Fraud at Snowfields Read online

  Finally Mr Rupert ended the prolonged breakfast and sent them home. Will said good-bye to his friends and went home on the school bus. When he got off together with Henry, who lived a few houses down the road, he wished him a Merry Christmas and went home. He opened the door and entered the hall.

  ‘Hello! I’m back!’ he called.

  ‘Hi, dear. I’m in the living room,’ his mother called back.

  Will put down his rucksack, took off his jacket, and went into the living room.

  ‘Hi Mum. Breakfast was great, very Christmassy. It really put me in the mood for the holidays. By the way, when will Dad be home?’

  ‘It’s a normal working day for him, so not before five, as usual,’ his mother replied.

  ‘Then he wouldn’t want to put up the Christmas tree today, would he?’ Will grinned.

  ‘No, I don’t believe he’ll be in the mood for it this evening.’

  ‘Well, tomorrow is only the twenty-third, so I guess it’s early enough.’

  ‘How gracious of you.’ His mother raised one eyebrow.

  ‘I sometimes have my moments.’ Will answered cheekily.

  They both laughed.

  ***

  The next morning Will took advantage of the fact that it was the first day of the school holidays and slept until ten o’clock. Finally he got up and went down for breakfast.

  ‘Hey, sleepyhead!’ his sister called when he went into the kitchen.

  Will just grinned and replied, ‘I’m sure you only got up ten minutes before me.’ He looked at her pointedly. ‘You’re even still wearing your pyjamas.’

  His sister turned slightly red. ‘So? They’re comfy,’ she replied, and busied herself with her cereal. Will laughed. He sat down and grabbed the cornflakes. After he had munched through them, he went into the living room. ‘Morning, Dad.’

  ‘Good morning, Will.’ His father looked up from his newspaper, smiling. ‘Ready to go and get the Christmas tree? Come on then.’

  Will did not need to be asked twice. He followed his father to the shed where the tree had been kept for the last few days so it would stay fresh in the cold. They picked up the tree, still packed tightly in a net, and brought it inside, where they placed it in the stand in the usual corner of the living room. Then Will held the tree, trying to keep it straight, while his father was lying on the ground twiddling around with the screws of the stand to get the tree standing upright.

  After some grunting his father declared, ‘Okay, it’s fast now.’ He got up and stepped back a few feet to look critically at the tree. ‘Let’s see if it’s straight.’

  But despite their best efforts, it was not.

  His father sighed again. ‘Every year it’s the same. Why can’t they invent a stand that’s easy to use and will get the tree straight? Always this fiddling about with those stupid screws.’

  Resigned he ducked under the tree again.

  ‘Okay, Will. I’ll loosen the screws, and you’ll hold the tree once more.’

  They went back at it.

  ‘Well, it’s fast again. Let’s see...’ His father got up.

  ‘Hmm. That doesn’t look too bad. What do you think, Will?’

  Will stepped away from the tree and looked at it critically.

  ‘Yes, I think it’s good. It’s straight. It looks good.’

  ‘Okay,’ his father said, ‘then it’s your turn.’ He smiled and turned away from the tree.

  ‘No,’ Will disagreed, ‘not yet, actually.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You’ve got to put the lights on it first,’ Will said, and grinned at his father.

  His father groaned exaggeratedly. ‘Oh no, I forgot. That’s even more fuss than that stupid tree stand.’

  Will laughed and whined, ‘Ooooooh, please, Daddy. Let’s have a tree with lights this year, ooooh, please!’

  His father shot him a scathing glance. ‘Get those lights, you plonker!’

  Laughing, Will went and fetched the lights from the next room. They had brought them down from the attic already with the rest of the Christmas decorations at the beginning of December. He laid the lights out on the floor and sorted them so they were lying in a straight line without knots in the cable. Then he inspected the single lamps and changed the ones that were broken. After everything was sorted out, he nodded in satisfaction and handed the chain to his father, who placed them on the tree. He had to correct their positions several times until he had distributed them evenly and finally was satisfied.

