Celebrate the Season--Home for the Holidays

by Taylor Garland

  “Oh…” Becca’s cheeks turned red.

  Alyssa looked at Elle and Rachel, wondering for one terrible moment if they might say something. Alyssa didn’t know what she would do if they told Becca she couldn’t sit there. But they both remained silent.

  “No, I sit at the soccer table. But thanks, anyway. I’ll see you after class, yeah?”

  Alyssa waved goodbye and waited for Elle or Rachel to say something. After a moment, it became clear they weren’t going to say anything.

  “So, maybe it’s just in my head, but is there something up between you guys and Becca?” Alyssa asked, the words tumbling out of her mouth.

  Rachel looked uncomfortable, and Elle sighed. “We used to be really good friends with Becca, and we’re not anymore,” Elle said finally. “The feeling is mutual—it’s not like we ditched Becca or anything. We’d never do that,” she added quickly. “It’s a long story, but sorry if it was awkward.”

  “Yeah, sorry, Alyssa,” Rachel repeated.

  Alyssa nervously drummed her fingers on the table. She was relieved her new friends weren’t bullies. But she was disappointed that her suspicions were confirmed—there was definitely some history between the three girls.

  Across the cafeteria, Alyssa spotted the eighth graders filing in for their lunch period, which meant that seventh-grade lunch was about to end. Alyssa saw her brother come in surrounded by his friends from the soccer team. Cody would tell me to speak up, Alyssa thought. She stopped drumming her fingers and took a deep breath.

  “Hey, um, I really like you guys, and I’m happy we’re friends,” she said finally. “But I also really like Becca. I hope there won’t be any drama because I just want to be friends with everyone,” she finished.

  Alyssa waited a long moment for Elle or Rachel to respond. The two girls exchanged a look and then looked back at Alyssa, big smiles on each of their faces.

  “No drama from us,” Elle promised. “We’re just glad you moved here!”

  “Definitely,” Rachel agreed.

  Alyssa felt like she’d had a weight lifted off her shoulders, and she realized that the knot in her stomach was completely gone. Cody was right—speaking up really did feel pretty great!

  Becca was waiting for Alyssa near her locker after seventh period ended. She took the bus home with Alyssa but wouldn’t tell her what the surprise was. She wanted to wait until they got to Alyssa’s house. But Becca was lugging a huge paper bag, and Alyssa was pretty sure it had something to do with the surprise.

  “That’s my house up on the left,” Alyssa said as they rounded the corner from her bus stop. Alyssa could see that on the side of the house, her mom’s car wasn’t in the driveway yet, but that was okay because Alyssa had a key. As Alyssa rummaged around in her backpack for the key, she saw her next-door neighbor outside in her garden.

  “Hi, Mrs. Amir,” Alyssa called, waving. “This is my friend Becca.”

  Mrs. Amir, who helped keep an eye on things for Alyssa’s mom when she was at work, waved back and smiled. “Nice to meet you, Becca. Girls, I’ll be right out here working in my garden if you need anything.”

  As Alyssa and Becca made their way inside and headed into the kitchen for a snack, Becca deposited the paper bag on the table and began to open it. Just when it seemed like she was finally going to tell Alyssa about the surprise, something outside caught her attention.

  “You didn’t tell me you had a cat!” she exclaimed.

  “I don’t!” Alyssa said, running to the window. Sure enough, the calico cat had made an appearance. In fact, she was sunning herself in the driveway!

  Alyssa quickly explained the situation to Becca. “I don’t know if she’s a stray or what, but I have been dying to meet her. I can’t believe she’s out in the open like this, lounging in the driveway like she lives here! Do you think we should go meet her?”

  “The two of us together might freak her out,” Becca said after giving it some thought. “Why don’t you go out there and see if she’ll come to you?”

  “Good idea.” Alyssa nodded. “Wish me luck!”

  Alyssa slowly made her way outside, sitting down in the grass a few feet away from the cat. She was even prettier than Alyssa had imagined she would be. Her coloring was beautiful. Instead of the traditional calico shades of orange, black, and white, this cat’s coat had shades of pale gray, beige, and white. She looked so fluffy… and really well fed, just like Cody had said.

