While Shepherds Washed My Socks Read online

  “Yeah,” he agreed (very, very quietly in case anyone heard).

  Kitty beamed into the crowd, and announced: “The Baby Jesus has arrived – our new King!”

  * * *

  “Harley!” Miss Atherfold was smiling, her hand on Kitty’s shoulder, as all the other Infant kids rushed out of the held-open fire door with their parents, into a chilly fortnight off.

  Kitty didn’t have proud parents ready to receive her though – just me and Zak and glittery Kay as happy compensation. Mum and Harry’d had to work, and dare I say they’d seemed less than interested.

  I smiled back at Miss Atherfold. She was one of my favourite teachers, and had always been interested in my stories and drawings, and there for Charlie to help him come out of his shell, and she’d rooted for Zak with his spelling and depression, and now she was teaching Kitty! It was actually nice to see her seem less jaded than she had done the last few times we spoke.

  “Your sister!” She beamed. “Is born to the stage! This is something I noticed when we were casting – she she’s got the most gorgeous singing voice in the whole choir!”

  I grinned, taking Kitty’s hand. “I know, she’s good; she’s always practising singing and home.”

  “Well it’s good to see she’s got a talent,” said Miss Atherfold, who promptly breezed off.

  I’d never really looked at it that way. It sounds horrible, but if you asked me I’d never have said Kitty was a fantastic singer or dancer or actress. It was utterly mindblowing that she’d managed to remember her lines, but she wasn’t really good for anything else except being cute. Even the actual cuteness was considered debatable by most people who weren’t in our family.

  I nudged Kay. “Hey, d’you think anyone’s gonna send the video of you onstage to You’ve Been Framed thinking you weren’t meant to be there?”

  “Hope so!” She winked, noodling with her wavy hair and reluctantly removing the Jersey-cow turban to reveal her red, gold and green swirly patterned headscarf. “I think I looked quite pretty really.”

  #13 While Shepherds Washed My Socks By Night

  I awoke with a start, an itchy nose, and a very damp sock. Layla was at the foot of my bed, engrossed in licking my toes. I rolled over to shake her off, and found myself nose to fluffy back with Hendrix, so that I couldn’t breathe for fur.

  This was ridiculous! Kitty was snuggled with her cuddly toys across the room, and Aimee hunched in a moody foetal across from her, and as tempting and pink as their bedcovers must have been, both dogs had chosen to seek refuge where I was. It was so hot with two heavy bodies pinning down the duvet that I felt like I was burning up – but I couldn’t kick off the plushy trap without kicking the hairy fairies off too.

  I tried to distract myself from the dog humidity, thinking of things that usually cheer me up (mainly Jordy), but nothing worked. I was just groaning to myself at the fact that so many people out there would’ve killed to wake up next to the “real” Hendrix, when:

  Chink!

  Something hit the windowpane. It cast a fast-moving shadow across the carpet for a second, then disappeared. Another chinked against the window, and then my mind chinked too. Somebody was after attention from one of us, and I was fairly sure that “one of us” wasn’t Kit.

  Dislodging a doglet, I ambled over to the window.

  Nobody was there.

  As I dragged the covers (and obligatory furry blanket) back over me, a watch bebeeped, and Aimee stirred. She hadn’t spotted that I was awake. I watched as she pulled a hideous pastel cardigan around her shoulders, and once accustomed to the dark, managed to apply some mascara in Kitty’s Bratz mirror.

  Another whatever chinked against the window. Aimee let out a muffled squeak of not-readiness and frowned indecisively at her image in the mirror, vainly worried that she didn’t look prom-night perfect in her aptly chosen Little Miss Chatterbox vest-top and shorts set. She pulled on a pair of cotton trackies and tiptoed towards the door. I frowned in the dark as she stepped on my hoodie and therefore my new second-hand mobile, making it bleep! into the silent room.

  The Shepherd vigil was over. Hendy leapt off the bed and sauntered out of the room as she left. Layla padded after him sisterly.

  Why was Aimee sneaking out?

  Who was out there chink!ing the small objects?

  And why oh why were they out there at night?

  “Who’s that?” I heard Harry shout, from the parent bedroom.

