The House Without a Christmas Tree Read Free

started thinking then about some dramatic approach to use on Dad that night.

Chapter Two
    Miss Thompson called us to order as the afternoon bell rang and reminded us that our presents for the class present exchange must be under the tree by Friday morning. I had been elected to the committee to buy Miss Thompson a gift, and we planned to shop for it the next day.
    We all adored Miss Thompson, and she adored us right back. At least we thought she did. She was tall and pretty, with dark hair worn in a style just like Betty Grable’s, the famous movie star. Of course Betty was blonde, and Miss Thompson was a brunette, but we didn’t think the comparison was strained.
    All Miss Thompson’s suits and dresses had fashionable padded shoulders, and the seams of her stockings were always straight. She wore Evening in Paris cologne and always had nice corsages of artificial flowers on her lapels. Miss Thompson tried not to play favorites with any of us, but I was pretty sure she especially liked me, and I spent a lot of time after school helping clean up and smacking blackboard erasers together out on the fire escape.
    â€œWe don’t want anyone to be left out of the gift exchange,” Miss Thompson was saying, “So remember that Santa Claus will be here Friday.”
    We all giggled, thinking it very funny to have a Santa Claus at our age. In fact, Santa would be played by Delmer Doakes, who was the chubbiest boy in the class, and Carla Mae’s true love.
    â€œRemember,” Miss Thompson reminded us, “the maximum you can spend for the person whose name you drew is fifty cents.”
    â€œWhat’s the minimum?” asked Delmer, being silly.
    â€œZero!” said Billy Wild from behind me.
    Everybody giggled at his dumb joke, and I turned around and made a face at him.
    â€œYou’re so parsimonious!” I said. It was a new word we had just learned in vocabulary that morning, and I was delighted to find an opportunity to use it so soon. I was very good in vocabulary, and always tried to use new words right away—especially if I could use them on Billy. He was always showing off his cowboy boots because he was the only kid in class with a horse. I would have given anything for a horse, but even getting a pair of cowboy boots seemed unlikely.
    Billy made a face back at me and gave one of my pigtails a yank. It always annoyed him that I usually got better grades than he did. Whenever I got 100 on a test he would call me “teacher’s pet,” and I would plot to get back at him the rest of the day. I knew I was the best student in the class, but I had been taught at home to be modest about it, so I took the attitude that my smartness was just an annoyance I had to put up with, like being born with freckles or six toes. I couldn’t help it if I got good grades all the time, it just happened.
    I knew if I didn’t get straight A’s, I would be in trouble with my father. My mother had been valedictorian of her high school class, and he expected me to live up to that. He hardly ever talked about her to me, but that was one thing he had told me. He had never finished high school himself, and I think he wanted me to make up for that too.
    I got home right after school that afternoon, because Grandma had to fit my costume for the church Christmas pageant. I was playing the lead angel, and while I was busy wrapping foil around my coat-hanger halo, she was fitting my white angel costume. She had made it from an old sheet, sewed up on her sewing machine. She sat at the machine in the little bedroom we shared, and I stood on a kitchen chair in front of her so she could make the hem even all around. I turned around and around as we talked.
    â€œYou kids will be stopping by here tomorrow night to sing Christmas carols, won’t you?” she asked.
    â€œI don’t know if we’ll be here or not,” I said, trying to sound casual.
    â€œWhy not?” Grandma