Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

1

At 4 o’clock on the sixth of December, the Asmussen family’s rarely used landline rang.

“Tock, tock, tock!”

Freda’s fingers hammered into the display of her mobile like an overenthusiastic woodpecker. “Gotcha!”

A triumphant fanfare blared out. Freda was supposed to do her homework, six worksheets on the subject of Animals in the North Sea Mudflats that had been lying around on her desk for two weeks. That’s what she had promised her mother, but in fact she had been playing the computer game Snowdrift for a while now.

There, she was gathering fire wood and frost berries and hunting the small greedy lemmings who kept stealing her provisions. And just now she had reached the Crystal Palace of the Ice Queen for the very first time, an awesome record!

Freda turned reluctantly away from her screen and listened.

Who could that be? Mum was still working, her cluttered little gift shop was always crowded in the weeks before Christmas.

And also, she would have most likely used the mobile. And grandpa and grandma had already dropped by with their Nikolaus gifts at lunch time. The unknown intruder was obviously very persistent.

The phone kept jingling its annoying tune again and again.

No chance, Freda had to interrupt her game.

She grimaced and slid off the chair.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming”, she shouted, sliding on her socks along the corridor. She brushed past a few boxes with leftover shop window decorations, banged her little toe against a basket with unsorted laundry and skidded around the curve towards the living room. She ripped the receiver roughly from the chest of drawers. But she had got there too late. Now, there was nothing but the beeping of the engaged signal. The caller had given up.

“Crap! And for that I lost my wonderful score”, Freda muttered. She angrily dumped the receiver back into the charger. Somehow she didn’t feel like playing any more. But she definitely didn’t want to write down things about mudflat worms and jellyfish either. Instead she went into the kitchen to pinch another vanilla cookie from grandma’s generous Nikolaus offerings. And then she immediately forgot everything, because Mr Livingstone entered the room.

This was quite a common effect Mr Livingstone had on those who met him. He was an unusually powerful black tomcat with amber eyes and a very distinct personality. A seasoned world traveller, as Freda’s father liked to say, and incredibly clever. An incredibly cheeky, flea ridden stray, claimed Frau von Potzendick from the second floor.

The latter was true. Mr Livingstone regularly disappeared on his secret jaunts. But he always turned up again, although sometimes terribly skinny and exhausted, just like the famous English explorer of Africa,

1 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

David Livingstone a hundred years ago which was how he got his name. Mr Livingstone veered towards the fridge and meowed accusingly.

“Forget it, I’ve fed you already”, Freda mumbled, her mouth full of cookie crumbs. “Let’s chill on the sofa for a bit.”

She scooped the cat up and carried him into the living room. Surprisingly, and in stark contrast to the amount of decorations in the corridor, there was a conspicuous absence of Christmas adornments in this room. The only tribute to the season were two crooked strings of lights hanging from the white dormer windows. Their faint glow illuminated an unusual style of furnishing. It consisted of lacquered Asian furniture, grim wooden African masks, glazed ceramic bowls filled with glittering South Sea shells and rare musical instruments made from leather, fur and wood. The wooden model of a Viking ship with full blown red and white striped sails hung from the ceiling over the seating area.

Freda flopped down with the cat on the wide leather sofa and snuggled into the cushions. But Mr Livingstone didn’t seem to be able to settle down today. He nervously balanced on Freda’s lap, his pointy ears turned towards the window panes lashed by the rain. The long note of a ship’s horn honked from the harbour. The sound of departure and farewell.

“You should be glad that dad picked you up among the containers”, Freda said, stroking his soft fur. “Otherwise you’d be soaking wet right now, foraging in the garbage bins.”

She shook a few cat hairs from her fingers. Yes, Captain Tom Asmussen had a heart for adventurers. He was travelling the world on a cruise ship after all. He rarely came home but when he did, he gave out scratchy kisses and presents, bursting with ideas for family trips. On days like that, Freda wished that it would go on forever. But it didn’t. The next travel date with his shipping company was a dead certainty, drawing Captain Asmussen back out to sea again like a giant magnet.

In the past, Freda had assumed that was normal. Only on her ninth birthday (without her dad of course) she had started to wonder what this must be like for her mother. And now her big brother Liam was a student at the Maritime Academy too! Maybe that was why Freda preferred to hide inside her four safe walls.

“Tell me, are you going to become one of those pale computer nerds with horn-rimmed glasses?” Liam had asked her recently, pinching Freda’s round bottom. “Better ask Santa to bring you a new bicycle or a kayak.”

A boat, so that yet another member of the family could disappear at sea?

No thank you! Freda gave the old globe on the window sill an angry shove.

At that moment, and without warning, the cat sank his claws into her thighs.

„Ouch!“ Freda screamed. She shot up from the sofa, grimacing with pain. “Hey, are you crazy?”

Mr Livingstone landed on the floor, rudely kicked off.

He immediately jumped to his feet again and raced across the room, towards the shelf where Freda’s dad kept his special mementoes.

2 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Right next to pictures of his first big journey to Singapore, a valuable ship’s clock and a shiny brass barometer hung on the wall. The cat stopped in front of them, snarling.

Freda didn’t want to risk another scratch, but Mr Livingstone was acting so weirdly that her curiosity drew her to him. And then she could see it too. Both devices were going crazy. The clock was running backwards, the needle of the barometer was swinging between high and low with breath-taking speed.

She hesitated, waiting to see if the problem would maybe resolve itself on its own but no such luck. She knocked on the protective glass covers. Maybe the batteries just needed to be replaced.

But before she could make a decision, the blasted land line on the chest of drawers rang again. This time, Freda answered on the second ring.

„Hello, this is Frederizia Asmussen”, she said.

The deep male voice sounded friendly but determined.

“Good afternoon, I would like to speak to Mr Livingstone.”

Freda gasped.

„But... that’s not possible! Mr Livingstone is a… is my cat!” she stuttered after a confused pause.

“Yes, yes, I know, let me speak to Mr Livingstone”, the caller urged her, suddenly indignant.

Freda swallowed and wondered if this might be one of those hoax calls from the regional radio station. At the same time she could feel the phone being taken out of her hand. When she looked, she could see that it was – her cat!

“Livingstone here, what’s up?” he said without looking at Freda.

“What? When did that happen? Well of course he’s furious. And now?”

For a long while, he listened attentively to a long report at the other end of the line. Eventually he just said: “You are lucky, I happen to know someone. Until later!”

With the push of a paw, the phone was switched off. For a second, the girl and the cat looked each other in the eye.

“What are you looking at”, said Mr Livingston, with a jaded air, flicking a tiny particle of dust from his chest. “Never seen a cat on the phone before?”

“You … can speak…” Freda croaked. She could hear a ringing in her ears.

“Correctly observed.” Mr Livingstone bounced off the chest of drawers and simply marched out of the room.

Freda couldn’t think of anything clever to add.

She trotted behind him like an obedient, dumb sheep.

3 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

In the corridor Mr Livingstone scratched at the front door, originally painted white a long time ago.

“Do keep up please, we don’t have all day”, he ordered sternly.

“Erm… what? Time for what?” Freda wanted to know as she automatically opened the door for him – after all, Mr Livingstone wandered about outside by himself every single day.

“Oh come on”, the cat snarled and shot out through the narrow gap. Freda had no choice but to run after him. She just managed to slip on her favourite sneakers and grab a random sweat shirt from the laundry basket. A really bad choice, as it would turn out later.

While she was kicking the door shut and running down the stairs several steps at a time, she suddenly remembered that she had left the door key inside and would now have to call her mother in the shop.

And on the next floor down she realized that this wouldn’t work either. Her mobile was still lying on the desk together with the school books!

Holy cow, what was going on today?

On the ground floor, Freda almost ran in to Frau von Potzendiek. She wore a lot of perfume and black fur, just like her heavily breathing pug dog. Expensive looking gift bags hung from her arms, skinny from her constant starvation diets.

“Could you be a little bit more polite perhaps?” she bitched as Freda ran past her without a greeting.

But old Potzendiek really was the least of Freda’s problems now.

Mr Livingstone was in such a rush that Freda had to take care not to lose him on the street among all the pedestrians, bicycles and cars. The cat seemed to know exactly where he wanted to go. First he ran along Heiner Hegebrecht Allee, crossed the three-lane intersection correctly during the green phase of the traffic lights and then aimed for the nearest bus stop.

I hope I won’t have to dodge the fare along with him, Freda thought, sidestepping steaming heaps of dog crap and hectic present hunters.

She was relieved when she noticed Mr Livingstone running past the waiting number 12 bus and turning left into the overcrowded pedestrian zone of the district. At the entrance of the Christmas market he finally slowed down. Freda managed to catch up with him in front of a densely encircled mulled wine stall. High time, she was nearly dying from the stitches in her side.

“Out with it, tell me what’s going on here!” she panted, bending over the cat.

A group of slightly tipsy young men wearing cheap Nikolaus caps lowered their steaming mugs, dumbfounded, and started to roar with laughter. Freda went bright red.

And honestly it actually was completely crazy to talk to a cat like that!

4 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Fortunately Mr Livingstone didn’t answer. Smoothly, like a professional burglar, he squeezed through a gap between two wooden huts selling toys. Freda sprinted up behind him and just managed to see him jump into the open door of an inconspicuous shop.

The sign on the wall sprayed all over with graffiti said ‘Öskurut Shoe Repairs’.

Slightly out of breath, Freda entered the shop. It smelled of leather and rubber.

A bald old man in a well-worn brown leather apron was working on an elegant ladies’ boot at the workbench behind the counter.

“Are you here to collect something?” he said in a friendly voice.

Freda shook her head.

“No, I’m looking for my cat”, she said breathlessly. “Have you seen him?”

The man looked thoughtfully at her.

“Ah, you mean Mr Livingstone”, he said while carefully smearing glue onto the boot heel. “Yes, yes, he was just here. He’s meeting with the polar bear, because of the crisis conference. Just go through.”

He pointed his dripping brush towards an opening in the wall at the dimly lit back of the shop.

Freda suddenly felt unpleasantly woozy. She had to hold onto the counter. How could the cobbler know Mr Livingstone’s name? And what was that nonsense about polar bears? Was the old man perhaps confused, like her friend Juli’s grandpa who put his house keys into the fridge?

Freda took a step back but her eyes were still glued to the enticing opening in the wall. No, this Mr Öskurut actually looked quite normal, she thought. And if she didn’t get a move on, she would never find out what was going on here!

“Thank you, I’ll go and look for him then”, she said as coolly as possible and entered the narrow corridor.

After just a few moments, Freda had a feeling of being very far away. Long shelves extended to her left and right, crammed full of all sorts of knickknacks right up to the ceiling. Boxes, containers, tools, cables, nails and screws. But also rolls of fabric, crafts materials and scrunched up half empty tubes of paint, unknown oily engine parts, broken toys and sports equipment, she even discovered a fishing net, green with algae, a few mummified starfish and a rusty anchor. A strange collection for a cobbler’s shop, somehow.

Freda didn’t have the time to speculate, because she had now arrived at the end of the corridor, in front of a square hole in the cracked floor. A metal staircase led down into a dimly lit pit. She quickly knelt down to look inside. Right at the bottom she saw a small moving shape.

“Hey, Mr Livingstone, that was really unfair, leaving me behind like that”, she shouted. It echoed scarily like inside a mountain cave, but there was no answer.

Freda turned round. With her face to the steps, she climbed deeper and deeper down into the mysterious underworld, trying not to slip. Finally she felt solid ground beneath her feet. The room where she had ended up was a cluttered, stuffy cellar.

5 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

The cat was already waiting on an upside-down fruit box.

“Now open this door here!” he immediately ambushed Freda with another task.

With no idea what to expect, Freda stepped in front of the damp, mouldy brick wall that the cat was pointing at. The door was a harmless grey cellar door with a white plastic handle.

But there was a strange glitter in its cracks.

Freda slowly pushed the handle down. She had to throw her entire weight against the door, and when she finally managed to get it open, all hell broke loose. A violent gale flung a wet load of snowflakes into her face, ripped the handle out of her hand and let the door swing back and forth on its joints, screeching in the wind. Mr Livingstone took one big jump in front of her and into the big outdoors. Freda stumbled blindly after him, and at the same time there was an ear-splitting thunder, so loud that the earth under her feet shook and she cried out at the top of her voice.

And then Freda couldn’t feel her feet any more. Within seconds, they had gone ice cold, just like her nose, her ears and her hands. Her eyes were affected, too, because she couldn’t see anything. When, after a few minutes, they had adjusted to the black and grey darkness, she realized that she was standing in the middle of an endless field of snow.

And no trace of the door they had come through!

Trembling, she wrapped her arms around her body and looked around for the cat.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Quick, to the meeting point!” Mr Livingstone shouted. He was only a few metres away, scurrying across the frozen ground.

He clearly meant the pole that was sticking out from a snow pile as tall as a tree. Freda clumsily slid towards it in her useless sneakers. When she got closer she realized that it was a wooden signpost. The arrow pointing to the right had an inscription in reflective paint that said “North Pole, 15 km.” The left- hand arrow said “Christmas Company, 3 km.”

For the second time on the same day Freda felt dizzy. “North Pole”, she repeated weakly. “That… isn’t true, is it?” And what did the other one mean, the something something company? The cat didn’t respond. He climbed the steep hill of ice in big jumps, using his claws like spikes. Freda observed this completely pointless action with astonishment. Mr Livingstone must have gone insane from cold shock.

A freezing gust of air, razor sharp, whistled around her ears. She pulled the hood of her thin sweat shirt over her head but that didn’t help much.

“Cat crap”, she muttered to herself, “I don’t even have my mobile with me.”

“That would be pretty useless here anyway”, Mr Livingstone explained mysteriously from the top of his lookout. “Pay attention to your surroundings instead, silly!”

“And what for?” Freda asked. She felt insulted. She wasn’t used to being bossed around by a pet. “There’s nobody here except us.”

