Well, I probably had room left for another gingerbread snowman, but that was about it.
I paused as I approached the head of the table; Mrs Templeton sat there, surveying the neighbourhood as a whole, as she always did. I’d heard Holly earlier, saying to someone how much nicer the old woman had turned out to be than she’d expected, but I didn’t buy it. If anyone there was still likely to send me to the pound, I knew it was her.
Suddenly, as if she’d sensed my presence, she twisted in her chair and looked down at me, her face stern. I froze in place for a moment, wondering which way to run first.
Then, Mrs Templeton did something I’d never seen her do before. Ever.
She smiled.
‘You’re still here, are you?’ she said. ‘Well. I suppose we could come to a Christmas truce.’ She patted her leg and I moved cautiously closer.
Then she picked up a gingerbread snowman from the table in front of her and held it out to me and I figured, if I could make friends with Perdita, my furry nemesis, what was one more enemy turned friend? So I jumped up into her lap to enjoy my treat.
The sound of metal clinking against glass cut through the chilly air, and the conversations around me stumbled to a halt as everyone turned to look at Jack, standing beside the table with all the desserts on it.
‘Everyone? If I could just have a moment of your time,’ Jack said. He looked a little awkward, standing there with everyone staring at him, but then Holly moved beside him, holding his hand, and he smiled again. ‘I just wanted to thank you all for everything you’ve done to make the first Maple Drive Christmas a success.’
A cheer ran down the table and I barked my agreement.
‘We couldn’t have pulled this off without you,’ Holly added. ‘And it’s been just brilliant.’
‘It has,’ Jack agreed. ‘But there’s one person who needs a very special thank you for making any of this possible. And that’s our friend Claude.’
Me? I put my paws up on the table as all around me, the humans of Maple Drive burst into applause. Applause for me. Apparently it wasn’t just the neighbourhood animals that thought I was a legend.
‘If Claude hadn’t belly-flopped his way into Holly’s kitchen, we might never have become friends,’ Jack went on. ‘And if he hadn’t broken into Kathleen’s house, hunting for gingerbread, we’d never have had the idea for this Christmas celebration at all.’
‘Don’t forget the time capsule,’ Holly added. ‘It was Claude who found that, and brought Mrs Templeton into our plans.’
‘Speaking of which,’ Mrs Templeton said, ‘I’ve put the time capsule tin at the end of the table, along with some paper, pens and envelopes. I thought it might be nice to start a new Maple Drive time capsule, in memory of the occasion.’
‘What a lovely idea!’ Holly beamed, her whole being happier than I’d ever seen her before. ‘What do we need to do?’
‘Just write down your favourite Christmas memory, or a Christmas wish, and put it in the tin. We’ll bury it somewhere Claude can’t find it, then dig it up again in, say, five years?’
‘Sounds perfect,’ Jack agreed. ‘Which means there’s just one thing left for me to do.’ Reaching behind him, he picked up a plate from the dessert table, and walked towards me. My eyes widened as I realised what he was carrying. A whole house of gingerbread, with a little model of me at the front. ‘Claude, this is for you, to say thank you for bringing us humans together this Christmas.’
‘Just don’t eat it all at once,’ Holly warned, with a laugh.
I promised nothing. Suddenly I wasn’t so full any more.
They’d made me a house of gingerbread. They’d talked about me like I was important – not just to my humans, but to everyone on Maple Drive. I knew now that, wherever Daisy and Oliver were, Maple Drive was where I belonged.
And I always, always would.
I barked with happiness, as Mrs Templeton broke off a small piece of the gingerbread roof for me to eat.
Everything seemed to be going perfectly.
Until the sound of an approaching car cut through the conversation, and everyone fell silent as we waited to see who had come calling.
But deep down inside, I already knew.
It was my family, at last.
‘Hang on, slow down,’ Oliver cried, and Daisy instantly put her foot on the brake.
‘What? Why … Oh.’ She slowed the car right to a halt, and stared through the windscreen at the road in front of her.
Was that really Maple Drive?
