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‘That would be amazing.’

‘Then I’ll be there. With the camera crew. And we’ll put the footage on our page, and all the contact details for the organisers.’

Summer made her television debut the next evening, and the emails and phone calls started the next day, and by the weekend there were so many that Nick called an emergency planning meeting. Summer and Linda had been baking all morning, and the little girl was bouncing with sugar and excitement by the time Nick knocked on the door.

‘Hi Nick!’ Summer ran to greet him. ‘Nanny and I made fairy cakes and sausage rolls and cinnamon buns.’

‘Sounds good. Lead me to the treats!’

‘You found us then.’ Jake clasped his best mate’s hand and gave him a quick bro hug before introducing him to Linda.

‘It’s good to see you again, Nick.’ Linda shook his hand, clasping it between both of hers. ‘Thank you so much for everything you’re doing for my girls.’

‘You’re more than welcome. To be honest, I’m kinda enjoying myself.’ He waved to Summer and Evelyn. ‘And this spread looks amazing.’

‘Oh well, it’s the least we could do.’ Linda smiled. ‘Sit, sit. Help yourself and tell us what this meeting is all about.’

‘Yes, you’ve been pretty cagey about everything.’ Evelyn leaned across to help herself to a cinnamon roll. ‘You said it was good, but complicated?’

‘I did.’

Jake rolled his eyes at his friend. ‘All right. Tell them.’

‘We are … at capacity.’

Evelyn pulled a face. ‘What do you mean, we’re at capacity?’

‘We’ve sold out. Every stall at the fete, all the spaces for the carnival floats, every ticket at the Mistletoe Ball. We’ve sold everything.’

‘That’s amazing!’

‘It gets even better.’ Jake knew he was grinning like an idiot, but there was nothing he could do about it, even if he’d wanted to.

‘How can it be better than that?’

‘Because I’ve got at least half as many enquiries again,’ Nick answered. ‘And more coming in. Take a look at this.’ He flipped open his laptop, tapped a few buttons and brought up one of the fundraising threads for Summer’s Christmas.’

Evelyn read a few of the comments aloud. ‘That’s a shame, I really wanted to go.’ ‘More tickets please.’ ‘Great event, great idea, great cause. How can I get involved?’ She scrolled through more comments, her finger blurring on the mouse as her eyes widened in amazement. ‘Is this for real?’

‘It’s real. Did you look at the number of people interested in attending?’

‘No. Where’s that?’

‘Right-hand side of the screen.’

‘Shh … ugar plum fairies and chocolate drops!’ Evelyn’s eyes were round with shock, and Jake had to bite back a laugh. He’d had much the same reaction when Nick sent him the link that morning – only he’d not had to worry about little ears hearing profanities.

‘What is it?’

‘Two thousand seven hundred people have confirmed they’re coming. And another, I don’t believe this’—she took a huge breath—‘another four and a half thousand people are interested. This can’t be right.’

Linda stared at Nick in horror. ‘How is this even possible? How are we going to manage all these people? We can’t have that many people wandering around Broclington. I don’t understand how this happened.’ She shook her head.

‘It was the news report,’ Jake explained. ‘I’m actually trending on Twitter. It’s hilarious.’

‘I’m famous!’ Summer bounced in her seat.

‘Yes you are, munchkin.’ Nick grinned at her.