6 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

She half-heartedly looked around her. Just as she had thought. There was only snow here. Snow, snow and then some more snow, all the way to the horizon. Nobody to be seen. Not even lemmings like in her Snowdrift game. They were both going to freeze to death in this barren landscape.

Suddenly, far away, Freda made out a tiny bright spot. She scrunched up her eyes. The spot grew brighter and moved very quickly towards them.

“Someone is coming!” she shouted, greatly relieved. She started to wave her arms wildly and shout like someone who had been shipwrecked.

“Help! We are here! Heeeelp!”

Mr Livingstone didn’t seem to be particularly surprised by Freda’s discovery. He slid down the hill on his belly and quietly sat down next to his owner who was still hopping around.

When the vehicle finally came into yelling distance, Freda’s cries for help abruptly stuck in her throat. Six brown and white reindeer were trotting towards her, little bells tinkling on their harnesses. They were drawing a big old-fashioned wooden sled with rounded skids and two big lanterns left and right of the driver’s box. A huge polar bear was sitting on it. The blinking logo on his baseball cap said Christmas Company.

The bear brought the sled to a halt, directly in front of the signpost.

And suddenly Freda felt neither cold nor wind, just her heart hammering in her chest. The animal was immense, its massive body several heads taller than here even when sitting down. His conic muzzle, armed with long sharp canine teeth, rose in her direction, as he smelled her scent.

“What do we do now?” Freda whispered, hoarse with fear.

“Ah, throat pain”, the polar bear hummed in a cosy bass and held out a bag of cough drops to her.

“Please, help yourself.”

All Freda could produce was a hollow groan. Wide-eyed, she stared at the crackling bag encircled by the hairy bear claw as if it was a bomb.

“Oh stop it Bruno, just explain why you’re so late”, Mr Livingstone said, waving him away. He busily jumped onto the sled where he started to poke around under the padded bench. “This is Freda over there, you know, and she won’t be much use to the boss when she’s deep-frozen.”

“I’m sorry, the snow mobile that I was going to take broke down”, the polar bear defended himself, stowing away his sweets bag.

“Poppycock!”

Finally Mr Livingstone found what he was looking for, a pile of warm winter clothes. He dangled a pair of mitts and a red pointy cap encouragingly in front of Freda’s nose.

“Here, that’s going to keep you warm”, he said.

Freda finally woke from her shock paralysis.

7 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“We land at the North Pole, and then you want me to travel on this sled, dressed like an elf?” she yelled, incredulous, arms akimbo. The six reindeer had been dreaming with drooping heads. Now they stared at the girl.

“You have something against reindeer?” the lead animal bleated belligerently.

Mr Livingstone bared his teeth. “You keep out of this! We’ve already got enough problems!”

As if to confirm this, a gust of wind hissed down onto the small group. Veils of snow whirled around them. Freda ducked instinctively, but on that open plain there was no shelter. A thousand needle-sharp crystals bit into her unprotected hand. She buried her face into her hands and moaned. “Oh! Ouch!”

The cat pulled impetuously on Freda’s trouser leg.

“Get on, Frederizia! Please get on!” he urged. “I’ll explain everything during the journey!”

Freda let herself be wrapped into a heavy parka, offering no resistance. Her cold hands could barely close the zip. The weird talking polar bear actually had to help her to put on the boots, mittens and scarf. A few times, when the damp bear muzzle came a little too close, she squeezed her eyes shut, but the furry giant was surprisingly deft with his fat paws.

“Thank you”, she said when he gently slipped the cap over her head.

“Pleasure. Looks really good on you”, Bruno hummed good-naturedly.

Freda wasn’t so sure about that. She felt hemmed in and ridiculous in all those heavy things. And she had a terribly queasy feeling that all this wouldn’t come out well. She scrambled laboriously onto the bench next to the cat. The polar bear mounted the driver’s box at the front, took the reins and the whip and clicked his tongue.

“Let’s go! Forward!”

The reindeer pushed into their harnesses, making the little bells tinkle. The skids scraped over the ground with a crunching noise, but as soon as the reindeer were up to a trot, the sled started to glide smoothly.

After a short time it had become nothing but a blurred shadow in the desolate expanse of white, leaving only Freda’s old sneakers behind.

A deep growl interrupted the monotonous whistling of the wind.

A few metres from the signpost, blood red circles began to glow. Something heavy broke through the harsh snow crust, sucking the air in, sniffing and smacking its lips. Then it slowly followed the now barely visible tracks of the sled.

The hunt had begun.

8 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

3

Freda had always imagined the North Pole as a fun winter wonderland full of animals. After only ten minutes, she realised she’d been totally wrong. It was empty and looked ghostly and forbidding. There was very little soft snow. The storm and the rolling waves of the sea underneath had compressed it until it was as hard as cement. Again and again, the polar bear had to guide the reindeer around ice blocks as big as cars or jagged ice floes wedged into each other.

“Watch out! Hold on!” Bruno grunted for the nth time.

Freda clung to her seat. With a big crunching sound, the sleigh clattered over another bump in the ground.

Mr Livingstone cleared his throat energetically.

“I’d better explain to you briefly what this is all about”, he said. “So, we’re on our way to meet Santa. He’s the CEO of the Christmas Company, the company that supplies all children with presents. He called me in because of an emergency, because I’m one of his most important advisers.”

“I see”, Freda said, a little confused. “For what? Cat food?”

The polar bear gave an amused snort. The reindeer grunted, too, and suddenly broke into extravagant rodeo jumps. Mr Livingstone slipped off his seat like a fried egg off the pan.

The cat landed on the floor of the sleigh, thrashing about. Freda felt a bit guilty as she helped him back up onto the seat.

“Very funny”, he hissed, smoothing down his whiskers. “Listen. There’s going to be a crisis meeting at the Christmas Company. We’re both going. You’ll be told everything else then. Well, that’s more or less it.”

Freda sat up abruptly.

„Are you saying that elves and angels are making presents in the workshop while Santa checks the wish lists so that everyone gets the right stuff?” she asked, offended. “Really? Tell that to a baby!”

“Nonsense, of course we switched to computers years ago”, Mr Livingstone responded impatiently. “But the old story is true at its core.”

Freda looked at him as if she’d just caught him licking the butter off the toast on the breakfast table. Then she slowly tapped her forehead.

The cat sighed under his breath. “I do understand”, he admitted. “It sounds incredible.”

Freda buried her chin in the collar of her parka and said nothing. But her thoughts were skipping around like rats in a trap. What if Mr Livingstone was telling the truth? If they’d really made it to the North Pole?

She cautiously ran her thick mitten over the side of the sleigh. Yes, it was real, solid wood. She wasn’t dreaming. And you certainly couldn’t just imagine this empty wilderness and the giant talking bear on the bench in front of her, even if you had a very vivid imagination indeed!

9 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

At that moment, a gold lining appeared on the dark horizon.

“Well, there you go, that’s the Christmas Company!” Mr Livingstone shouted triumphantly.

Freda leaned out over the side of the sleigh to peek past Bruno’s broad back. Under the yellow light of the full moon, a town made up of low one-storey buildings spread out on the ice in front of her. It was protected by what looked like a circular wall, like a mediaeval city. But this wall wasn’t built of stone, it consisted of a row of semi-circular buildings reminiscent of factory halls. Chains of sparkling fairy lights were strung from roof to roof, providing bright illumination. Clouds of smoke rose from the chimneys. Whenever the wind briefly abated, Freda could hear snippets of well-known Christmas songs coming from invisible speakers.

“We even have an airport.”

The cat pointed proudly to an open area further away where the ice had been swept clean to reveal a smooth surface. Freda shielded her eyes with her hands. Several large propeller planes were parked around a flat square building. They had skids instead of wheels and were anchored to the ground with strong ropes.

The sleigh turned into a wide ice alley leading to the city gate and lined on both sides with ten foot tall snow men. There were at least a hundred of them, a whole army equipped with birch brooms, shovels, cooking pans, hats, scarves and sun glasses.

“Hi carrot noses!“ Freda shouted as the sleigh slowly glided past. She waved to both sides like a queen.

“You don’t joke around with the Cold Guard”, Bruno grumbled.

Freda gasped in surprise. The lifeless round heads turned towards her in a perfectly synchronised movement. A hundred identical charcoal eyes stared at Freda with blank expressions. She blinked and brushed a few stray snowflakes off her face. When she was able to see clearly again, all the snow men were again standing still in their rows.

“What… what was that?“ Freda asked.

Mr Livingstone vaguely waved his paws.

At the same time Bruno flicked his whip, the reindeer jumped forward and cantered the last few metres into the city, through a gate with a high arch artfully carved from bluish ice.

Once inside, the silence ended abruptly. Small agile snow mobiles with clattering engines darted back and forth on the snow covered streets. They were constantly overtaking Bruno’s lumbering wooden sleigh. As they passed by, they ejected thick clouds of fumes from their exhaust pipes. Freda raised her hand to hold her nose but lowered it again immediately.

“Vanilla!” she said, surprised.

And after a while she noticed something else. The little scooters were exclusively driven by boys, all about her own age, and all with the same kind of red cap on their heads. Freda looked into the illuminated windows of the colourfully painted one-storeyed wooden houses to her left and right. Cosily furnished rooms everywhere, but not an adult to be seen.

10 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“Do only children live here?” she asked.

Mr Livingstone shook his head.

“No, not a single one”, he said indulgently. “These are of course all Christmas elves. And, by the way, here’s our bakery.”

There really was no need to explain. The sweet scent of biscuits floated into her nostrils as they travelled past a huge production hall. Its ribbed steel walls were decorated, like a cupcake, in layers of cherry pink, grass green, sky blue and candy silver. Stacks of baker’s boxes were towering in front of the open gate, filled to the brim with honey cakes, coconut macaroons, almond biscuits, chocolate coins, spiced speculoos cookies and every kind of Christmas delicacy imaginable. Working gangs of elves, loudly screaming at each other, were constantly bringing in replenishments and loading them onto snow mobiles. These elves were sturdy guys with shaggy white beards, nibbling on the sweets from time to time as their jackets, sprinkled with icing sugar, clearly showed. Freda looked at them enviously. Suddenly, a venerable red-faced elf appeared from inside the hall. His side whiskers reached down to his knees. He wore a white, double breasted jacket that strained over his stomach. His bald head was covered by a chef’s hat.

Mr Livingstone nodded in greeting.

“Well if that isn’t old Crumble, our chief confectioner”, he said. “About time he starts to control his boys a bit.”

Crumble noticed Freda’s wistful look and dipped into the box next to him. A cinnamon cookie whizzed through the air, a hair’s breadth away from the cat’s head.

Freda deftly caught the cookie.

“Thank you very much!” she called before stuffing the still warm biscuit into her mouth.

“Tsk!” Mr Livingstone muttered. “Cheeky!”

They left the busy bakery behind, as well as a few smaller buildings where sounds of banging, hammering and sawing could be heard. As they were passing a particularly big warehouse, the reindeer swerved abruptly to the right. A bubbly blue mass billowed from the chimney and ran down the wall in a wide stream until it reached the street where it froze. At the same time, angry shouts came from the inside.

The cat clicked his tongue, looking concerned.

“This is our Toy Testing Department”, he said. “It looks like Bertil’s fully automated bathing foam cannon won’t be a big success.”

They’d almost reached the town centre where the street ended in a round plaza. A huge Christmas tree, decorated with lights and colourful sparkling spheres, stood in the middle. Bruno tightened the reins and knotted them to the box of the sleigh.

“Central Office, Terminal Station, all change!” he announced like a tourist guide.

Freda put her head back.

11 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“Wow, wicked”! she whispered.

The golden disc she had taken for the full moon all this time, partly concealed by the rooftops, actually was the Central Office of the Christmas Company. The illuminated glass sphere on top of the building rested on four floors of black lava stone, punctuated by windows with rounded archs. It looked like a snow globe with living inhabitants. A red flag with two crossed Christmas trees, forming a big X, fluttered from a pole in front of the main entrance.

Feeling overwhelmed, Freda climbed off the sleigh. As she walked up the twenty-four steps behind Mr Livingstone and stumbled through the heavy metal portal with the golden double CC embossed on it, her eyes almost popped out of her head.

She wasn’t just bowled over by the splendid interior with its black and white reindeer patterns on the tiled floor and the two wide stairways on both sides, covered with red carpets.

There were actually angels here, of all shapes and ages! Cute button nosed baby angels but also giggling teenagers in shimmery sequined dresses. They were floating up and down inside the sphere and the soft rustling of their white swan-like wings drifted through the entire building. Below them, hundreds of Christmas elves in plain green suits rumbled up and down the stairs, swearing and jostling each other.

“Watch out! Let me through!”

Startled, Freda jumped sideways. Directly behind her, a caravan of ten bulb-nosed older elves was dragging a complete riding gear through the hall. The final one was driving his co-workers before him with a riding crop. This convoy collided with a freckled young elf on the right hand stairway. His tongue protruding between his teeth, he balanced a stack of wrapped quadcopters while a baby doll in a neon pink onesie was slipping down from his left armpit. When he managed to catch it at the very last moment, it screeched: “Mummy, I – need – pee-pee!”

“Oh shut your trap!” the freckled guy swore which made Freda laugh. The cat had to nudge her to keep moving. She noticed that everyone was greeting Mr Livingstone very politely. So he really seemed to be someone special around here. Freda took a deep breath and crossed the hall. On the far side, the cat stopped in front of a large lift, framed by a fir garland.

“The conference room is on the fourth floor”, he said and pushed the little silver star on the wall. When the lift door opened with a dainty chime, there was already someone else inside. Santa. His face was buried in a handkerchief. He was blowing his nose.

Freda winkled her forehead. This was supposed to be Santa? Weird. Why was he wearing these funny chequered trousers with his red coat? And what about the Sherlock Holmes cap? And the smoking pipe in his hand?

