Secret Santa

by Sabrina James

  But the one thing he was wondering about — the big thing he couldn’t stop wondering about — was if Celia was romantically interested in Ryan. He’d never seen them together at school so he’d been surprised when she had joined them.

  “How do you know Ryan?” Celia asked.

  “We’re in the same gym class,” Froggy answered, finally finding his voice. “How about you?”

  “Ryan’s in my Spanish class. We sit next to each other.”

  Ryan probably talks to you every day. Unlike me, who never says anything.

  “He told me he was coming shopping today and needed help,” Celia continued. “I couldn’t say no. I can’t bear the idea of some underprivileged kid not finding a present under their tree on Christmas Day. It breaks my heart!”

  Talk to her! Froggy screamed at himself. Tell her you feel the same way! This is something you both have in common!

  But Froggy only nodded, his voice once again gone, beating himself up for blowing this golden opportunity to get to know Celia.

  “Hey, Froggy!” Ryan called out. “We need your help figuring out which is the best Lego to buy.”

  “I better go catch up with Noelle and Lily,” Celia said, turning her cart down an aisle.

  You blew it! You blew it! You blew it! Froggy scolded himself as he watched Celia walk away. He sighed and then patted his shirt pocket. At least he still had the list that Jake had given him.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Look!” Noelle exclaimed. “Silly Putty! I used to love playing with this when I was a kid.” She threw a couple of Silly Putty eggs into her cart. “These are the perfect stocking stuffers.”

  Walking down the aisles was like a trip down memory lane for Noelle. Everywhere she looked, she saw toys that she had played with while growing up. Etch A Sketch. My Little Pony. Tickle Me Elmo. Barbie.

  “Can you believe all this Barbie stuff?” Lily asked as they stopped their shopping carts in front of a huge Barbie display. “There are so many to choose from!”

  “I still have my Barbie dolls,” Celia confessed as she joined Noelle and Lily.

  Noelle could see she looked nervous, but what was there to be nervous about? She and Lily didn’t bite! She gave Celia a smile to put her at ease. “Me too.”

  “So do I,” Lily said, “although most of mine are bald from when my brothers used to scalp them.”

  “Did you have ever have one of these?” Celia asked, picking up a Barbie styling head.

  “Of course!” Noelle exclaimed. “I used to play beauty parlor with that.” She looked around to make sure none of the guys were around. “Sometimes I’ll still use it before trying a new hairstyle out on myself!”

  “My little cousins don’t like playing with Barbie dolls,” Lily said. “For them, the hot dolls are Bratz.”

  Celia made a face. “Ick! I don’t like those at all. They look weird.”

  “But they’re what’s selling,” Lily said. “We should buy some.”

  “Okay,” Celia agreed, “but we’ll have to throw in a few Barbies.”

  “Absolutely!” Lily exclaimed.

  “Shopping for little kids is so much fun,” Celia said as she checked the price on a baby doll.

  “It’s much easier than Secret Santa shopping,” Noelle casually mentioned, waiting to see what Celia would say.

  “Tell me about it,” Celia sighed. “Guys are so hard to shop for.”

  “You have to buy a Secret Santa gift for a guy?” Noelle asked.

  “Oops!” Celia covered her mouth with her hand. “I guess I let the cat out of the bag!”

  “Today I left a gift for the guy whose name I picked,” Lily said. “It was a complete disaster.”

  “Me too!” Celia exclaimed.

  Noelle felt like doing the Snoopy happy dance. That was exactly what she wanted to hear! Apparently Celia didn’t have a clue about what Charlie liked and didn’t like.

  “Hopefully I’ll get the next gift right,” Celia said.

  Hopefully you won’t, Noelle thought.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Lily hated to admit it, but Celia wasn’t as bad as she thought she was. True, she hung out with two Glamazons who were obsessed with shopping and guys, but she didn’t seem that way at all. How had she become friends with them?

  Lily left Noelle and Celia in the doll aisle. She told them she was going to get some boxes of crayons and magic markers, but what she was really going to do was pull a Nancy Drew and see if she could discover any info on Connor.