  “Me, I wanted a drink,” Aimee replied, from the landing.

  I waited.

  And waited.

  I heard the creak of a floorboard as Harry got out of bed, and the reluctant shuffling of Aimee’s return.

  “I thought you were never coming back,” joked Harry.

  Nervous titter.

  A moment later, Aimee reappeared. She wandered towards my bed, and I thought for one horrible moment that she might be making a mistake about which one to get into. She turned, hovered for a minute, and disappeared into the wardrobe.

  Ben! I thought Aimee’d split with him last month – possibly, but not entirely, because I’d overheard a dodgy-sounding conversation and made them feel awkward. A dodgy conversation, as a consequence of which (if I’d not been too delirious from lack of sleep) they’d reassured me that they were not in a sexual relationship at the time.

  At the time. Well, it wasn’t as if I wished to perve further. My stepsister was welcome to her stupid sixteen-year-oldness.

  #14 Dog Pee & Zoflora

  Harry finally went to get the tree on the morning of the eve of Crimby Eve.

  I’d tried explaining that you need to have bought one sooner for it to be worth the money – it’s got to be down by the 12th day or something, or else you get bad luck. Not that I’m superstitious (Kay is, but not about that – her room is like that all year round if she can help it at all), but I had wanted to get the halls decked sooner rather than later, to shift my winter grump.

  Kitty made a huge fuss about being allowed to ride up in the car with him, even though it meant getting covered in pine needles, because legally she’s meant to sit in a child car-seat, and you can’t fit one in the van Harry’s mate was going to lend for a hassle-free tree-shopping trip.

  We’d spent lunchtime pinning old decorations on a lopsided tree (the best Harry could find with less than two days until Santa Night), and trying to get the fairy-lights to work. In the end we had to go next door and ask Eileen if she had any bulbs that fitted these really old strings of lights. She turned it into an age joke, and Harry didn’t know where to look. Eileen is not one bit old for an adoptive grandparent…

  Zak and Charlie wore the baubles as earrings, and because they were old and glass, shattered half the set. We had to go next door again, to ask Kay if she knew where to buy Christmassy decorations on the cheap. Eileen answered and took it as a budget joke. Again, Harry didn’t know where to look. Eileen is not one bit poor – she belongs to a three-person family unit living in a five-bedroom house.

  We tried eighteen times to stop Hendy peeing on the tree. In the end we had to get the baby gates out of the box-room several months earlier than anticipated, and place them around the tree so it was caged in like the one in the town centre to keep our own doggy vandals off. Bet Harry was just glad that we hadn’t had to go next door and ask Eileen if we could borrow a tree from her perfect garden…

  Then we discovered that we didn’t have a star or a fairy for the tree. The tinfoil stars that me and Charlie and Zak made in our respective Year One classes had gone in the bin after Kitty brought hers home last year only to find them all crumpled and ripped beyond repair when unfunnily enough, Hendy (newly adopted at the time) had peed on and knocked over that tree too. We should’ve gone next door to ask if we could trade dogs and have their relatively tame crimson-dipped border collie Bilbo for the holidays.

  I slipped round Kay’s for some peace, and a smidgen of advice on the sisterly present front. Time was running low. As it happened, she’d ma
de a batch of interdenominational fairy/angels for the church Crimby fair, and still had some left over. The nicest-looking one immediately went onto the tree, and we decided to walk the dogs and go for another rummage in the charity shops.

  I nipped to the kitchen to fish some poo-bags out of the cupboard. When I wandered back into the lounge with the leads, I was not prepared for the scene that met my eyes: Hendy was running around the room like a mad thing listening to The Madness, with the fairy I’d just plonked on the tree attached to what you might call the back of his thigh; Layla was skidding about the floor, peeing excitedly; Fisty and Misty were trapped under the tip-top part of the tree which was lying on the floor, baby gates entirely dismantled.

  Speaking of dis-mantel-ig things, the Christmas card collection from the mantelpiece was spread liberally around the carpet, and Fred was contentedly napping through the whole drama in the armchair that Harry had commandeered no sooner than he first set foot in our home.