“Ah, Livingstone, old friend, nice to see you”, Santa said, emerging from his handkerchief. “Do you know why we were all called here? I was stuck in one of the chimneys of Buckingham palace when I got the news. Is that your new employee?”

He pointed the end of his pipe towards Freda. He seemed to take her for an elf, probably because of her pointed cap.

12 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“May I introduce you?” The cat turned to Freda. “Sir Nicholas Christfield, the delegate from Great Britain. And this is Freda.”

Freda took off her mittens and shook the man’s hand, feeling numb. She didn’t get it at all.

“Only just landed myself”, Sir Christfield said in a stuffy voice, “the journey was terrible, as always. I’ve caught a cold again and anyway my back honestly isn’t up to this any more. This time I really am going to apply for retirement.”

He took a small box from his coat pocket, poured a handful of colourful pills into his hand and swallowed them all at once. Before Freda could digest all this information, the lift stopped and they got out. In front of them was an entrance chamber, lined with columns, leading to a black double door.

Freda rammed her heels into the carpet. Apart from two tiny angels fluttering around and a blonde model in evening dress and high heeled shoes the only people present were severely agitated Santas. They wore even crazier clothes than Sir Christfield. Some carried solid broomsticks next to their bags filled with gifts. They kept rattling those broomsticks from time to time.

“Come on, come on, don’t be scared!” the cat reassured her. “They’re all completely harmless!”

Keeping close to him, Freda walked up to the tallest one of them, still suspicious. He had a brown face, tight black curls and an infectious laugh. The typical white beard was missing and he wore wide pants striped in white, red and gold.

“This is Bubu Caspar, one of the Three Wise Men from the East”, Mr Livingstone whispered. “He’s responsible for Present Distribution around the Mediterranean.”

Freda didn’t believe a word of it but bowed as deeply as Bubu Caspar, just to be on the safe side. Mr Livingstone immediately turned to the next Santa, a wrinkled hippie with mirrored aviator glasses and a grey pony tail. Freda could see that he was wearing spurred cowboy boots and a torn coat.

“The American delegate”, Mr Livingstone hissed softly.

What he said aloud was: “Howdy, John Santa, how’s it going?”

John Santa gave Freda a high five and mumbled something that was incomprehensible since he was chewing gum.

Freda was desperately looking for a suitable answer.

“Erm… yes, thank you!” she stuttered, blushing. These were the only words she could think of and they made her feel terribly stupid. Luckily the cat guided her immediately to the cheerful delegate from the South Sea in a summery, colourful Hawaiian shirt. And so it went on. After about twenty introductions Freda’s hands started to hurt and she really would have liked to ask Mr Livingstone what all this stuff about delegates actually meant. At that moment, a Mexican Santa, almost entirely concealed by his gigantic white straw hat, hit Freda in the back with his guitar. She was propelled ahead, jostled several strangers and landed helplessly jammed in a pile of bags full to bursting with presents.

“Oh those pesky elves!” someone complained deep underneath her.

13 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Then Freda felt herself grabbed around the middle and planted firmly back on her feet. She coughed and spit out a few pieces of burlap lint. A red-haired elf, about as tall as her, but with a noticeable gap in his front teeth and fur covered pointy ears, had rescued her. He looked at Freda with curiosity in his blackberry eyes before he shoved her to the side and pulled out yet another delegate from the pile of bags. The grumpy looking Santa wore a striped high visibility vest with a ‘no entry’ sign, work pants with lots of tools attached and a large key ring jingling from his belt.

“That was definitely against safety regulations, again!” he grumbled as he hastily picked up some pliers that had fallen to the floor. “Jonker, I’m going to complain to the boss about you!”

The elf gave Freda a conspiratorial wink. After all she was the one who had caused the fall.

“You do that, Hans-Niklas”, he responded, before disappearing again into the throng. “Nobody’s going to listen to your ramblings anyway.”

The Santa gasped for air and then vented his anger on Freda.

“Don’t just stand around here, being lazy!” he snapped at her.

Startled, Freda moved away from the surly fellow. And where was Mr Livingstone? She would never find her way around here by herself. She quickly slipped through the next gap in the loud, jostling crowd, leaned back onto a wall and observed them all milling around.

It was just incredible. Santas from almost all countries in the world had travelled here, hugging and slapping each other on the back like old friends. At a second glance, some of them seemed to be perhaps a little less popular. One of the delegates, pale like a vampire, wearing an ice blue cape and clasping a jewel-encrusted lance, looked more like a wizard who’d lost his way and was waiting in a lonely corner. After a while, Freda noticed another Santa. His coat was made from purplish red velvet lined with flashy gold buttons, with a fine lace collar and silk trousers. The way he leaned onto his delicate black walking stick and condescendingly waved his ringed hands at his fellow Santas seemed quite self-important. The stylish blonde model in her evening dress was hanging adoringly from his arm like seaweed.

Something was scratching at Freda’s trouser leg. She looked down.

“This is Père Noël, our French delegate”, giggled Mr Livingstone who had just reappeared beside her. “He thinks he’s the Sun King. Oh, party’s over, boss is coming!”

Freda turned her head, excited. The man storming out of the lift now was the only one who actually looked the way she’d always imagined Santa. Red fur-lined coat, white beard, belt, boots, all the works. The only thing that didn’t fit the picture was the fact that he looked absolutely furious.

The real Santa stopped in his tracks. All conversation stopped immediately, too.

“Well, finally”, he snorted when he saw the cat. He impatiently waved them closer. All the delegates scattered silently like a school of fish.

“Who did Mr Livingstone bring along there?” Several of them broke out in agitated whispers, as Freda walked through the suddenly available open space. “Could this possibly be a child?”

The grumpy grouch she’d pushed over by mistake just now gave her a nasty look.

14 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“That’s not allowed”, he said.

Freda looked at the floor, suddenly a bit scared.

She didn’t find all this so funny any more right now. Reluctantly, she walked further forward. How were you supposed to greet Santa anyway? Should she maybe recite a poem or sing a song?

Freda stopped walking, gathered all her courage, and raised her head.

Santa scrutinised her sternly through his round golden glasses. Close up, his face looked wrinkled like oaken bark, aged for a hundred years, but his eyes beneath the white brows had a lively spark.

“Well, well, so you’re Frederizia”, he interrupted Freda’s wild speculations. “I think it’s pretty obvious who I am. Some call me Nikolaus, others call me Santa. For most people here, I’m simply the boss. Take your choice. And now, let’s get to work sharpish! – Feli! Pom-Pom!”

He clapped his hands, full of energy. Two little chubby-cheeked angels, who had been playing catch at turbo speed on top of the delegates’ heads, tamely held each other by the hand and floated closer.

Santa pretended he hadn’t noticed anything.

“Make sure we don’t get disturbed”, he ordered.

They both nodded eagerly, herded all the delegates and Freda into the conference room and then silently closed the wings of the black doors from the outside.

4

Santa didn’t waste any time.

“I herewith declare this extraordinary meeting of the Christmas Company open”, he announced even before everyone had quite found their seats around the oversize black table in the middle of the big room.

“Christfield, put your stinky pipe away, you’re going to take notes. Unfortunately we’re not complete yet. The Eastern delegation is late as usual and the Netherlands, Spain and Italy aren’t here yet either.”

“Just like Brussels”, Sir Christfield giggled, but immediately became serious again after catching a look from his boss.

“Never mind, time’s ticking”, Santa continued. “I declare a state of emergency for the Christmas Company, until further notice. Also note down that we have a guest here, Frederizia Admundsen.”

“Asmussen”, Freda corrected him from the other side of the table. She was getting really tired of being pushed around by all these strangers. The whole thing was after all a lot like being kidnapped!

The boss looked up, surprised.

“If you say so“, he said. “Livingstone, you’re responsible for her while she’s staying with us.”

15 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

The cat, who was hunkering down with half closed eyes on his own chair next to Freda, nodded subserviently. Sir Christfield, next to him, was hastily scribbling down the instructions on his notepad. The other delegates were on the edge of their seats, leaning forward in suspense.

Santa took a folded piece of paper from his coat pocket.

“As you already know, we’re in the biggest pickle of all times”, he continued while smoothing out the paper. “Last night, someone managed to get into our main computer. The password for our Gift List has been replaced by a new, unknown word. No idea who did this and why, but the hackers left us a message.”

There was a deadly silence as Santa started to read out the message:

‘Listen to our prophecy,

You miserable cotton beards and cheats!

Soon the wolf jaws of December

Will swallow up all light. No joy, no laughter shall be,

Nowhere!

For this is a dark Christmas spell.

Twelve create our riddle word,

Storm waves never drive it forth.

There’s creatures two, their shape is one

And Captain Ahab is long gone.

Death and destruction to the Christmas Company!

Thus is our decree.”

Santa lowered the piece of paper. The hall immediately erupted in turmoil.

“Incredible! This is awful!” – “A disaster!” “How could that happen?” They were all shouting over each other.

Bubu Caspar jumped up, his chair crashing to the floor behind him. John Santa choked on his chewing gum, leading to a terrible bout of coughing. His seat neighbours vigorously patted him on the back until he spat out a small white clump onto the table.

“How dare they threaten us like that! Criminals, the lot, criminals!” Sir Christfield moaned and threw a fresh load of pills into his mouth. “This is clearly a matter for the police.”`

“Police? Nonsense!” Mr Livingstone countered. “You know very well that’s not going to work, Nicholas! And anyway where would the appropriate police department be? Scotland Yard perhaps?”

Sir Christfield helplessly shrugged his shoulders.

16 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“We need a superhero”, John Santa gasped, still red in the face.

The Mexican delegate on the other side of the table enthusiastically waved his straw hat.

“Yes! But where to find him, hombre?”

A few of the younger delegates from Asia at the lower end of the table were eagerly putting their heads together. Freda could hear them whisper the word ‘Hollywood’ several times.

Père Noël closed his eyes and daintily pressed a white lacey handkerchief to his forehead.

“Please, that’s ridiculous!” he snuffled. “I’m finding all this quite fatiguing.”

“Well then why don’t you just go hibernate, you lazybones!” Bubu Caspar screamed and pushed his chair over a second time in outrage.

The boss thumped the table with his fist.

“Order! Order! We’ll never get anywhere, going on like this”, he interrupted the agitated chattering. “Any serious suggestions about what we should do? Livingstone?”

“Well I didn’t bring a guest with me for nothing”, the cat said, giving the word ‘guest’ a special emphasis.

All eyes were suddenly on Freda. She got very hot inside the warm parka she was still wearing. She tore at the zip to get it open.

“As you know we can’t bring a computer specialist up here, for all the well-known reasons”, Mr Livingstone explained.

The delegates nodded, very serious now.

“So we’ll have to solve this riddle ourselves”, the cat continued. “And I believe that Freda is going to be of great help.”

“Hey, wait a moment“, Freda said, startled.

But she could already hear approving murmurs all around her. Even Sir Christfield’s worried expression lightened up a bit. Only grumpy Hans-Niklas raised his handkerchief.

“No, as the security consultant in charge I have a different proposal”, he started in a pompous voice.

Everyone barely suppressed a sigh.

“Yes, yes, we know all about your proposals”, the boss cut him off. “It’s just that they won’t work here.”

He thoughtfully looked up into the glass dome and stroked his beard.

“Alright, it’s worth a try”, he said eventually. “Dear Frederizia, as of right now, our specialist departments and my office are at your disposal. Mr Livingstone will show you the ropes. Do you by any chance need some popcorn or chips with … what do you call the stuff… ketchup while you work? Never mind, we’re going to support you in every way we can.”

17 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Appalled, Freda realised that it was high time to pull the emergency brake on this insanity. She loudly cleared her throat to get rid of the weird lump that had suddenly formed in there.

“Well, I would really like to help…” she started politely. That turned out to be a bad mistake.

“Oh brilliant!” the boss shouted, rubbing his hands with glee. “That’s so nice of you. Please let us know as soon as you discover anything. That’s it for now. The meeting is adjourned.”

He grabbed the piece of paper, jumped up from his seat and quickly hurried to the exit. Sir Christfield also collected his note book and bumbled after him, trying to hand in his retirement application. Bubu Caspar and John Santa disappeared through the double doors as well, together with Père Noël and his high heeled lady friend. The rest of the delegates followed, all overjoyed to have dumped this difficult task on someone else. The big conference room emptied out in next to no time.

“What a cheek!” Freda eventually managed to say. “Have they all gone mad?”

The cat had jumped up onto the table top and was contemplating his own reflection on the polished surface with a critical eye.

“I’ve got a bit skinny”, he remarked, touching his belly. “Lets go and eat something.”

Feli and Pom-Pom, who were waiting at the open door, hid their faces behind their hands, bursting with laughter.

Now Freda really had enough. She resolutely pushed her chair back and got up.

“Forget it, I’m not coming with you”, she declared in a firm voice. “My mother’s already worried sick. I’m sure she’ll have notified the police and the sea rescue by now. TAKE ME HOME IMMEDIATELY!!”

Mr Livingstone bared his teeth. The star shaped ceiling lights of the hall painted a jagged pattern onto his black fur. His yellow eyes glowed with fire and for a moment he actually looked a little dangerous.

“Did you really not grasp what this is all about, Frederizia?” he asked her. “What’s at stake here is Christmas, everywhere in the world where it is celebrated!”

Freda petulantly turned up her nose. “So what? How is that my fault?”

The cat flinched as if he’d been hit by an electric current.

“Well if that’s the case…” he responded after a tiny pause. “Maybe I made a mistake there… maybe you’re not the right one after all.”

Freda could hear the disappointment in Mr Livingstone’s voice, but also a hint of something like contempt. It was a peculiar and slightly unpleasant feeling to be despised by your own pet.

“Well I was just thinking…” she defended herself lamely.

Mr Livingstone pounced on her with a few fast paces.

“Thinking! Thinking!” he snarled angrily. “This is not a game that you can just switch off if it gets tough. This is deadly serious! But alright, feel free to hide inside your little shell.”

That really stung. Freda ripped the itching pointy hat off her head

18 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“Well, you could have asked me!”