  The cat eyed Alyssa as she approached. She looked a little nervous at first, and Alyssa worried she might take off, but when Alyssa stopped and sat down a few feet away from her, the cat seemed to get more comfortable. She stayed in her spot on the driveway, staring at Alyssa with her big yellow eyes.

  “I’m Alyssa,” Alyssa told the cat in her most soothing voice. “I live in this house, and I love cats. I just moved here. I’d really like to get to know you. If you’re hungry, I can feed you.”

  Alyssa felt like the cat was listening to her as she spoke so she went on. She’d read that it was good to talk to cats so they could get used to your voice. “I’m not sure if you’re a stray or what. I don’t see a collar, but you look very well fed. Do you live in the park?”

  Just then, Alyssa heard her mom’s car approaching the driveway. The cat heard it, too, and ran away. Alyssa stood up and dusted the dirt off her pants. “Bye, kitty!” she called.

  “That was amazing!” Becca exclaimed as she ran outside. “You were so good with her. She totally loved you!”

  Alyssa blushed happily. She had almost forgotten Becca was watching from the kitchen. Ordinarily, she might have felt silly talking to a cat in front of a girl she hardly knew, but Becca was just so warm and friendly that Alyssa didn’t feel silly at all.

  “Mom, this is my friend Becca from school,” Alyssa said as her mom got out of her car. Mrs. Sing smiled warmly, and Alyssa realized how nice it had felt to say those words: my friend from school.

  A little while later, after polishing off a snack and chatting with Mrs. Sing for a bit, Becca was finally ready to tell Alyssa what her surprise was. She’d brought the paper bag up to Alyssa’s room, where the two girls were sitting cross-legged on the bed.

  “I want to see if you can guess, but I’ll give you a big hint!” Becca opened the bag, reached her hand in, and slowly pulled out… a ball of yarn. “Ta-da!” she cried, tossing the ball of yarn to Alyssa. “And there’s lots more where that came from! This bag is filled with yarn—every color plus some of the cool marbled kind!”

  “You bought me yarn?” Alyssa asked. She was confused.

  “Technically my aunt bought it,” Becca replied, tossing a ball of purple yarn up and catching it. “Have you figured it out yet?”

  Becca was so excited she was practically bouncing on the bed. She pulled more balls of yarn out of the bag and set them down. “You know about my aunt’s store, right? I thought I told you about it at the fair, but maybe not…? Her store on Ocean Drive downtown? Near the pizza place? I know your brother knows about it because he met my aunt one of the times he was over hanging out with Ben.”

  Alyssa’s head was spinning as she tried to follow along. Becca was talking really fast and reminding her a little of Elle. Does Becca’s aunt own a yarn store or something? Does she want to sell me yarn at a discount…?

  “So anyway, my aunt wants you to make scarves that she can sell at her store for the holidays! At first, she wanted them a week before Christmas, but I told her that might be asking too much and said December twenty-fourth was probably more realistic.” Becca paused for a moment to take a breath and continued when Alyssa didn’t say anything. “She’ll take as many scarves as you can make with all this yarn. She thinks they’ll sell really well because people love to buy accessories. Last year, she had these adorable little umbrellas, and they totally sold out. She’ll pay you half of what she sells the scarves for. I thought that seemed fair since she was buying all the yarn, and she can buy you whatever needles you need, too.…” Becca pause
d again and looked at Alyssa. Seeing the uncertain look on Alyssa’s face, Becca’s tone changed. “I hope this is okay. I mean, I told my aunt what a great knitter you were, and I thought this would be an amazing opportunity for you. But you don’t seem very excited. Are you excited?”

  Alyssa wasn’t sure what to say or think. On the one hand, she knew Becca meant well. But on the other hand, this was a lot of yarn and Alyssa couldn’t even imagine how many hours of knitting would be ahead of her if she agreed to do this. But maybe Becca and her aunt don’t know anything about knitting and they are only expecting one or two scarves.…

  As if reading her mind, Becca said, “You could just do as many scarves as you could by December twenty-fourth. Maybe fifteen?”

  “Fifteen scarves?” Alyssa croaked. Her throat felt dry. There was no way she could complete fifteen scarves in a year, let alone a few weeks.

