THE WORST CHRISTMAS
a YA short story by
Jody Wallace writing as Ellie Marvel
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
“The Worst Christmas”
Published by Jody Wallace (Meankitty Publishing)
Smashwords Edition
Copyright ©2011 Jody Wallace
Cover by Jody Wallace
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This ebook is licensed for the original buyer only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people at online sharing sites, loops, discussion boards or through other means. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Author’s Note to Readers: This story is a stand-alone prequel to Ellie Marvel’s What She Deserves, a hot contemporary romance novella.
Chapter 1
Winnie was halfway to the podium when the fat green bean bounced off her forehead. It ricocheted down her shirt, leaving a trail of grease on her yellow sweater.
Most of the nearby table, especially the brand new president of the Honor Society, who’d thrown the bean, broke into snickers.
“Real mature, Peter.” Winnie wiped at the smear with the print-out of her speech while everyone stared and laughed. She’d begged her mom for months to buy her a cashmere like the fashionista crowd sported during the winter. The burn of humiliation began in her cheeks and flooded all the way to her toes, paying particular attention to her stomach. If only she had a big handful of mashed potatoes to smack Peter with.
If only she had a baseball bat to smack Peter with.
“Now you’re really a beanpole,” said Sally Jones. The cheerleader tossed her curly blonde hair as everyone laughed harder at the not-very-witticism.
Winnie pretended she hadn’t heard. It’s what she always did whenever anyone used the dreaded nickname. Trying hard not to shake, she rubbed harder at the stain and let her long hair hide her hot face. God, her posh sweater. Why, green bean, why? This sucked.
“Is there a problem, Ms. Sampson?” Mrs. Beaker asked, her nasal voice amplified. “We’re waiting.”
Clenching her stupid speech, Winnie waved at their club sponsor and race-walked to the podium. Like having to stand in front of everyone and tell them how lucky they were to have a butthole as their president wasn’t bad enough, now she had to do it looking like a slob.
She reached the podium without tripping over her long, skinny feet in the unaccustomed high heels. Once there, she tried to adjust the microphone higher—she was five ten and had been for several years—but she couldn’t loosen the clasp. Thumps and bumps echoed through the speaker system followed by a high-pitched squeal.
Everyone laughed. Laughed more, that is.
She hated this town.
The honors club wasn’t the most popular organization at Tallwood High. But it was Winnie’s favorite extracurricular. The club did eldercare visits at a local rest home, they organized reading rallies, they sponsored study groups and mentoring, they raised funds for an annual senior trip, and they had an awesome club website Winnie helped maintain.
Best of all, it looked great on applications, college or otherwise.
Would have looked better if she could have put president, but no, that jerk Peter Duvall had won, making her vice-president.
She finally got the microphone fixed and flattened her speech on the podium. Her inkjet printer had a new cartridge, and the words were sharp and black.
Or had been give minutes ago. Smears distorted some of the text.
She couldn’t do anything about it now, so she cleared her throat and began. “Every year at the holiday banquet we welcome next year’s officers. This year you’ve elected Peter Duvall as your president.”
Risking a glance at her audience, her gaze first fell on Peter, the lights of the banquet hall glinting off his glasses. Across the table from him, Sally Jones was gossiping with another cheerleader, probably mocking what nerds everyone here was and how they were going to ditch the dinner ASAP and head to Sally’s boyfriend’s house to party.
They’d probably hitch a ride with quarterback Chase McKnight who, oh my God, was looking right at Winnie!
“And...um...er,” she stammered.
Duh. Of course he was looking at her. She giving a speech.
“We hope to continue the good works of the society and...”
Winnie frowned at the paper. The next sentence was thoroughly smudged, grease stains from her shirt obliterating the words that had been so painful to type. All hail President Peter, the most heinous little punk in the whole school.
“We hope to continue the good works of the society and issue in a great year, as most of us...” Good gravy, what did that say? “As most of us become senators.”
Chuckles rippled through the audience.
“I mean, seniors.” Winnie closed her eyes and wished she could start over. Or call in sick. What she wanted to say was they could all go suck it when Peter and his lameness meant the club did next to nothing compared to previous years. When their senior trip got cancelled due to lack of funds. When honors club became a club in name only.
She stumbled through the rest of her speech, skipping most of it because she couldn’t read it, and in about two minutes it was over.
“So anyway,” she said, a familiar resentment torturing her gut, “you elected him, so you deserve what you get, and now it’s his turn to speak. But first I guess I should lower the microphone.” She smiled. “A lot.”
This time, everyone laughed at Peter.