Mr Livingstone plopped down onto his backside.

“Well I never!” he said, dumbfounded. “That’s the great thing about adventures, you experience them without being asked. They’re not in the schedule! And just to calm you down, I fixed the problem with your mother a long time ago. And one more thing: for the whole duration of an emergency declared by the boss, THE DOOR is locked. Not even I can open it.!”

Freda looked the cat in its black face. It slowly dawned on her what this actually meant. She couldn’t go back home if she didn’t solve the riddle. And there would be no presents on 25 December. For no one. Christmas was totally cancelled.

She nervously gnawed her thumbnail. Because, in fact, no one knew better than her what a sad Christmas could look like. Since the introduction of the high seas satellite networks, it had become easy to reach dad at Christmas out there on the ocean. His voice sounded very close, as if he was in the room next door and not on a cruise ship with 2,000 passengers off the coast of Panama. But then… came the family celebrations…

Every year they sang their Christmas songs, beautifully badly, while mum was trying to hide her tears, but Freda still noticed. Luckily they had Liam telling dumb Easter rabbit jokes and dancing free style around the Christmas tree with grandma. And when the unwrapping of presents and trying out of new games began, they all got more cheerful. However, if there weren’t even going to be any presents this year… then it would be truly awful. And not just for the Asmussen family.

Freda gave a big sigh, reached for her elf’s cap and casually pulled it back over her head.

“Ok, if I have to…”, she said.

At that moment, the loudspeaker in the ceiling above her crackled into life. An unknown woman’s voice squawked: “Listen up everyone: La Cantina is closing in thirty minutes.”

“Let’s get a move on!” Mr Livingstone commanded and jumped off the table. He loped out of the hall in great big leaps. And again Freda was left with no choice except to run after him. They left Central Office in a mad dash and hurried through several smaller streets until they reached a blue guesthouse with a veranda decorated all over with fairy lights. An older angel girl in a short colourful wool dress and knee high boots opened the door. She wore a tiara of pink tree ornaments in her long blonde hair and carried a sleepy snow hare in her arms.

“Welcome to the Villa Lametta!” she greeted Freda, winking at Mr L. ”I’ve heard about you already. Shall I give you a brief tour?”

She plucked a room key from the hook rail in the corridor. Freda could see her wings sticking out from a hole in the back of her dress.

“We haven’t got time for this, Alea”, the cat mewed curtly. “Just show her where she’s sleeping.”

Three more snow hares hopped out from behind the reception counter. Freda bent down to stroke them, smiled apologetically at the nice angel and followed her up the creaking spiral staircase.

19 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

After briefly looking at her room (directly underneath the roof, with a bull’s eye dormer window), the cat hustled her across a few more side streets to an ugly, rusty tin shack. A lot of dented snow mobiles were parked higgledy-piggledy in front of it.

“Why are we going to this workshop?” Freda panted, out of breath from all that unaccustomed running. She pushed the heavy leather curtain aside that protected the entrance from the cold. And instantly recognised where she’d gone wrong. Warm, garlic-scented air and boisterous laughter billowed towards her from the overcrowded room. LA CANTINA was written with red paint onto the wall behind the kitchen counter.

Santas, angels and elves were eating together, crammed onto simple benches along long rough wooden tables. A few acquaintances were waving to them. Bubu Caspar, John Santa and the Mexican delegate Pedro were snaffling down an outsize pepperoni pizza. Freda felt somehow relieved, seeing them like that. But at the same time she felt uncomfortable because everyone was staring at her and for a brief moment, the noise and the clattering of plates stopped. As she was winding her way behind Mr Livingstone to a free corner table right at the other end of the room, she caught a few snippets of the conversations around them.

“The boss is getting old. He’s starting to make mistakes…”

“… the time is ripe…”

“…but why did he have to bring in Miss Pug Face…”

“… oh well I don’t think anything’s going to come of it…”

Freda checked out the crowd from the corners of her eyes. The unfriendly remarks came from a small group in the middle of the room. Sitting next to grumpy Hans-Niklas, several curly haired girl angels with heavy make-up and silvery dresses were picking at tiny salad bowls. The vampire-like pale Santa with his lance that Freda had taken for a wizard was also part of the group. He hastily nudged his companions to shut them up. When Freda asked Mr Livingstone for the man’s name, the cat wrinkled his muzzle.

“Honestly, no idea. I don’t know all the delegates.”

As soon as she slumped onto the bench at the free table, Freda realised that she was actually hungry. She looked around. At the very next table, five elves were noisily devouring lasagne.

She restlessly drummed her fingers on the table.

“How long does it take to order some food here?” she asked.

Something black shot out from behind her head and fell with a loud plop onto the red chequered table cloth.

“Please make your complaints directly to the manager”, a shrill voice said.

Freda blinked.

An angel girl had landed right in front of her, but definitely not one of the normal kind. This one was dressed in a studded biker jacket, shorts, torn leggings and trainers with holes in their soles. As soon as

20 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner she had straightened herself out, she was impatiently tapping her pen on her pad. A tiny green mistletoe branch dangled from her left ear. And her hair style – non-existent. It was all hidden underneath a black hipster hat.

“Hello”, the angel girl said to the cat, ignoring Freda completely. “What can I get you?”

“Two spaghetti alla Serafin”, Mr Livingstone ordered.

“Coming up.”

Ten minutes later, the strange waitress whizzed back to them with their order, just as the elves at the next table were getting into a fight about dessert. The angel swerved around with lighting speed to avoid them. Unfortunately the food in her hands swerved with her. Splatch! A splodge of tomato sauce landed on Freda’s trousers.

“Hey, better leave serving food to someone bigger”, Freda mumbled as she wiped off the worst traces with her napkin.

The angel girl clanked the plates onto their table. “Mind your own business”, came the stroppy answer. “And you, kitty? Cracked the password yet?”

Freda dropped her napkin at this disrespectful way of addressing Mr Livingstone. But he didn’t seem to be bothered in the least.

“How come you already know about that, Serafin?” was all he said.

“Oh, nothing stays secret from me for long”, the angel girl said, hands on her hips. “You should’ve outsourced the job to me instead of that lame couch potato.”

She pointed her chin and a challenging glance at Freda who was still fishing for her napkin under the table.

Freda stared back at her with her mouth open. But before she could even think of an answer to this insult, people were shouting “Serafin!” from all directions and the cheeky angel zoomed off above the heads of her guests.

“And who is that?” Freda asked.

The cat raised his head from his plate.

“Serafin. She’s the cafeteria manager.”

“Stroppy cow.”

“Careful”, he warned her. “She’s really special. The boss thinks the world of her. You’d better ask her to help us.”

Annoyed, Freda wound a few slippery noodles around her fork. No idea how she was supposed to solve this riddle but she would, if it was the last thing she did! And she had to admit that the food tasted really good. They ate their portions in near-silence and, after Freda took their empty plates back to the counter, she fought her way back to the door. Outside, the storm had abated. A cloudless starry sky stood high above their heads.

21 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Shivering in the cold, Freda and the cat trotted back to Central Office the same way they’d come. The town had grown more quiet. Only a few elves were engaged in a raucous snowball battle on the other side of the street.

“Do you have any idea yet what the riddle could mean?” Mr Livingstone asked and picked up the pace.

“No, and I really don’t understand why you don’t get a real computer expert”, Freda said, bumbling slowly behind him. “And also, there are so many Santas here. Anyway, they do say that Santa can make any wish come true. So is it all a big scam after all?”

“Now, now”, Mr Livingstone protested, already at the next crossing. “First of all: we can’t bring in any adults here. There’s a very simple reason from that: They can’t get through THE DOOR.

“I see.” Freda dodged a stray snowball.

“Second of all: of course Santas have special powers”, the cat yelled. He turned back towards her in the middle of the street. “But not even the boss is almighty.”

A snow mobile without lights buzzed out from a dark side street like an evil hornet. Although there was enough space to swerve around him, the driver, whose face was hidden by a scarf, was aiming directly at the cat.

“Watch out! Behind you!” Freda screamed, too far away to help. At the last moment, Mr Livingstone swirled around and avoided the collision with a lightning fast jump behind the nearest garbage bin. The driver stepped on the accelerator again, and the vehicle careened towards the end of the street where it disappeared. The engine noise slowly died down.

Freda was horrified. She ran over to Mr Livingstone who was sitting next to the bin, flanks pumping.

“Are you ok?” she shouted.

The cat shook himself down briefly and jumped back into the crossing. “Nothing happened. Come on.”

Freda wrinkled her forehead. Nothing happened? That driver had almost run him over! He had clearly done it on purpose! She turned around suspiciously before following Mr Livingstone again. But the street was completely empty now, and even the gang of elves that had been rampaging behind them seemed to have been swallowed by the ground. She noticed that the fairy lights on some of the buildings had stopped working. Without their light, this district of the town suddenly looked deserted and strangely gloomy. Freda quickly ran off.

5

Mr Livingstone only slowed down when they had reached the plaza in front of Central Office. They crossed it close to the huge decorated fir tree. No one was around and yet Freda could hear several people quietly singing a Christmas song.

“Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…”

They seemed to be hiding inside the tree.

22 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Freda cautiously approached more closely and pushed one of the dense lower branches aside.

“No shaking!” screamed a golden tree ornament, swinging dangerously back and forth. It pulled its round face into a sad smiley.

“Yes, we always feel sick very quickly”, two other ornaments just above Freda’s head chimed in. “Don’t you like our music? We can do pop songs as well: Laaast Christmas…”

“No, no, sorry!“ Freda stuttered and quickly let the branch go which made the peculiar singers screech again.

She slowly ascended the twenty four wide steps towards the gate.

“You don’t think that this hack attack could just be a harmless, stupid joke?” she wheezed when she finally joined Mr Livingstone at the top.

The cat vigorously pressed the door bell button. A bright little Christmas bell rang inside.

“Maybe there’s Something Else behind it”, he muttered, half to himself. “Quite a few people want us gone from here.”

Freda laughed incredulously while she shook the snow off her boots.

“Why would anyone object to Santas or cute little angels?”

“There are certain reasons”, Mr Livingstone replied and gave the bell another good buzz with his paw. “Hey, will you open up already!”

A young elf whose cap had slipped down over his eyes hastily opened the door. In one hand he held a cheese sandwich whose corner was missing, and in his other hand he held a laser sword in its original packaging. He tried to use the packaged sword to bravely bar their way to the lifts.

“Alright, little guy”, the cat purred more gently, straightening the elf’s cap. “We’ll take the stairs.”

Upstairs on the first floor they turned right into a quiet part of the building with wall-to-wall red carpeting. Not a peep came from behind the heavy wooden doors. As they walked past, Freda read the glossy signs on them. Special Transports, Complaints and Returns, Customised Editions – Wish List Archive!

That raised her curiosity. She stopped. Maybe they had kept something from her? Maybe her unsuccessful drawing of the pony with donkey’s ears from her first year at school? Or could they possibly have wish lists from people she knew? From her friend Juli for example, or from a famous film star or singer?

Freda pressed her ear against the warm wood. Very slowly, she pressed down the handle. At that moment the three heavily made-up silver angels from the Cantina entered the corridor behind her.

“Hey! Pug Face! No entry here!” the first one shouted bossily. The other two erupted into shrill giggles.

Freda shrunk back from the handle as if she had touched burning coal. She ran over to Mr Livingstone who was waiting in front of the final door that had a sign saying Head Office – CEO.

23 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“This way!” the cat said, pointing to a delicate silver key in the lock.

Excited, Freda opened the door and they entered. In front of them was a square, cosy room with several big sofas and easy chairs, floor-to-ceiling book shelves and a huge wooden desk with a computer on it. The three windows offered a view of the city borders and the airport beyond. To the right, a fire was crackling in the chimney, with a life size picture of the boss on the wall above it. Apart from that, no one was to be seen. A weak scent of tobacco hung in the air.

The nimble-footed cat jumped onto the desk.

“It’s getting more and more difficult every year to save our old company from destruction”, he muttered as he switched on the computer. “I really hope you can help us.”

Freda rolled the heavy, padded CEO chair closer to the desk and sat down. The blackmail note appeared on the screen. She slowly read the text, repeating parts of it under her breath:

‘… this is a dark winter spell …

Twelve make up our riddle word,

Storm waves never drive it forth.

There’s creatures two, their shape is one

And Captain Ahab is long gone.”

Freda thoughtfully gnawed her lip.

She’d always been able to solve the riddles in her computer games pretty quickly. Most of the time, you just had to click on some symbols or search for and collect certain objects. And if you got stuck, the game would even give you some tips. But this was not a game console and there were no images anyway.

She half-heartedly moved the cursor back and forth across the blackmail letter. Nothing happened. But when she touched the word ‘winter spell’, the cursor suddenly raced ahead by itself and swallowed every character it touched. The entire letter disappeared!

“What happened just now?” Freda called out, startled.

She randomly pounded various keys. No response. The killer cursor had reached the bottom row. It blinked for a few seconds, as if it was mocking her, and it, too, disappeared. Instead a grey box popped up in the middle of the screen:

Warning! You have reached the end of the internet!

The computer fan gave an unhealthy hiss.

Freda buried her face in her hands. “I… I really didn’t mean to do that!” she said, dejected.

“Don’t worry, it’s going to settle down again”, Mr Livingstone said. “Just take this one.”

He plucked a print-out of the blackmail letter out of the pending tray and started grooming himself.

24 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Relieved, Freda immersed herself in the text again. “Captain Ahab… isn’t that the crazy one-legged guy from Moby Dick?” she asked after a while.

Mr Livingstone raised his head from his rear leg. “I think so.”

Freda sighed. What a pity. Liam had watched the film once with one of his friends. She’d only looked at it cursorily because it was all about boring ships. She tried to make an effort to remember.

“How did that story go? Nasty captain Ahab is hunting the White Whale. He’s really keen to kill him. They didn’t have Greenpeace then yet. Maybe the word that solves the riddle has something to do with whale hunting.”

