“Oh, just the usual old family woes,” Tabitha gave Bobby a bitter smile. “I guess it’s a difficult time of year? Around the holidays.”

“Yeah, yeah, I feel you,” Bobby gave them a sober nod.

Tabitha found it surreal and oddly thrilling that they could just sort of show up and heckle Bobby here where he worked. It was just such a teenage thing to do! At least, she couldn’t imagine treating any of her friends or coworkers this way in her past life. There was something that was just really captivating about these giggly and immature spontaneous years of freedom, where they first tasted freedom but could still be wild and silly with it, before the terrible droll seriousness of growing up the whole way fully takes hold.

I feel like… like if I just smiled and batted my eyes at Bobby and REALLY asked him, he’d climb right out through that drive thru window and come cruising around with us, Tabitha mused, her eye contact with Bobby lingering for a few moments longer than necessary before they both awkwardly looked away. No! Don’t let the intrusive thoughts win! BAD TABITHA! Use the incredible powers of TEENAGE GIRL responsibly!

“She’s living with another family for now,” Alicia revealed. “Has been since—for a while now. How long has it been, now?”

“Since Thanksgiving,” Tabitha said.

“Yeah, since Thanksgiving,” Alicia said. “The one lady from the birthday party with our group, who was going around skating with the little girl—”

“Hannah?” Bobby guessed.

“Yeah, her and Hannah,” Alicia rolled her eyes. “Of course you know Hannah, already.”

“She’s one of our best customers!” Bobby protested. “Hey—did she like her Bug’s Life toys?”

“She did!” Tabitha beamed. “Thank you. Good call on the pull-backs.”

“Hey, one sec,” Bobby pushed himself back from the window and disappeared back into the McDonald’s.

“What about our ice cream?!” Casey called. “Hey! Hey!”

“Catch!”

A small plastic bag sailed through the opening, and Casey leaned partway through her driver’s side window to catch it in both hands. The baggie was then chucked over her shoulder towards Tabitha, who fumbled it and lost the Happy Meal toy somewhere in the darkness between the front seats and the middle bench she sat on.

“Oh no!” Tabitha exclaimed, fighting with her seatbelt for a moment.

The safety strap failed to let her lean forward enough to rummage around for the plastic bag, so she clicked open the belt and carefully began to search.

“Totally forgot this series had a third pull back, Princess Dot,” Bobby reappeared in the drive thru window. “The little girl ant.”

“She already lost it!” Alicia teased, unbuckling her belt and twisting in the passenger’s seat to look behind her. “Wow, Tabs.”

“I—I did not!” Tabitha blushed. “Casey, do you have a—”

“Aziz, light!” Casey quoted, reaching up and thumbing on the console light. “Much better, thank you, Aziz.”

“Found it!” Tabitha reported, rising back up. “Thank you.”

“Aziz, light!” Bobby chuckled. “That’s from, uh—from—”

“Fifth Element!” Alicia answered. “Leeloo Dallas, Multipass!”

“Right! Fifth Element,” Bobby nodded. “Great movie. Great movie.”

“Bobby, how much for this?” Tabitha waggled the Happy Meal toy. “For Hannah.”

“Free of charge,” Bobby said. “That’s one’s actually defective, and also it fell off the back of the truck.”

“Bobby—no,” Tabitha rolled her eyes in exasperation, digging into her tiny jeans pocket for some dollar bills. “If it’s for Hannah, let me pay you for it.”

“Lo siento, no hablo ingles,” Bobby cocked his head at her and held up his hands in a show of confusion.

“He said your money’s no good here,” Alicia translated for Tabitha’s benefit.

“That’s not what he said!” Casey laughed. “‘Licia, I take Spanish.”

“I was paraphrasing,” Alicia stuck her tongue out. “Okay genius, what did he say?”

“He said, ‘Tabitha my sweet, I adore the way the moonlight shimmers in your eyes!’” Casey said. “I’m in my second year of Spanish, trust me my dudes.”

“Oh, right,” Alicia went with it. “Yeah, that’s what he said.”

Tabitha felt what must have been all the blood in her body rush towards her face.

