Christmas Shopaholic(104)

As we get inside the door, Luke turns to Minnie. “Sweetheart, I need to do some last-minute shopping for Mummy. So in a moment we’ll go out while Mummy puts her feet up and watches a Christmas movie. Sound good, Becky?”

“Sounds great,” I say in heartfelt tones.

I walk into the sitting room and look around at all the festive decorations, lights, and presents, feeling content for the first time in ages. The canceled Christmas is uncanceled. Everything’s OK after all. Maybe I really can put my feet up and relax. And I’m just wondering idly where I left the remote, when something gray flashes past my field of vision.

What?

Surely that wasn’t—

It scuttles past again, and this time I can see it properly and I gasp in petrified horror. A mouse. An actual mouse. In our house? On Christmas Eve?

“Didn’t you get the memo!” I address it furiously. “?‘Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.’ Argh!” I can’t help shrieking as it runs about an inch from my foot. I’m quite freaked out by mice.

At that moment Minnie comes in, and my heart sinks. I really don’t want her going to school and telling everyone we’ve got mice. But too late, she’s seen it.

“Hamper!” she yells, her whole face suffused with joy. “Look, Mummy, a hamper!”

Hamper? I peer at her with a confused frown. What’s she on about?

The mouse scurries near my foot again and I resist another urge to shriek, because shrieking at mice is not feminist.

“Hamper!” Minnie runs after the mouse. “Ham-per! Father Christmas will bring me a hamper,” she adds chattily. “He will bring a hamper in the chimney. Ham-per! Come here!” As the mouse dashes past again, she holds her arms out as though to hug it, while I stare at her, unable to move, her words slowly unraveling in my mind.

Hamper. Not picnic hamper. But hamster. She’s been asking for a hamster, all this time, steadfastly, without swerving. A hamster.

As the frightful truth dawns on me, I feel icy all over. It’s Christmas Eve and the shops are about to shut and only now am I realizing what my daughter wants for Christmas. The number-one nightmare of all Christmas nightmares is coming true.

As calmly as I can, I walk out of the room into the hall—then grab Luke and pull him frantically into the coat cupboard.

“Luke,” I gabble. “Disaster. Minnie wants a hamster for Christmas.”

“A hamster?” He stares at me. “But I thought—”

“I know,” I cut him off desperately, “I know. No time. I’ll go and get one while you take her out. Also, we need to work on this baby talk of hers,” I add—and I see the truth suddenly hit him.

“Shit.” He bites his lip. “Shit. Actually, that’s quite funny.”

“It’s not! Because we don’t have a hamster! At least—you haven’t bought me one, have you?” I add in a gasp of hope, because Luke once joked that he would buy me a hamster for Christmas and call it Ermintrude.

“No, I haven’t, I’m afraid.” Luke looks amused. “Becky, relax,” he adds, putting his hands on my shoulders. “The shops are still open. There’s that pet shop in Ellerton Road.”

“OK,” I say, nodding feverishly. “Yes. I’ll go there. But what if they don’t have one?”

“They will. All pet shops have hamsters. Or shall I get it?”

“No, you can’t! You’re taking Minnie out! She’ll see! I’ll get it. I’m going. Now!”

“Dressed as Mrs. Santa?” queries Luke.

“Now you’re interested in my clothes?” I hurl back at him. “They’re not exactly the priority right now, Luke!”

I grab my phone and bag and leg it to my car. A hamster. I can’t believe it. A bloody hamster.

As I drive to Ellerton Road, my heart is racing. This should not be happening. It’s all wrong. I started Christmas shopping early. I was organized. Buying Minnie’s present was the first thing I did! The first bloody thing! Yet now here I am, racing around on Christmas Eve in a panic, exactly like I didn’t want to be.

I park the car, sprint along the pavement to the pet shop, and stop dead with shock. Closed. Closed. It can’t be closed. How can they close a pet shop on Christmas Eve? What about all the last-minute hamsters?

I rattle at the door, just in case, but I know it’s fruitless. As I turn away, I’m almost gibbering with panic, and an old lady with a shopping trolley looks at me curiously.

“There’s a pet shop in Bickersly, dear,” she says. “Woodford Street. You could try that.”

“Right!” I say. “Thanks!”

I don’t even know where Bickersly is, but I can find it on satnav. I follow a weird route through villages I’ve never seen before and find myself in a small side road with three shops in a tiny parade. One’s called Pete’s Pets, and the lights are on. Thank God, thank God.

As I dash in, I can’t help feeling dubious. The only pet shops I’ve been in before, with Suze, have been large and open-plan and wholesome-looking. This one is staffed by a guy covered with tattoos, who looks like he probably breeds the hamsters for use in satanic rituals. But I don’t exactly have a choice, so I approach him with a polite smile.

“Hello, Mrs. Santa,” he says with a smirk, eyeing my outfit up and down.