Jingle Boy (8 page)

“Vivian Black?” I asked, my stomach turning. “Mom, you don’t mean—”

“Paul, it’s not that bad,” my mother said, turning to stir the fudge on the stove top.

Not that bad!
I thought. Vivian Black ran the Hickory Farms kiosk and made all her employees wear head-to-toe reindeer outfits, complete with antlers and red pom-pom noses. Not only that, but the kiosk was right across from Fortunoff. All of my mom’s old coworkers were going to be watching her hand out sausage samples in that humiliating outfit. I could just imagine the look on That Awful Woman’s face.

“This is all my fault,” I said, closing my eyes.

“Paul, none of this is your fault,” my mother replied. “And it’s just for December. In the new year I’ll find something else.” She turned around and flashed me her ever-bright smile. “Everything’s going to be just fine. You’ll see.”

Part of my brain snapped at her to wake up and smell the coffee. Everything was
not
going to be fine! But I didn’t say it. My mom hadn’t
done
anything to me, after all. So why did I feel so angry all of a sudden?

“Okay,” I said. “I’m gonna go do my homework.”

As I headed for the bathroom, I realized it wasn’t just anger. On top of the anger there was guilt. Whatever my mom said, it
was
my fault. She never would have been fired if she hadn’t tried to return that necklace for me. And on top of the guilt was something else. I couldn’t help feeling . . . sorry for my mother. I mean, how could she still be into all that cheery Christmas crap after everything that had happened? Making gift packages for the family? She’d been falsely accused of stealing and then fired! She’d gone from selling diamonds to hawking cheese! And now she was in there humming carols. How naive could she be? Christmas had turned on us. There was nothing to be merry about anymore.

I walked into the bathroom and turned on the hot water, stripping off my clothes. As soon as I had sloughed off about ten layers of my skin, I was going back to work on Project Scooby. Tomorrow I would have my revenge.

DO THEY KNOW IT’S CHRISTMASTIME AT ALL?

“ALL RIGHT, EVERYONE, GOOD JOB,” MR. MCDANIEL called out as he closed the
Les Misérables
music we’d been working on. “Let’s turn to the carols.”

“Don’t faint on us now, Rudolph,” Turk Martin said under his breath, leaning half an inch toward me. His smaller, more hyper sidekick, Randy Cook, cracked up laughing as I felt my face start to redden.

Both Randy and Turk totally got off on picking on me at Christmastime every year, trying to get me all riled up so that I would start spouting my “Most Wonderful Time of the Year” arguments. Little did they know that I was over it. Big-time. And I wasn’t going to take their crap anymore.

“Shut up, Turk,” I said.

Randy stopped laughing abruptly as some serious tension filled the air.

Turk turned toward me and gave me this confused look, as if my telling him to shut up was so absurd he couldn’t quite process it. Of course, I understand why it would be difficult for him. No mere mortal has even looked him directly in the eye since the third grade. (That was the year he started shaving.) Turk Martin is one of those square-jawed angry kids who always has this perpetual squinty-eyed look like he’s deciding whose butt to kick next.

I stood there, trying not to notice how much bigger he was than me and waiting for him to hit me with a right hook, but then McDaniel started the intro to “Deck the Halls” and I was saved by the music.

I sang my part with about one-tenth of the enthusiasm I usually had while singing carols. Usually at this time of year I wanted choir to last all day. Today I couldn’t stop looking at the clock and wishing the second hand would hurry it up already. The moment the song was over, Turk turned to me again.

“Dude, what the hell is wrong with you? You’re all off-key,” he said as Mr. McDaniel turned his attention to the sopranos. He started going over their part of “Deck the Halls” with them, as if they needed any help.

The sopranos were the ones who always got to sing the melody line of every song—the one we’ve all been hearing our entire lives. It’s the rest of us who were stuck learning sucky harmonies for these sucky carols.

“Maybe I’m all fa-la-la-ed out, okay?” I snapped back.

Whoa. Did I just say that?

“Dude, what happened to Mr. Christmas?” Randy said, sounding almost disappointed. I guess he was wondering what he’d do to pass the time now that he had no reason to think up lame yuletide jokes.

When I didn’t respond, Turk and Randy turned away. As soon as they did, my masochistic ear tuned in to Sarah, who was standing next to me, showing off the Scooby necklace to any alto chick who would listen. She was even wearing a red shirt with a cleavage-revealing neckline to accentuate the pendant. As she gushed on and on about how great Scooby was—

“He’s taking me to the Z100 Jingle Ball! Front-row seats! How lucky am I?”

—I could feel the ticket I’d bought us for the Holiday Ball burning a hole through my wallet in my back pocket. Why I was still walking around with the thing, I had no idea. It was only a souvenir of shame, a monument to my dorkiness, proof positive of my ultimate loser status. I couldn’t believe I wasted all that money on Sarah, who, it was becoming increasingly clear, couldn’t have cared less about me.

