“A publicity stunt?” Mr. Arbogast said suspiciously. “That was what Marsh was aiming for, obviously. It’s safe to say it didn’t work out.”
“Ours would,” Mira said.
Wade added, “And it wouldn’t depend on wild animals, which would help.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Arbogast said. She still sounded cautious, but there was at least a hint of intrigue there too. “What did you have in mind?”
“Instead of a real-life reindeer, we bring in a fake polar bear.” Mira knew that didn’t sound that impressive, so she rushed on. “But it would be almost impossible to tell that it’s fake. It’s so lifelike that anyone would think they were looking at the real thing. We have access to an incredibly high-quality animatronic polar bear, is what I’m saying. It’s voice-controlled, so we could even get it to do some tricks.”
“A lifelike, voice-controlled animatronic polar bear,” Mr. Arbogast said flatly.
Then he burst out laughing. So did Mrs. Arbogast.
“It’s not a joke!” Mira said.
Mrs. Arbogast actually had to wipe at her eyes. To Mira’s immense surprise, she said, “Oh, dear, we know it’s not. But we also know it’s a lie.” She said to Wade, “I forgot that you were Petey’s brother.”
The meaning clicked for Wade before it did for Mira. Understandably—he had more experience, both with being Petey’s brother and with being a shifter.
“Petey told you,” he said, groaning. “He told you that we’re shifters.”
“I thought it was supposed to be a secret!” Mira said.
“It is, but Petey’s always been bad at keeping secrets. He’s told so many people over the years, I’ve honestly lost track. He says it’s fine because they’re all trustworthy, and I guess he has good instincts about it, because it’s never caused any problems before. And apparently it’s doing the opposite of that right now.”
Mr. Arbogast, still chuckling, stroked his chin now, turning thoughtful.
He said, “So you want to appear in polar bear form, pretending that you’re a very realistic fake.”
Wade nodded. “Even if people think I’m real at first, they won’t think it for long. Mira can give me the ‘voice commands,’ and no regular polar bear would be trained to follow those.”
“You can’t juggle, can you?” Mrs. Arbogast said suddenly.
Wade blinked. “Uh, no. Sorry.”
“I just thought a juggling polar bear would be pretty amazing.”
“She’s not wrong,” Mira said to Wade.
“Well,” Wade said, “maybe I can try to learn before next year. If we have a deal?”
Chapter Twenty-one
Christmas Eve
They’d had a deal. And now it was showtime.
Wade couldn’t help being nervous. He had never even starred in a school play, so taking center stage for a crowd of enthusiastic children and their skeptical and still-wary parents was a little intimidating. The kids wanted awe and wonder. The parents were afraid this was going to turn into another reindeer disaster. And the Christmas Village’s future was on the line.
“You’ll be fantastic,” Mira whispered. Somehow, even with his unfamiliar polar bear body language, she could tell that he was having some stage fright. “It’s going to go great.”
She was back in her Galadriel costume, but there was something subtly different about it. The Arbogasts had told her that she could wear her own clothes or one of the not-exactly-matching elf costumes Marsh had loathed so much, and Wade had expected her to take them up on it.
Instead, she had decided to stick it out as Galadriel from start to finish. And now that she was wearing the out-of-place white gown because she actually wanted to, she looked even more stunning than ever. She was like a ray of ethereal light, like a fairy who had come down to earth.
Wade suspected that just as many people would be looking at her as they were at him. How could anyone not?
Outside their makeshift red and green tent, the crowd’s murmurs grew even louder and more impatient.