  Will watched from the sofa. His father turned to him. ‘Well, Christmas fanatic? What do you think?’

  ‘It looks great!’ Will beamed nearly as brightly as the lights on the tree shone.

  His father laughed. ‘Good.’ And he fixed the lights securely in their positions. ‘Okay son. Now it’s definitely your turn.’

  ‘Sure!’

  Will went looking for his sister Lucy. He found her in the kitchen with their mother, helping her cook lunch.

  ‘Oh, here you are. Do you want to help decorate the tree?’ he asked her.

  ‘No!’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘You can do that boring work on your own. Not that you would mind anyway.’ She laughed.

  ‘No. Actually I like it, as you well know.’ Will smiled.

  ‘Have fun. We're busy.’ His sister waved him away.

  ‘I definitely will,’ he called back over his shoulder while he left the kitchen. He heard his mother laugh, but he did not know whether this was because of his last remark or because of something Lucy had said. He suspected the former, but hurried back into the living room.

  He looked at the tree once again: so pure at the moment, with just the lights bathing it in a soft, golden glow. After he had looked at it for a while, he went back into the adjoining room and fetched the boxes with the tree hangings and decorations. There were so many, he had to go several times. After he had them all in the living room, he opened them and spread out the smaller boxes and bags that were inside, containing the different ornaments, toppers, baubles, tinsel, garlands, and everything else. He arranged them around the room so he could see them all and could choose the ones he wanted.

  While he was doing this, he did not notice that his father, who was sitting at the table again, looked up from his paper from time to time and smiled, seeing how much pleasure Will was getting out of his work. Unaware of this Will unconsciously hummed carols under his breath while he rummaged through the boxes and bags, trying to choose exactly the right ornaments.

  Like every year he had already started a month earlier to plan what the Christmas tree should look like. He had decided on a traditional tree this time, mainly in red, with big baubles, some wooden ornaments, rich bows, crimson faux fruit, and some silver tinsel. All in all he did not want to put too much decoration on it, but did want to use fewer and larger pieces, and keep it rather plain but stylish. He selected the biggest red baubles and arranged them around the tree. Then he added some smaller ones. After that he selected a few bells with fine, silver designs on them, and placed them between the baubles. Next came wooden ornaments like angels, small sleighs, and bright parcels.

  Will stopped after he had arranged the wooden ornaments around the tree. He stepped back a few paces to have a look at what he had done so far. He looked at the tree critically from different sides and found several flaws that definitely needed correction. So he stepped up to the tree again and relocated those ornaments that did not please him yet. He next placed red bows on the tree, followed by the fruit. Finally he put strands of tinsel here and there, and stepped back to examine the tree again. He looked at it from different angles, walking here and there. He nodded, picked up a few red baubles in the form of birds, with silver decoration and silver tail feathers, and added them to the tree. Finally he walked over to his father, who looked up from his newspaper.

  ‘I’m finished!’ Will declared.

  His father nodded gravely, got up, and went over to the tree, having a good look at it.

  ‘We
ll done,’ he said finally. ‘That looks really good. Nice and traditional, all in red as it is. And it isn’t so overburdened as the ones you the see in the shops and malls these days. I like it! Good work.’ He smiled at Will.

  Will beamed. ‘Do you think we should add a topper?’ He eyed the tree.

  ‘Hmm…. No, I like it as it is. It looks more natural without one. No, don’t put one on it.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ Will said.

  Just then his sister came into the living room.

  ‘Well, how... Oh.’ She interrupted herself in mid-sentence and stopped right where she was. ‘Why, it’s beautiful,’ she said finally, still gazing at the tree. ‘Very nice, brother dear.’

  ‘Why, thank you, sister dear,’ Will said half mockingly, but he had to grin when he heard this unexpected compliment.

