There was a momentary silence.
‘Aye, gies the story,’ said Hari, just as the gaggle of children for story time started to arrive after school.
To her amazement, given not just the short notice but also the debacle which had happened last time, she had another good crowd of children. The girls were neat and tidy in their little kilts; the boys were wearing shorts even in the freezing cold, their bright red and blue socks – depending on their schools – lagging at half-mast.
‘Is this story going to be frightening?’ said Phoebe straight off the bat as they arranged themselves at the front.
‘Sssh!’ said another child.
‘No, I CAN talk actually: that’s MY AUNT.’
Carmen found herself overwhelmingly proud and happy at this.
‘Hello, children,’ she said. She glanced around, noticing a few familiar faces. There were actually more than there had been before.
‘I, like, totally cried SO MUCH,’ one girl of about eight was solemnly telling her friend. ‘It was AMAZING.’
Carmen had briefly glanced at the sheaf of papers she’d printed out at home from Blair’s email when Skylar sidled in, holding up her phone.
‘I’m just going to video it?’ she said. ‘I was going to livestream it, but he’s busy with meetings all day?’
Carmen froze inside. She realised now that this was exactly why she hadn’t mentioned it. Because he wasn’t asking her because she was special or because he couldn’t wait to see her. He was asking because he knew she’d do it, and he knew Skylar would do it too.
And she felt absurd, and tiny and incredibly foolish, and as if Sofia would never do anything like this, and the world’s biggest idiot.
‘So, hi?’ Skylar was talking into her own phone in front of all the children. ‘This is, like, the most exciting thing ever? We’re going to get a sneak preview of thevery first everchildren’s book by Blair Pfenning? It’s like a world exclusive? It’s not even going to be out for a whole year! I know, like,aahhh, OMG, right!’
Carmen looked up in confusion.
‘Okay, off you go!’ said Skylar, still training the camera on herself, with Carmen just visible behind her. ‘This is going to be so amazing, guys.’
Frowning slightly, nervous and wishing she’d done more than give the book a cursory glance, Carmen opened the first page.
‘Now.This is a story about a bear who learns to love himself. At Christmas.And his name was Jimmy, the Sad Christmas Bear.’
The children eyed her suspiciously.
‘Why do bears have to love themselves?’ piped up a small voice. It turned out to be Ramsay’s boy Patrick, even though he was ostentatiously not sitting with the others, and poring over a book about the history of Hornby with Mr McCredie. He frowned.
‘They don’t need to love anything! They just need to take in enough calories to last the winter.’
Carmen cleared her throat.
‘He was often unhappy and he didn’t know why.’
‘Was it because he was a bear?’
‘I’d love to be a bear,’ said another small voice. ‘GGGRRRRRR.’
‘Some days just felt low and grey, not sunny and blue.’
‘Bears can’t see colour!’
Carmen looked at Ramsay, who held up his hands.
‘Patrick, I need some help in the stockroom,’ Ramsay said.
Patrick carefully clambered down from the stool he was on, which was rather too high for him.
