Page 2 of Loki

"Can we get party pies? I want party pies!" six year old Jojo cried, grabbing the biggest packet she could find.

"Stick it up your jumper," Mum hissed.

Shocked, she fell silent. Two girls in her class had gotten in BIG TROUBLE for saying that to someone. They'd had to go on a timeout for the rest of recess and they hadn't been allowed to play at all. Jojo couldn't believe Mum would say something so bad.

"Quickly!" Mum said, shoving the packet under her actual...oh.

The icy plastic froze her skin through her thin t-shirt, plastered against her chest and tummy under Jojo's jumper. She began to shiver, and then she started to cry.

Mum jabbed her finger at the floor. "Stay right here, and I'll be back in a minute. Don't move!" She dashed off to the end of the aisle and vanished.

Jojo sat down on the shop floor and bawled, trying to pull the packet out but the ice was now stuck to her sweater and it wouldn't come out, so she cried louder.

Then some woman she didn't know leaned over her. "What's your name, honey?"

Jojo shook her head, clamping her mouth shut. Mum and her teacher had said never to talk to strangers, and she'd never seen this lady before in her life.

A minute later, another stranger appeared – a man this time. When Jojo refused to talk to him either, the two of them marched her into an office with lots of screens on the wall, showing the inside of the supermarket without any colour, like it was a really old movie. Except it wasn't a movie, it was now, because Mum was in one of the aisles, this one full of bottles, and she was sliding two big bottles into her bag, followed by a third.

The man and woman weren't paying attention to the screens, though. Instead, they were trying to pull the packet of pies out from under Jojo's sweater, while she screamed for her mum. Mum had told her to put them there, and Mum's punishments were way worse than a timeout if she didn't do what Mum said.

"What are you doing to my daughter?" Mum demanded, her voice thunderous.

Jojo dashed under the desk, desperate to get away from Mum's fury, hugging the icy plastic to her chest. She'd done what Mum asked. She was a good girl.

The man and woman stumbled over their words, explaining that they'd found the little girl crying in one of the aisles, and how she wouldn't let go of the pie packet.

Mum glanced at her and shook her head. "She gets meltdowns like this sometimes. There's nothing I can do except take her home and hope she calms down." She seized Jojo's hand. "Come on. We're going home." Her bag clinked, but no one except Jojo seemed to notice.

"But the pies..." the woman began.

The man hushed her. "They're crushed and starting to defrost. Not like we can sell them any more anyway. Besides, it's Christmas Eve. Chalk it up to damaged stock and...let the lady and her daughter take them home. My nephew has meltdowns like that, too, and my sister's a saint with everything she does for that kid. You must be, too, ma'am." He nodded respectfully to Mum.

Mum gave a tight smile. "Thank you. Merry Christmas to you, and your sister," she said, hustling Jojo out of there.

In the carpark, they passed one of the naughty girls from school, skipping as she held her mum's hand. "Don't forget to get cookies for Santa, Mum, or he won't come and bring presents!" she said.

Her mum frowned. "Don't you think Santa's fat enough? I bet he gets cookies from everyone, and he can't eat all of them. No, it's his reindeer who do all the work, pulling his sleigh. We should get snacks for them."

"But what kind of cookies do reindeer eat, Mum?"

Her mum shook her head. "Reindeer don't eat cookies. They eat carrots. So we'll buy a big bag of carrots, so there's enough for everyone."

The girl jumped up and down. "So if they eat all their carrots, they'll grow big and strong, and be able to bring even more presents?"

"Maybe. We'll see," her mum said, as they headed into the shop.

"Come on, Jojo!" Mum insisted, yanking her hand.

Jojo did her best not to anger Mum any more all the way home, and Mum must have seen how good she was, because she cooked her a couple of the party pies before she opened one of the bottles from her bag and started drinking.

There wasn't any tomato sauce, not like there was at school, but Jojo ate the pies anyway, even as they burned her tongue. It was already the best Christmas ever, and it might get even better, if she could get Santa to come and bring presents. If even Mum thought she'd been a good girl, then surely Santa would see it this year.

Much later, when Mum's bottle was almost empty and she'd started snoring on the couch, Jojo crept into the kitchen. She knew Santa usually came down the chimney, and they didn't have a chimney (one of the other reasons Mum said Santa never came to their house), but there was a round hole in the ceiling with a fan in it, gaping big and black and scary, just like a chimney, so Jojo figured that would do.

She dug through the drawer at the bottom of the fridge, between a bag of black leaves that she thought might be lettuce and a bag of white fluffy tomatoes, to where she remembered seeing some carrots. She found the carrot bag right down the bottom, with just one carrot in it. It was kind of soft and wobbly, not like the crunchy carrot sticks they had to eat at school, but it was still mostly orange and it didn't smell bad.

She stuck the carrot on the counter, under the hole in the ceiling, so the reindeer could see and smell it from the roof.

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