  “I can help,” Becca said, nodding reassuringly. “You could teach me to knit. I bet I’d be good at it. Not as good as you, of course, but how hard can a little scarf be, right?”

  Alyssa felt her cheeks burn. She knew Becca wasn’t trying to hurt her feelings on purpose, but those words stung.

  How hard can a little scarf be?

  “Alyssa, did I mess up here?” Becca asked, picking up a ball of yarn and squeezing it like a stress ball. “I know sometimes I go full steam ahead with stuff, and I don’t mean to mow people over but then I do.” Becca took a deep breath. “My friend Rachel… I mean, your friend Rachel, who used to be my friend… used to tell me that I mowed people over with my enthusiasm. I don’t do it on purpose. I just get really excited about stuff. Just tell me if you don’t want to do this and I’ll take the yarn and go.”

  Your friend Rachel, who used to be my friend…

  Becca’s words echoed in Alyssa’s head. She looked so sad. Alyssa could tell she missed Rachel. Of course she did. She probably missed Elle, too. Alyssa wondered what had happened to drive the friends apart. Did it have something to do with Becca “mowing people over”? But that sounded like something Elle would have a tendency to do, too, and Rachel seemed to have a good sense of humor about that, so Alyssa couldn’t imagine that was what had broken up their friendship.

  Alyssa took a deep breath and tried to figure out what she wanted to say. She definitely did not want Becca to leave, and she also didn’t want Becca to feel bad. “It’s okay. I’m not upset. I’m really flattered that you think my scarves are so nice and that you wanted to make this—opportunity—for me,” Alyssa said slowly.

  Becca exhaled loudly. “Oh, thank goodness!”

  “I just…” Alyssa took another deep breath. “I just don’t know how much time I’ll have to work on all these scarves between now and then. I have the holiday-wish essay to work on and all my Christmas shopping.…”

  The words sounded lame, even to Alyssa. Was she “getting ahead of herself” again? Why am I saying no automatically? Alyssa thought. Maybe I should be more like Becca and go full steam ahead instead of overthinking everything. I bet Cody would just say yes.

  “That’s totally fine!” Becca said. She looked happy again now that she knew Alyssa wasn’t upset with her. “Like I said, you can teach me to knit and I’ll help. We’ll just do as many scarves as we can. Maybe we can even have a sleepover where we hang out and knit?”

  Alyssa grinned. “Now you’re speaking my language,” she joked. “That sounds perfect. I just think we need to be realistic about how many scarves we can do in a couple of weeks. They take a long time.…”

  Becca nodded eagerly. “Whatever you say. You’re the expert! But I bet we can make way more than you think we can!”

  For the next hour, Alyssa showed Becca a few basic stitches. Becca picked them up quickly and seemed to have a real knack for knitting. They chatted as they practiced. Becca told Alyssa that she used to have a cat named Sprinkles. “She was the grumpiest cat ever,” Becca said. “She didn’t really like anybody except… well, she really liked Elle.”

  Alyssa wasn’t sure what to say, so she nodded. “She must have liked you, too, since she was your cat.”

  Becca shrugged and laughed. “She tolerated me. I think the only human Sprinkles really liked was Elle. Rachel and I used to call Elle the cat whisperer because Sprinkles loved her so much.”

  Alyssa laughed, too. “Maybe I can get Elle to help me with the cat outside my house!” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Alyssa regretted them. Would Becca think she was trying to brag that she was friends with Elle?

  But Becca just nodded. “Yeah, you totally should. Cats love her.”

  An awkward silence followed, and Alyssa tried to think of something to say. Finally, she asked Becca about soccer.

  “I actually don’t love soccer all that much,” Becca confided. “I hope this doesn’t sound braggy, but I’m really good at it, so my parents kind of made me go out for the team. I was sort of hoping I wouldn’t make it, but then I did.”

  “That doesn’t sound braggy,” Alyssa assured her. “Cody told me how good you are.” She carefully put down her knitting so she could really focus on what Becca was saying. “Have you tried talking to your parents about it?”