As she left the podium, Mrs. Beaker said, “Winifred, the cheap shot at Peter was not okay. It’s not like you to be such a poor sport. Please come to my office when we return to school in January.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Winnie fled to the women’s restroom to have a spot of nervous breakdown. The only thing that would make this night worse would be...
“Hey.” A smooth, masculine voice brought her up short before she escaped. “You can maybe get that out with hairspray.”
Chase McKnight—tall, blond and handsome—stood next to the water fountain between the men’s and women’s restrooms holding a silver flask.
Winnie’s heart stuck in her throat like a bite of overcooked banquet chicken. “What?”
“The stain.” Chase pointed at her chest.
Oh man, he was looking at her boobs! He was checking her out! He was...
“I don’t know how you did that,” he said. “but it looks like hell.”
The grease on her sweater had been replaced by black, streaky ink. “Oh, no.”
“Hairspray or baking soda. But it’s probably ruined. Cashmere’s a bitch. So I hear.” He drained the flask and began rinsing it in the fountain.
Forget the sweater. Winnie watched Chase’s movements with spellbound fascination. He’d been her secret crush for years. Part of it was he seemed so much more grown up than the rest of the idiots around here. The other part was he was totally hot.
“Is that...alcohol?” she whispered.
He grinned. She’d never talked to him before, and here he was, smiling at her. “Not anymore.”
He was just so...cool. And hot. And cool. That’s all there was to it.
“Of course,” she said right before an awkward donkey laugh blared out of her mouth.
Really, Winnie? Just plaster “dork” on your forehead and be done with it.
He got a funny look on his face and tucked the flask into his blazer pocket. “Yellow’s so not your color, by the way.”
“I...”
It was a good thing he walked off, because she had no idea how to respond.
Not her color. What did that mean? That he thought she had a color? That he thought yellow was ugly? That he thought she was ugly? Jeez, if only she had somebody to talk to, but she hadn’t confessed her ridiculous infatuation to her girlfriends on the debate team.
Yeah, Winifred Sampson, the school’s biggest nerd, crushing on Chase McKnight, the school’s hottest stud. So sad. The only thing that would make this night worse would be...
Chapter 2
“Hurry up, babe, it’s freezing.” Winnie’s dad leaned over and opened the door of the muddy landscaping truck. Chase, Sally and the other cheerleader, walking across the half-frozen parking lot of the hotel where they’d had the banquet, all started laughing when the truck backfired.
She’d specifically asked to be picked up in the sedan. Not the truck. God. Dad had on what she thought of as his lumberjack coat, too, all stinky and huge.
Winnie jumped in, ducked as far into the seat as she could without hitting the floorboard, and stuck her hands next to the vent. At least the embarrassment thawed her cheeks. The snow had started to change over to ice, and she was wearing a pencil skirt with the sweater. Her legs were pretty much frozen.
She raised her head enough to see if Chase was still watching. Would he tell Sally about her sweater and what a donkey she’d been? Why couldn’t she have been cool and cute the one time she got to talk to him? Who knows what could have come of it?
“What are you doing down there?” Dad asked.
Winnie straightened halfway. She wasn’t about to tell him she was hiding from the guy she had a crush on and the meanest girl in high school. “Why did you drive the truck, Dad? The heater barely works.”
“Roads are bad. The truck’s heavier.”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to get snow?” Winnie squinted through the light precipitation.
“It’s sleet.” Dad fiddled with the gearshift and the vehicle lurched. “Hope Rudolph’s nose is bright enough to see through this junk.”
Her dad was such a goof. Sometimes it was fun to be his little girl, but other times she wished he’d acknowledge the fact she was practically grown up.
“Rudolph can take a vacation this year. Mom finished the Christmas shopping weeks ago.” She wiggled her achy toes. “Not that I peeked.”
“You couldn’t have peeked,” Dad teased. “I was in charge of hiding the gifts this year, and there’s no way you and Tabby found them.”
“You’re the master of disguise, Dad.” Except not. He’d stashed the gifts in the shop attic, like always. It had taken her little sister all of ten minutes to trick Dad out of the shop and seek out the loot. Winnie preferred to be surprised. “Anyway, Christmas Eve is, like, five days away. The weather could be in the seventies by then.”
“Weatherman says not.” He braked suddenly. “Look, there’s Petey. I thought you said he wasn’t driving.” Her dad had initially suggested she hitch a ride with Peter to the banquet. Just because Peter worked for Dad and was always at the house, her parents assumed they were BFFs.
As if.
“Come on, Dad, no,” Winnie complained, but her dad pulled up beside Peter, standing by the door of his own pick-up. Great. No doubt he’d have something snide to say about her performance tonight.
When Dad rolled the window down, cold air blasted away the tiny bit of warmth in the cab. “Merry Christmas, Petey.”
