Tidings of Great Boys Read Free

the eighteenth. Thing two: he’s going over for it,
     and the production team at Leavesden Studios, as well as the people from Scotland, are all invited. Thing three: both your
     mom and your dad are invited, too, Mac.” I blinked in surprise. Dad hadn’t said a word about it, and I’d gotten an e-mail
     from him that morning. “And thing four: my mother says she’s not going. Dad wants me to talk her into it. What do you think
     my chances are?”
    The hope in her eyes was almost painful. I knew all about hope. Been there, done that, threw away the T-shirt.
    “I guess that means at least you’re coming, then,” I said briskly. “Because of course you’ll talk your mother round. And once
     you do, your parents are coming to Strathcairn afterward for Christmas. I insist.”
    Because if Lissa could talk her mother into coming, then I could talk mine into it as well. For the first time since the divorce.
    This was going to be the best, most unforgettable Christmas ever. I’d make certain of it.

chapter 2
    T HE ONLY PERSON on the planet who actually enjoys finals week is Gillian Chang—and that’s only because she swots like she has
     finals all the time. I gritted my teeth at her relentless cheeriness and tried to focus on my speech for debate while she
     coached Shani and Carly in biology. “Okay, so here’s the deal on amino acid. It’s a molecule, not a liquid. And it has the
     general formula H 2 NCHRCOOH, where R is organic.”
    Deep in Lissa’s tote, her phone cheerfully informed us, “You can’t stop the signal, Mal.” Only Lissa would have a
Firefly
quote as her ringtone. While she got up to answer it, the rest of the girls slumped against beds and cushions,
thank goodness
written all over them.
    “I’m so glad I finished with sciences when I took my A-levels.” I pushed my notebook off my lap and stretched. “Anyone for
     a break?”
    “Don’t let her go to Starbucks,” Carly told the room in general. “She’ll never come back.”
    “Just keep swimming,” Gillian told them. “We’re over the hump now.” Then she looked at me. “Besides debate, what do you have
     tomorrow?”
    I tried to think, but my tired brain couldn’t make the leap twelve hours into the future. I pulled my schedule out of my binder.
     “French, Global Studies, and U.S. History. Gaaahh.”
    “I hear the English essay is brutal,” Carly said with sympathy.
    “Thanks a lot. I can hold my own with dead Englishmen, but with my luck, we’ll get an essay on American poets or something.”
    “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Shani obviously liked American poetry. “Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson wrote some
     of the most amazing poems ever.”
    “I’m not saying they didn’t. I just don’t have anything coherent to say about them, that’s all. Of course, the way my brain
     feels right now, I couldn’t say anything coherent about what we had for tea.”
    “I don’t remember what we had for tea, either,” Gillian put in. “I got the end-of-chapter math review done, though.”
    Of course she did.
    If I had my way, I’d never look at another equation as long as I lived, but I was realistic. I’d have to take it in university,
     but as Carly would say, I’d jump off that bridge when I got to it.
    A sudden bubble of tension in the air made me look up. Lissa had her back to us and her hair shaken forward to hide her face,
     but with one hand on her hip and her legs stiff, body language said it all.
    “Mom, please,” she said in a low voice that made us all gaze at our papers while we listened intently. “You were so supportive
     of Dad on the red carpet last month. What’s so hard about doing that again? Or was it all just a show? I’m not being combative—I
     want to know. Okay, I get that. Yeah. I am
not
too young. I’m seventeen and I’m not completely clueless about relationships.” She was silent long enough for me to take
     a breath. “But the reason you’re drifting apart is