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The look of horror she flashed me was worse than my dad’s reaction to the online banking. You’d think I’d just suggested that she sacrifice her firstborn. Hold on, that was me, so scratch that. She looked as though I’d just suggested that she sacrifice her second born.

“I’m not getting WhatsApp. It’s used by terrorists.”

“Pardon?”

“I read it in the paper. It’s encrypted, so terrorists use it for their nefarious deeds.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t think terrorists would be that interested in what your new coffee venue is going to be.”

She shot me a withering look, as if I were completely dense and of course the switch from Coffee Break to Coffee Time was of the utmost importance to villainous groups across the land. She continued searching through her emails. I looked up and realized that Dad had added a bowl of individually wrapped Christmas sweets to the collection of sustenance on the little round coffee table next to me. I sipped my tea patiently.

“Aha!” Mum said. She swiveled the laptop around and I skimmed the email thread.

“I can’t see anything about someone named Felix, Mum,” I murmured, reading through all the comments from her friends about arrangements for their Christmas get-​together.

She huffed impatiently. “No, no. Here,” she said, pointing to the subject line of the original email.

I raised my eyebrows. “It says ‘Feliz Navidad.’ ”

“Yes! Who on earth is that?”

“It means ‘Happy Christmas’ in Spanish, Mum.”

“Eh?”

“Marjorie’s son lives in Spain, remember? She wrote this email from his house. See here, she says she’ll be back in time for the Christmas get-​together.”

“Ohh, I see,” Mum said, swiveling the laptop back around to scrutinize it, as if I was lying. “Well, that explains it, then.”

She closed the laptop with a satisfied look on her face, her blue eyes reflecting a sense of contentment. No “Sorry for making out it was something urgent when it was a total load of nonsense” or anything.

I let out a sigh and set about demolishing the small meal Dad had gathered on the table beside me.

*

By the time I got home, I was so stuffed I knew that I wouldn’t need any dinner. Every time I thought I’d made a dent, Dad would bring out a plate of something else. I ended up making my excuses and rolling out of there while the going was good.

It was only once I pulled onto my street that I remembered my plan to go over to Kerr’s to apologize, and my heart sank. However, it lifted when I spotted that his Santa was upright and blowing happily in the wind again. He’d fixed him!

A rush of relief brought a smile to my face. But Santa was now sporting a black X made from duct tape over his heart, which caused my guilt to spiral again.

I pulled into my drive, resolving to go over there and make my apologies before I went into my house. Once inside, I might not feel like coming out again.

I closed the car door and was about to head down the driveway when something strange caught my eye. What was going on with my reindeer? For a moment I wondered if they could have been moved by the wind, but then I took a step down the driveway and the shift in perspective made me realize—​they had been rearranged. Brought closer together so it looked like the three of them were . . . mounting one another. In a threesome.

My reindeer were humping on my front lawn!

Mortified, I darted my gaze up and down the street to see if anyone was around. Had anyone seen this? What would Archie and Morag think? And PTA Sally? I quickly set to work un-humping them and dragging them back to their previous positions. It ended up being more difficult than it first seemed, because the culprit had gone to the trouble of tying them together with cable. I had to go into the house and bring out a pair of small shears in order to separate them.

Once I was done, I was sweating and panting and really pretty mad with Kerr, who was no doubt the perpetrator behind this reindeer mating crime. I shot an angry look over at his house, sure that he must be watching me from one of the darkened windows. I very nearly set out to read him the riot act, but then I remembered that I really didn’t have a leg to stand on, given my act of Santa vandalism last night. I stood in the driveway, unsure of what to do. My desire to go over there and apologize was fast waning. But I still felt like I should probably do it.

Just then my phone buzzed and I lifted it out of my pocket. It was a message from Aisha.

Oh my God! What did you do to your poor reindeer?

I frowned in confusion, typing out a reply:

What do you mean? How did you know about the reindeer?