“Merry Christmas, Joe.” Peter’s voice cracked.
“I hear you beat our little Winnie in the presidential race.” Her dad jokingly shook his fist. “I’ll have to take that out of your paycheck, son.”
“Yeah, gosh. Yeah.”
Winnie held her breath and waited for him to make fun of the stain on her sweater, her boffed speech—something. When he got around her parents, Peter always acted like he was one of the adults while she was nothing but a stupid kid. She couldn’t decide if it was more or less annoying than the way he acted at school.
But instead of mocking, Peter rubbed a hand over his mousy hair, which he kept in what he probably thought was a hipster ponytail. He glanced at Winnie and then away. “She’d have made a better president.”
For a moment, Winnie was stunned, but then she realized he was saying that to impress her father. He’d run against her to be an ass, and they both knew it. Gloat some more, nerd boy. We’ll see who shakes free of Tallwood in the end.
“You’ll be fine, Petey.” Dad reached out the window and patted Peter’s scrawny arm. “With my girl on your team, what can’t you two accomplish?”
“I guess.” Wind drove sleet and snow against Peter’s round glasses and reddened his cheeks and ears. His wrists stuck out of his ugly trench coat. Nobody besides pretentious dweebs wore trench coats. Even Winnie knew that.
Besides, she wasn’t with Peter, she was against him. She didn’t understand why her parents liked him so much. He was a total fake. Whenever he was around them, he was all Mr. Respectful and Mr. Hard Worker and Mr. Gosh I Love Your Lasagna, Mrs. Sampson, I Mean Claire.
Whenever there were no adults, he showed his real face. The one that brought to mind rats and bastards.
“Hey, Joe, I meant to tell you. The chains we put on the tires work great. I can’t thank you enough.” Peter leaned down—since when did he have to lean down?—and stared at Winnie through her dad’s open window. To her surprise, his nose was red, not brown. “Merry Christmas, Winifred.”
“Ho ho ho.” She rested against the icy passenger’s window and hugged herself. Could they just go home and start the holidays? Finally?
“You and your mom should come over for Christmas Eve dinner,” Dad said to Peter. “Lasagna.”
“Dad!” Winnie exclaimed. Christmas Eve was for family only. Just the four Sampsons. They ate, sang carols, played games, watched a movie, popped popcorn, and decorated the tree. Everyone got to pick one gift to open before they hung their stockings, ate some more, put cookies out for Santa, and went to bed. It was their family thing. Their annual routine. And she liked it that way.
What was Dad thinking?
“Oh. Wow.” Peter wiped ice off his face. “I’ll talk to Mom, but we usually, you know.”
“Claire and I would be thrilled if you could come.”
“I’d like that. Thanks.” Peter looked at her again. Was he dreaming up ways to turn her Christmas Eve into as big a suckfest as the banquet?
Why did he do it?
Why did he constantly bug and harass her?
She kept hoping if she ignored him, he’d quit, but so far, so bad. He had to be the most immature sixteen year old in the world. He made fun of her, threw things at her, and sometimes? He pulled her hair. Pulled it. Like a baby.
He was pretty much all-around stupid, even if they were both straight A students.
The only thing that would make this night worse would be...
Chapter 3
The house was completely dark when they got home.
“Why aren’t the Christmas lights on?”
“I don’t know, babe. Let’s find out.” Every year Dad strung up their house like it was Las Vegas. She, her mom and her sister pretended it was ridiculous, but they loved it. The reds and blues and greens, shining and blinking in a huge, festive waste of electricity. She even had a favorite—the cheeky Rudolph Dad stuck in the place of honor every year, right next to the chimney. Dad’s latest addition to the flashing jumble was a giant inflatable snowman that glowed from within.
Mom, however, saved trimming the tree for Christmas Eve. They always had a live tree and planted it in the back yard on January 1. The less time it was in the house, the better its chances of survival. Winnie could walk along the fence row and point to every year’s tree, except 1993 because deer had eaten it.
The snowman loomed like a ghost as they wound through the yard decorations, the sleet a constant hiss against the ground. The three-quarter moon lit their path. Winnie held her arms over her head while her pumps crunched and slipped in the frozen grass. The tips of the branches on the birch in the yard had fattened with ice.
Mom opened the front door when they reached the porch. She was holding a kerosene lantern. In the house. What was going on?
“Electricity’s out.” Mom shut the door behind them. Winnie kicked off her damp, cold pumps and did a little chilly foot dance across the wooden floor. “You might want to leave your coats on until your Dad gets a fire started.”
Dad harumphed. “We don’t have any—”
“Wood,” Mom finished his sentence. “I know, Joe. I warned you we’d need wood.”
