Mrs. Fields dried her eyes with the embroidered handkerchief she always carried around. “We need to stop this blasphemy. But it’ll take someone infiltrating the group and catching the girls in the act to get the proof we need.” She placed her hand on Emily’s arm. “The Santa Land at the Devon Crest Mall is looking for a new Santa—the old one was fired for hitting on girls.” Mrs. Fields shuddered slightly. “Anyhow, I told Judith you could be the new Santa. It’s a perfect way to spy on these girls.”
“Me? A spy?” Emily blurted. There was no way she was taking a job as Santa Claus. She’d thought about getting a job over the holidays, especially after her father had mentioned that his Christmas bonus was going to be smaller this year, but she had been thinking of something more along the lines of a gift-wrapper at Macy’s or a salesgirl at FrogLand, the swim specialty shop. Playing Santa sounded as challenging as being Mickey Mouse at Disney World. If you got it wrong, you’d ruin a kid’s whole year. Not to mention that she didn’t really fit the part.
“Please, honey?” Mrs. Fields’s chin wobbled. “I really need you to do this.”
“But I don’t have any experience with kids,” Emily protested. “And I don’t think I’d be a good spy.”
Mrs. Fields’s eyebrows made a V. “You have plenty of experience with kids. You did lots of babysitting when you were younger. And what about when you were a Wilderness Guide at Rosewood Happyland Day Camp?”
Like that really counted. Emily and Ali had signed up to be Wilderness Guides the summer between sixth and seventh grades, mostly because Ali had a crush on the canoeing instructor. In the course of the first hour, a little girl peed on Emily’s foot, a boy bit her, and a group of kids pushed her into a patch of poison ivy. After all that, Ali had discovered that Canoe Boy had a girlfriend. They’d quit after lunch and laughed about it all summer. Whenever Emily or Ali was in a bad mood, they’d say, I’m having a Wilderness Guide kind of day.
“And you would make an excellent spy,” Mrs. Fields went on. “The elves are just a few years older than you are, and I know you can break into their clique and dig up some good information on them.”
“Why can’t Carolyn do it?”
Mrs. Fields’s nostrils flared. “Because Carolyn already has a job over the break. She’s working as a waitress at Applebee’s.”
Emily would gladly deliver sizzling fajita pans and margaritas to drunken patrons instead. “But Santa is usually a guy. Won’t kids get confused when they hear my voice?” she asked as a last-ditch effort.
Emily’s dad, who had settled on the couch, shrugged. “Just make your voice sound deeper. This really means a lot to your mom, Em.”
Emily gritted her teeth. This was so classic: Mrs. Fields was always making decisions for Emily without actually asking her first. Like how she just assumed she’d be on the swim team year after year. Or how she bought Emily jeans from the Gap even though Gap jeans hadn’t fit her properly for years. Or how she made reservations at a Broadway-themed restaurant for Emily’s birthday even though Emily hadn’t liked the restaurant since she was nine years old. Sometimes, Emily thought her mother preferred Emily when she was nine—obedient, sweet, no mind of her own.
But then Emily’s gaze fell on the L Word DVD set on top of the media console. Below it was Finding Nemo, which Mrs. Fields had bought for Emily when she’d returned from Iowa, specifically choosing it because Ellen DeGeneres was the voice of one of the fishes. Her mom had finally come around about everything. What if she turned this down and her mom went back to freezing her out? Emily wasn’t sure if she could take that.
“All right,” Emily conceded. “I guess I can at least go in for an interview.”
“Oh, nonsense.” Mrs. Fields waved her hand. “You’ve already got the job. You’re on the schedule for tomorrow. Saturday’s one of the busiest days at Santa Land, so you’ll be diving right in.” She stood up and wrapped her arms around Emily. “Thank you so much, honey. I knew I could count on you.”
Emily stiffly hugged her back, her mind starting to churn. She’d better get to work on her ho ho hos—it looked like she was going to be Santa, ready or not.
Chapter 3
You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry . . .
The next day, it took Emily almost twenty minutes to find a parking space at the new Devon Crest Mall, a phoenix of marble, steel, elevators, and upscale department stores that had risen from the ashes of the West Rosewood flea market and fairgrounds. When she finally wedged her mother’s behemoth Volvo wagon into a spot at the very back of a garage, it was almost noon, the time she was supposed to report for Santa duty.
She sprinted for the double doors, maneuvered around a group of women with strollers, nearly collided with a woman giving out free samples of some sort of anti-wrinkle skin product, and finally saw Santa Land at the end of the corridor, a vision of giant candy canes, fake snowdrifts, a gingerbread house, and an unoccupied golden throne with a mural of Santa, Mrs. Claus, and his eight tiny reindeer above it. There was already a line of kids waiting on a candy cane–striped carpet. Most of them were sobbing hysterically.