She read the first line again. Suddenly she snipped her fingers.

“Twelve make up this riddle word. I’m sure that means twelve characters”, she said, excited. “W H A L E H U N T…”

“That’s only nine…” Mr Livingstone interrupted.

Freda groaned. How annoying. “Man, I’m not finished yet.”

She started to spell out a different word, counting the characters off on her fingers. “W H A L E H U N T E R S. Twelve characters. Yippee! I’ve got it!”

She jumped up, whirled around and clapped her hands\

Her enthusiasm was interrupted by a furious hiss.

“What’s that?” Freda asked impatiently. “Let’s type the password into that Gift File and then we can go home.”

“We’re absolutely not going to do that”, the cat retorted. “And never call me ‘man’ again! Did you really think it would be so simple?”

“Why not?” Freda insisted, proud of her quick solution.

Mr Livingstone just grinned.

“And what are you going to do with the ‘creatures two’?” he asked, pawing the piece of paper. “Just read the third line again. They’re creatures two, their shape is one. Whale hunters, that makes no sense whatsoever.”

Freda stared at him for a few seconds before she recognized the flaw in her reasoning. Disappointed, she flopped back into her seat.

“Bummer!”

For the next hour, they pondered the mysterious spell, looking at it from various angles. But they made no progress whatsoever. Freda’s brain seemed to be on strike, just like the computer. Just as she was going to suggest that they should call it a day, there was a knock on the door. It opened slightly and a tray with mugs exuding a seductive smell appeared.

“Hot chocolate, anyone?” Serafin asked.

25 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Freda kicked her chair so that it swivelled until she had her back to the door. Not her again!

Mr Livingstone simply overlooked this.

“Good timing, Serafin!” he called. “We’re stuck.”

This time, the little angel delivered the tray on foot. Only afterwards Serafin flew up to the desk to study the blackmail letter with a grave expression on her face.

“Who’s captain Ahab?” she asked after what felt like an eternity.

“Phut!” Freda puffed into her mug. This kitchen fairy was a real genius brain!

The cat stayed calm.

“He’s a character from a book”, he enlightened Serafin patiently. “The book is called Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville. It tells the story of how the whale hunter captain Ahab, obsessed by the white whale Moby Dick, can’t stop hunting him. He risks his ship and his life for it. And in the end, the whale wins.”

Serafin pushed her hat back with two fingers and hummed a few bars of Jingle Bells.

“The word that’s the key to the riddle has got to be in the book”, she said with conviction. “There’s got to be a clue.”

Still annoyed, Freda sat up in her sulking chair.

“I would’ve thought of that too at some point”, she said in a huff.

Serafin just shrugged her wings and flew across the room towards the shelves. She floated along the backs of the books, announcing the names of the authors.

“Mann, Marx, oh there it is! Melville, Herman: Moby Dick!”

She wrestled a thick volume out of the shelf, flew it over to Freda’s seat and dumped it in her lap.

“There! You start!”

She sat down beside her on the wide armrest, crossing her legs.

Freda opened the book. The blue cloth binding exuded a stuffy aroma, the paper was stained and turning yellow. Sentence by sentence, page by page they started to investigate the story, reading it out aloud to each other.

The small golden clock on the mantel piece struck the hours. Several of them. Twice, the fire burned low. Twice, Freda put new logs on it. But all their efforts were for nothing because they couldn’t find a 12 letter word that fit the riddle. The only outcome of this reading marathon were numb feet, arguments and nausea. As the book described the bloody slaughter of a poor sperm whale in atrocious detail, Freda covered her ears with her hands until Serafin finally turned the page. But Freda’s questions caused a lot more trouble. The story was full of weird sailing terms like ‘running the rig’.

“Why did you bring in someone who’s so ignorant about sailing”, Serafin asked the cat. When she heard that Freda’s father was a captain, the little angel only rolled her eyes.

26 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“You can’t have been talking to him a lot then”, she taunted her.

That didn’t exactly endear her to Freda and at a quarter to midnight, her mood had reached a low point.

“… and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago”, Serafin read the last sentence of the novel. Her voice had grown hoarse. She closed the book. “The end!”

“Well that was a flop”, Freda noted, totally exhausted, and put her head between her knees. She was far too tired to enjoy Serafin’s failure.

The cat stretched his back.

“True, but we can’t give up”, he said without the tiniest glimmer of compassion. “Time to report to the boss.” He reached for the phone.

“Oh no”, Freda groaned. A midnight meeting with the vivacious Santa was the last thing she needed. But she didn’t have a choice.

A little later, the boss galumphed through the door, wide awake. He planted himself on the spacious corner couch, full of zest.

“And? What did you find out, my dear?” he asked, thumping the seat beside him as an invitation to join him there.

The cat was pointedly staring at the desk and Serafin had managed to slink away onto one of the window seats.

Freda hesitated, then sat down next to the boss.

“Well, not a lot, unfortunately”, she confessed. As she was talking about their unsuccessful detective work, the smile on Santa’s face vanished. By the end, a steep vertical line had appeared on his forehead.

Here we go, Freda thought, already terrified. He had exactly the same look on his face as her maths teacher Mr Schrevenhorn when he told Freda that she’d screwed up her test.

The boss took off his glasses, cleaned them thoroughly and put them on again.

“Excellent idea”, he then praised her. “Even if you couldn’t find any clues in the book. The riddle must have something to do with sailing or with whale hunting, otherwise the blackmailers wouldn’t have mentioned captain Ahab. But what’s the next step now? We don’t have much time. It’s only 17 days until the 24th of December.”

He tugged at his beard with a worried look. Freda hid her hands under her legs and stared at her boots. She really didn’t know what to suggest. There was a gloomy silence.

“Something’s wrong here!” Serafin called from the window. She threw off the red velvet drapes she’d wrapped around herself.

“Quick, look at this!“

They both jumped up and ran over to her.

27 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“What’s going on?”, the boss asked, pressing his nose against the window. Right next to him, Freda crowded in, carrying the fidgeting Mr Livingstone in her arms.

“There, at the airport! A Julenisse troll!”

Serafin pointed to the smooth open area of ice beyond the warehouses that formed the borders of the town. Under the fluorescent lights, she could see the polar planes that had flown in the delegates. Underneath the plane closest to them, Freda could make out a small figure.

And that’s when it happened. The computer on the desk exploded with a loud bang, and all the bulbs in all the lamps exploded as well. Splinters flew through the air. Blue flames shot out of the floor lamps by the window and the seating area. Freda and Serafin both screamed at the same time. Mr Livingstone hissed and jumped out of Freda’s arms. Something brushed her cheek. Then the room was pitch black.

“Nobody move!“ Santa shouted.

Freda could hear him cautiously creeping through the room, crunching broken bits of glass under his feet. There was some rustling and clattering as he felt his way along the wall to the door handle. When he found it, he tore the door up and barked an order into the corridor.

Freda reached into the darkness, hoping to find Mr Livingstone. She felt very relieved when he briefly rubbed his head against her hand.

“Serafin!” she called out.

“Yes!” came a little peep close to her. It didn’t sound quite as cheeky as before.

A swarm of half-undressed elves with flashlights stormed through the door.

“Silence!” the boss thundered, completely in charge of the situation again. “Jonker, immediately raise the alarm! Julenisse at the airport! The rest of you, make sure all is in order here and get us some lights!”

A new outcry emerged from the group. The red-haired, tooth-gapped elf who had helped Freda when she fell down in the conference hall, was the first to run off. Seconds later, an ear-splitting siren shrilled through the entire Central Office. All loudspeakers broadcast the same tinny announcement:

“Attention, attention! Julenisse alarm! Security immediately to the airport! I repeat. Security immediately to the airport!”

Doors were banging. Many quick feet were running in all directions.

Another sweaty elf appeared in the door frame.

“Power outage on the entire floor!” he wheezed.

The boss stomped his foot.

“Well then you’ll need to think of something, won’t you!”

Minutes later, Pom-Pom and Feli fluttered in, holding dangerously dripping lighted candles in their hands.

“Hello, we need some light over here!” Freda called out to them. She was worried about Serafin.

28 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

She discovered her next to the window, clinging to the drapes with both hands like a lost bat. A bleeding scratch ran all the way across her forehead. Her right wing looked badly dishevelled.

Freda pushed a chair towards the window, gingerly plucked Serafin from the drapes and settled her on her arm. It felt a bit weird and Serafin immediately opened her mouth as if she wanted to protest. At the same time a first aid elf weaselled in, armed with an emergency kit and a fluorescent headlamp. Although he looked very young in spite of his old-fashioned horn-rimmed glasses, he clearly knew how to deal with highly strung angels. Plop! A pink candy appeared between Serafin’s lips, and a black plaster on her forehead. Then he looked at her crumpled wing.

“That’s going to take a while to heal”, he declared. “No tail diving for now. And be nice to your friend here if you want to be carried.”

He winked at Freda and flitted off to the next patient.

That was a bit of a bummer. Serafin sat on Freda’s arm, speechless for once.

More and more angels floated into the room, distributing lanterns on shelves and tables. Freda looked around. Only now did she realise the extent of the destruction in the room. The computer screen was broken, the plastic casing was charred. A layer of fine glass particles covered the desk, the chair and the floor. The shades of the floor lamps had been burnt to a cinder. A few elves were already tidying up. Freda constantly had to avoid their brooms sweeping under her feet.

Unsettled, she meandered back to the window, still carrying Serafin. The cat was watching the security team searching the airport. The siren still shrilled on.

“Do things like this happen here very often?” she shouted against the ongoing noise.

Serafin swallowed the rest of her candy.

“Of course!” she snorted and sat up. “These Julenisse are nothing but trouble.”

The cat turned its head.

“No, not in the old days”, he corrected her. “In the old days, these little trolls lived everywhere in the North, hidden in human homes, looking after families and animals and they even delivered the Christmas presents. And in return, they got a bowl of milk rice on Christmas Day. But they couldn’t deal with modern times. And because so many people forgot about them, they became restless and started to wander around. Groups of Julenisse have recently migrated all the way to the Christmas Company…”

“Yes, yes. And two years ago they destroyed our entire cookie production in one night”, Serafin interrupted him impatiently. “In the bakery, they secretly mixed the wrong spices into the dough. All our cookies tasted of curry and cumin! Disgusting! Crumble nearly fainted the next morning.”

Freda wrinkled her forehead. To Destroying so many Christmas cookies was of course a bad prank. But what had just happened here was a real attack. Somehow that didn’t seem to fit in with the cheeky little Christmas trolls.

And Freda would turn out to be quite right about that.

29 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

6

Minutes later, the boss stormed back into his office, trailing a large group of frightened delegates who had been called out of bed by the siren.

Père Noël, in an embroidered black silk bath robe, threw his hands up in the air when he saw the devastation.

“Mon Dieu!” he shouted dramatically.

Sir Christfield silently contemplated the demolished computer before he pulled a small spray bottle from his chequered pyjama pocket and inhaled deeply.

“I’ve always been against all this modern technology!”, he wheezed.

“All I hear from you are objections! I need solutions!” the boss grumbled. He impatiently waved his hand in the direction of the sofas. The clean-up crew had meanwhile removed the worst traces of destruction. A new fire was blazing in the chimney. Pom-Pom and Feli were handing out tea and biscuits.

Freda quickly reclaimed the boss’ chair where she’d already spent half of the evening. While everyone was still looking for a space, Jonker appeared on the door step. He was carrying something concealed underneath a black cloth and straightaway marched up to Mr Livingstone. Freda watched them hunched over the hidden object and excitedly whispering to each other. She intently observed the strange scene. Jonker actually looked really nice, in spite of his weird pointed, furry ears. Judging by his height, Freda guessed he might be 10 or 11 years old, but perhaps age worked differently for elves. But why did he make such a serious face and what was he hiding underneath the cloth?

Just as she was going to walk over to him, the irritating siren stopped.

The boss took a big sip of tea. What he had to say wasn’t going to be pleasant.

“The Julenisse is gone, vanished like snow in summer”, he reported. “But the power went out in the entire Central Office, and no one knows why.”

After the first agitation had abated, John Santa took the floor.

“This is going too far. Maybe we should teach the little pranksters another lesson”, he grumbled, unwrapping another piece of chewing gum.

The boss took off his glasses and stroked his wrinkled face. He suddenly looked terribly fragile.

“We don’t have the time for that”, he said wearily. “First we need to solve the password riddle. Unfortunately, Freda hasn’t got very far with that yet.”

Several voices broke out into a disappointed “Ohhh!”. Some of the delegates were scraping their feet, muttering complaints. The silver angels looked at each other pointedly and raised their plucked eye brows.

Hans-Niklas shook his key chain.

30 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Freda shifted in her seat, feeling miserable. It really was too annoying that she couldn’t show them the tiniest little result.

Sir Christfield, who had caved in on himself next to the boss like a dead bug, struggled out of the couch.

“I’m sure she can do it!” he said and smiled at Freda.

John Santa noisily burst a chewing gum bubble.

“The Julenisse never were so nasty before, though”, he wondered aloud. “I’d really like to know what made them so angry!”

“So would I”, the cat purred from the background. “Because this is what they found at the airport!”

He nodded to Jonker. The elf stepped in front of the mantelpiece and lifted the hidden object that he’d gingerly carried in his hands all that time like a raw egg. In a quick movement he pulled back the cloth. An outcry of suppressed anguish ran through the room.

Freda, too, stopped breathing. What was sitting on Jonker’s palm, illuminated by the fire in the chimney, definitely looked sinister. She could feel Serafin wince.

“What is this?” she whispered.

The object was a twenty centimetre tall figure carved from black stone, an ugly mix of ogre, seal and wolf. The beast was rearing up on its hind legs, its head thrown back, squinting at them from protruding eyes. Remnants of bloody scraps of fur sticking to its claws, it seemed ready to attack. Its pointed snout, filled with a double row of teeth, was wide open.