“I was going to chop some tomorrow. People are winterizing their yards. It’s been—”
“Busy,” Mom interrupted. “For months. And months.”
Dad tried one more time. “It’s sleeting.”
“Good thing the wood’s under the barn overhang.” Mom pointed at the door. “Do you want to freeze on the couch tonight or be warm and cozy in your bed?”
“You’re right as always, Claire.” Her parents exchanged an amused glance, some sort of private joke. “I will chop some wood, and I will do it now.”
Dad turned around and went right back out the door, his boots clomping off bits of ice.
“How was the banquet?” Mom asked Winnie. “Speech go okay?”
“Fine.” Her feet began to thaw. Finally. She was glad her parents hadn’t been there to see her get in trouble with Mrs. Beaker. The holiday banquet was members only.
“Fine-fine or I don’t want to talk about it fine?” A towel draped over Mom’s shoulder, and the house smelled like dessert and kerosene.
“Fine-fine.” Winnie added a detail so her mom would quit prying. “The food wasn’t that good.” Especially not the beans.
Her mom was an excellent cook. Winnie was spoiled when it came to food. She had a high metabolism, not that being supermodel skinny got her any attention from boys. In fact, it seemed to have the opposite effect. No titties, no dates. When Chase McKnight had stared at her chest, the only thing he’d seen was the stain.
No, this night officially couldn’t get any worse. Seriously. Winnie was sure of it.
“I took a pumpkin pie out of the oven before we lost power. Will that help?”
It couldn’t get worse...but it could get better.
“Definitely.” Winnie made her way through the darkened house to the kitchen where she found her younger sister, Tabitha, shoveling down pie by the light of a flashlight. “Where’s the pie?”
“In my belly. This is the last piece,” Tabby said through bulging cheeks.
“You’re such a pig.” Pumpkin pie would have been a nice bandage on the wound of her crappy night. Losing to Peter, embarrassing herself in front of the whole club, ruining her sweater, and then that thing with Chase possibly calling her ugly. Now the night really couldn’t get worse.
“Want a bite?” Tabby opened her mouth wide and stuck out a pie-covered tongue. “La la la.”
“Gross.” Winnie sniffed her way around the kitchen and located the pie pan. Sure enough, empty except for crust. “Mom, Tabby ate the last piece of pie!”
Mom entered the kitchen and set the lantern on the counter. Its brilliant white mantels made Winnie squint. “Tabitha, I told you one piece. One.”
“Big piece.” Tabby belched and laughed.
Tabby was eleven, hooked on basketball, and a pain in everybody’s behind. “I’m full anyway,” Winnie grumbled. “How long do you think the power will be out?”
“I don’t know.” Mom glanced out the kitchen window, into the darkness of the back yard. Sleet tapped the windowpanes, building up on the sills like crystals. “Surely they’ll fix it in a couple of hours.”
“Is it just us?” Tallwood was a rural community, lots of farmers and not much industry. The population was spread across the county, and Winnie’s family lived down a gravel driveway in a large private lot.
“Helen called and their power’s out too. I’m glad I finished the pie. I don’t know if we have enough kerosene for the camping stove.”
A couple of times, they’d lost power for a day or so and cooked their meals on a portable kerosene stove. Once in the summer they’d camped out and roasted hotdogs, turning an annoying circumstance into a family vacation.
Winnie didn’t think they’d be camping out tonight. The temperatures were supposed to drop to the low twenties and stay there all week. The local forecasters were predicting a seventy percent chance for a white Christmas, which didn’t mean much because they always pretended there was going to be a white Christmas even if it was in the sixties and sunny.
Anyway, this wasn’t Christmas. And ice wasn’t white.
She sighed. “I’m going to go watch some TV.”
Tabby ticked her plate with her fork. “Can’t, there’s no electricity.”
“On my laptop,” Winnie said. “I downloaded an episode of Star Trek.”
“Can’t, the battery’s dead.”
“No, it’s not. I charged it this morning.”
Tabby laughed again and Winnie whirled to face Mom. “If she’s been on my laptop again, she’s grounded. You said so.”
“Dad said I could,” Tabby insisted. “I had to do my homework.”
“Homework? There’s no school for two weeks. You don’t have homework. Mom, this is totally unjust.” It wasn’t fair. Tabby got away with everything while Winnie had to beg for a ride to the holiday banquet. If they’d let her get her license, this wouldn’t be a problem, but no, they didn’t think she was ready, though she’d had her learner’s permit for ages.
Mom crossed her arms and watched Tabby with narrow eyes. “I did say I’d ground you if you got on your sister’s laptop again.”
“Dad said I could,” Tabby said in a sing-song voice.