  Becca sighed and continued knitting, her needles slowly clicking as she spoke. “It makes them so proud that I’m really good at something, and I don’t want to disappoint them. It’s not like I hate playing. It’s just… a lot changed after I joined the team and I liked things the way they were before.”

  “What changed?” Alyssa asked.

  Becca looked uncomfortable, and Alyssa instantly regretted asking. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” she said quickly.

  “You weren’t,” Becca said kindly. “But would you mind if we maybe talked about something else?”

  “Of course,” Alyssa said. Alyssa had a feeling she knew what had changed so much in Becca’s life since she joined the soccer team—her friendship with Elle and Rachel.

  Moments later, Alyssa’s mom called upstairs to let the girls know it was after five and she was wondering if Becca wanted to stay for dinner.

  “Oh, I have to go—I promised my mom I’d be home,” Becca said.

  Alyssa showed her how to pause her knitting so she could pick it up again later. Becca decided to take half the yarn with her so she could work on some scarves. Alyssa bit her lip. “Becca, you definitely picked up those basic stitches really quickly, but I’m not sure you’re ready to make a full scarf yet,” she said gently.

  But Becca just laughed. “Oh, don’t worry—my aunt won’t mind if some of them are more basic—they all don’t have to be perfect like yours!”

  Alyssa was pretty sure they would have to be perfect if her aunt wanted to sell them in her boutique, but she didn’t feel comfortable disagreeing with Becca about it, since her aunt was the one who had paid for all the supplies. So instead of saying anything, she simply helped Becca pack up half the balls of yarn.

  The two girls stood up, and Becca dashed off a text to her mom to let her know she’d be home shortly. Then she leaned over and gave Alyssa a quick hug. “I’m really glad you moved here, Alyssa,” she said, a bright smile on her face.

  Alyssa grinned, remembering that Elle had basically said the same thing to her earlier that day.

  I’m going to figure out what happened between them and get them all back together, she promised herself.

  When Alyssa’s alarm went off an hour earlier than usual on Thursday morning, she wondered for a moment why she’d set it so early before she remembered: She was waking up early to knit, just as she had done for the past two mornings. Her early-morning knitting sessions were paying off—she was almost halfway through one scarf so far. It was a simple stitch she was doing, but she was using different shades of red and pink to create an ombré effect. The ombré design had been Ryder’s suggestion. They had FaceTimed on Monday night after Becca had left, and Alyssa had filled him in on her new project. Ryder had been full of ideas for ways that Alyssa could design the sca
rves so they looked special without a ton of extra effort or complicated patterns.

  It was great to talk to Ryder about what’s going on with Becca, Rachel, and Elle, too, Alyssa thought. He really understood why it’s so important that I help the three of them get back together.

  “I would have hated to feel like I had to choose between you and Lauren,” Ryder had said. “I think you’re right—these girls just need a little push from their new friend, Alyssa, to help them see they belong together!”

  Ryder’s advice had been to try to come up with ways for everyone to spend time together. “That’s kind of what happened with you and Lauren,” he’d recalled. “Remember? I met you after I was already friends with Lauren. Then the two of you got really close after I started knitting club and you spent so much time together learning how to knit from the master,” he’d joked.

  Alyssa rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and smiled at the memory of her conversation with Ryder. Stretching, she glanced at the calendar on her desk. December 13. Just twelve days until Christmas. Eleven days until Becca’s aunt needed the scarves for her store. Eight days until the holiday-wish essay for Mrs. Ramirez was due.

  Don’t get ahead of yourself, Alyssa thought as a tiny pang of worry about everything she had to do stirred inside her. When Alyssa wasn’t worrying about making enough scarves for the deadline, she was actually enjoying the time spent knitting. Sometimes when she really got into a groove, her mind would wander while she worked. She’d given some thought to her holiday-wish essay, but most of the time her mind wandered to another topic: what she could do to fix things between Elle, Rachel, and Becca. She was sure that Ryder was right—if they just spent some time together, they’d realize that they could still be friends. Her plan had been to start small and see if they could all eat lunch together. Alyssa had eaten lunch with Elle and Rachel every day this week, but so far, she hadn’t had the opportunity to ask Becca to join them again, since she was always sitting at the soccer table.