“Here,” Tabitha insisted, pushing forward her money. “Here’s three, um, four dollars?”

“Jesus, Tabitha,” Casey laughed.

“Tabs,” Alicia scoffed. “It’s one Happy Meal toy, it’s not gonna be four freaking dollars.”

“They actually are stupidly expensive just on their own,” Bobby admitted. “We get them in for forty-three cents a piece I think, but then we charge a buck sixty-seven for them. It’s crazy.”

“Here, two dollars then,” Tabitha pressed forward the money. “Casey, can you please pass this over?”

“Sorry Bobby-boy, the lady insists,” Casey took the pair of bills and passed it across to Bobby.

She watched him punch in the sale, and then observed as he stretched across the chasm between McDonald’s building and idling SUV to pass change back over to Casey. Who gave it to Alicia, who handed it back to Tabitha, who then promptly deposited the pennies, nickels, and dimes into the seat cushion cavity of the Jimmy with the rest for a future passenger to discover. The girls shared bemused smiles at the charade, and then Casey gave Tabitha a smirk and clicked off the overhead light before Tabitha could scramble to find the seatbelt buckle again.

“Girl,” Alicia made a face at Tabitha. “You spoil Hannah.”

“I do not!” Tabitha said. “I mean—what do you want me to do?! She’s cute! Blame Bobby!”

“Wait, what?!” Bobby laughed, pausing to lean down as he affixed the spoon to the McFlurry machine so he could still see them through the window. “How’s this my fault?!”

“Yeah, Bobby was just tryin’ to be chivalrous,” Alicia said. “Not his fault either if you’re cute.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m not that cute,” Tabitha said in embarrassment. “I’ve got nothing on Hannah!”

“Hmm… nope, different kind of cute,” Alicia decided.

“Tabitha, you’re pretty cute,” Casey nodded. “You’re all like, weak and shy and injured and all. Provokes those—”

“Weak?!”

“—Provokes those protective instincts.”

“I’m not weak!”

“Okay, okay. Scrawny?”

“Scrawny?!”

“You look like you’re ninety-pounds when soaking wet,” Casey shrugged. “Oh—c’mon. Back me up here, ‘Licia.”

“She’s uh, she’s not scrawny, she’s petite,” Alicia failed to hide a grin. “That’s what they call anorexic these days, right? Petite?”

“Anorexic?! I’m literally about to have ice cream!” Tabitha fwapped her good hand against Alicia’s shoulder in consternation. “Ice cream, which is all, it’s sugar and empty calories and—”

“Yeah, hey where’s that ice cream?” Casey hollered into the window. “Chop, chop!”

“Geez, I’m—hold on a sec,” Bobby started the McFlurry mixer with a loud whine from the machine. “You broads are the worst customers.”

“Oooh, you did not just say that.”

“Am I really cute?” Tabitha wondered out loud.

“Tabs, you’re like, free McFlurry cute,” Alicia confirmed with a prideful preening raise of her chin. “Free Oreo McFlurry. Trust me, I know this, and I know this because I am also free McFlurry cute.”

“Aww, man,” Casey moaned again. “Why can’t *I* be free McFlurry cute?”

“Because, you have a boyfriend,” Alicia teased. “Serves you right!”

“Stupid boyfriend!”

I wonder if being unattached makes me more appealing? Tabitha wondered. It was a strange thought to have. Which is—yeah, which is weird, right? Because right here at this age, hardly anyone has a boyfriend or girlfriend yet. We’re almost all AVAILABLE.

Tabitha watched with interest as Bobby disengaged the loud McFlurry machine. The ever so slight movements of his biceps and forearms flexed as he went about his work with practiced, competent motions. When he reached to grab the next cup, she thought it a shame she couldn’t really see his shoulders. She wasn’t sure if this was attraction, exactly, but she did just enjoy watching him. He was good-looking but not eye-candy or anything, and when she examined her feelings she didn’t think that she was hot for him, or drooling over him or romance-novel amorous in any way—what she felt right now was a sort of idle fascination.