  Moments later, Aimee reappeared from the Cox residence (she’d been in Ben’s room around the time I was getting my fairy), saw the state of our living room, and promptly exploded:

  “Daaaaaaaaad!! Saaaaaandiiiieeee!”

  Since somebody else was about to clear up (and rant about) the mess, I decided that there’d never been a better time for a walk – after I’d detached the fairy from Hendy’s bum, of course…

  * * *

  The prezzie-hunting idea all but went out the window when I found out what Kitty had done. In the spirit of merriness, she’d hand-scribbled a Christmas picture for Harry to surprise him in his study – it was just a pity she’d glitter-glued it to the desk, where he couldn’t miss it.

  So great. I’d hugely diminished my chances of finding the perfect gift for my sister by trying to separate all the household excitables. If it hadn’t been for Kay, I dread to think how things would’ve worked out.

  By the time we got into the town centre, the public decorations were all lit up. The sun hadn’t yet gone down, so it was coming to the most nostalgic time of day for me. I thought about when we were little and used to be heading back from Saturday shopping with Mum around this time – Zak was in the pushchair, and Kitty was in Mum. It would start to get dimmer out, and the lights would be all the shinier for it. This I anticipated privately, as Kay rambled on about how she hoped to be a grotto elf next year when we’d be fourteen.

  Kitty had just reached the stage where she realised that the Santa we saw in the shopping centre wasn’t really Santa – in her head, it was all figured out. Father Christmas hired people to pretend to be him at the shops because he had to conserve his energy for Christmas Eve.

  “I’ll mind the dogs while you do Woolies,” offered Kay, reaching out to take the two other leads from me. She was ambitious to suggest that she could keep Hendy, Layla, Fisty and Bilbo from interfering with each other, but I didn’t have much choice.

  “Alright. Kitty, you stay with Kay for a mo.”

  “But I wanna go to Woolies!”

  “Well I’m going on my own,” I told her.

  “Because you’re buying my present!” Kitty accused, although she had no way of knowing who her Secret Santa was.

  “Don’t be a daftie,” I said, ruffling her hair. “No one leaves it this late to do Christmas prezzies.”

  “Then why can’t I come?”

  “Because you’d tell everyone…” I tailed off. That tack wasn’t going to work, because I’d already said I wasn’t buying presents of any sort. “Because… fine, but you have to go and look at the toys.”

  I had a plan. By getting her into the toy aisle, she’d have to stop believing I was looking for something for her. Not to mention how obsessed she’d got with independence.

  “Really? On my own?”

  “Yeah, it’ll be fine.”

  It was fine. I was stalking her the whole way, from behind a lady with a double buggy. I watched as she rifled through the Pokémon plushies and mini baby born doll display. It sure looked less exciting than it had way back when I was her age. I caught myself wondering if I was grown up or just jaded, and then only felt worse as I noticed the price tags on these things. What was she imagining she’d unwrap on Crimby morning?

  She’d gone on about how Emily asked Santa for the standard talking puppy and Beanie Baby stuff, and Jade wanted only Bratz things, and Kayleigh’s family were going to Center Parcs (brr?), and Amber was getting riding lessons. All of these families had more money than we did, and while I wanted to count on Harry, this year Zak’s precocious prezzie search had turned up nothing for anybody. I could just picture the heartbreak if my measly present was all she got to open. The heartbreak and the screaming.

  I ducked back out of the aisle and headed for the till displays. There had to be some sort of stocking filler selection that I could scrape with my five pounds. I’d already picked up a peeling tiara from Mind that said “Glamorous Girl” in foil writing, and I kind of regretted that because I probably could’ve afforded one of the items Kitty was eyeing if I hadn’t bothered with it. What could I get for a fiver?

  Lucky bags and sticker books! Kitty loved that sort of thing. I readily recalled the good old days when we’d unwrap crinkly Trixie packets with cutout dolls and sweets inside, and how Charlie would moan because he wasn’t interested in Spiderman or Man U, and Zak would try to put everything in his mouth because he saw us eating the sweets. I didn’t have high hopes of Kitty managing a cutout doll, but at least the sticker book was more straightforward.

  I made my way down the long queue, paid, and dove outside to leave my bag with Kay. Then I went to look for Kitty. It didn’t take me long.

