“Happy December First,” everyone shouts back.
“You’ve all been working so hard, and I’m just so darn proud of you. It’s going to be a real push to finish in time but we’re going to get it done, just like we do every year. Have a great time tonight! And tomorrow it’s game on!” Everyone claps and Papa looks around the crowd. “Where’s my Natty? Natty, come up here and say something to the troops.”
It’s the last thing I want, but the elves pull me forward and deposit me next to Papa, who puts his arm around me and looks at me the way he always looks at me, doting and proud. I wipe at the stains forming on the front of my dress. It’s a good thing my dress is the same color as the punch.
Papa beams at me. “Say something, Natty.”
What am I supposed to say? I’m just the boss’s daughter. “Um, merry Christmas,” I say, and everyone claps out of courtesy.
Papa signals to the elf band, who launch into a rousing rendition of “Last Christmas,” my dad’s favorite Christmas song. The elves all think it’s Elvis’s version of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” but I know the truth. Papa loves Wham!
“Dance with your dear old dad, Natty,” he says, taking my hand in his. He leads me in a foxtrot, and I do my best to keep up. I can feel all the elves watching us, feeling sorry for me that I’m here dancing with my dad and not an actual date. “I bet your dance card’s been full all night. Natty, tell me what you want for Christmas.”
I cannot say the thing I want, because it’s the one thing he can’t give me, and that would break his heart. “I haven’t really thought about it,” I lie.
Papa gives me a knowing look and pats me on the shoulder before he twirls me. You’d think I’d know better than to lie to Santa Claus. “Dearest one, if you believe, I think you will get exactly what you want.”
I want to believe. I want so badly to believe.
There are two kinds of children. The kind who believe and the kind who don’t. Every year, it seems there are fewer in the world who do. Papa says it’s not an easy thing to ask a child to believe in what they can’t see; he says it’s its own magic. He says that if you have that magic inside you, you should protect it all your life and never let it go, because once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.
After the song is over, Papa wishes everyone a good night and goes back to his office. I want to follow him and fall asleep by the fireplace watching him go over his Naughty or Nice lists. But I don’t go, I stay in the Great Hall and sway to music and watch everyone else dance. Sondrine glides up beside me and says she likes my dress, which I know she doesn’t, but I say thank you anyway because she’s only trying to be kind. At least I’m not standing alone. Sondrine tells me about a dancing-elf video game they cooked up in the gaming department, complete with nonslip dance pad. At first it was a joke, but then they all got really into it, and now it looks like it might end up under a few kids’ Christmas trees.
But then Roan, a puppeteer elf, asks Sondrine to dance, and she skips off with him, smiling from pointy ear to pointy ear. When I was little, I used to tape my ears to try to get them to point. I was unsuccessful.
Elinor and Flynn are dancing again.
* * *
At lunch in the workshop last week, Elinor asked me, “Who are you going to the Snow Ball with, Natty?”
There was a long silence. And then I said, “No one.”
“Oh,” she said, and there was so much pity in that one little word I couldn’t stand it.
I swallowed a bite of mooseloaf and then I said, “I thought about flying in this boy I know who lives in Sweden, but—”
“Who do you know that lives in Sweden?” she asked.
When I told her the story of yellow-haired Lars and the Swedish candy, her eyes got that squinched look they get when she doesn’t believe you. “Hmm,” she kept saying.
“So why is this the first we’re hearing about him?” Elinor ran her fingers through her silvery hair. “It sounds like you two had a strong connection.”
I bit my lip. “We did have a strong connection. But we—we lost touch. I don’t even have his address anymore.” I never had his address. We were never in touch.
“I think you should find this boy, Natty. See if it’s meant to be.” Then she called out, “Flynn? Would you please look up the address of a Swedish boy named Lars? Aged fifteen to seventeen.” He didn’t answer, so she called out his name again. “Flynn?”
“What?” he said at last.
Sweet as spun sugar, she said, “We need you to look up a boy named Lars from Sweden. Natty, did you say what he asked for? We can cross-reference his Christmas wish with Swedish boys with blond hair named Lars.”
Flynn took off his headphones and pointed at the countdown clock on the wall. Twenty-five days till Christmas Eve. “You guys should get back to work if you want to hit your numbers today.”
“Don’t be such a Scrooge,” she said, and she went over to the computers, and nudged Flynn over, bending over the keyboard. Her silken hair grazed his cheek. “Okay, so I have the year, a first name, hair color, toy, country of origin. Natty, you said he lived by the sea?”
I nodded.
She typed some more. “Hmm. I don’t see anything.”
“Maybe it wasn’t Sweden. Maybe it was Norway. Or Finland. It could have been Finland!” I could hear the note of desperation in my voice, and they heard it too, and it was unseemly.
Elinor straightened up. “I should get back to the BB gun station. Ever since they started showing A Christmas Story on TV all day, it’s all kids are asking for.”
When she was gone, Flynn said to me with a grin. “You made that story up, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t make it up,” I said. “I was telling the truth! And you’re supposed to be my friend, which means you’re supposed to believe me.”
“I am your friend, Natty. And as your friend, I’m telling you, you shouldn’t make up stories anyone can easily disprove.”
“I’m not! There really is a boy named Lars! I don’t know why he’s not in the database, but there has to be an explanation.” I let out a big sigh. “And I wish everyone would stop calling me Natty. My name is Natalie.”
“Sorry. You’re not a Natalie to me. It sounds so … grown up.”