Or, maybe that’s just it? The puberty fairy coming along and sprinkling that magic fairy dust of self-awareness on us, making us first realize that there’s a market for partners, and surprise, we’re maybe on the market ourselves! Whether we realize it at first or not. Pangs of attraction, sudden INTEREST, that weird fluttery feeling when people maybe seem interested in you. Maybe I’m starting to crush on Bobby? I definitely feel SOMETHING, just how to even categorize whatever it is? It’s just—weird? The kinda sorta mutual flirting, and then having friends teasing us about the whole dynamic? I REALLY enjoy that, which seems so bizarre. What even is this? Have I just—

“Guys,” Tabitha blurted out. “I maybe just had a really deep, profound thought—but it’s already slipping away!”

“Oh noes!” Casey exclaimed as she started accepting McFlurries from Bobby and passing them to Alicia. “Don’t lose that thought!”

“Grab onto it tight!” Alicia encouraged. “Don’t let it go! And, here.”

“Oh, thank you,” Tabitha took the McFlurry cup and quickly tried a spoonful of oreo and ice cream. It was delicious, sweet and cold vanilla with just the right amount of cookie crumble for texture and flavor. “I… I lost it.”

“You lost it?!”

“Yeah… it’s gone.”

“Aw, man,” Casey snorted around a mouthful of her own McFlurry. “Hate it when that happens.”

“What’s up?” Bobby asked.

“Tabitha almost had a big epiphany, but then she lost it,” Alicia said. “Oh, and thanks again for the ice cream!”

“Yeah, no prob,” Bobby waved. “Merry Christmas and all that, if I don’t see you guys.”

“You too! Thank you for the ice cream!”

“Yeah, Merry Christmas!”

“Bye, Bobby!”

“Mom,” Elena asked. “Do you ever think malls will go out of style? Shopping malls.”

“Hmm,” Mrs. Seelbaugh pondered, tapping the remote control against her chin. “Out of style?”

The Muppet Christmas Carol was playing on TV, and each successive group of commercial interruptions got Elena thinking again. Worrying. Would these same commercials instead be playing someday on their family computer instead of squeezed in between sections of television programming? What would make the personal computer, of all things, more attractive and convenient than television? By nature, computers were complicated, while turning on the tube and just letting a channel play was simple and easy.

Elena had looked up Google—it was a real thing, at least, and seemed to be some kind of third party knockoff of Yahoo! Search. She clicked around on it for a bit, but was not remotely impressed. What would draw people into using Google at all? Yahoo! Search was right there, built into the home page everyone already uses. When she talked to her dad about it, he’d said everyone was rushing to buy up all the dot com stuff. Apparently something called Ask Jeeves was already the most powerful independent ‘search engine’ thing; while Mr. Seelbaugh had also heard of Google, he didn’t think much of it.

“Out of style how?” Mrs. Seelbaugh asked, sounding distracted.

“Out of style as in, not the social place to be, anymore,” Elena explained. “Like will malls eventually start to die out?”

The two were curled up on opposite ends of the couch, with Elena in pajama pants and her hoodie while Mrs. Seelbaugh had a knit afghan blanket draped over her legs. Their Christmas tree was decorated and up on the far side of the room, and stockings were hung above the mantle where their big TV was in lieu of a fireplace. Empty mugs of hot cocoa rested upon the end tables on either side of the couch, and the only other sound in the house was the distant churn of the washing machine running a load of clothes.

“Hm, maybe,” Mrs. Seelbaugh turned away from the TV to give her a quizzical smile. “You can never really tell how things’ll go.”

“But,” Elena frowned. “Why would they? They’re malls.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Mrs. Seelbaugh shrugged. “Malls are still a pretty new thing, aren’t they? The Sandboro mall wasn’t even around in my parent’s time, and I remember when it was still under construction. It’s not that old! I shopped there soon as it opened, and have ever since, sure—but I don’t know that it was ever much of a ‘place to be,’ for us back then. At least, not like they try to make it out to be on TV. A place to meet up with a few friends and try on clothes, maybe. I wouldn’t consider it a place to take a date, but maybe nowadays you would? In my time, the ‘place to be’, the social scene was parties, or big get togethers out by the lake. Music and beer, that kind of thing.”