  ‘No, I mean it!’ said Lucy, looking directly at him. ‘It’s really very nice—nearly the perfect Christmas tree. It shows taste,’ she added a bit grudgingly.

  Now Will really was surprised. Was this his sister talking to him? Praising him?

  Lucy looked at the tree again. Finally she turned away and headed back for the door. ‘Beautiful,’ she said not quite under her breath, but Will was quite sure that she had not meant him to hear it.

  ‘Oh.’ Lucy turned round just before she reached the door. ‘I actually came to see how far you had got, and to tell you lunch will be ready in twenty minutes—well, fifteen now.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Will said. ‘I’m nearly ready. I just have to clear away the boxes.’

  Lucy nodded and left.

  Will packed the smaller cartons back into the bigger cardboard boxes and took them into the adjoining room. Then he and his father went into the kitchen, and they all had lunch.

  ***

  Later in the afternoon, they all sat together again, drinking tea. Will enjoyed some of the delicious Christmas biscuits they had baked just the other day, while his mother leafed through the Christmas cards they had received that morning. She selected one of them and put the others aside.

  ‘Listen to this one,’ she told them. ‘Merry Christmas, hope you are fine and so on... then this: Kids like our clever Ken enjoy new books, reading interesting new knowledge!’ she read from the Christmas card.

  Christmas was, unfortunately, also the time when you heard things like this, thought Will. It was not too hard for him to guess who had sent this card, even if she had not mentioned Ken in the sentence. Only Aunt Peggy would write something like that on a Christmas card—always looking for yet another way to praise her prince-son Ken, who was, in Will’s opinion, just a stupid, oafish git who always pestered his doting parents. He enjoyed a joke nearly two minutes after everybody else, of course, and only if it was not too witty. One could say Will did not like Ken. The ‘books’ his aunt referred to probably had titles like Where Is My Cow?, Harry the Hare and His First Day at School, and Billy the Badger Goes Shopping. He shook his head.

  On Christmas Eve they were all together in the living room. Will’s mother and his sister sat on one side of the corner sofa, Will on the other side. His father was in the armchair. They played a board game and then chatted for a while, talking easily and, on the whole, enjoying a nice, quiet evening together in front of the magnificent Christmas tree. It was getting late, so finally Will and Lucy got up to go to bed. Their parents stayed up a while longer and finished the bottle of wine.

  ***

  Will opened his eyes. He saw it was already light. Immediately he realised it was Christmas Day! He looked at the alarm clock next to his bed: 9:17. Definitely time to get up. He jumped out of bed—something he only did once or twice a year, and certainly not on a school day—and, still in his pyjamas, bounded down the stairs and into the living room. There he saw his stocking hanging from the mantelpiece. It was full to the brim! When he went over to examine it more closely, he saw he was not the first to be there. His sister was already sitting in front of the fireplace, also still in her pyjamas, and had the contents of her stocking lying all around her. His parents were sitting at the table, his father leafing through a magazine, his mother drinking Christmas tea. Will could smell it from where he was standing. Both were smiling at their children.

  ‘Good morning, Will,’ his mother said. ‘I hope you slept well.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ he replied, and added, ‘Morning, Dad.’

  ‘Good morning, Will. It seems to me that Father Christmas was quite generous this year.’

  ‘Yes, it seems so.’ Will looked yearningly at his stocking, which was threatening to tear itself loose from the mantelpiece, it was so full and heavy.

  His mother laughed as she saw this. ‘Go on then!’

  ‘Morning, Sis,’ he said to Lucy as he hurried past her.

  ‘Morning, Will,’ she said, her attention focused on her presents.

  Will reached the mantelpiece and carefully took down his full stocking. He went over to a clear space on the carpet, where he got down on his knees and emptied his stocking, carefully pulling the presents out one at a time. When he had emptied the entire stocking, he had four small parcels, one large Father Christmas figure made out of chocolate, several chocolate coins, and a few other bits and pieces lying in front of him.

