‘Is this impossible?’ Now I’m inside there are so many balls, it’s hard to imagine ever finding one small soft toy in here, however systematic our approach is.
Immie shakes her head at me and mutters under her breath. ‘About as likely as finding a snowman in hell, I’d say, but given the levels of Poppy’s pregnancy hormones, we have to look like we’re trying.’ She staggers backwards as she comes across a small child, then shouts at Rafe and Rory. ‘Come on, you guys. If you want to get home this side of midnight, don’t just stand there. You need to get in here.’
They don’t need asking twice. ‘Chocs away!’ ‘Tally ho!’ As Rafe dives off a platform at the far end, Rory comes sailing down on a zip wire.
Rafe’s launching himself as if he’s crowd surfing, his dark cashmere sweater submerging in the mass of brightly coloured plastic. ‘How much fun is this?’ Talk about men reverting to boys. They just turned the clock back thirty years.
Rory’s whooping back. ‘Next on my wish list is a massive bouncy castle. A customised Roaring Waves one has to be great for publicity. We could take it down the beach and hire it out for weddings.’
Immie’s chiding them. ‘Watch out! Don’t squash any kids.’
As I notice Snow White on the other side of the netting she’s scowling at me as if I’m the Wicked Queen. ‘We’re looking for the snowman, don’t forget.’ I shout it mainly for her benefit. Which is just as well as Rafe and Rory have started pelting each other with balls and are completely ignoring me. Luckily the playing children have mostly moved away.
Seeing as I’m hardly getting anywhere with my digging, I stand up and start kicking through the balls, moving towards Immie. ‘You’d think a white snowman would be easy to find.’
Immie dips. ‘Trumping toad bottoms, dwarves on the warpath!’
I look to where she’s nodding and, sure enough, Snow White is marching, with a posse of guys wearing stripey hats, leggings and curly grey beards.
As the piped music choir gets cut off in mid-sentence halfway through ‘Silent Night’, one of the guys clears his throat and shouts. ‘Okay, adults out of the ball cage! That area is for under-tens only.’ It’s hard to take him seriously when his nose is painted red.
If anyone was going to argue, it would have to be Rory. ‘Lighten up, Sneezy, we’re only messing around while we look for a lost toy.’
The dwarf puts his hands on his hips and pulls himself up to what has to be a full six foot four. ‘Don’t push me to bar you, mate. Because I will.’
Rory’s voice resonates with disbelief. ‘You can’t ejectme, I’m your biggest real-ale supplier.’
The dwarf pulls on his beard and his voice rises to a nasty shout. ‘I don’t care if you’re Santa’s main dealer, just get the hell out of my ball pit. NOW!’
‘Okay, no need to get your knickerbockers in a twist, we’re on our way.’ If Rory’s conceding defeat, it can only be because he’s worried about his beer orders.
You know that reaction as a kid, when getting yelled at automatically makes you run? This is me now. Before I know it, I’m lolloping towards the hole in the netting, sending balls flying in all directions. As I glance over my shoulder, Rory and Rafe are coolly ambling behind me. As I scrabble and scramble, I’m getting more and more frantic, and more and more unbalanced. I’m within a whisker of the gap in the fence when my foot catches, and next thing I know, I’m falling. It’s more of a saggy sideways collapse than a heavy fall. But as I twist onto my back, my shoulders sink, and my knees and feet go upwards.
Immie’s doubled up. ‘Full-blown flight response you had there, Hols. Seeing you plunging under the balls there issofunny it’s making me wee.’
I’m wailing at her. ‘Stop laughing, Immie, andpull me out.’ But that sets her off again.
‘Damsel in distress?’ Rory reaches me first, and surprise, surprise, he’s smirking down at me.
As I hiss at him, I’m aware of a crowd of small faces pressed up against the netting. ‘Thanks, but I’m absolutely fine. Immie’s got this.’
That seems to amuse him even more. ‘Sorry, Holly B, Immie’s too busy peeing herself. Looks like it’s a handsome prince, or nothing.’ He half closes one eye. ‘Unless you’d prefer an angry dwarf to haul you out, of course?’
I take a few seconds to abandon every last vestige of pride and then I wave my arm in his direction. ‘Go on, then.’ It comes out very grudgingly. But a moment later it turns to a scream. All I needed was a simple yank to get me onto my feet, but Rory’s scooping me up from underneath.
As he strides through the balls, he’s clamping me so close to his chest, I get not only the full benefit of the delicious scent of his body spray going right up my nose in a way that’s much too swoony for comfort, but also his low laugh resonating through his sternum. ‘Who’d have thought I’d havethismuch fun at the Fun Palace?’
I’m talking through gritted teeth, wondering how anyone in such a ragged t-shirt can smell so good. ‘Eff off, Rory. And PUT ME DOWN!’
‘No need to panic.’ He lurches all the way to the edge, then slides me straight through the entrance hole.
There’s a thud as I land. ‘Lovely, great.’ The felt tiles are so rough under my palms, I’m lucky not to have carpet burns. It’s hard to scramble to your feet with any dignity at all when there are twenty-odd three and four-year-olds staring down at you.
As Rafe, Rory and Immie arrive beside me and we shuffle like a line of naughty school kids the dwarf is already coming over, pointing at our feet with a horrified look on his face. ‘You went in wearing outdoorshoes?’
As if the humiliation of me falling over and getting dragged out by Rory isn’t enough, now we’ve got to be told off in front of a crowd of kids. If their wide eyes are anything to go by, they’re obviously finding four adults getting ordered out of the play area a lot more riveting than the bouncy castleorthe singing Santa show.
Rory’s nodding at the dwarf’s feet. ‘Not everyone’s lucky enough to have plimsolls with cardboard buckles covered in tin foil, mate. You might like to take this opportunity to change the CD. We could work with Wizard?’
