The Christmas Bookshop(71)

‘That’s okay; bring them in.’

‘Are you sure? I’ll try and not get them to turn the place into a nightmare … ’

‘It’s okay,’ said Carmen. ‘I’m used to kids. Actually, there are lots coming in at about three for a story time.’

‘Oh, cool. Hey, look. I dug this out in a house clearance in Kinross – isn’t it beautiful?’

And he showed her a series of hardback editions of the Winter Tales of the Faeries series, stunningly illustrated with bookplates.

‘I’ve never even heard of these.’

‘Legends from the deep north,’ said Ramsay. ‘To be shared over a yule log, I should think.’

Carmen picked one up entitled The Shining Star, which had the most beautiful raised engraving of a shepherd and a lamb on the leather-bound cover.

‘Oh, this is gorgeous.’

‘Thought you’d like it,’ said Ramsay, looking around. ‘Are you going to skin me again for it? Wow, it’s getting more Christmassy in here every day.’

He beckoned the two boys forward and they stomped in, dinging the bell loudly. The slightly smaller one gasped in awe. The other, who was dressed in a shirt and tie for some reason, looked around in quite a calculating manner.

Mr McCredie materialised beside Carmen.

‘Ramsay,’ he said, wreathed in smiles. ‘What have you been foraging for us today?’ He looked down. ‘And is this … it isn’t … is this Patrick?’

‘Well, of course I am Patrick,’ said the boy.

Mr McCredie looked at Ramsay.

‘You brought him here once when he was a baby! And I have scarcely seen him since.’

‘I know,’ said Ramsay. ‘Things got a little hectic.’

He smiled.

‘Ramsay fell in love with the nanny,’ Mr McCredie helpfully supplied to Carmen.

Carmen smiled.

‘Good money-saving technique.’

To his credit, Ramsay laughed.

‘You’d think,’ he said. ‘Still skint though.’

‘Hello, excuse me?’ said Patrick on his tippy-toes at the countertop. ‘I have some questions about the train set. It is quite a lot of questions. Hari, say hello. Sometimes he forgets to say hello unless I tell him but he is really quite clever. When I help him.’

Hari was a beautiful child, with messy straight black hair and olive skin, and he smiled cheerfully.

‘Hiya,’ he said in a surprisingly deep voice, his accent much thicker than Patrick’s. ‘Ah like your train set, ken.’

‘Well,’ said Carmen. ‘I’m going to be doing a story in a little while – would you like to stay for it?’

Hari looked immediately interested; Patrick less so.

‘I can read for myself perfectly well,’ he announced. ‘I AM nearly seven.’

‘All right, Jacob Rees-Mogg,’ said Carmen, before remembering she was being nice to children these days – everyone’s children. But Ramsay just laughed.

‘Patrick, what did we talk about showing off?’

‘Being able to read is NOT SHOWING OFF!’

And he opened his backpack and pulled out a large paperback.

‘What is he reading?’ asked Carmen.

‘Uh, Teach Your Child to Read,’ said Ramsay.

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 the very first ever children’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!’