Mrs. Meriwether raised a hand. “I want you four to clean up the inside of the gingerbread house.” She pointed toward it. “A child just vomited in there. And the bathroom toilet is filthy.”
The elves opened their mouths to protest, but Mrs. Meriwether stamped her foot. “Do it,” she said through her teeth. Even Heather cowered back.
Grumbling, the elves stomped toward the gingerbread house. “What I wouldn’t give to not be working today,” Cassie growled under her breath.
“Let’s hope an asteroid hits the mall,” Lola agreed.
“Or at least Santa Land,” Sophie said.
“Can you bring us that for Christmas, Santa?” Heather eyed Emily, acknowledging her for the first time all day.
Emily scratched absently at the red bumps on her arm, her head swirling. Win them over, she heard her mother’s voice say. Do whatever it takes. She stared at the rash on her arm, a thought congealing in her mind.
Placing the SANTA’S GONE TO FEED THE REINDEER sign on the throne, she padded down the candy cane carpet and tapped Mrs. Meriwether, who was puzzling over receipts by the register, on the shoulder. She whipped around and gave Emily a withering stare. “Don’t tell me you’re going to give me trouble now, too.”
“No trouble here,” Emily said. “But I did want to tell you that I just found a bug in my beard.”
Mrs. Meriwether’s eyebrows furrowed. “Let’s see.”
Emily pretended to parse through the silky hair on her chin. “I guess it crawled away.”
“What did it look like?”
Emily pretended to think, then described the ticklike creature she’d read about in the newspaper a few weeks ago. “It was kind of reddish-brown? Oval-shaped? It kind of looked like a beetle, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.”
The color drained from Mrs. Meriwether’s face. “Good Lord. That sounds like a bedbug.”
Bingo. Emily was glad she’d gotten the description right—a department store in Philly had to be fumigated for the creatures, and there was a huge news story about it. She feigned surprise. “You think? Aren’t they, like, impossible to get rid of?”
“Have you taken the Santa suit out of the mall?” Mrs. Meriwether looked furious. “Have you been anywhere that might contain bedbugs?”
“Of course not.” Emily crossed her arms over her chest. “I leave the Santa suit here every night. But now that you mention it, I did notice these.” She rolled up her sleeves to reveal the little red bumps on the insides of her arms. They looked exactly like the bedbug bites a department store worker had shown to a news reporter on TV.
A disgusted gurgle emerged from the back of Mrs. Meriwether’s throat. “Oh good heavens.” She gripped her head. “There are bedbugs at Santa Land! There are bedbugs in the mall!”
Heads perked up. Whispers started. The rumor spread like wildfire, and within minutes, all the families with kids waiting to sit on Emily’s lap had fled the candy cane–striped walkway. Salespeople and shoppers wandered out of Aéropostale and J. Crew and spoke in tight clusters. Everyone started scratching their arms, necks, and scalps. Parents peered carefully at their children’s skin.
A security guard pulled Mrs. Meriwether aside and started talking to her. Soon after, a bunch of men in business suits emerged from a back corridor and strutted over to Santa Land. “I’m Jeffrey Allen, head of operations,” one of them said, sticking out his hand for Mrs. Meriwether to shake. “Did you say you found a bedbug?”
“That’s right.” Mrs. Meriwether pointed to the bumps on the inside of Emily’s arms.
Mr. Allen inspected the bumps carefully, and then conferred with a few of the other executives. Emily caught the words massive fumigation and huge profit loss and maybe there’s some kind of mistake.
“Bedbugs!” a passing mother screeched.
More parents gathered around the execs, wailing that they were going to have to burn all of their clothes and that they were going to sue if their children had bites tomorrow.
“Calm down, calm down,” Mr. Allen said, making a settle down lowering motion with his hands. “I’m calling security right now. The mall will be shut down until tomorrow so we can clean out the problem.”
Minutes later, the jolly Christmas music ceased, and an announcement blared over the loudspeaker that everyone needed to evacuate the mall immediately. Stampedes of shoppers headed toward the exit. As if on cue, the elves emerged from the gingerbread house. “Did I just hear that the mall was closing?” Cassie asked blearily, staring at the people rushing toward the double doors.
“That’s right,” Mrs. Meriwether said in a perfunctory voice. “Get your things. There’s a bedbug investigation.”
Cassie tucked a lock of white-blond hair behind her ear. “But we still get paid for today, right?”