“Bingbollerant is not a word.”
“Says who?”
“Everyone.”
“Well, who madethemthe word police? I’ll tell you: no one. We are all free to make up new words whenever we want to. You should get going, poor Ryan’s out there freezing his diddlydongs off. There’re gloves in the wicker basket.” She motioned to the basket with her boot.
“Right,” said Fred, remembering her mission. “Do we need to tell anyone about me sneaking out?” she asked, pulling on a pair of fleece-lined gloves.
“Do we need to tell anyone about my little indiscretion with Lancashire’s finest dairy product?” Aunt Aggie countered, carefully lifting her plate of illegal goods with both hands and waggling her eyebrows.
“No?” said Fred.
“And it’s a no from me too.”
“Let me help you back to the cottage. That path gets icy, and you can’t exactly use your two sprained wrists to save you if you slip.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me, I’ve come prepared.” She gestured behind her to a pair of snowshoes by the back door.
“If you’re sure…”
“I’ll be fine. Now you mustn’t keep your young man waiting.”
“Notmyyoung man.”
“Not yet.” Her aunt’s eyes twinkled. “Off you go now.”
“Thanks, Aunty.” Fred bent to kiss her cheek.
“Enjoy your wintery shennaffles!”
Fred shook her head, smiling, and slipped out into the night. She had almost reached the path when the musicalChristmas tree shuddered to life, glowing ominously in the dark, branches dancing as its chipmunk voice rang out. “With a hey and a hee and a ho-ho, with a hee and a ho and a hah-hah!”
“Shut up!” she hissed at it, but it continued to sway as it sang. She bent down, feeling at the base for an off button, but her movement seemed only to excite the demonic tree further. “You’re going to wake the neighborhood.”
“Oh, lucky, lucky me!” it squealed.
In desperation, she picked it up and stuffed it into the bay hedge that ran beneath the sitting-room window. The tree continued to sing but was muffled by the foliage.
“You said three minutes,” Ryan said accusingly, when she joined him at the electric gates. He was stepping from side to side and clapping his gloved hands together against the cold.
“You can’t get me out of my nice warm bed during the witching hour in the middle of winter and then complain that I took, like, two extra minutes.”
Ryan grumbled but conceded her point. “Right, what’s the gate code?” he asked.
“Oh crap, I can’t remember, Mum changed it earlier, she wrote it on a Post-it note stuck to the fridge.” She frowned, trying to visualize the new code. It got changed every six months for security.
“Never mind,” said Ryan, unfazed. “We’ll leave the same way I came in.” He pointed to an upturned plant pot beside the railings. On the other side, a rucksack and a spade lay on the grass verge.
“I amnotclimbing over the fence.”
“Then how do you propose to get out?”
There was a click, and the gates began to open. Through the intercom Aunt Aggie’s voice crackled out, “I’ll text you the new code. Now bugger off, you two!”
Fred laughed and pressed the “speak” button. “Thanks, Aunty!”
As they hurried down the lane, the metallic clank of the gates closing rang out through the night.
