Spirit (Blackwood Security, #10.5) - Elise Noble Page 0,3
heart was in the right place, but the execution left a lot to be desired.
“One at a time. Let’s all act like adults here.”
Said the man carrying a magic wand instead of a laser pointer.
“Knox, do you have a question?”
“How many tiny horses are we talking?”
“The current plan calls for sixteen. But we may need a couple of reserves.”
Why? Was he expecting them to escape?
Evie tentatively raised a hand, no doubt wondering what fresh hell she’d landed herself in. She was new to Blackwood, but since she’d recently got engaged to Cade, one of the guys on my team, it looked as if she’d be sticking around for a while. As long as Bradley didn’t scare her off, anyway.
“Yes, Evie. Go.”
“Uh, this may be a dumb idea, and I’m sure you’ve already thought of this, but it seems to me that you’re really keen to help children and also that Emmy and Black would rather keep the, uh, festivities here to a minimum. So why don’t you pick out some other places to decorate, like a retirement home, or a children’s home, or a community centre? You could take the gifts there too, and maybe even ask what treats their users would appreciate the most?”
That… That was brilliant. Why the heck hadn’t we thought of it before? Bradley would still get to do all his Christmas shit, but he’d be out of our hair, and we could streamline the logistics when it came to distributing the gifts.
“But if we did that, then the folks here would miss out on the full range of celebrations.”
Literally everyone in the room spoke at the same time.
“I don’t mind.”
“We’re good.”
“It’s fine.”
“That’s a great idea.”
Bradley looked slightly taken aback by the volume of support. “But we always do Christmas at Riverley. It’s tradition.”
“Why don’t we start a new tradition?” I suggested. One that didn’t involve wreaking havoc in my bloody house. “We’re lucky to have as much stuff as we do, so why not share Christmas with people who aren’t so well off?”
“But what about the unihorses? And the reindeer?”
“I’m sure the reindeer would rather stay at home than fly halfway around the world to be gawked at by us. And do you know what mini horses do? They piss off into the sunset. Do you want to spend Christmas Day trekking through the forest with a bucket of apple slices?”
“It’s muddy out there. I’d ruin my boots.”
“Exactly. And think how happy you’d make a bunch of strangers if you shared Christmas. Why not spread the joy?”
Bradley still didn’t look totally convinced. “Maybe we should have a vote?”
“Perfect. Let’s do that. Who wants to do Christmas in the community this year?”
Every single hand went up.
“But we have to have a tree here. Where will people put their gifts?”
“Fine, we’ll have a tree. One. And a single gift each. We don’t need any more than that.”
“I’d need to prepare a revised schedule. Assign new tasks to everyone.”
“And I’m sure you’ll do a fantastic job of it.”
“I guess it would be nice to help people. We could put the trees in early and ask people to hang wishing stars on the branches.” Now Bradley was smiling. “And we could adapt the toy factory into a wish fulfilment centre.”
“Trees plural?”
“A retirement home, a children’s home, and a community centre. That’s what Evie said.”
“I think it was an either/or situation.”
Bradley folded his arms and stared at me.
“Okay, okay, three trees.” As long as they weren’t in my house, I could deal with that. “And we’ll help with granting the wishes. Everyone at Blackwood who isn’t involved in a critical project can take a half-day off work to volunteer, how about that?”
I glanced at Black to check he wasn’t annoyed by the suggestion, but he just gave the tiniest shrug.
“Perhaps we should make it a global thing?” he suggested. “I’ll send an email out. Bradley, you can coordinate, can’t you?”
“Every office? That’s a lot of work, and I—”
“If you need to cancel the screening of It’s a Wonderful Life and the advent calendar treasure hunt to free up time, we’ll all understand.”
Well played, Black. Well played.
“But—”
Nate held up his mug of coffee in a mock toast. “Let’s hear it for our official Christmas Coordinator.”
What could Bradley do but take a bow and bask in the applause?
I let out a long sigh of relief, along with everyone else in the room. We’d earned a slight reprieve, and this year, I might even find a little Christmas spirit of the non-alcoholic variety