  “Where were you?!” she demanded, traumatised, from behind a till on the far side of the shop.

  “I was right here watching-” Ugh. That wouldn’t wash. The mumsy-looking cashier seemed to have been waiting a while. “Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  Kitty scowled and exited the till, taking my hand so violently that my shoulder was nearly dislocated. “You’re a horrible cow!” she shouted, as we walked out of the shop. “I wish Devon was my sister and not you!”

  “You’re not allowed to say that,” I grumbled. “And put the Mudkip teddy back.”

  “Lady said I could have it.”

  I didn’t dare go back and ask, so we walked briskly away down the high street. Fab. Now some random till woman had upstaged my Christmas presents and obviously muttered to my sister about what a terrible guardian I made.

  “What’s got in your crop top?” sniggered Kay, who sounded like she’d been waiting since the summer to say that to someone.

  “Oh, apparently I’m a ‘horrible cow’ for leaving Kitty unattended like she wanted. It was only for a minute, and I was mostly watching.”

  “Oh, Harley, melodrama!” she tutted back, as if all of this was my fault. “You make such a big deal out of nothing. And Kitty, that’s not a very nice thing to say, now, is it?”

  Kitty shrugged.

  “See? I don’t think she even knows what that means.”

  Really, Kay? My sister may have been a bit behind on her life skills and coordination, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with her vocabulary. What seven year old doesn’t gather the significance of “cow”, and especially “horrible” as an insult?

  Kay handed me two of the leads, and with a heavy sigh added, “Kitty, say you’re sorry.”

  Behind Kay’s back, Kitty blurted, “I’m sorry I didn’t know!” and stuck her tongue out at me, before detaching her hand and rushing to her side instead.

  * * *

  We walked the whole way home together but not together. I had to stay in a huffy silence, because nothing I wanted to moan about was appropriate for Kitty’s ears, and the pair of them gossiped about everyone else’s Christmas lists about as insensitively as possible, considering how poor I’d been in Primary school. Not that, I supposed, either of them quite grasped the fact.

  Blinky-bulbed snowflakes and holly wreaths and
fir trees adorned the lampposts, and now past closing time it should’ve been relaxing or exiting or just plain attractive like yesteryear. I wanted to be anywhere but 2006, and I didn’t have any faith that when in a week that wish would be granted, much would get better. For the first time in my life, I truly felt the stress of Christmas, and I wanted it to be over about as badly as I’d ever wanted anything.

  Mum and Harry were off in their own little world, failing to acknowledge much about the season that wasn’t an excuse to be lovey-dovey and stupid together. Aimee and Ben were what I imagined to be worse, only I was mostly saved from it by their holing up next door, and left to wonder about how it would be to have a boyfriend at Christmas. The embarrassing Crimby moments column in Mizz romanticised mismatched gifts and farts at the family dinner table as pretty perfect compared to what I had to look forward to.

  To make matters worse, Aimee had convinced herself that Kay and I were stalking her and Ben, as if we had no better reasons to hang out at each other’s houses when they were. Zak was beside himself with excitement about the console Harry had probably forgotten to buy him, and Charlie had trodden on a snail and gone back to being as cheerless as Neil from The Young Ones at a funeral. But as Kitty fascinated over the Christmas lights, I couldn’t help realising something which should’ve been plainly obvious all along. At the age of thirteen, we’d already forgotten how amazing everything is through the eyes of a little kid. We’d been none the wiser when our presents came from charity shops, and yet we were allowing trends and technology to tell us what the minimum standard was – not our own specific sister.

  Once back in our street, Kay passed me the extra dog and Woolies bag, and disappeared into her house. Kitty had perked up, and didn’t seem to understand why I wouldn’t have. I unlocked the front door and was hit by the smell of dog pee and Zoflora, which with the heating cranked up like Aimee liked, could be detected from as far from the living room as my bed. Against my better judgement, I crept through the wardrobe and lay down on Kay’s bed with a chemically induced headache.

  Kay came back from tea and offered some sarcastic words of consolation. “Look, I’m sorry you’re stressed, and I didn’t mean to be so jolly.”