  She was filling her arms with a pile of coloring books when she heard Simon and Connor talking in the next aisle. She leaned closer to a wall of books, trying to hear what they were saying on the other side. They were talking about cars, and Connor was making an argument as to why a Corvette was the only car to own. Hmmm. She couldn’t afford to buy Connor a Corvette, but maybe she’d be able to get him the car of his dreams another way. She had to admit, it was a clever idea. And it wouldn’t cost much!

  She grabbed a couple of boxes of crayons and magic markers and then hurried back to Noelle and Celia.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Think I’ll pass my oral in Debate tomorrow?” Connor asked Simon after he finished his speech on Corvettes and added a model airplane kit to their shopping cart.

  “You sound like you know your stuff,” Simon said.

  “Well, Mr. Ellingsworth loves his Corvette so I figured if I did my oral essay on one, I’d get a better grade. Personally, I can’t stand them! I think they’re one of the worst cars around. My uncle Mike used to have one and he was constantly taking it to his auto mechanic. Give me a Mercedes any day!”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Celia found herself liking Noelle and Lily. They were so much fun to talk to. Why hadn’t she met them when she first moved to town instead of Amber and Shawna?

  She wanted to invite them to come over to her house during the Christmas break, but she couldn’t. Amber had already planned out a week’s worth of activities for her and Shawna. One day they would be going ice-skating at Rockefeller Center. The next they would be going to see a matinee on Broadway. Another day they would be going skiing, and then they would be hitting all the after-Christmas sales.

  She wished she could invite Noelle and Lily to come along, but she didn’t know what Amber and Shawna’s reaction would be. She didn’t think they’d be too happy about it, but why did she care? Noelle and Lily were nice. She liked them. She wanted to be friends with them. What was so wrong with mixing together groups of friends? Why couldn’t she be friends with whoever she wanted? Amber and Shawna as well as Noelle and Lily.

  Why did she have to choose?

  And if she did have to choose, would she wind up making the right choice?

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “I can’t believe how generous the store manager was!” Noelle exclaimed thirty minutes later as they all left the toy store.

  “Everyone has a little bit of Santa Claus in them,” Ryan said.

  Noelle playfully squeezed Ryan’s nose, which was turning red from the cold winter air. “I thought you didn’t believe in Santa!”

  “Guess I was wrong.”

  “Guess you were,” Noelle said smugly.

  When the manager of the toy store found out Ryan was buying toys for the Toys for Tots program, he instantly donated an extra shopping cart of toys. All the toys would be delivered to Ryan’s house the next day, where they would be wrapped and then dropped off at the local post office.

  “Get ready to start wrapping!” Ryan announced to everyone. “My house. Tomorrow. After school. Be there!”

  “I don’t know about the rest of you,” Froggy said, “but I’m hungry. Why don’t we all head to Icing on the Cake, where I work. Everyone can use my employee discount!”

  “I never say no to cupcakes!” Ryan exclaimed. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “A very sweet plan,” Celia added, giving Froggy a smile. “That’s so nice of you.”

  Once again, Froggy was speechless. B
ut at least he managed to smile back at Celia.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Shawna’s feet were killing her. If she had known she and Amber were going to go Christmas shopping after school, she never would have worn her high-heeled boots today. Even though they made her legs look great, they weren’t made for walking for hours. But she hadn’t known. After the bell for last class rang, Amber told her they were going to the mall.

  She and Amber had spent the entire afternoon going from store to store. Shawna had been able to cross a few names off her Christmas list, but everything Amber had bought had been for herself. Now they were loaded down with so many shopping bags, they could barely carry them.

  “Simon was supposed to meet us here!” Amber raged, staring at her watch. “And I told him to bring Connor. I can’t believe they stood us up!”

  “Maybe something came up?”

  Amber gave Shawna an icy stare. “More important than us?”

  Shawna shrugged as she sat down on a bench. Aaaah! It felt good to be off her feet.

  “And where did Celia disappear to?” Amber asked. “I couldn’t find her after last class.”

