Page 40 of Last Christmas in London

‘Do you think the Parumpapumpums are classing this as a bit of fun?’ Josh said, sarcastically. ‘I think not. They are hard-and-fast fighters, and we must beat them.’

‘Josh took great offence at their punny takedowns,’ Megan reminded me.

‘Sleigh me,’ Josh repeated, breaking the circle. ‘Like they could ever.’

I looked up at Simon, who was grinning and clearly enjoying Josh’s over-the-topness.’

‘£400?’ I said, offering my hand so that he would help me off the floor. He did so with a not-so-polite groan; I’m not that heavy.

‘I told you, if we win, I’ll clear the whole debt.’ He looked at his squashed Christmas pudding and took pains to make it presentable.

‘I think we get new ones,’ I pointed out, correcting the holly atop his pudding, since I was still wearing my elfish gloves.

‘I’m good, I’ve grown very attached to my pudding,’ he teased.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve named this one as well.’

‘Not yet. But how about…’ He thought for a moment, sticking out and biting his tongue as he examined his squashed cake. ‘Puddington Bear.’

Laughing, I moved away towards the race marshal, who was waving his arm to gather us Fab-YULE-Us and the Parumpapumpums together.

To think the first race was competitive. Now that it was only down to two teams, it was like the crowd had become larger, the cheering had become louder, and Josh’s pep talk had got much more aggressive.

The Parumpapumpums continued with their Christmas slurs, all in good jest, of course, but that meant nothing to Josh, who seemed to be in the business of using Christmas puns to genuinely insult others.

‘This is snow laughing matter, we’re going to win!’ one of the Parumpapumpums shouted, to get a cheer from the crowd. These were a group of full-grown, forty-plus men dressed as the three wise men – though there were four of them, which was pissing Josh off even more, as aesthetically they were incorrect.

‘Yeah, get the Elf out of here!’ another called.

Suddenly Simon, who had been quiet after he saw more of his fellow buskers lining up at the sidelines to cheer him on, piped up with ‘We’ll snow you!’

Megan’s and my head turned towards him, like the spinning heads of The Exorcist.

‘He was a good find,’ Megan said to me.

Simon shrugged, once again blushing under his face paint, which had mostly sweated off anyway. I told him he would regret saying he liked his costume.

‘Racers, are you ready?’ the MasterChef winner shouted from their podium to get cheers from the growing crowd. ‘This is for the Christmas crown. On your marks, get set, go!’

Once again, the race began and Josh and Simon shot off, while Megan and I lingered behind all the men. By the time we got to the inflatable slide, it was like the scene of World War Z when all the zombies are climbing up over each other.

I was all for waiting but Megan was in it for the win.

‘Hold my pudding,’ she said, slamming her tray into me as she stepped over the men and clambered up the side of the slide. She made it to the top with ease.

‘Now your turn,’ she said, over the din of the men shoving each other out of the way. I followed suit, handing up the trays before stepping on more than one person’s hand and gracefully falling down the slide with Megan.

I couldn’t see Simon’s lurid green costume in the pile-up, so assumed he got ahead.

‘Let’s go!’ I cried, as the cheering of the crowd spurred me on. We raced around the slalom through the crazy string road and down to a wall of numbers or, as the race marshal shouted at us, ‘Presents!’

We each grabbed a numbered piece of paper from the wall and ran down the street until we saw a man dressed as Santa sitting in the middle of the road with a waiting bag. Each of us plunged the numbered paper inside and ran off, grabbing hold of each other’s hand as we raced to the finish line.

Simon was waiting, cheering, and waving his arms. ‘Come on, girls!’ he shouted. ‘We’ve got this!’

Then, suddenly, Josh appeared from behind me and Megan.

‘For Christmas!’ he shouted, pushing through Megan’s and my linked arms to reach the finish line first, followed swiftly by the two of us. All four of us landed in a pile, puddings forgotten, hugging with screams of joy.