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real Bentley and followed him home. Here Mena said that she was sorry for her quick tongue, and gave Abren a hug. Abren said it didn’t matter, but she lay awake that night, thinking about her mother. What
was
she doing now? Was she missing Abren? Was she out there somewhere, dressed as Santa and filling Abren’s stocking just in case she came home? Was she looking for her – looking even now, in the middle of the night?
    Abren closed her eyes and tried to sleep. But her questions wouldn’t leave her alone, and finally she got up and went downstairs. In the kitchen everything was ready for the morning, a testimony to Mena’s hard work. The turkey waited for its chestnut-and-pork stuffing. The Christmas pudding sat with a cloth tied over it. The Brussels sprouts had been peeled and left to soak in a pan. And even a glass of sherry had been left on the table, with a box of chocolates bearing a note to
‘[email protected] – from your Chief Executive!!’
    Abren opened up the luscious chocolates which the note said were
‘for all the busy elves who work so hard to wrap up Santa’s presents’
. The other elves weren’t around to share them, and suddenly Abren couldn’t resist making a start. And once started, therewas no stopping! Champagne truffles. Chocolate fudge. Hazelnut pralines. Cherry kirsch. Butternut delights. Mocha marzipan. Whisky cream. Orange fizzes.
    Abren ate until her stomach heaved. Until the box was empty and she felt too sick to think about her mother or anything else. Then she went to bed, knowing that the chocolates had done the trick.
No questions asked
was still the order of the day!

Bentley’s carol
    Abren came downstairs on Christmas morning to find everybody teasing everybody else about the chocolates. As soon as she appeared, they turned on her with the empty box. It had to be her
,
they said. She was the chocoholic in the family – the one who’d licked her pudding plate clean on that first day, and had been at the chocolate ever since!
    â€˜I’m
not the one who spends his dinner money on chocolate bars!’ Abren teased back. ‘And I’m not the one who keeps a secret store in her sewing-machine drawer!’
    Everybody laughed. Abren changed the subject by showing them all the contents of her stocking, and Bentley showed his too, marvelling at the way that Santa always managed to squeeze in useful things like socks and soap.
    Fee went to church to ring the Christmas-morning bells. Mena remained behind, bustling between vegetables and sauces, the fridge and the cooker, the freezer, the sherry bottle and the phone. She chased Abren and Bentley away from the presents under the tree, persuading them to wait until after lunch with bribes of chocolate, cakes, biscuits, dates and nuts. All the while she kept nipping at the sherry and by the time that Fee came home, she was singing. Fee said she was drunk, and she said perhaps she was, but that she worked ‘like a skivvy’ all year long and deserved to be excessive once in a while.
    It was a day for all of them to be excessive. Mince pies arrived before lunch, washed down with yet more sherry and cheap, fizzy wine. Still more chocolates followed the mince pies, and lunch followed the chocolates in a feast to which there seemed no ending. Soon, half the turkey was a carcass, the Christmas pudding had disappeared, the wine bottle was empty and the trifle was reduced to lumps of jelly floating in a small custard pond. A mountain of dishes sat piled in the sink, ‘to do later’ as Fee put it when Mena looked at him in vain hope.
    It was time for presents, he said, not washing-up. They settled round the tree and Fee switched on the fairy lights. Bentley handed round the packages, and books and music tapes, a pair of football boots, a pile of silver jewellery, yet more chocolate, sweaters, games, stockings, perfume, soap and socks started falling out.
    Abren opened a