  “You two look like you’ve been hitting the stores!”

  Shawna turned around to see Mindy Yee headed their way. She was wearing a sage-dyed shearling jacket with dyed fox trim. Shawna had seen the jacket in the latest issue of Vogue and knew it cost at least three thousand dollars.

  “Love the coat,” Amber squealed, running her hand down a sleeve. “Is it new?”

  Mindy turned up the collar and whirled around. “An early Christmas from my parents.”

  Mindy’s parents owned a chain of upscale Chinese restaurants called House of Yee. Money was no object for them. Whatever Mindy saw in the pages of a fashion magazine, she usually got to buy. The jacket was probably only one of the many fabulous Christmas presents she would receive that year.

  “It’s yummy!” Amber raved.

  “Buy anything fab?” Mindy asked, peeking into their shopping bags. Shawna had to resist the urge to slap away her poking hands. Mindy was such a snoop! “But I don’t see the boyfriends,” she said, looking around. “You haven’t dumped them, have you? Because if you did that would mean you’d be dateless for Friday night’s dance.”

  Amber gave a nasty laugh, looking at Mindy like she was crazy. “Do you really think we’d be without dates on Friday night?”

  Mindy shrugged, examining her French manicure. “I don’t know.” She held a hand out to Shawna. “You like? I just got them done.” Then she turned back to Amber. “Tell me.”

  Actually, now that Mindy mentioned it, Shawna realized that Connor hadn’t asked her if she wanted to go to the Christmas dance. Which meant she was dateless. She found herself starting to get angry. What was he waiting for? He did want to take her, didn’t he?

  “We still have boyfriends,” Amber said, giving Mindy her don’t mess with me look.

  Mindy ignored it. “Really?” Her head swirled from the left to the right and then back again, her glossy black hair swinging back and forth. “Have Simon and Connor gone invisible? Because I don’t see them.”

  “They’re not always with us,” Amber said.

  “They used to be,” Mindy smirked. “Besides, I thought I heard you tell Simon at lunch that you were going Christmas shopping and you wanted him to meet you.”

  Amber gave Mindy a steely glare. “You must have heard wrong.”

  Mindy shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  Shawna decided it was time to change the subject before Mindy pushed Amber too far. “Has your Secret Santa left you anything yet, Mindy?”

  Mindy rolled her eyes. “Yes. A gift certificate for a Big Gulp at 7-Eleven. Sooo classy.”

  A Big Gulp for a big mouth, Shawna thought. Seems like the perfect gift to me.

  “I better get going,” Mindy said. “I still need to find a dress for the dance! If I don’t find anything here, I may have to go into Manhattan.” She waved her fingers. “Bye!”

  “I can’t stand her!” Amber spat out after Mindy left. “She always has to know everyone’s business. If her parents weren’t so rich and she didn’t throw such expensive parties, I wouldn’t have anything to do with her.”

  Which is the same reason why Mindy is friends with you, Shawna thought.

  “We need someone to help us carry these bags,” Amber said, her eyes scanning the mall. Then she saw a short skinny guy with a head of orange-red hair heading out of Barnes & Noble. She jabbed Shawna in the side. “Doesn’t that nerd go to school with us?”

  Shawna followed Amber’s pointing finger. The guy did look familiar. “I think so. But I’m not sure.”

  “Hey!” Amber called out. “Hey, you!” She snapped her fingers. “Over here!”

  The nerd finally looked up from the magazine he was reading and gazed in their direction. Amber nodded her head and he came racing over.

  “You go to North Ridge High, don’t you?” she said.

  “I do,” he said. “I’m David Benson.”

  “Then you know who we are.” Amber handed him a bunch of shopping bags. “We need help carrying these. You don’t mind helping us, do you?”

  “Of course not!”

  Amber added a row of shopping bags to each of David’s arms. Then she piled a stack of boxes in his outstretched arms. “Make sure you don’t drop anything!” she ordered. Then she turned to Shawna. “I need something hot to drink. Starbucks is too far away so let’s go to Icing on the Cake.”

