Free North Pole Reform School by Jaimie Admans Page A

he says. “My mum and dad would still be
alive if it weren’t for Christmas. I hate seeing it everywhere. I hate people
being all happy and celebrating when I’m so sad because they aren’t here.”
    “And what do you do about it?”
    “I never intended to hurt anyone, but I just hate the
constant reminders. I don’t want to celebrate Christmas, I don’t want to
constantly be shown happy families when my family is dead because of Christmas.
I hate the idea of people celebrating and being happy when I’m not, and I hate
having to constantly look at Christmas stuff when I don’t want to, so I break
it.”
    “You break it?” Joe asks him.
    “I smash it up. All of it. I don’t want it shoved in my
face. I don’t want to walk around the shops and see snowflakes and trees and
hear Christmas songs everywhere, so I smash it up. One of my grandma’s
neighbours put up this whole nativity scene in their garden, and I hated having
to walk past it every day, so I jumped over their fence and kicked it until it
broke. It made me feel really good.”
    “And what about your grandma?”
    “She still celebrates Christmas,” Hugo says. “I mean, she
doesn’t put a tree or decorations up anymore because I don’t want it, but she
still has boxes of them up in the attic.”
    “What about the damage you’ve caused? Has that affected
her?”
    “She had to pay for some stuff,” he admits. “The neighbours
made her pay for the nativity scene and a couple of shop window displays that
I’ve been caught for.”
    “But she can’t afford that, can she?”
    He shrugs. “I don’t know. She never talks about money with
me.”
    “What about Christmas? Don’t you think she might like to
celebrate Christmas still?”
    “Can’t you give the poor boy a break?” Emily interrupts.
“He’s lost his parents… that would mess anyone up.”
    “Yes, we understand that,” Tinsel says. “But he’s hurting
other people, including his grandma who has given up everything to look after
him. That’s why he’s here, to learn that his actions, although understandable,
are selfish and have an effect on others.”
    “I don’t get why she still wants to celebrate Christmas
anyway,” Hugo says. “Her daughter died because of it. It’s not something to
celebrate. It’s just a constant reminder of what everybody else has that I
don’t.”
    “But that doesn’t make it okay for you to damage other
people’s property just because it’s there.”
    “It shouldn’t be there. It’s not fair because not everybody
wants to see all the Christmas crap all the time. Other people have no respect
for me by putting it there. They don’t care about people who might not want to
see it.”
    “Hugo…”
    “Christmas took my parents away. I hate it and I wish I could
make it go away. I don’t want to know about happy families and joy to the
world. I want to curl up and die!” Hugo is yelling now.
    Emily has put a comforting arm around him again as he
quietens down after the outburst.
    “Moving on,” Tinsel says quickly. “Last but not least, it’s
your turn, Joe. Do you know why you’re here?”
    “Not a clue, love. Best explanation I can come up with is
that someone is playing a very sick joke on me.”
    “We’ve been over this, Joe. It’s not a joke. Everything
that’s happening is one hundred percent real.”
    “I still think I’m dead,” Hugo pipes up. “I hope I am.”
    “Joe, what have you been doing that ruins people’s
Christmases?”
    “Nothing,” he says smugly.
    “You’re a courier, correct?”
    He nods.
    “So it’s not you who deliberately drops parcels at this time
of year? Because we saw you playing football with a parcel marked Fragile just
last week.”
    Joe shrugs. “So I drop a few parcels. Find me a courier who
doesn’t. People want shit delivered then they can deal with it. They shouldn’t
be so lazy, they should just get off their arses and go out and buy all their
bloody presents. The parcels I