‘What’s going on?’ Bella squeezed herself forward through the twins’ car seats to try and get a look.
‘I haven’t the foggiest idea,’ Daisy said, her voice faint.
For some reason, the entire population of Maple Drive seemed to be having dinner in the middle of the road. Wearing their coats, mostly. And there was a Christmas tree at the far end. And tinsel and bunting on sticks. And … were those lights on the houses? They weren’t turned on, so it was hard to tell in the daylight, but Daisy was pretty sure they were.
‘We were only gone two days.’ Oliver shook his head in amazement.
‘Nobody mentioned this on the Find Claude page,’ Bella said.
‘Can you see Claude?’ Jay called from the back seat, trying to push past his sister.
‘Not yet,’ Daisy said, soothingly. ‘He’s probably at the house, Jay. I wouldn’t worry. Come on, we’ll go and look.’
Sliding the car up to the kerb, she parked, watching in her rear-view mirror as her parents did the same just behind them.
Stepping out of the car was almost like stepping onto a movie set, one of those films they only showed at Christmas, where everyone came together in the end to celebrate something or somebody. Except Daisy and her family were late to the cinema, and they hadn’t got a clue what had happened to cause this.
As they moved closer, people at the nearest end of the table stood up to welcome them, beckoning them closer and grabbing more chairs from who knew where to squeeze around the table.
‘You’re back!’ A man with dark, neat hair and a welcoming smile approached them, hand out stretched. ‘Claude will be so happy.’
Daisy took the man’s hand, trying to place him. Wait, wasn’t he the postman? Hadn’t Bella said he’d found Claude?
‘Is he here?’ she asked in a rush. ‘We’ve been trying to get back ever since we realised he wasn’t with us, but the ferries were cancelled and then we couldn’t catch a train back through the tunnel until this morning, so we ended up staying in Calais last night and … sorry. Do you know where Claude is?’
Jay was at his side in an instant, at the sound of Claude’s name, and Bella wasn’t far behind him. Leaving Oliver and her parents to deal with the twins, Daisy looked up hopefully at the postman, who grinned.
‘Of course! He’s the guest of honour at today’s festivities. And I should warn you, he’s discovered a love of gingerbread. Look, there he is.’ He pointed down the table, and Daisy followed his finger, casting her eye across the gathering until she saw him.
Those ridiculous, wonderful black ears. That white wrinkled face. Those warm eyes. Their Claude.
But why on earth was he sitting on Mrs Templeton’s lap?
‘Holly, this cake is just divine!’ A tall blonde in a white coat and suede boots, who didn’t look like she’d ever eaten cake in her life, cornered Holly by the dessert table, leaving Holly scrambling to figure out which house and family on Maple Drive she belonged to.
Maybe number 4? The … Welwoods, was it?
‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling graciously, because even though Mrs (possibly) Welwood was the third person in the last ten minutes to compliment her on her Christmas cake, the pleasure was still very real. And unexpected.
‘You must make my husband’s fortieth birthday cake this year,’ the blonde went on. ‘It’s in March, so we’ve got some time. I’ll put together some ideas for themes, and you can just let me have your price list when we know what we’r
e looking at, okay?’
‘Um, I’m sure that will be fine,’ Holly said, wondering what on earth a person was supposed to charge for cakes. Normally she just made them for her friends and family who, if she was lucky, paid her back for the ingredients. An actual commission was outside her realm of experience.
‘In fact,’ Mrs Welwood went on, ‘perhaps you can help me out with one or two other aspects of the party planning. Like the decorations – you’re so wonderfully crafty, aren’t you? And maybe the theme. I’m sure you must have a great imagination. So that would help you with the invitations and so on …’
‘Mrs Welwood,’ Holly said, praying that was actually her name. ‘Are you asking me to organise your husband’s fortieth birthday party for you?’
‘Oh, yes please.’ Her face collapsed into a relieved smile, and suddenly she didn’t seem so tall and intimidating. ‘And call me Sharon, won’t you? The thing is, I don’t have the faintest idea where to start, and you did such a wonderful job organising all this!’