“No, I mean—like the place to be for high school age people,” Elena said, her eyes narrowing. “You wouldn’t have been drinking beer in high school.”

“Well, no—of course not!” Mrs. Seelbaugh’s smirk immediately revealed that yes, she had definitely been drinking beer at that age. “I mean. Elena. Honey. It was 1980, they were very different times.”

“You realize this means you can’t criticize me if I drink now, right?” Elena arched an eyebrow.

“Of course I can, I’m your mother,” Mrs. Seelbaugh rolled her eyes. “Your grandma sure as hell was drinking underage in her time, and she got all over my case about it when I did it. And, do you know why?”

“Kinda sounds hypocritical to me?” Elena remarked.

“She got on my case because she cared about me,” Mrs. Seelbaugh’s smile faded a bit. “Just like I care about you. Drinking is fun, yeah, but it is also dangerous. Do you understand? We’re all going to make some mistakes, that’s just part of growing up! But, ‘Lena honey, it fills me with terror knowing now, really knowing how costly those mistakes could be. The idea that, that, you know. Some guy could take advantage of you. Or, you could be out with your friends, and all be killed in a drunk driving accident. It happens all the time, and when you’re young and you’re reckless you understand that but don’t understand that. You know?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Elena shrugged. “I’m responsible, though. I’ve only ever had wine when I’m with you.”

“And, I appreciate that!” Mrs. Seelbaugh’s big smile returned. “I really do. I like being able to have a girl’s night with you every once in a while. But… pretty soon, you’re going to want to do that with your friends. Or, with boys, uggh. And, I want to be the cool mom who’s understanding and totally okay with that—but, what if something happens? Whew lord, is it just not fun being on the other side of this, now. Bein’ the mom. Always thinking about all the things that could happen, things that could go wrong. Imagining the worst. I mean, when I heard what happened at the Halloween party…”

“Yeah,” Elena said.

The muppet movie special returned, and their discussion lapsed into silence as they both turned attention towards watching again.

Elena’s thoughts, however, were elsewhere.

Thought malls would be a bigger deal to mom, Elena crossed her arms in her hoodie. Malls were always a big deal for us. Her and I. Spending a day together at the mall was as important as—I don’t know. It was IMPORTANT. It was always the activity I was most excited for in the world. Not counting like, Christmas.

When she was a kid pulling her mother around the mall, seeing the glamorous teenage girls going around with their cliques of friends, or even seeing a girl holding hands with a teenage boy—that had made a huge impression on Elena. Because, she wanted that. How could she not look up to that kind of thing? And, malls just were amazing and incredible. It was a fact. She’d always had fun with Carrie at the mall back in middle school. Walking around with bubbly glee and barely any adult supervision, trash-talking the other girls they knew from school and babbling on and on about how things were going to be once they were just a little bit older.

It was super fun just going around with Tabs and Alicia, too, Elena thought. Malls are IMPORTANT. They’re not just gonna die out. When I was kind of having my personal identity crisis, where did I find the NEW me? Hot Topic; the mall. I’m sure it’s basically the same with a lot of girls, whether they’re preppies or geeks or goths or—you know, whatever.

Elena lost track of the muppet antics playing on their TV as she tried to pinpoint what exactly in her mother’s words had bothered her so much.

I guess it’s just… Elena scowled. Her perspective?

To her mother, the teenage high school years where malls were hugely important was a passing blip. But, for Elena, she knew that these high school years were basically her entire life, they encompassed her entire reality. Beer, parties? Sex? Those were still distant, intangible parts of life for way, way in the future. College Elena. It was hard for her to even picture that future Elena, sometimes. Most of all, it was unpleasant and incredibly chafing having the high school experience—that was her whole world right now—belittled or made out to be insignificant in some dumb parents and old people context.