“What you see here is a harbinger of doom”, Mr Livingstone said very seriously, “a so-called Tupilaq. The Julenisse from Greenland use it as a magical tool to harm people. The figure can take the shape of a ghost through an invocation spell and it won’t give up until it has achieved its mission.”

Freda felt a shiver run down her back.

“He was the strange figure down at the airport?” she asked diffidently, pointing to the ugly sculpture.

“In its ghost shape”, Mr Livingstone corrected her. “The person who sends the Tupilaq usually keeps the carved figure. I don’t know why it was still lying around there. But never mind – the harbinger of doom almost achieved its goal. Just consider who was here, visible as targets through the window!”

A murmur ran through the room. Serafin sat up and looked over to the window.

“I’m sure he got a good view of me on the windowsill”, she said in a hollow voice. “Then there was Freda with Mr Livingstone in her arms and the boss was also…”

She didn’t finish her sentence but everyone got it.

“By the star of Bethlehem, what astronomic comet crap!” Bubu Caspar cursed. “They’re out of order. We’d all better look for a new job.”

31 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“Not a particularly great loss in your case”, Père Noël said, looking down his nose, dunking his biscuit into his tea with his long thin fingers. Then he looked around with fake astonishment. “By the way, where are your friends, the Wise Men Melchior and Balthasar? Have they run away scared already?”

Bubu Caspar shot out of his seat like a rocket.

“Hopefully you’re next when the harbinger of doom strikes again!” he retorted heatedly. Clenching his fists, the 6.5 inch Santa stomped towards the razor thin French delegate.

With great presence of mind, the Mexican delegate held Bubu Caspar back by the hood of his coat. He angrily shook him off. Père Noël used the opportunity to throw a sofa cushion towards his attacker. But because he was so bad at throwing, he hit Sir Christfield’s pill box instead. Its contents spilled out all over the carpet.

“Stay chilled, dude!” John Santa shouted angrily, rushing to the aid of his friend.

But even the boss didn’t manage to calm things down. John Santa and five others had to grab the two brawlers to the left and right and drag them to different corners of the room while the Asian delegates kept taking pictures. Sir Christfield was crawling around between everyone’s legs, scrambling to collect his pills. The executive board of the Christmas Company was in total disarray.

Freda watched the mayhem from her seat, trying to work it all out in her mind. Clever hackers who logged into Santa’s computer system and wandering Julenisse with deadly ghost figures. How did it all fit together?

The situation in the Christmas Company was getting more and more convoluted by the hour. If it continued like that, she would probably never return home again. Freda’s stomach contracted into a knot. That was a very unpleasant thought.

She shyly tapped Serafin on the shoulder and said: “We’re losing time here. That will only help those who want to harm the Christmas Company!”

The girl angel hesitated for a moment, then she put two fingers into her mouth. A piercing whistle silenced the entire group at once.

“Stop that stupid arguing!“ Freda called out to them. “Let’s try to find the solution for the riddle instead.”

That actually worked with most of them, except for Hans-Niklas. He inspected Freda spitefully while the three silver angels next to him were conferring in low voices with the delegate in the blue wizard’s cloak. After a brief consultation, he took a few steps forward.

“Shorty here has no right to order us around”, he barked hoarsely. “We’ve had nothing but trouble since she arrived.”

“Bullshit!” John Santa and Sir Christfield shouted, outraged. But several delegates were shaking their heads and looking uncertainly at the boss who was absently stirring his tea.

Freda clung to the armrests. Her hands were damp. She was already regretting her intervention.

32 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“We have to succeed somehow”, she implored them. “Let’s all think about it: who else could know anything about whale hunting? That riddle could have been set by a crazy old sailor. Isn’t there anyone anywhere who we could ask?”

She looked pleadingly at them. Approximately forty completely clueless Santa faces looked silently back at her. Only Hans-Niklas kept tugging at his high visibility vest and the silver girl angels leaning against the book shelves fanned themselves excitedly with their wings.

Freda lowered her head and muttered: “Otherwise there’ll be nothing left for us but to consult a psychic.”

The boss dumped his spoon in the tea mug.

“What did you say?” he wanted to know.

“Psychic”, Freda repeated reluctantly.

“PSYCHIC!” the boss screamed and smacked his palm against his face. “Of course! Myrkur Farandi! How didn’t I think of him?”

Freda blinked, confused. The boss suddenly beamed all over his face. But everyone else, even Feli and Pom-Pom, their mouths smudged with chocolate, looked as if they’d seen a ghost.

“Myrkur Farandi! Far too dangerous! No one who ever put a foot on his ship has returned alive!” Sir Christfield moaned and raised his hands as if to defend himself.

“And no one knows where he actually comes from”, John Santa said in a hollow graveyard voice. The rest of the delegates nodded gloomily.

Even Serafin, who seemed generally quite brave to Freda, slipped off Freda’s lap and planted herself in front of Mr Livingstone. They both shouted in unison: “Never!”

The boss waved all objections away. He no longer looked old or tired in the least. On the contrary, he started stomping around in the room, dispatching instructions like Julius Caesar on the eve of a battle.

“Jonker, I need all the cartographic material we have on Iskalott! Find out if we still have a working computer somewhere. Bjarni, get Tufte from Present Storage. And bring Bertil from the Toy Testing Department.”

He whirled around and pointed his finger at the three silver angels who were nervously winding their curls around their fingers.

“Lokaddis, Dune and Rhoda, I want a list of all returned presents from last Christmas. And I want it now!”

All three went pale under their make-up and ran to the door, heels clacking. Within minutes, numerous assistants flitted in all directions to carry out his orders.

“But… what did I say?” Freda asked.

The boss pulled her out of her seat with great verve.

33 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“That was a stroke of genius!” he praised her and put his arm around her shoulder. “In fact there is such a man, someone who fits your description exactly. He does have a reputation of … erm… being difficult. And he’s not easy to find either, but that’s not going to deter us.”

His eyes fell on a small golden chimney clock showing two-thirty in the morning.

Startled, he shouted: “But you’ve done enough for one day. Bedtime for you! Bruno will accompany you to keep you safe. Good night, my dear.”

Gently but firmly he pushed Freda towards the door.

Suddenly she felt incredibly tired. Her eyes were almost closing of their own accord as she stood there.

Bruno took her and the cat back to the Villa Lametta in his sleigh. A solitary flickering candle inside a lantern burned on the veranda when they arrived.

Freda sneaked on tiptoes around the sleeping snow hares scattered everywhere around the floor, climbed the creaking wooden stairs to her attic room and closed the door behind her. She’d never slipped out of her clothes so quickly before. Her bedding had been warmed. It smelled beautifully of Christmas trees and anticipation. The last thing she noticed was Mr Livingstone jumping onto the duvet and snuggling into the cosy hollow behind her knees.

7

Freda had no idea how she had got onto this old sailing ship. The entire crew was made up of Santas. Colourful gift boxes were stacked up against the railing, slithering around with every wave. The sinister looking one-eyed captain, carrying a leather whip in his hand, screamed “input password” three times across the rocking deck.

Password? What password? Freda didn’t know it. She tried to run away but her legs wouldn’t obey her. Her feet would only unpeel at a snail’s pace from the wet wooden planks.

The one-eyed captain came inexorably closer. Freda desperately looked around. No escape route. Except there, right above her, the look-out on top of the mast!

She rushed to grasp the ice-covered shrouds. The hideous captain was only one metre behind her.

Trembling, she climbed up the rigging as the storm tore at her clothes. Finally she swung her legs over the edge of the crow’s nest and looked around.

Underneath her, the grey, raging sea was churning. Ugly, seal-like creatures were paddling around between gigantic blue-tinted icebergs. But strangely, Freda’s father, her maths teacher Mr Schrevenhorn, Serafin and Mr Livingstone were also drifting helplessly past on a wooden plank…

The immense grey head of a whale suddenly reared up from the sea. Small black eyes stared at the ship. A well targeted hit rammed the rump – and the sail ship with all its presents, Santas and even its captain tilted on its side.

34 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“HELP!” Freda screamed. Terrified, she clung to the edge of the lookout as she fell faster and faster towards the mountainous waves… and fell… and fell…

Just before she hit the water, Freda woke up. Confused, she looked around in the dimly lit room.

Had she missed the first lesson at school? Where was she?

Then she remembered everything. The door to the North Pole, the hack attack on the Christmas Company and the assault by the harbinger of doom.

“Finally!” Serafin said from the other corner of the room.

Freda sat up and ran her hand through her tousled hair. She felt a little embarrassed.

“What – what are you doing here?” She noticed the empty spot at the foot of the bed. “And where is Mr Livingstone?”

Serafin slipped down from the gigantic stack of laundry she was perching on, causing a minor avalanche.

“Naturally he’s already over in Present Storage” she said as if this must be obvious to anyone with half a brain.

“And we’re supposed to be there too, in half an hour at the latest. Boss’s orders. And, oh, this outdoor gear is for you, Alea told me. Breakfast is ready. I’ll wait outside on the veranda until my lady is ready.”

She gave a sarcastic curtsey and strolled out the door.

Freda groaned under her breath as she padded to the bathroom and looked at her round, tired face in the mirror. Something told her that Present Storage wouldn’t come up with any nice surprises for her.

One and a half hours later she wished she’d simply stayed in bed with the blanket over her head. Because, during the last few hours, the boss and his helpers had been working flat out to locate the mysterious Myrkur Farandi. According to them, it turned out that he was currently in an area called Iskalott, and more precisely in the Bay of Terror about 150 kilometres away where his ship called Vega had been stuck in the pack ice for years.

Apparently it wasn’t possible to establish a connection with the man in the normal way. There was still no power in the Central Office of the Christmas Company. Phones, computers, even the airport tower, none of them were working.

And so, desperate and exhausted from lack of sleep, the boss had made a far-reaching decision.

“We’ll just send an expedition to Iskalott”, he explained to everyone he had called together that morning in the huge main storage hall right next to the airport.

“With a dog sled, provisions, a tent, just like Fridtjof Nansen, John Franklin, Frederik Cook and all these other famous polar explorers in the old days whose names now escape me.”

The boss proudly pointed at the central aisle right next to him. Next to a simple wooden sled the storage elves had stacked up a towering heap of boxes, sleeping bags, plastic bins, tents, tins, pots and pans, tarps, ropes and a lot of other useful outdoor equipment.

35 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“Where does this stuff come from?” Freda asked loudly.

Tufte, the leader of the storage elves, with toned arms like a fitness coach, slowly opened his mouth. One of the silver angels ruthlessly pushed in front of him.

“This is ultra-modern polar equipment”, Rhoda said snottily. She looked at her clipboard. “We’ve been storing it here as a return item since last year. The favourite son of an insanely rich businessman decided he’d rather have a convertible after all at the last minute…”

“Exactly, and that’s why the expedition team can start its journey to Iskalott straightaway tomorrow morning.” The boss beamed at everyone. “Jonker is getting the dogs. We’re lucky!”

Freda’s eyes popped. Had Santa lost his mind? A sled expedition in December, on the pack ice, during the never ending darkness of the polar night? Of course she wasn’t an expert on the North Pole, but as far as she knew, not even the most extreme adventurers had so far pulled that off. Absolute madness. She felt sorry for the poor sods who would have to carry out this outlandish scheme.

But it was his next sentence that bowled her over.

“The team will consist of Jonker, Freda and Serafin, and the leader of the expedition will of course be Mr Livingstone”, he said cheerfully and stroked his beard. He seemed content. The wind howled across the roof of the warehouse.

The cat was the first one to find his voice again.

“No dogs!” he hissed, squeezing his eyes into narrow slits. “No one will put me on a sled drawn by these beasts. You can forget about that right now, buddy!”

The boss drew his eyebrows together.

“Are you going to pull the sled yourself then?” he asked, his face slowly turning red.

“Certainly not”, the cat replied icily, arching his back. “I’m not going at all.”

And that started the next furious argument. Within seconds, Serafin and all the others also contributed their pennies’ worth to it. Freda plumped down onto a yellow plastic container, shaking her head. She already felt cold again although she was wearing every thick piece of clothing that Alea had laid out for her,

“He can’t be serious about this, can he?” she asked Sir Christfield, feeling a little worried. He stopped sucking on his pipe and coughed, looking embarrassed.

“It’s about Christmas”, he growled. “The boss won’t let anything mess with Christmas.”

An hour later the countdown for the expedition did actually go ahead. After an extended one-on-one chat between the boss and Mr Livingstone, the cat, for some reason, accepted the sled dogs. So then Serafin also gave in, although it seemed clear that she would be the first not to make it through this journey. Bubu Caspar and John Santa agreed, reminding the little angel of her injured wing.

36 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“Never mind, the whole thing will go wrong without me”, Serafin claimed. She stubbornly dragged a camping cooker right from the middle of the teetering stack of equipment. The stack collapsed like a tower built from play blocks.

Freda pulled the little angel back at the last minute.

“Yes, we can see that!” she burst out. “None of us is a good fit for this journey.”

The silver angels nudged each others’ elbows and rolled their eyes.

“Oh look, Pug Face is scared now”, Rhoda said so loudly that everyone in the warehouse could hear it.

But although it was true, Freda really didn’t care right now. There was something else that bothered her. She turned round and looked sharply at the boss.

“Where is this strange Iskalott anyway?” she probed further. “I’ve never heard of it. And also, I don’t know how to guide a dog sled.”

Neither the boss nor anyone else seemed interested in her objections. On the contrary, Bubu Caspar, John Santa and most of the other delegates simply marched out of the warehouse, wondering aloud how many kilos of meat would be needed for the dogs and what kind of astronaut food Freda would prefer – Indian style chicken or Italian pasta? Sir Christfield also trotted off to help plan the route with the cat and Serafin in the boss’ office. Even Père Noël joined a group of angels taking care of clothing and first aid kits for the expedition. Around twenty elves had meanwhile tied a thick rope to the dog sled in order to pull it towards the airport for loading it up. While everyone in the Christmas Company was in agreement and made themselves useful in some way, Freda was still reluctant.

