’TIS THE SEASON

He sees you when you’re sleeping,

He knows when you’re awake.

He knows if you’ve been bad or good,

So be good for goodness sake!

—J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie,

“Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”

The week leading up to Christmas was full of the noise and fun and shopping that is like no other time of the year.

Carolers sang joyously on street corners, whole streets of houses were festooned with thousands of tiny lightbulbs, and children sat fearfully on Santa’s knee in the shopping malls and asked for outrageous gifts like ponies and spaceships and magic rings that could make them fly.

Shops promised pre-Christmas sales, large corporations sponsored nighttime light shows and drew Santa’s sleigh on the clouds in colored laser light.

Drivers and shoppers alike grew increasingly irritable as stressed-out motorists and frazzled parents gesticulated at each other over places in motorway queues, or parking spaces, or the last stock of a special-priced toy.

In other words, the year progressed just like those that preceded it, and apart from the occasional slightly disturbing news report from the north, life was pretty good.

To Tane, Rebecca, and Fatboy, it all seemed like sheer insanity.

         

The man in the Santa suit glanced casually over at Tane again. Too casually. For the third time.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said to Rebecca, who was comparing the component numbers on some electrical parts with the list that Fatboy had given them.

Fatboy was still circling the block. He had given up looking for a space after half an hour of trying. Kmart had a sale on and there wasn’t a free parking space this side of Western Springs.

“But we haven’t got the capacitors yet.” She frowned, running her finger along a row of small, labeled plastic bins.

“Santa Claus has been watching us for the last five minutes.”

Rebecca looked around at the man, who quickly looked away. “Might be a store detective. The way you’re acting, I’d be watching you too.”

“A store detective in a Santa suit?” Tane took a deep breath and tried to calm down. It didn’t help. A police car went past outside with its siren crying, and he accidentally knocked over an entire stand of Dummies books. He picked them up quickly, before the sales assistant could come and help.

Santa was watching them again, Tane realized, half hidden on the other side of a circular stand of electronics magazines. He was curiously thin-faced for a Santa, who was usually a chubby, jovial fellow. This Santa had a scar above one eye, not quite masked by the stuck-on bushy eyebrows. He looked like a spy in a Santa costume. Or a hired killer. Or a soldier.

“He’s still got his eye on us,” Tane whispered, covering his mouth with his hand in case Santa could read lips.

“You’d better watch out,” Rebecca said quietly.

“What? Why?” Tane hissed urgently.

“You’d better not cry…”

“Cry?” Tane stared at his friend in confusion.

“Got it,” said Rebecca, picking up a couple of small metal objects out of a plastic tray. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Cry?” Tane asked again.

Rebecca laughed gaily and sang in Tane’s ear, “He’s making a list and checking it twice; he’s gonna find out who’s naughty and nice…”

Tane groaned and punched Rebecca lightly on the arm.

For all her frivolity, though, he noticed that her hands were shaking as she handed over the money at the counter.

Fatboy swept into the curb in the Wrangler as they emerged from the electronics shop. They swung on board, Rebecca in the front, Tane in the back, and Fatboy pulled out again in a seamless maneuver.

He handed a newspaper to Rebecca as he steered carefully around a family of four lugging two long plastic kayaks across the parking area.

“Made the front page!”

Rebecca looked at it and wordlessly handed it back to Tane.

HUNT CONTINUES FOR TEENAGERS, the headline blared over the police drawings of him and Rebecca. Rebecca’s was a reasonable resemblance, he thought, but his picture looked like an axe-murderer.

Rebecca had dyed her hair jet black since the escape from the soldiers and had started wearing a cap. It was summer, so they all wore sunglasses. All in all, Tane didn’t think they were in any danger of being recognized by a passing stranger. But what if one of their school friends recognized the pictures?

“What do we do?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Fatboy replied immediately. “It doesn’t change a thing. They’ll never recognize Rebecca from a picture like that, although yours is a pretty good likeness.”

“Bite me,” Tane said.

The Wrangler was an open-top jeep, which would have seemed like a lot of fun on such a lovely, sunstruck day. But it made Tane feel elevated and conspicuous. There was nothing to hide behind.

They sat silently in a queue to get out of the car park. Tane pretended to rest his face on his hand to shield himself from an elderly couple in an old Volvo in the next lane.

“The worst thing is feeling like a criminal all the time,” he said, almost to himself, “when we haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I know what you mean,” Rebecca said in a small voice, and Tane thought, not for the first time, that she was a lot more fragile than she was making out. She had that tired, heavy look about her again. Perhaps she felt that she, of all of them, had the most to lose.

The car radio was tuned to a news talk station.

“Any news on the plague?” Tane asked.

“Nothing,” Fatboy replied. “Quarantine zone is still in place, apparently, but there’s been no other reports.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Tane said.