Xmas Spirit Read Free Page B

careful not to be seen. Attracting attention had never been a very successful endeavor for her before, but she hadn’t had to worry about all that for a while now, and she was a little rusty. Annoyed looks from teachers, suspicious stares from hall monitors, and threatening What are you looking at? glares from other students goosed her farther and farther down the hallway just as the last bell of the day, the last before Christmas vacation, before Christmas Eve, sounded.
    The hyperhormonal hurricane she’d had a brush with earlier in the hallway deepened to a Category Five dismissal. Students scrambled for daylight, what was left of it, and spilled out through every exit, down onto the concrete staircases and walkways, and out onto the front lawn. It was similar to lava flowing from an active volcano.
    School was out.
    Charlotte found shelter against the brick façade of the high school and let the maelstrom pass. She watched clique after clique assemble in the parking lot like schools of hungry piranhas, eyeing each other warily, at an impromptu outdoor Christmas party that nobody planned to attend. Jocks, nerds, goths, geeks, preps, stoners, posers, joiners of every stripe closed ranks with their own kind. Even the loners gathered, by conspicuously not gathering, dotting the periphery of the lot, asserting their collective individuality together. Charlotte studied them all like a lab experiment, verifying for herself yet again that she didn’t fit in with any of them, now or then. Problem was, her then was also her now.
    A sudden commotion and gasps from the throng could only mean one thing, Charlotte figured. Petula and The Wendys were on the march. They were always last to arrive in the parking lot but first to leave, hanging out just long enough to get a few rounds of last-minute abuse in before the holidays and tobitch about their lack of funds for Christmas shopping. It was impossible for Charlotte and everyone else not to overhear.
    “I am so over Christmess,” Wendy Thomas whined.
    “Me too,” Wendy Anderson concurred, looking to Petula for her approval.
    “Well, I’m not, so don’t even try it,” Petula lectured. “The finest gifts you’ll bring to lay before the queen.”
    “Well, I don’t play the drums,” Wendy Anderson said, taking the “Little Drummer Boy” song reference literally.
    “We don’t have any money. Between gym memberships, our Christmas outfits, and the price of laxatives,” Wendy Thomas said.
    Petula glared at her.
    “What she means is times are tough,” Wendy A. advised. “You know how hard I tried to get my Tread-Meals diet and exercise franchise off the ground this year.”
    “Eating all your meals on a treadmill to burn off the exact number of calories while you consume them is not a viable business model,” Petula chided. “Not when you can stick your finger down your throat for free!”
    “Hard core,” Charlotte whispered to herself, cringing just a bit.
    This was the Petula she remembered. And admired.
    “Isn’t it supposed to be the thought that counts?” Wendy T. said quietly, holding her arms out for a hug. “We wish you a Merry Christmas . . . God bless us, every one . . . and all that crap.”
    “Really?” Petula shouted, slapping her hands away. “How about the next time you want to borrow my car or my homework or my doctor’s note, I give you some thoughts instead?”
    Petula wagged her finger threateningly in both of their faces and issued a yuletide ultimatum.
    “I don’t give a damn if you both have to invent a phony charity and ring a stupid bell for donations in front of the supermarket until your gel manicures melt!” Petula said. “I want what I want, that’s what I WANT.”
    They looked back at her, dumbfounded.
    “I’ve sent you my list,” Petula said.
    “With links?” Wendy A. asked.
    Petula rolled her eyes at such a stupid comment. Of course she would send links. She did every year. Complete with manufacturer, color,