The boss dealt with this effortlessly, too.

“No problem if you don’t want to join our search for Myrkur Farandi”, he said lightly, drumming his fingers on a fuel tank.

“We’d be happy to keep you here at the Christmas Company.”

“Yo! There’s a whole wicked lot of stuff still to do!” a young cheeky elf crowed which earned him a smack from Tufte.

Freda bit her lip. That wasn’t what she had meant.

“No. I’m not going to abandon Mr Livingstone”, she said in a flat voice and ran after the others. But she didn’t feel half as cool doing that as it might have sounded.

But just afterwards, at the airport, she could see the kinds of difficulties that awaited all of them. Jonker had anchored the wooden sled with a kind of ice claw at a little distance from the planes and was waiting to take her on a first trial run. Just harnessing the nine dogs took forever. They were a wild bunch, allegedly from Greenland or Canada.

Freda understood very quickly why Mr Livingstone didn’t want to have anything to do with sled dogs. At home, in her city, many people owned this breed of dog. She now realised that these were harmless pets. But the dogs in front of her, howling and pulling at their leash, were more like a freshly caught wolf pack. Looking at their muscular backs and sharp teeth made Freda’s knees turn to butter.

37 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Fortunately, Jonker knew his way around them and explained every hand signal and every command. It was impressive to see him clamp the white lead dog Karnak between his legs, pull the wide red harness over his head and front legs and then tie a short leash to it. He strapped it to the sled with a snap hook at the front of the long guide leash. Then he placed the other eight dogs behind the lead in pairs of two, in order of strength and status. Whenever he brought the next dog, fidgeting excitedly, too close to the other animals, threatening snarls erupted. Only the crack of the long leather whip on Jonker’s belt restored calm. Because of his whip, Freda had berated him at first as a nasty animal abuser. Now she was silent and felt a bit sheepish.

Jonker stopped next to the final pair of dogs that hadn’t been harnessed yet, a brown male and a white female with funny black spots around her eyes.

“Your turn, Freda” he called. “You’re going to have to be able to do this.”

Freda’s heart was in her mouth. If there hadn’t been quite a big audience, including Hans-Niklas and the snotty silver angels, she might well have chickened out of it. Her mouth felt dry as she trudged over the hard-packed snow and repeated everything to herself that Jonker had impressed on her. “Always be calm and decisive, always give clear orders, NEVER LET GO OF THE LEASH.”

She bent down to the two dogs and whispered: “Please, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to put the harness on you.”

The little female tilted her head and gave Freda a brief, friendly nose bump.

After that, everything worked out better than she had thought. After Snugg and True had been harnessed into the last position, Freda’s hands were trembling. But she’d managed to pull it off. The dogs were rearing to go, pulling on their leashes, jolting the sled in its anchoring. Jonker jumped onto the back skids and gripped the guide rails to the left and right.

“Get on!” he called, pointing the end of his whip to the loading space. “Hold on tight!”

Freda jumped onto the sled and squatted down. Pressing her back against the wooden struts, she barely had time to grip the side frames before Jonker released the anchoring of the iron claw with one hand, gave the sled an vigorous push and shouted: “Go! Go!”

Howling wildly, the dogs put their weight into the harness and stormed off. Just a few moments later they’d left the well lit airport behind.

Freda’s heart beat loudly in her chest. In the beam of Jonker’s head lamp, she could see the backs of the frenzied, skittering dogs until, after some time, the team had expended some of its high spirits and fell into a more regular canter.

A soft wind drove whirls of snow over the smooth, frozen sea ice. There was no sound except the hiss of the gliding skids and the panting of the dogs.

Well, here we go, Freda thought, shifting into a more comfortable position, it’s not so hard after all. In summer, when the sun was shining, a drive like this would probably be real fun. But in this endless winter night she just stared into the beam of light ahead of her while the darkness surrounded her like a wall and the icy air flow found its way into any gap in her clothes. Freda was still warm inside the

38 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner padded high tech polar suit she was wearing. Ultra bright headlamp, double gloves, cap with earflaps, balaclava helmet to protect her face, padded Kamik boots – this equipment really was first class.

Maybe it’s not quite so dangerous after all, she ruminated. Maybe I exaggerated. I’m not all that brave but I’m definitely not a lame couch potato… if only Liam could see this…

A sharp jolt almost hurled Freda onto the ice and yanked her out of her reverie.

An obstacle had appeared in front of them. Jonker jumped off the skids in one leap.

“Hold onto the sled!” he shouted, running forward to the lead dog. “Move!”

He grabbed Karnak by his chest harness. “Whoa Karnak, whoa! So, now you have to push, Freda! No, not there! At the back, on the push frame! Come on!”

The elf dragged the team with all his might across the edges of the ice slabs, broken up like ramps. Freda hurriedly tried to follow his orders. The next few minutes were a crash course both in ice management and survival skills.

“Where sea ice and land ice meet, or where the ice moves due to fast currents or tides, it gets more difficult”, Jonker screamed. “Pressure ridges can form, sometimes several metres high. That’s where the dogs can’t do it by themselves. We have to lend a hand.”

Freda could feel immediately how exhausting this was. Soon, sweat was running down her back. Although the dogs put all their strength into the harness, the sled only crawled forward inch by inch. She slipped again and again, when the dogs suddenly got more grippy ground under their feet and jerked the sled forward with a big jolt. The first time it happened she let go of the sled and promptly fell onto her face.

“What are you doing!” Jonker roared furiously. With one leap he dived into the dog pack until he had brought the team to a standstill. Shaken, Freda ran to the sled and quickly held onto the struts.

Jonker had already freed himself from the leads.

“Go on! Push!” he commanded, his hands clawing at Karnak’s harness.

“I’m on it!” she said, ramming her boots into the ice. Sod the little troll, there really was no need to show off like this.

Jonker turned round and grinned.

“Don’t tell me you’re having trouble keeping up already?” he called out to her. “The full equipment is much heavier. But don’t worry, it’ll be lighter on the way back from Iskalott, depending on how much dog food and provisions we use up.”

“I see!” Freda panted, not at all reassured. And how were they going to find their way in all this darkness anyway? Was anyone able to navigate properly? Freda knew very well that you couldn’t keep a correct course without the sun in the sky, a watch and immovable landmarks. And a compass was useless at the North Pole because of the magnetic field of the earth. Satellite navigation, that would be it, Freda thought. A GPS on board like daddy had. But of course the boss didn’t want to know about modern technology.

39 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Freda was so angry about this crazy pig-headedness that she didn’t look at the ground and stumbled. This time she didn’t let go of the sled but was dragged along by it for quite a bit. When Wicked, the spookiest dog of the team, piddled against her boot during the next break, Freda grew very quiet.

The trip only lasted about an hour, a short training session to allow the team to adapt to each other and give Freda a chance to learn the basics. But she had already understood the most important lesson. The eternal ice had no mercy. Every small mistake, every moment you didn’t pay attention could be the beginning of the end. And when they got back to the airport and Freda slunk back to the Villa Lametta with a bruise on her bum and a stinky boot on her foot, she was dead certain that this expedition would fail.

She tried to talk the others out of it until the very last moment. Even just before they set off at noon on the next day, waiting in their snow suits next to the fully loaded sled for the boss to give the starting signal.

“So let’s assume we actually make it to Iskalott”, she said. “What do you think people are going to do if we suddenly turn up there?”

“If, if if…” the boss said, smiling. “Just leave it all to Mr Livingstone. He is a master of improvisation.”

And that was exactly what Freda wanted to prevent. Improvisation meant sudden use of ideas to resolve problems. And Mr Livingstone’s sudden ideas, since he had started to talk, had been an absolute nightmare! She sighed.

Santa smiled at her.

“Don’t be so gloomy, my dear. Believe me, we’ll all meet again in ten days’ time or before. Healthy and cheerful and with the solution of the riddle in the bag.”

He gave Freda a jolly poke on the shoulder.

“Just look at me: I’ve been reported dead for untold years and where am I today? Alive and kicking! Well, don’t hang around. Off you go!”

The boss nudged Freda, helped her onto the sled and started a short farewell speech. The remaining members of the Christmas Company cheered him on.

“Long live the Christmas Company! Ho ho ho!” John Santa and Bubu Caspar roared with outstretched arms. The Asian delegates took pictures and waved little red flags with two crossed fir trees. Sir Christfield sentimentally blew his nose into his chequered handkerchief. Then he suddenly started to scratch himself because Pom-Pom and Feli were zooming through the crowd with tiny flashlights, pouring itching powder into the collars of anyone who wasn’t paying attention.

In return, the storage elves threw snowballs at them and the sled.

“Give those ugly Julenisse a good clobbering when you see them!” they bellowed.

“Alright, alright. Don’t get up to too many shenanigans while I’m away”, Mr Livingstone growled. He was wearing a soft shell cap that was a little too big for him, sitting slightly askew on top of his pointy ears. He also had an old-fashioned leather map bag and a spy glass hanging across his chest which made him

40 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner look very different from a modern polar tourist. He reluctantly climbed onto the loading area next to Serafin who was perched somewhat precariously on two plastic provision containers stacked on top of each other.

The Mexican delegate started them off on the first verse of ‘Oh Christmas Tree’ with his guitar. Everyone joined in. Even the dogs started howling.

Freda noticed that the lance bearer had left already and that Hans-Niklas and the silver angels in the first row didn’t even mouth the words in spite of the well-known tune. They just stared at the sledding team with mocking, satisfied smiles.

“Do those four over there have something against Mr L?” she asked Serafin.

“Rubbish. They’re just happy that it’s us and not them”, the little angel muttered.

Jonker jumped onto the skids and bent down to the ice anchor.

“Are you ready up there?”

“Yes”, Freda croaked. She seemed to have a frog in her throat and she was nauseous with excitement.

A pink dot appeared between the red Santa coats. Alea was running towards Freda, her earrings swinging, and embraced her tightly.

“Good luck!” she whispered into her ear. “Be wary of the W…”

Freda didn’t have a chance to hear what she should be wary of because this was the moment a few smarty pants from Bertil’s Toy Testing Department chose to let off a rocket. It raced into the dark sky in a shower of bright sparks. Boom! A thunderclap and a multitude of wriggling rubber spiders in bright neon colours rained down on them.

The dog team panicked. They started to run off before Serafin and Mr Livingstone were safely ensconced on the sled. Freda had her hands full to save them both from falling off the sled within the first few metres.

And so they never got a chance to properly say goodbye to anyone. When she finally turned around to get a last glimpse of the Christmas Company, the town had already shrunk to a bright dot in the never- ending darkness.

8

Jonker bent down to Freda.

“Let’s pitch camp!” he shouted into her ear.

Freda raised her head from her knees, a little confused, and looked around.

“What, already?” she mumbled.

Jonker pointed his whip handle to the horizon.

41 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

“Look at the clouds over there”, he said. “To me, that looks like there’s going to be a storm. What do you think, Livingstone?”

The cat nodded. Serafin immediately agreed, too.

“Alright!” Jonker said and signalled to the lead dog. “Whoa, Karnak! Whoa! Freda, take the lead until I’ve secured the sled.”

But that didn’t turn out to be necessary. At the first sign of a longer break the dogs let themselves fall into the snow where they stood. Only a few of them looked longingly at the brown dog food bin attached to the pushing frame. Freda jumped off, grabbed the packsack that contained the tent and started setting it up. Her hands were cold as she was driving the ice nails into the hard surface, in spite of the mittens she wore on top of her thin fleece gloves. Pitching camp was hard after this exhausting day. But the tent had to be pitched first, the cooker, provisions and sleeping bags dragged inside and then the sled and the rest of the equipment was secured against the wind. After that, Freda unharnessed the dogs. She had to feed them first before she could even think of eating herself. It took quite some time to hack the frozen meat into pieces with an axe. It was also quite dangerous. The pack followed Freda’s every movement with greedy eyes. She was careful not to get too close to their snapping mouths. Eventually, she threw thick chunks into the snow in front of each dog, starting with Karnak, the lead dog. They hastily gulped the meat down. Soon afterwards, the animals seemed content, curling up, one by one, on the ice and letting themselves be covered by the dry, grainy snow, noses underneath their tails. Only then Freda was able to free herself from the ice carapace that her clothes had turned into and crawled into the tent.

It was the third day after they left the Christmas Company and they were indeed still alive. But even after a few hours of travelling fast over smooth sea ice, Freda started to have trouble remembering her home or the Christmas Company. She also didn’t care anymore when Jonker shouted at her or Serafin threw a tantrum.

The most important thing was that the shaggy elf was standing right behind her on the sled and guiding the dogs over the pack ice. And Serafin – well, she really was a special case, just like Mr Livingstone had said. She was a first class navigator. Without Serafin they wouldn’t even have survived the first day, when they were engulfed by a thick fog. It had been almost impossible to hold their course. Jonker had to walk ahead of the unsettled dogs.

When Freda lifted Serafin from her spot on top of the stack of provisions that first evening, she had been worried she might hold a frozen little angel in her arms.

Completely unnecessary. Serafin whinged about the cramped conditions in the tent, the boring food from their pouches and Jonker’s stinky feet, but the cold didn’t seem to touch her. She fulfilled her task with a bad grace but very conscientiously.

However, Freda didn’t quite understand how she did it. For hours on end, Serafin pondered the old- fashioned, cracked map that Mr Livingstone carried in his bag. Often she just silently looked at the sky. But every time Freda asked her about the exact direction they should take, she gave her a very precise answer. It was simply mysterious.

42 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

The cat, too, seemed to thrive in this dark polar world although he was the only one who, apart from his oversize cap, wasn’t wearing any clothing and padded over the ice floes on his bare paws. Freda was freezing even under three layers of underwear underneath her thick parka and was only able to warm up completely in the tent at night. She had to admit that, so far, there was no danger to their lives, but nevertheless, her fear had not abated.