Because, it’s just massively significant, Elena argued her own point. It has to be; these are literally my formative years. They shape who I grow up into, basically. It’s why me cutting off the friendship with Carrie was so huge—I feel like doing that, going and being friends with Tabitha and Alicia instead, I feel like that changed who I’m set out to be. Carrie’s not even a good person. I AM a good person. If just a few things had gone differently, I’d be a stuck-up preppie girl who bullies outsiders.

“Well, I don’t think malls are ever going out of style,” Elena grumbled.

“Who even said that they were?!” Mrs. Seelbaugh laughed. “Honey?”

“No one,” Elena pouted. Feel bad enough about snitching on the whole Julia situation. And, I haven’t even heard how any of that went or if anything got found out.

“I know you love the mall, and I feel like we’ve always had a great time there,” Mrs. Seelbaugh remarked. “But, I can completely understand why people don’t love the mall, too.”

“Like, why?” Elena frowned. What’s even their problem with it?

“For one thing, it’s expensive,” her mother pointed out. “Everything there’s got an awful markup compared to Target or Ames. When I think of hanging out with friends back then, it was driving around and stuff. Everyone from high school used to drive out to the lake on weekend, swim and sunbathe and play music real loud. That’s where the scene was, back in my day. We would—”

“Wait, like the same lake over by where the Halloween party was?” Elena interrupted.

“What? No, that over there’s all gated community stuff,” Mrs. Seelbaugh waved Elena away. “The lake I’m talking about was towards the Fairfield side, almost the whole way to the interstate.”

“Have we ever been there?” Elena was puzzled.

“No, they went and fenced it all off, that’s someone’s private property now,” Mrs. Seelbaugh made a face. “But. My point is—the stuff we did for fun when I was your age was like that. Or, five or six couples going out and having a bonfire and then setting up tents so we could camp out way out on the edge of this one kid’s field, old kinda abandoned farmland. Malls? The kind of stuff they want to sell you on as ‘the place to be,’ they’re consumer traps, ‘Lena. Look at all the pretty little things, with all the pretty little price tags! It’s all about luring you into spending as much money as possible, and then making you want to come back and do it again.”

“That’s… not true,” Elena protested with a weak smile. “You don’t even—wait, have you been talking to Ziggy?!”

“Ziggy, your friend who works at said mall, selling pretty little things with pretty little price tags?” Mrs. Seelbaugh arched an eyebrow.

“Oh, c’mon—you know that’s different,” Elena huffed. “Don’t know why I even brought it up, it’s not like you know anything about all this.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do we even have a tent?” Elena scowled. “I think I just have a sleeping bag. And, where are me and my friends supposed to go out and swim and stuff, if the lake is closed off now? If no other kids go out to a place, it is no longer a social scene!”

“Fairfield Fire Brick Works,” Mrs. Seelbaugh answered.

“That’s—what?” Elena was confused.

“There’s an old brick factory right on the edge of Fairfield, closed up in the late sixties,” Mrs. Seelbaugh explained. “It was all overgrown back in my time, and nowadays you can barely even see the buildings anymore from the interstate. Buncha cool old abandoned stuff, it’s real spooky. Kids used to go out there and smoke pot and stuff.”

“Hold on, let me get this straight,” Elena put her fingers to her temple in disbelief. “You’re encouraging me—your daughter—to go breaking and entering out in some dangerous old—”

“Oh, c’mon,” Mrs. Seelbaugh scoffed. “No one owns any of that stuff. At best it’s trespassing on random county land, and no one will even care.”

“Mom.”

“I’m just saying—ever since you got into the whole goth thing, I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of, I don’t know, whatever might help you with that. Spooky old ruins, way out in the woods? Be a totally cool place to hang out. Or camp overnight, tell ghost stories, have a seance—”

“I’m still a Christian!” Elena pointed out with an incredulous stare. “I’m not going to try to summon demons or spirits or anything like that. And—wouldn’t it still be dangerous out there?”

“Elena, live a little!” Mrs. Seelbaugh laughed. “What do you think you’re going to do, climb up one of the buildings and then jump off? Find broken bottles to cut yourself on?! You’re way too smart to get yourself hurt doing something dumb out there, and even if you sprain an ankle or something, you’re never going to be out there alone. It’s plenty safe—or, it was fine enough last time I went out there.

