The Christmas Bookshop(72)

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.

‘I’ll need Hari to come too.’

But Hari, who’d been read to since he was little, wasn’t going anywhere, so Patrick marched off behind Ramsay, complaining loudly as Carmen attempted to get back to the story:

‘Please tell me, Mr Fox, why I am so sad?’

‘It is because you need a friend! Like me, the Fox!’

And the Bear and the Fox held hands and went into the woods.

Carmen frowned.

‘Then they met Mr Snake,’ she continued.

‘Is this The Gruffalo?’ came a voice.

‘Ooh, is there a gruffalo?’ came several interested voices.

‘Why am I so sad, Mr Snake?’

Mr Snake uncurled his body.

‘Because you should do some breathing and yoga.’



There was a lot of confusion about this meeting between a bear, a fox and a snake and who would eat who first.

‘So they all did some breathing and yoga,’ read Carmen.

‘Snakes are very good at yoga,’ nodded Skylar.

‘CHOMP!’ shouted the children.

‘I have MUNCHED YOU UP, PESKY SNAKE!’ said one.

‘NO, YOU HAVE NOT, BEAR: I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY LIGHT SABRE!’

‘Okay, guys, settle down. And then Mr Bear, Mr Fox and Mr Snake met Mr Frog.’

‘Why are all these animals boys?’ Phoebe wanted to know.

‘That’s a very good question,’ agreed Carmen, to a disapproving sniff from Skylar, who was still taping.

‘Now we will all think about the beautiful woods and the beautiful sky and the beautiful rivers full of fish,’ said the frog. ‘And we will not be unhappy any more.’



‘Because they eat all the fish?’

‘Sssh,’ said a parent.

‘And they thought about the beautiful woods and the beautiful sky and the beautiful rivers and how they were all friends and then they had a big Christmas party and lived happily ever after with the most important gift of all – loving themselves,’ Carmen concluded.

A ring of faces stared back at her.

‘All the animals love each other?’

‘Yes. Well. I think they’re friends. And they love themselves.’

‘And he doesn’t get any real presents?’

‘But he gets the gift of love,’ said Carmen.

There was quite a lot of arm-folding going on down on the floor.

‘And bears have no concept of co-operation with other species!’ came a distant voice from behind the stacks.

‘Well, wasn’t that was just wonderful,’ said Skylar, beaming into the camera. She turned it on the children, managing not to get Carmen in shot at all. ‘Wasn’t that lovely? Amazing new story by Blair: Jimmy the Sad Christmas Bear. Let’s have a round of applause.’

There was a muted round of applause from the children, not replicated by the mothers who had secretly hoped Blair would be there.

‘Excuse me, bookshop lady?’ came a small voice. It was a little girl with the long pigtails who’d been there before. ‘I think I liked better the one where there was a little girl? And she died? And that was the end of the story.’

‘But it was sad about the bear? And then he played with the other animals and they were all friends?’ Skylar interjected.

‘Meh,’ said the girl. ‘We have a lot of those stories at school.’

‘Was it actually about anti-bullying?’ said another one. ‘All the stories are normally.’

‘AND KINDNESS,’ added a third.

‘Well, kindness is good, isn’t it?’ said Carmen.

‘Sometimes,’ said Phoebe. ‘People say “be kind” when they just mean “shut up”.’

The other girls nodded vehemently.

‘Well, okay,’ said Carmen. ‘Thanks for coming.’