Now she was crawling into her tent and then dragged the zip of her parka open. Little pieces of ice trickled down from it.

“Oy, watch out!”

Serafin hurriedly patted her red fleece pants down, all the while keeping an eye on the hissing cooker. The smell of the soup they ate every night hung over the tent. It consisted of melt water, potato flakes or rice and pemmican, a mixture of dried meat, berries and fat. Serafin made a face every time she stirred the pot but the broth did fill you up. After they emptied their soup bowls, the tent became very quiet. The warmth and the heavy food made them quite sleepy. So far, they had then had a chat about the next day’s route or thawed out their frozen mittens and face masks.

But today, the wind was shaking the tent so vigorously that the thin rods started to bend. As soon as Serafin had melted down their water for the next day and extinguished the cooker, Jonker jumped up. He squeezed into his frozen clothes and muttered: “I don’t like this. Freda, come help me.”

Moaning, Freda stepped back into her cold clothes. After the friendly warmth of the tent, the first gush of wind outside hit her without warning and whipped the end of the tent zip into her face. She immediately suppressed her tears. Only idiots cried in the arctic, because tears caused your eyes to freeze shut when it was below 30 degrees. A deadly situation.

Bent over, she fought her way behind Jonker to the sled only a few metres away. Snow clouds drifted over the ice. The dogs were asleep, clustered together in a heap next to the rest of the equipment. A few of the tarps had come loose and were flapping around noisily.

“We need more ice nails to secure the tent!” Jonker screamed at her. “Dig in as many as you can manage.”

He started to lash down several brightly coloured accessory cords.

Squeezing her eyes tight, Freda rummaged around under the plastic tarp on the other side of the sled.

Where were those dratted ice nails? The assortment of their pieces of equipment was actually a bit of an issue. Right on the first day they’d noticed that something must have gone wrong with the packing. Freda discovered a pack of New Year’s Eve firecrackers and a rubber bath crocodile among the replacement batteries for their headlamps and Serafin found five tins of snails in garlic sauce as well as several cans of fluorescent paint when she prepared their food. Checking the packing list that had been attached to the sled in due order they saw that these mistakes must have been made at the Christmas Company. All the useless items had been meticulously recorded in the forms and loaded onto the sled by stubborn elves. The document even carried the seal that certified every fulfilled wish list that left the warehouse and guaranteed absolute accuracy.

43 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

The Christmas Company

hereby certifies

the delivery of all items and conditions

of wish list W 98 654 366 654 657 797 865.

The above Wish List was

addressed to us by (please fill in!)......

in the following form (please tick!)

• Handwritten calligraphy letter

• Scribbled note torn out of school copy book

• Computer print out

• Email

• Picture (drawn, painted, kneaded, etched, carved, folded, embroidered, knitted, baked, clicked, sprayed or other)

• Conveyed by word of mouth (angel, pets, (step) sisters or brothers, or parents)

• Only made known as most secret wish

This wish list was forwarded to the archive of the Christmas Company, checked and issued in the approved manner after the fulfilment of the order.

Date: 7/12/19……………………………. Issuer…Tufte, Duty Elf………………….

Main Present Storage, Warehouse 1a

“That pea-brained knucklehead!” Mr Livingstone snorted. “He’ll be folding straw stars for the rest of his career when I come back.”

But Freda knew that it really wasn’t that poor fellow’s fault. The planning of this expedition had simply been chaotic.

Even now, as Freda was searching for the ice nails, a small pouch fell into her hands. ‘Fishing hooks, Neptune Master Brand, size 6’. Annoyed, she threw them aside and kept looking. Ah, there were the nails, finally! Oh crap, who had made a knot in this tie?

Freda took off her right mitten, wedged it into the gap between two boxes and pulled on the tie that closed the little bag. Within seconds, the cold engulfed the thin glove underneath. The knot unravelled

44 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner reluctantly. A strong gust of wind pushed her tumbling against the side frame. Finally, she managed to loosen the knot. She quickly tried to put on the mitten again but a second gust of wind threw her against the sled just as she was pulling the mitten out of the gap. The wind grabbed it like a ball and blew it away.

“No!” Freda screamed and stumbled a few steps after it, almost blinded by the driving snow, but stopped her pursuit after a few metres. Pointless. For a moment, she continued to look in the direction where her mitten had disappeared but could only distinguish whirling sheets of snow that constantly formed new shapes. Hold on! What was that? Was something moving there?

Trying to focus, she stared into the darkness. There it was again, a dim figure, carrying a long stick across its shoulder that looked like a boat hook. Freda took a few hesitant steps towards it. The storm reached for her again and drove her before it like a giant grabbing a puppy by the neck. Freda was driven further and further forward. Just as she wanted to call out, the apparition melted into a snow cloud. She stopped, baffled. Had she actually seen what she saw just now or hadn’t she? She shook her head and looked around.

Suddenly her mind started to work with razor-sharp clarity. What was she doing out here? Her hand was completely numb. She had to go back to the warm tent at once! But when she turned around all the way, she got a terrible fright.

All around here, there was nothing but the storm. Where was the sled, where was the tent? Panic took away her breath. She desperately turned round and round.

Her footprints had been swept away by the wind. Had she come from the left? No, she’d walked past these strasuggi over there, these frozen ice waves. Freda slowly took a few steps forward. The storm that had flung her forward only a few moments earlier was now driving her back.

She lowered her head against the wind and pulled her right hand further up inside the arm of her parka. Just a few steps more, just keep going! The tent couldn’t be that far away, could it?

“Hell – loooo! Jon – ker!”

Her words were ripped away, swallowed up.

Just a few steps more.

The storm was raging and screaming. It sounded like a huge evil monster. Freda’s knees grew soft. She was terribly afraid. But she doggedly stumbled on, gripping the pouch with the tent nails with her teeth. It just had to be the right direction.

There, a dome shape, almost invisible in the snow storm. The tent!

A warm wave of relief rolled over Freda. Just one or two metres further out and she would have been lost. She ran back as fast as she could, colliding with Jonker in front of the entrance.

“Where have you been all this time?” the elf roared angrily.

“I lost one of my mittens!” Freda screamed, her right hand firmly ensconced underneath her left armpit. She thought it better not to mention her near-disaster and the encounter with the strange figure.

45 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Jonker cursed desperately.

“At least help me shovel the snow off the tent!” Freda gave him the ice nails and grabbed his shovel. The storm was now racing across the ice at top speed, piling up solid snow walls in a very short amount of time. One of these walls had formed on the Southern side of the tent, pressing dangerously down on it. After a few swings of her shovel, the tent slowly righted itself again.

Jonker gesticulated with his hammer. “That’s enough!”

Freda handed the shovel back. She was nearly blown through the closed tent flap while she was struggling to open the zip.

Just one glance at her right hand was enough for Serafin.

“Quick, come in!”

She dragged Freda over to the lamp and started to remove her glove. It was frozen stiff. Her fingers underneath were white and dead. Freda looked at her hand in horror.

Serafin carefully put her small warm hands around Freda’s hand. At first, Freda had no feeling in her own hand at all, but then it rushed back.

“Ouch!” she gasped. It pricked like a thousand red-hot needles.

“How did that happen?” Mr Livingstone wanted to know, studying his maps.

“The nail pouch had been tied closed”, Freda brought out, suppressing a scream as Serafin wrapped a warm, moist cloth around her hand. “I had to take off my mitten in order to open it. And then it was blown away!”

The cat looked at her hand, now slowly regaining colour. “You’ve been lucky there”, he muttered. “I just hope we have a spare somewhere.”

Freda hadn’t even thought about that. Without protection, she’d be practically useless.

They could hear Jonker hammering loudly right next to them. And not a second too late. The storm was tearing at the walls of the tent, frightening them all. Freda stared anxiously at the lamp rocking back and forth above them.

“The best thing would be to crawl into our sleeping bags”, she suggested. “We can’t do anything now except wait.”

But Freda couldn’t sleep. Every gust of wind filled her with terror. She was afraid that the tent on top of their heads would just fly off and leave them behind, without protection, on the ice. Twice, Jonker fought his way to the Southern wall in order to remove new heaps of snow. Freda admired his energy. She probably wouldn’t be much help for a while now.

She slid deeper into her sleeping bag and squeezed her eyes shut. She’d been really stupid to run out onto the ice like that. She thought about the dim figure with the stick again. Maybe she’d just imagined the whole thing…

Suddenly a terrible thought ran through her like a jolt. What if that thing out there was the Tupilaq?

46 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Freda was instantly wide awake. The figure on the ice didn’t look like the ugly carved monster. But maybe he could shape-shift… she had to talk to the others about this!

“Mr Livingstone?” she hissed and stared at the spot in the darkness where he lay curled up next to Serafin. The cat didn’t answer. His gentle, regular purring showed that he was sleeping peacefully.

Freda stuffed one end of the sleeping bag underneath her head with her good hand.

And anyway this was all Mr Livingstone’s fault! If he had taken proper care with the loading of the sled, the problem with the knot wouldn’t have happened. And they also wouldn’t be carrying all this useless ballast… Snails in garlic, an inflatable toy crocodile, fish hooks, a small barrel of Scottish whiskey and, and, and… When Freda had tried to throw it all away, the cat had stopped her. You never knew when things could come in useful… what a load of rubbish…

But at some point, Freda couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer and she fell asleep.

She was woken by the sound of a shot. A loud bang that penetrated the tent. Freda jumped to her feet in record time.

“What was that?” she shouted, stripping off her sleeping bag. She wrestled Serafin and the cat aside, managing to create total chaos because Jonker was on his way to the entrance at the same time. For a few minutes, nothing could be heard but the clatter of flying pots and pans and some highly imaginative cursing. When Freda finally got a leg into her snow pants, the next shot clanged around her ears. Ear- shattering, hollow, and – it seemed to be coming from below. At the same time, the dogs outside started howling.

The hairs on Freda‘s neck were standing up.

“The ice is breaking!” Jonker shouted, pulling his headlamp over his head. He opened the tent for a moment, fished the thermometer out of a snow pile and focused the beam from his lamp on the read- out.

“It’s only minus 15 degrees Celsius any more. The pack ice has started to move because of the warmer temperature. This is very unusual for the season.”

The elf chucked the thermometer back into the snow.

“And what does that mean?” Freda asked, hiding her head inside her fleece jumper.

“Nothing good”, Jonker grumbled. “Our equipment could disappear into a crack any time now. Or maybe our tent could. Or maybe just the dogs.”

An angry hissing could be heard. When Freda’s horrified face reappeared again from the neck of her jumper, the elf had put a calming grin on his own.

“Don’t worry. Help Serafin to pack up in case we have to leave suddenly. I’m going to look after the rest.”

The howling of the dogs changed to enthusiastic panting as soon as Jonker appeared in front of the tent. Freda helped light his path with her own headlamp through the entrance of the tent. No wonder the dogs were tearing at their leashes. A wide crack like a jagged bolt of lightning ran through the ice

47 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner between the tent and the team of dogs. At the same time, Jonker discovered a second crack that ran in a South-Easterly direction.

“Hurry up!” he roared, turning to Freda. “It’s getting rather uncomfortable here!”

Freda hastily crawled back into the tent where Serafin was already stuffing their sleeping bags into the packsacks. Her hands were moving so fast they almost were a blur. She cleared up the last few bits and pieces and put on her outer garments. The cat with its unwieldy map bag was constantly in her way.

“Can’t you give us some space”, Freda complained and pulled one of her boots over her foot. A potato fell out of it.

The cat sat very still, like a figure of stone.

“Where does this potato come from?” he snarled. It sounded like: “The accused must confess!”

Freda shrugged her shoulders.

“St Nicholas‘ day is over. No idea how it got in there.” She bent down to throw it out of the tent.

“Stop that!” the cat hissed.

To her surprise, Freda watched him circling the tuber suspiciously.

Serafin giggled and pulled a face behind Mr Livingstone’s back as he eventually stored the potato laboriously in the map bag. Freda didn’t have time to wonder about his strange behaviour. She was fretfully looking out for Jonker from the entrance of the tent.

“Are we leaving?” she asked.

Jonker shook his head and peeled off the outer layer of his snow-encrusted clothes.

“When the crack gets wider, we’ll have to disappear from here, but at the moment it would be utter madness.” He rubbed his belly and looked around. “Holy Christmas Goat, I can feel a big hole in my stomach!”

Freda rolled her eyes. How could he even think about food right now! Any second, the ice could open up underneath and swallow them all.

While Jonker was serenely shovelling nuts into his mouth, Freda was wondering where she could get herself a new mitten. Luckily, Serafin found a solution. She pilfered Mr Livingstone’s silly cap, cut in half against his protests, and tacked the two halves laboriously together with a needle. Now and then, she pricked her finger and complained under her breath because Freda was constantly taking her lamp away to inspect the cracks in the ice.

Time passed very slowly. For hours, they sat inside their own small warm island, ready to leave. They were also listening so hard that they nearly missed the end of the storm.

Finally, Serafin bit off the last thread of the newly created mitten and gave it to Freda.

“You’re going to need it straightaway. The storm is over. A new day has dawned.”

48 of 49 Die fantastischen Abenteuer der Christmas Company Fantastic Adventures of the Christmas Company by Corinna Gieseler © 2019 Hummelburg Verlag, Imprint of Ravensburger Verlag GmbH, Ravensburg www.foreignrights-ravensburger.com © English sample translation by Anette Pollner

Freda pulled the mitten on. It made her hand look like the plump paw of a predatory animal but it fit her perfectly. She opened the zip and stuck her head out of the tent.

The cracks showed no change but the clouds were really floating much higher in the sky, with small gaps between them here and there.

“You are right”, Freda said, relieved. “Thank you, Serafin.”

The little angel threw the sewing kit into a packsack with a wry smile.

Everything was dismantled and stored very quickly. The dogs also seemed happy to finally leave this dangerous place. Freda would never have thought that very soon she would wish she was back inside the safe tent, waiting for the storm to end.

49 of 49