Luke asks Dad about his work and actually listens to Dad’s answer. I was worried that university life and independence were making Luke selfish and unreliable, but he’s back to the same old Luke.
“Hey, Luke,” I say, changing the topic, “how many of your friends did you end up testing?”
Luke chews and chews, swallows, takes a huge gulp of water, then finally looks at me. “What?”
“My project. Did you do all five?”
“Your project?” He stabs another piece of ham with his fork.
“Yes, you dunce, my science project.”
“Kat!” Mom says.
Luke’s eyebrows rise in understanding, then fall in something else. Something not good. He swears.
“Luke!” Mom says. She hates swearing.
“What?” I say. “What happened?”
“I completely forgot,” he says. “Sorry, champ.”
“But you said—”
“Yeah, I know, but I had that exam and stuff. It was a busy week.”
I stare at him, unblinking, waiting for the “Ha-ha, I fooled you. I actually tested fifty-seven people!” But it doesn’t come. University’s changed him after all.
“Sorry,” he says again. Then he shoves the mouthful of ham into his mouth and starts chewing again, as if he hasn’t just told me that the world is ending. I can’t believe him. I wish Meg wasn’t still grounded so I could call her and complain about what an idiot he’s become.
One cumulous clouds . . . two lightning strike . . .
“What’s this testing?” Granddad asks. “I’ll be a lab rat if you need one.”
Granddad, zombie lab rat, doing a speed run in LotS—I can’t help but smile just a little at the thought. I scrape my heart off the ground and gather its remains into a bloody pile, press it back into my chest. Meg said she would do fifteen; that leaves only five for me. I can do five, I can.
“Thanks, Granddad,” I say. Also, I kick Luke in the leg under the table. Just once. But hard.
MEG
ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, A SHARP PAIN IN MY SHINS STARTLES ME AWAKE. When my eyes flicker open, Nolan’s face is inches from my own. His dark-brown eyes stare right into mine. “It’s Christmas,” he whispers, like a creepy but excited little doll. Then I register the singing.
I roll over and sit up. Kenzie is jumping up and down on the bed, sometimes landing on the mattress, sometimes on my shins. Her Little Mermaid nightgown flaps up and down as she sings, “Christmas Christmas Santa frog. Christmas Christmas Christmas dog.” I grab her and pull her onto my lap, and Nolan and I both tickle her bare feet as she squeals.
Then we all tiptoe—not so quietly—past Mom’s room and downstairs to survey the loot. Nolan’s and Kenzie’s eyes light up as they spot the tree and all the presents beneath it, but my gaze catches on something else—a glint of green. My phone is on the coffee table, sparklingly beautiful. Mom’s finally returned it to me. I snatch it up. It’s only six thirty a.m., but as Nolan and Kenzie crawl around, practically drooling as they examine the heap under the tree, I type out a Merry Christmas message to Kat and then to Grayson.
I drop down onto the floor beside Nolan, and he nuzzles against my arm like a cat. Kenzie violently shakes a Santa-covered box. I think I love the halflings most on Christmas. “Should we open our stockings?” I ask, and they both nod frantically like little woodpeckers.
Later, after Mom comes downstairs and we all have breakfast—leftover Christmas ham from last night and poppy-seed cake, as always—we sprawl out on the living room floor with our mugs of hot chocolate and tear into the colorful heap. I open a jar of skateboard wax and some funky neon wheels that look like candy Life Savers from “Santa.”
Then Mom tosses me a blue bag with green tissue jutting out the top. It bounces into my lap with a crinkling of paper. For a moment, I catch the faintest whiff of sawdust before the scent is overwhelmed by ham and pineapple and candy canes.
“From Stephen,” Mom mouths uncomfortably at me. My stomach churns, but I ignore it. I will take whatever Stephen has given me. I will take it, I will enjoy it, and I will not say thank you. I rip the tissue out, dive in with my hand, pull out a fluffy white lump. It stares up at me with adorable glass eyes.
Kenzie bounces over, pressing her face into its fake fur. “Aw, polar bear,” she purrs.
Stephen-the-Leaver and I spent so much time watching the polar bears, that day at the zoo. The baby polar bear was the cutest. Over and over, she would gleefully clamber onto the barrel, then slip off with an epic splash. I could almost hear her laughing along with us, along with me and Stephen, except then he wasn’t Stephen, he was “Dad.”
“I don’t want it,” I say, shoving the thing off my lap.
“Mine,” Kenzie says, claiming it with a smothering hug to her chest.
“Fine, whatever, just take it away.” I climb up off the floor and onto the couch beside Mom. In a few days, the halflings will scamper out the door, off to celebrate a second Christmas with Dad—their dad, not mine. I rest my head on Mom’s shoulder. “Can I go to Grayson’s tomorrow? Helen said—”
“Helen?”
“Sorry, Grayson’s mom. That’s what I meant, sorry. Grayson said that his mom said that I could come over anytime over the holidays.” I hurry onward before she lectures me about how she’s fine with me dating a white boy as long as I don’t pick up any disrespectful habits, like calling adults by their first name. “So can I?”
Mom kisses me on the forehead, right along the hairline. “All right,” she says, giving my shoulder a squeeze. At least my grounding is over.
KAT
CHRISTMAS AFTERNOON IS THE EYE OF THE STORM, HALFTIME IN A basketball game.
Christmas morning is a flurry of wrapping paper, spinach frittata and fruit salad, arguments over who gets to open their presents first—or in the case of me and Dad, who gets to open their presents last. This evening will be another flurry, this time of turkey and Christmas pudding and a family game of Clue.
The afternoon—the in-between—is peaceful nothingness. No traditions or festivities. Just a moment to breathe. Dad reads his new book. Mom scurries about in the kitchen. Luke taps away on his phone, probably chatting with his secret girlfriend. Granddad slides a rook forward three spaces. It bumps a pawn, and the gentle clatter as it topples over sounds like the rattling of bones in Granddad’s fingers. His face and shoulders have fleshed out in the past few months, but his fingers are still just skin wrapped around bone.
He rights the pawn and nods at me, a silent “your turn.”
My phone chirrups as my knight charges into the fray, and because it’s Christmas, I allow myself to pick it up and read the text.
My grounding is over!!!!!!! Its a Xmas miracle! :D
“What are you grinning about? Some boy writing to you?”
“What? Granddad. No, of course not.” Boys don’t write to me. Which is good, because I think I’d die of a heart attack if one did.
“Well you’re grinnin’ like a raccoon on garbage day.”
I laugh, a breathy laugh that is no sound, just air. “It’s just Meg. She’s not grounded anymore.”
Granddad sets down his pawn with a thud. “Well, let’s go then.” His chair’s shoved backward as he lurches to his feet.