The Christmas Surprise by Jenny Colgan

first Rosie thought it wasn’t possible. Or that it was somebody else’s; the village was full of children. But as they approached the dingy little hut, it became clear from the huge crowd of people outside it that the mewling noise was coming from within.
    Faustine beckoned them over. Her face, with its clear skin and fine dark brows, was an exhausted mask. Rosienoticed the smell of blood immediately and looked up, full of foreboding.
    Faustine shrugged.
    ‘Without you they would both have died.’
    Rosie gasped. Already Célestine’s body had been removed. Sand was being swept across the floor. Sitting in the corner was a woman Rosie had not seen before; a heavy-set older woman who nonetheless was breastfeeding a tiny infant. And there too, with the same numb look of shock they had worn for the last two days, were Célestine’s parents: stoic, resigned, as if a life in which your children died before you was absolutely normal. Rosie felt her heart begin to break.
    She approached the child. It was a little boy. He had been cleaned up and had finished feeding; the woman happily handed him over for Rosie to have a look. She put him up on the bed to check him over. He responded well to stimulus; his pupils contracted well; there was no jaundice. But she noticed that his right arm did not shoot up when he was dropped gently backwards, as she would expect. She tried it again and again, and looked more closely at the arm. The tiny fingers, with their perfect little nails, did not grasp on to hers as the left hand did without any trouble at all. The hand – he was a very pale coffee colour – was lighter than the other, with a bluish tinge all the way up to the elbow.
    ‘Faustine!’ called Rosie. Outside, the doctors weresmoking and chatting to a middle-aged man who had appeared and was gesticulating with some importance. ‘Can you send one of the doctors over?’
    The local doctor came over and followed her in. She showed him what she’d noticed and he screwed up his face and gathered the others.
    ‘They were about to check the baby again,’ said Faustine defensively. ‘They were clearing up after the mother.’
    ‘I realise that,’ said Rosie patiently. ‘I just want everyone to take a look.’
    Now there were the first stirrings of life in the grandparents. The man came over to examine the baby with them. His face looked concerned. A loud debate started that Rosie could not follow, but at one point the baby started crying again. The wet nurse took him back and someone brought her a plate of food, which she ate with her free hand. Stephen ushered Rosie out of the hut and over to where a canvas tent had been set up for them. Inside, four comfortable-looking camp beds had been unpacked. Suddenly all Rosie wanted to do was lie down and sleep.
    Stephen sat next to her on one of the beds.
    ‘What’s wrong with the baby?’ he said, straight out, holding her gaze intently. Rosie thought he must be very tired too.
    ‘Um, it’s hard to tell,’ she said. ‘His neurologicalimpulses all seem fine; his pupils are responding, his grasp, all of that; he seems very smart and alert. But his right arm is a problem. It’s possible he was lying badly in the womb, that it’s got damaged in some way. It may have developed that way, or they may have been in such a rush to get him out they damaged him somehow. But his arm is limp and I don’t think … I don’t think it’s a temporary thing. I don’t think it’s ever going to work.’
    Stephen swallowed. She still didn’t understand, not in the slightest, the intense look on his face.
    ‘I mean, he’ll probably be all right with one arm … It’s a shame it’s his right, if he’s right-handed, but people can compensate a lot.’
    ‘Not here,’ said Stephen shortly.
    A small child came in and offered them two cups of tea, which they took with thanks, even though it tasted very odd to Rosie. But just to drink something warm and wet was very comforting. Her eyelids