This is a short Fierce Brave Gang Christmas special, it'll probably need more than one chapter. Will be returning to 'An offer they can't refuse' soon.

A/N Set around the time the infants would be in their last year before Juniors, which means they'd still be quite young. Characters in this story aren't necessarily the same as they are in Casualty or Holby. Again, this is a mix of the separate AU's that Trekkiel and myself have created.

Dylan wasn't able to take Lofty to school as usual one morning because his leg, which occasionally still pained him, was driving him crazy. He called Mrs Beauchamp and told her he couldn't do his classes that day, then took the little boy to the street just beyond the houseboat, which was about as far as he could manage, hoping to catch Robyn and her mother coming by. No such luck, but he saw Marie Claire on her way to school. Marie Claire was Miss Honey's assistant, and could be a little absent-minded at times.

"My leg's hurting me. Please can you take Ben to school?" he asked her.

"Of course! Come on, sweetheart."

Lofty slipped his hand in Marie-Claire's trustingly.

She walked him nearly to the school gates and then said:

"Benjie, I forgot. My favourite magazine's out today. Can you cross the road on your own and get to school? Then I can run to Sainsrose."

Ben was scared to cross the road and he didn't like being called Benjie. But he didn't think he was old enough to cheek Marie Claire, so he nodded.

Some big boys he hadn't seen before came along.

"Oi, curly bonce! Those sweets in your pocket yours?"

"I'm going to share them with my friends. But you can have one each."

He took out the bag. The tallest of the big boys snatched out a sweet, threw one to his mate, and then flung the bag into the snow face-downwards.

"Loser!" chorused the lads, Jay Faldren and Jimmy Powell as they swaggered off.

Lofty had been told never to pick up things from the ground, but he mourned the loss of a treat to share. And that road still scared him.

"Hello, Ben! Mr Keogh not coming in today?"

"Hello, Miss Honey! No, his leg hurts. Marie-Claire took me as far as she could but she's gone shopping."

Miss Honey pulled a face and took Lofty's hand.

"You walk into school with me, then. I'll get you across that road. We'll be fine if we use that crossing."

He felt a lot better when he got to school. Mrs Beauchamp had a wonderful surprise. The kids had felt a bit disappointed because the New Theatre was doing 'Peter Pan' but didn't need any more children. Ethan had wept about it for most of the previous night.

"We're finishing early this afternoon because we're going to the New Theatre."

"I don't want" grizzled Ethan, "They took our parts away!"

"No Ethan, they just didn't have any parts for kids this time. But you listen! We're going to watch the show… and then we'll perform it ourselves for our Summer play!"

Ethan was mollified and wanted to go to the show after all. He was even happier when Cal was allowed to join them, although Cal had to write about the trip when he went back to Juniors the next day.

The kids adored the play and couldn't wait to start rehearsing the Summer one, but Mrs Beauchamp told them they'd have to wait till New Year to find out who had the parts. Cal was sorry he couldn't be in this one, he'd got his eye on being Captain Hook. Only one part had been cast… Snap, the beloved Gang Mascot, had to be The Crocodile or there was no justice.

Lofty was taken home by Mrs Beauchamp herself, as she wanted to look in on Dylan anyway. She had a discreet word with him about not asking Marie Claire again.

Next day Lofty was playing with the Gang after school when he saw the two big lads coming. He didn't want to be a Big Snitch so he kept quiet about the sweets, even though he'd had to buy a Gang Gift all over again and now had no pocket money left.

But the Big Lads had the friendliest smiles on their faces.

"Hi, sport. We want a word with you."

Jimmy turned to Robyn with a big warm smile. Robyn was completely lost; Jimmy was a nice-looking boy.

"We're going to show him where there's a nice sledge you can all go on, it's in the school grounds but only we know about it. He'll be able to show you tomorrow because I bet you guys have to be home before dark?"

"Yes, we do."

"Well don't worry, beautiful, we'll walk Ben home. Okay?"

Robyn was high as a kite at being called beautiful so she just said:

"See you tomorrow morning then, Ben, we'll come early to get some sledging in!"

"We wanted to show you the sledge because we were rotten to you yesterday and wanted to say 'sorry.' You forgive us, don't you?"

The trusting little boy shook hands with them both. They had such nice smiles today, and everybody was bad sometimes. He walked with them until he came to Big Mac's hut. Big Mac had already begun his Christmas break so he wasn't around.

"Big Mac's been painting up the sledge for you kids, and it's dry now. You just look at this…"

He opened the door and Lofty, full of excitement, ran in.

The door slammed, the key turned, and Jimmy mocked:

"Silly little curly bonce, caught out again! We're going to leave you in this hut till it's black dark. And guess what? A boy died in this hut and his ghost comes back to get kids when it's dark. He'll be after you. See you, sucker!"

Jimmy and Jay ran off, leaving a terrified little boy sobbing and cringing in the corner, waiting for the ghost to get him.

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