“I’m texting it to you now,” Wilbur says in defeat. “Don’t say it came from me.”

A rush of gratitude whooshes over me.

“ Thank you thank you, Wilbur. You’re the best. ”

“You bet your tiny jingle-bells I am,” he laughs. “Merry Christmas, my little Snow-socks. Now go get him.”

Which is exactly what I intend to do.