  He carefully opened the presents. In the first parcel he found a book he had wanted very much for the last few months. The other parcels also contained things he had wished for and had put in his letter to Father Christmas (out of habit he still wrote them every year although he would never have admitted it). He looked up and saw his parents watching him and smiling.

  His mother said, ‘Well, are you happy? Got everything you wanted?’

  ‘Yes! That’s great! Exactly what I wanted.’

  His mother’s smile became even broader. ‘And what about you, Lucy?’ There was no answer. ‘Lucy?’ Will’s mother called louder. ‘Lucy?’

  ‘Hmm?’ Lucy slowly raised her head. ‘What?’

  Will’s mother laughed. ‘I asked you whether you are happy with your presents.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lucy beamed. ‘Yes! They are marvellous!’

  Will’s mother laughed again. ‘That’s fine then.’

  Will’s father laughed too.

  Will and Lucy were occupied with their presents, and their parents quietly enjoyed their tea. Soon it was lunchtime, and they sat down at the table to enjoy their traditional Christmas meal. In the afternoon they gathered around the Christmas tree and opened the larger presents Father Christmas had placed underneath it.

  Later in the evening, Will lay in his bed, thinking happily about his presents and the pleasant day he had had with his family. Just before he drifted off to sleep, he could not help but think again about how some of the presents had seemed more grand or more to the liking of the one who received them than would have been possible if they had just been bought in a shop. So perhaps it was Father Christmas who had brought these presents after all...

  Chapter 2

  On Boxing Day Will slept quite late and it was well past eleven when he finally got up. He washed and got dressed, then he went downstairs. Halfway down he saw his father coming out of the living room.

  ‘Morning, Dad’, he said brightly and then he noticed the odd look on his father’s face.

  ‘Yes, morning... Morning,’ his father said, seeming a bit preoccupied. ‘Er, I was just going to get you, in fact. We’ve got a visitor who wants to speak to you.’

  Will was surprised by the mysterious expression on his father’s face while he said this. ‘A visitor? Today? And he wants to see me? A relative or what? Maybe Aunt Peggy?’ He feverishly hoped it was not her.

  His father shook his head. ‘Oh, no. No, it’s not a relative. Not at all...’

  Will was really curious by then, especially as he saw his father’s puzzlement. ‘Who is it then?’

  His father scratched his head. ‘The answer to that is not quite so simple. It’s best if you just have a look yourself.’

  Now it
was Will’s turn to shake his head. Why could his father not simply tell him who this visitor was? He opened the door to the living room, by then bursting with curiosity. He saw his sister sitting at the table, staring wide-eyed at their guest. His mother was sitting on the couch and talking to the visitor. She interrupted herself and looked up as Will walked into the room. Her face held an odd expression, similar to Will’s father’s. But Will did not really look at her. He gazed at the visitor. And indeed it was one of the weirdest persons he had ever seen in his life.

  The stranger wore green-coloured trousers, a green shirt, a brown waistcoat, and a bright-red overcoat. He was looking at Will, and Will saw he had sparkling green eyes. His face had a merry look, and tiny wrinkles at the corners of his mouth and eyes suggested he laughed quite often. He started to smile when he saw Will, and then he got up in a fluid movement, extending his hand and walking over to him.

  ‘Will! Will Burns! How nice to meet you. I want to wish you a very merry Christmas’, he said, grinning and shaking Will’s hand vigorously.

  Will noticed his own mouth had somehow fallen open, and so he quickly said, ‘Er, thank you very much, Mr, er... Sorry, but who are you?’

  The man held up his hand. ‘My fault, my fault. My name is Conrad Chevalier, but please just call me Corny, like everybody else.’

  ‘Mr Chevalier came in this morning, and he said he has important things to talk to you about.’ His mother had got up and was standing next to Will, a proud smile on her face. ‘Your dad and I were a bit surprised when he knocked on the door, but what he wants to talk to you about is really stunning. It took a bit of persuasion for us to believe it.’