“I’m going to the mall again today,” Sarah explained, gazing down admiringly at the heart-shaped pendant. “Scooby has another gift for me. Isn’t he just the best?”

The girls around Sarah oohed and aahed. How could I not have seen this before? Holly was right all along. All Sarah cared about were presents and cars and clothes and jewelry. That was why she was so focused on the gift aspect of Christmas and nothing else. That was why she was so psyched about my Jeep and why she’d stolen my sweater (which she’d yet to give back). That was why the first thing she’d asked me about after the fire was if I’d been able to save my
stu f.
I bet if I had handed her a credit card right then and there, she would have come right back to me. After making sure it had an inflated credit line, of course.

Sarah might have a few good qualities, but at heart all she cared about was being the one with the most packages under the tree.

“Okay!” Mr. McDaniel said, clapping as he walked to the center of the room. “Let’s get to work on ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’!” He turned and slid a piece of paper from the top of his piano, then scratched at his short red beard as he scanned the page. “Now, I’ve assigned all the different lines as solos to various students. We’ll all sing the ‘partridge in a pear tree’ line together. Turk, I’d like you to take ‘two turtledoves’; Danielle, ‘three French hens’; Paul, ‘four calling birds’; Sarah, I think you’ll be perfect on ‘five gold rings’. . . .”

Who better to sing about the only monetarily valuable item in the whole song? (There was a reason Jim Henson gave that line to Miss Piggy in
John
Denver & the Muppets—A Christmas Together.
)

Well, let her have her little moment in the sun with her little song line. Suddenly I couldn’t wait for that afternoon. Holly, the Hurley boys, and I were going to have some fun with the fabulous Scooby, and it would be all the more gratifying now that Sarah was going to be there to witness it.

That afternoon, as Matt and I walked toward the Hickory Farms kiosk, I told myself to just smile and try to be upbeat. But the second I saw my mother standing there in her reindeer costume, all I wanted to do was disappear. Could this be any more humiliating?

“Hey, Mrs. Nick!” Matt called out, walking up to her. “Can I get some of that Monterey Jack?”

Okay, so at least the outfit didn’t faze
him.

My mother’s face lit up when she saw us. “Would you like to try some, sir?” she asked me, holding out the tray as Matt munched on his second cube.

“This is good stuff, man. You should try it,” he said, his cheek bulging.

“That’s okay, Mom,” I said. I’d just come from seeing my father, who was still in bad shape. Now I was confronted by the image of my mom as a furry reindeer in a green-and-red apron, and in five minutes I was going to be executing the next step in Project Scooby. My stomach was not well.

“So, how’s your father?” she asked as a few elderly women took some cheese from the tray.

“He’s . . . fine,” I lied, my mind flashing on an image of my dad flat on his back on his bed, sipping a chocolate malt through a very long straw. He’d tried to act positive, but he could still barely move. It was tough to play along with the Dad’s-just-fine game everyone else was so good at playing.

“The nurses only let us stay for five minutes, but he was joking the whole time. Same old Mr. Nick,” Matt, who had been my taxi that afternoon, told her. “Your dad is so cool, man.”

My mother smiled at this news, then looked at me with sympathy in her eyes. It looked kinda ridiculous over that big red nose she had on. “I know it’s hard to see him like this, sweetie, but he’s going to get better.”

“Sure, Mom,” I said, swallowing back a lump in my throat. I glanced at my watch conspicuously. “Well, better go. I’m gonna be late to meet Holly.”

“I’m gonna go buy my mom’s present,” Matt said, stuffing another cube of cheese into his mouth. “Bye, Mrs. Nicholas. Later, bro.”

He reached out and slapped my hand. “Thanks for the ride,” I called after him as he melted into the crowd. I forced a smile at my mom. “I might be late tonight. I’m gonna study for the big history exam with the guys,” I lied. I felt bad, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. I couldn’t tell my mom that I’d actually be on a crime spree with the Anti-Christmas Underground.

“Okay, sweetie,” she said. “You have fun.”

“Thanks,” I replied. Then I turned and hoofed it toward the North Pole as fast as I could. Just looking at my mother made me feel guilty on so many levels, I couldn’t even deal.

A few minutes later I was standing on the outskirts of the North Pole, behind the Santa Shack, watching Holly’s slow trek through the mall as she tried to wrangle all six Hurley boys and keep from being mowed down by shoppers at the same time. Luckily the hyper, scary kids, at least one of whom always seemed to be beating up another, created a sort of buffer zone around her. No intelligent adult who valued his or her life would come within a five-foot radius.

“Hey!” Holly’s face lit up, then fell when she saw me. “Where’s the elf outfit? I brought a camera.”

“No elf suit today. I’m gonna be Santa when Scooby’s shift is over at five, remember? For now we’re here strictly on a mission,” I said as the smallest Hurley boy brought his foot down on the foot of another and got elbowed in the back of the head.

“This tool your boyfriend?” the eldest Hurley asked, offhandedly flicking one of his younger brothers on the ear. The response was a hard punch to the gut that the eldest didn’t seem to notice. “What do you want with this guy when you can have a real man like me?” He lifted his chin slightly as he said this.