  “My best friend works there,” David said. “I can probably get you a discount.”

  Amber rolled her eyes. “Is that supposed to impress me?” she whispered to Shawna.

  “Look what I got from my Secret Santa today,” Shawna said, reaching into her coat pocket and holding out a reindeer pin. “It was waiting at my locker after last class. I think it’s supposed to be Rudolph’s girlfriend. See, she has a pink bow on the top of her head.”

  Amber gave Shawna a horrified look. “You’re not going to wear it, are you?”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s so cheap-looking!”

  David caught up with them and peeked from behind the stack of boxes in his arms. “I think it’s pretty cute. My Secret Santa left me a DVD of the last X-Men movie. Did you know it has ten deleted scenes added? I already own it, but I can probably swap it with someone.”

  “Did we ask for your opinion?” Amber demanded. “This is a private conversation between me and my friend.”

  “Sorry,” David mumbled.

  “Your job is to carry and not talk. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Shawna slipped the pin back into her pocket. “So what are we going to do about Friday night?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If we don’t have dates. We can’t show up alone.”

  “You don’t have dates?” David exclaimed, a note of disbelief in his voice.

  Amber whirled around. “What did I say about talking?” she demanded.

  “Sorry,” David apologized. “But if you need dates for Friday night, my best friend and I would love to take both of you.”

  “Is he crazy?” Amber whispered to Shawna.

  “I think he’s serious,” Shawna whispered back. She could just imagine the look of glee on Mindy Yee’s face if she and Amber showed up at the dance with two nerds. She’d be text-messaging so fast, her thumbs would fall off!

  “How about it?” David asked excitedly.

  Amber didn’t even bother answering.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Once they arrived at Icing on the Cake, Froggy was so busy getting drinks and cupcakes for everyone he hardly had a chance to talk with Celia. That wasn’t a bad thing, because he could see she was hanging out with Jake. The more she hung out with Jake, the more Jake would be able to find out about her and then he’d be able to report back!

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  When Celia walked into Icing on the Cake, she was surprised to see Jake standing beh
ind the cash register. She had no idea he worked at the coffeehouse. She didn’t come to Icing on the Cake very often because Amber and Shawna always preferred going to Starbucks when they needed a caffeine fix. She was going to have to start coming here more often!

  She slid into an armchair that was close to the cash register and gave Jake a wave.

  “Hey! Ceel! What’s up?” he said, coming over with an order pad. “What can I get you?”

  “Peppermint tea would be nice.”

  He scribbled it down on his pad.

  “How was detention?” she asked.

  “Same as it was yesterday and the day before and the day before that.”

  “You should try being good,” she said.

  Jake shook his head. “Nah. Being good is boring. Wanna know why?”

  “Why?”

  He leaned down, close to Celia’s ear. As he did, the scent of his cologne filled her nose, along with the scent of the black leather vest he was wearing. “Being bad is better,” he whispered. “You should try it.”

  Celia swallowed over the lump in her throat. “I don’t know anything about being bad.”

  “Maybe I’ll have to show you,” Jake said as he left to get her tea.

  “Maybe you will,” Celia said to herself, her heart suddenly pounding with excitement. “Maybe you will.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “One hot chocolate with extra marshmallows,” Ryan said, handing the cup to Noelle.

  Noelle looked at the cup in amazement. “How did you known I like extra marshmallows?”

  Ryan rolled his eyes. “We’ve been living next door to each other since the third grade, Noelle. Give me a little credit. There’s a lot I know about you.”

  “Like what?” she challenged, blowing on her hot chocolate to cool it off.

  “Yellow is your favorite color, spring is your favorite season, you like ketchup on your hot dogs, not mustard, you love romantic comedies, your favorite TV show is Grey’s Anatomy, and not only do you believe in Santa Claus, you also believe in Prince Charming.”

  “I do not!”

  “Don’t deny it! You’re always first in line whenever a new Disney cartoon comes out, you own all the Disney classics, like Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and The Little Mermaid, and you devour romance novels.”