18
In the end, both Kazia and I set our boots out for St Nicholas on the night of December the fifth. ‘Leave the boots inside the door,’ Mum calls down. ‘They’ll be fine there.’
‘Do you really think he’ll find us?’ my little sister asks. ‘St Nicholas? All the way over here in Liverpool?’
‘Of course!’
Kazia is not convinced. ‘He might not be expecting boots, here,’ she worries. ‘And he might not even see them, if we leave them inside. Outside would be better, no?’
I sigh. ‘OK, Kazia. He’ll find them, promise, but we can leave them outside if you want to…’ I open the door and set the two pairs of boots on the doorstep. ‘There… all done. Come on!’
I take her hand and we run up the stairs to the living room, where Mum is waiting.
‘How will he get here?’ Kazia wants to know. ‘There’s no snow for his sleigh!’
‘Shhh, Kazia. He’ll come, when you are sleeping. Off to bed!’
Obediently, Kazia goes.
Dad is working late again – very late, tonight, but when we got back from school earlier, Mum was home and the flat smelt of freshly baked gingerbread. I knew she’d remembered it was St Nicholas’s Day. Now Mum reaches into a drawer for a carrier bag that rustles thrillingly, rubbing her forehead with a palm. She has been getting headaches lately. I think she’s working too hard.
‘Mama?’ I ask. ‘Do you want me to do the boots?’
‘Would you, Anya love?’
I run downstairs and open the front door a crack. The street is quiet as I press tiny red apples down into the toe of each boot, then walnuts in their shells, handfuls of wrapped sweets, and gingerbread wrapped in foil. I close the door softly, smiling as I think of Kazia finding them in the morning.
‘Thank you, Anya,’ Mum whispers. ‘I need to sleep, that’s all. Remember, I’ll already be at work when you get up – I took an early shift, so I could be home this afternoon. Your dad won’t be in for a while yet, so let him sleep in tomorrow. You’ll take Kazia to school, won’t you? There’s bread and jam, so you can have toast for breakfast, something warm… don’t be late for class!’
‘We won’t. Mama, please don’t work too hard…’
‘I’ll be fine, Anya,’ she promises. ‘Sleep now… good girl.’
I awake to the sound of quiet crying, and trust me, that’s not usual on St Nicholas’s Day. I push back the covers and drag myself out of bed, and there is Kazia, alone at the kitchen table, sobbing her heart out. ‘What is it, Kazia?’ I ask. ‘Whatever’s wrong?’
A muffled wail leaks out. ‘All… gone… wrong!’ she gasps.
I put an arm round my little sister, wipe her eyes.
‘What happened?’ I ask again.
‘St… St Nicholas…’ Kazia chokes out.
‘Did he forget to come?’ I frown. Perhaps some passing drunk has helped himself to the sweets? Maybe Mum was right. We should have left the boots inside the door.
‘It’s worse,’ Kazia whispers. ‘Much worse. No apples, no gingerbread, no sweets…’
She tugs my hand, pulls me down the stairs and out on to the step. ‘No nothing!’ she wails, and finally the penny drops.
I sink down on to the doorstep, dismayed.
Some lowlife loser has gone and nicked our boots.
I suppose most girls have three or four pairs of boots and shoes. Some, like Lily Caldwell, probably have dozens. But Kazia and I, we have just one pair each. Oops – make that no pairs now.
Kazia grew out of her summer shoes before we flew to Liverpool, and my ballerina flats were so worn and scuffed I didn’t bother to pack them. I knew my boots would take me through the first few weeks of school and after that, I imagined, there would be any amount of new shoes and boots, new everything, if we felt like it.
It didn’t quite work out that way.
And now our boots have been stolen, or kidnapped by the milkman, or kicked around the streets and chucked into Princes Park boating lake by drunks coming home in the early hours.
Leaving boots on the doorstep on the night of December the fifth in Liverpool is clearly not a good idea.
And now we have no shoes.
‘Should we wake Dad?’ Kazia asks, but telling Dad is the very last thing I want to do – he has enough on his mind. As for Mum, well, maybe she left before the boots were taken this morning, or perhaps she just didn’t notice at all.
Either way, it’s my fault – Mum told me to leave the boots inside the door, and I listened to Kazia and left them outside. Now they’re gone, and all because of me.
‘We won’t tell Dad, or Mama, OK?’ I tell Kazia. ‘Not yet. I’ll think of something, I promise!’
So Kazia pulls on her black canvas PE pumps, and I have to wear my fluffy slippers, at least until I get to school and drag the trainers out from my locker. Great. I have never been so ashamed in my whole, entire life.
I time it carefully, so that the bell is just ringing as we arrive at Kazia’s primary, but still, I get a whole bunch of smart comments on the way.
‘Oi, girl, yer feet’s all hairy!’
‘That the new fashion, or what?’
By the time I get to St Peter and Paul’s, I’m running late, and I’m so mortified I’d like to crawl under a stone and stay there for the rest of the day. I kick off the fluffy slippers at the door and stuff them into my satchel, then sign in late at the desk and head for my locker, padding in my stockinged feet along deserted corridors draped with drooping paper chains.
‘Forgotten something?’
Dan Carney is sitting on the bench outside Mr Fisher’s office, grinning. ‘Like your shoes, maybe? Or is it a tradition that Polish girls go barefoot on December the sixth, in thanks for the sweets St Nicholas left them the night before?’
‘No,’ I tell him. ‘It’s not a tradition.’
Dan tips his head to one side, baffled. ‘So…?’
I sink down on to the bench beside Dan. ‘We put our boots out last night, me and Kazia,’ I confess. ‘And I filled them with sweets and cake and fruit…’
‘Was Kazia pleased?’
I sigh. ‘Not exactly. Our boots are stolen. No shoes for me or Kazia today, and no sweets, for sure.’
‘You’re kidding?’ Dan asks, outraged. ‘Nicked? That’s low. That’s very low. And… you’ve got no other shoes for school? Seriously?’
I open my satchel just enough to show a fringe of pink fluff.
‘Ah,’ says Dan. ‘My favourites. Well, don’t let Fisher see them. He is not in a good mood. I was cheeky in class, plus I owe him three homeworks, so now I have to do my lessons here, so Fisher can supervise. This school gets more like a prison every day. I don’t know why I bother to stick around, half the time.’
‘You don’t,’ I say, with a sad smile. ‘Half the time.’
Dan just shrugs and grins. ‘Well, can you blame me? Seriously, Anya, what’ll you do about the boots? Will you be OK?’
I bite my lip and tilt my chin up, trying for a smile. I’d like to tell Dan about what’s happening with the business, ask him for a hug, but I remember that he doesn’t want a girlfriend, and if he did it wouldn’t be a girl with no boots, no future, a girl whose life is falling apart.
I am the last thing Dan needs. Maybe he’d be better off with Lily after all?
‘Stuff this,’ Dan growls, getting to his feet. ‘Life’s too short for biology notes and being polite to Fisher. I’m going to fix this, Anya.’
He pulls on a beanie, winds a stripy scarf round his neck, and throws me a big grin. ‘See you later, OK?’
‘Dan, you can’t just go –’
‘Watch me,’ he says.
He walks down the corridor, pushes through the double doors and breaks into a sprint just as the school secretaries run out, yelling, to try and stop him.
Mr Fisher’s door creaks open.
‘Was that Dan Carney?’ he barks at me. ‘Where is he? What’s going on? Did you see him?’
‘Sorry,’ I say, smiling sweetly. ‘I don’t understand…’