“Jason, you’re nine,” Holly said.

“So? I’m almost in the double digits,” he replied, his steely blue eyes looking me up and down. I found myself irrationally wishing for a set of iron bars between us. He flicked another brother on the ear and the kid, never looking up from his Game Boy, kicked Jason on the shin, hard.

“Ow! You’re gonna regret that!” Jason shouted, jumping the smaller kid. Suddenly all six boys piled on top of one another right there at our feet, a mass of flailing limbs and shouted curse words.

“Did you hear what he just said?” I asked Holly after one particularly harsh expletive flew our way.

“You should hear their mother,” Holly replied. She reached in and grabbed one of the children by the back of his shirt, pulling him out of the pile as he continued to squirm and throw punches.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” she shouted, then let out a loud peal of a whistle. “If you guys don’t quit this right now, there’s gonna be no Twinkies when we get home.”

The pile froze and one by one the other five boys stood up and straightened their hodgepodge of sweat-shirts and jackets. Holly was a miracle worker.

“Now, you guys wanna see Santa?” Holly asked in a cheerleadery tone I didn’t know she possessed.

“Yeah!” they all cheered.

Of course, Jason couldn’t help flicking the red-faced kid standing next to him and they immediately took off, tearing after each other across the center of the mall, trailing the rest of their brothers.

“Where are they going?” I asked. At this rate the Scooby plan was never going to get under way.

“They’ll be back,” Holly said with a shrug. Then a tiny woman with a bag twice her own size barreled right into Holly’s shoulder and kept walking. Holly rolled her eyes and clenched her jaw. “Whaddaya say we sit?”

Holly walked past the mall’s charity booth to find a place to rest and I felt all the hairs on my arms and neck stand on end. Every mall employee has to take one turn manning the charity booth and today it happened to be Marge Horvath’s turn. As we strolled by, Marge glared right at me and lifted the right side of her upper lip in a kind of snarl. I glared right back.

“Ooh. What’s
that
about?” Holly asked, noticing my face as we sat down on the outer rim of the pond at the center of the mall. “Isn’t she that awful woman who sold us your Sarah necklace?”

I snorted. “Oh, that’s her, all right. And she’s not just awful, she’s pure evil,” I told Holly, shoving my hands into the pockets of my varsity jacket. “She hates my mother. She’s the one who got her fired and I swear she was happy about it. I hate that woman.”

“At least she’s working the table for . . .” Holly squinted at the placard that was propped under the table. “Hope House. What’s Hope House?”

“It’s an orphanage. And she’s only working there because she has to,” I replied as we both watched Marge take a bill from an elderly man, grimacing when her fingers touched his.

At that moment the line of running Hurleys came tearing around the North Pole, and Jason ran right up to the big, rainbow-colored Hope House collection pot, shoved in his hand, and came out with a wad of bills.

“Jackpot!” he shouted gleefully.

That Awful Woman descended on him like a vulture on a ripe piece of meat. I didn’t even see her move from her post and suddenly she was on Jason, clutching both his upper arms from behind and shaking him.

“You drop that money right where you found it, you little good-for-nothing terror!” she shouted, her face darkening and her eyes turning into nasty slits. In my mind’s eye I suddenly saw a pair of horns sprout from her head and a roaring fire come to life behind her. Holly jumped up and ran over to Jason, forcibly removing the now subdued kid from Marge’s grip.

“What’s wrong with you? He’s just a little boy,” Holly said, smoothing down Jason’s blond hair as he shakily dropped the money back into the pot.

“Well, I suggest you teach him to keep his hands to himself,” Horvath snapped, her chin somehow seeming even pointier than usual. And that’s pretty damn pointy.

Holly, her face pale, led Jason and the other boys over to me. “What do you say we go get in line?” she suggested.

“Yeah,” I said, shooting Marge a look that she completely missed. She was too busy counting the money, transferring it from the pot to a tin where she could separate the bills. She was probably trying to make sure that Jason hadn’t somehow managed to pocket a precious dollar. “Let’s get the heck away from here.”

By the time Holly had managed to get all six Hurleys in line for a visit with Santa, we were closing in on the end of Scooby’s shift. I went into the Santa Shack to change into my Santa suit. Not wanting to miss the festivities, I kept glancing through the flimsy windowpanes of Plexiglas as I struggled into my suspenders and stuffed my padding under the waistband of my pants, marking the Hurleys’ progress. The last thing I wanted was a repeat of yesterday’s kerfuffle. (One of my mom’s favorite words.)

As I pasted on my beard, I caught a glimpse of long blond hair down at the foot of the red carpet. My heart lurched, but I couldn’t look away. There was Sarah, opening a brightly wrapped package. Her whole face lit up when she pulled out a deep purple cashmere sweater, letting the box and all the paper and ribbon fall all over the floor. She held the fabric up to her cheek, then bent down to whisper something to the little girl who was about to walk up to see Santa.