“I just keep thinking, you know… the mall? It’s not very goth. The mall’s all commodified. You even said yourself the other day, that most of the stores there are preppy places! It’s not the super cool secluded spot in town, where outsiders go to hang out.”

“It’s—it’s not even in town!” Elena stabbed her hands out in a gesture of frustration. “Neither is the mall! Neither of them are nearby! One is in Fairfield, and the other is in Sandboro!”

“Well hon, I tried to find you a cool goth scene in Springton, but Springton, well, it isn’t exactly a huge place to begin with.”

“You’re not even supposed to be finding me cool goth scenes!” Elena threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. “You’re my mom! That’s the last thing you should be doing!”

“Even besides that, you have all sorts of friends, I know some of them drive already,” Mrs. Seelbaugh muttered. “You’ll have your license by next year, too.”

“I still can’t even believe you’re encouraging this!”

“How ‘bout, the next nice warm day we have, you and I can swing out that way and take a look?” Mrs. Seelbaugh proposed. “It’ll be like—like a cool hike. Out exploring. We can make it a picnic. I want to see how overgrown everything’s gotten. Last time I was out there, this tree was pushing up partway through one of the walls of one of the buildings. Ooh, we can bring spray paint, too!”

“We’re not vandalizing anything!” Elena leapt to her feet. “That’s totally—”

“Totally what?!”

“It’s—it’s disrespectful!” Elena scowled.

“Elena honey, it’s been abandoned since the sixties. No one is going to care.”

“You don’t understand,” Elena huffed, marching past her mother and out of the living room. “I just—I can’t even believe you. Whatever. I’m going to my room.”

“Well dear, I have news but it isn’t good news, I’m afraid,” Mrs. William’s voice was tinny and small echoing out from the Macintire’s handset phone. “No luck on that record you were looking for, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, um,” Tabitha quirked her lip. “Evanescence? Thank you for trying. I did know it would be a long shot.”

In a rare moment of privacy, Tabitha had locked the door to her room and was sitting with the phone on the floor in a mess of strewn out bows, ribbons, wrapping paper rolls, and the gifts she was preparing. She was already part way done, with a small pile of completed Christmas gifts on one side of her that filled her with excitement. She absolutely couldn’t wait to give out presents! In her past lifetime at this age her entire focus around Christmas time was what she might be getting—she’d been fixated on what she wanted.

Now, Tabitha was completely hyped for the gifts she had to give, and for the prospect of receiving things in return she felt only mild curiosity. Each of the Game Boy Color boxes for her cousins had been opened, a pair of double-A batteries had been installed in each, the respective Pokemon cartridges slotted in and ready to go before returning each to their boxes. She’d tested each of them to ensure they worked, with one of the games ‘tested’ the whole way to Cerulean City—so that she could nab an Abra, since trading its evolution Kadabra was the only way for her to acquire an Alakazam for her own game.

Which SHOULD have been simple, because I did remember where you could find wild Abras, Tabitha recalled with a roll of her eyes. Except, I DID NOT remember how low their encounter rate was, or how annoying they were to actually catch with them fleeing right away every time!

“Now hold your horses, I didn’t say it was bad news exactly, either!” Mrs. Williams sounded smug, now. “Didn’t mention anything this past weekend and get any hopes up ‘til I’d heard something back, but I just got word today, and now I’ve got a story to tell!”

“Oh?” Tabitha tilted her head to the side so that she could pin the handset phone between her shoulder and her ear. “Do tell!”

The VHS copy of Kiki’s Delivery Service she’d bought for Hannah was examined and inspected one last time, and then Tabitha carefully lined it up on the next roll of gift paper and measured out to make an appropriate cut. Everything was trickier while the cast was still immobilizing most of her fingers, but by now she was already using her cast hand regularly to hold things in place or make small adjustments to whatever she was doing with her good hand.

“So. This all started off with me asking around the ladies I know, and turns out my good friend Sharon from choir said she has a neighbor friend that lives over on Birch street, Patricia, who has family in Arkansas. A brother and sister-in-law, and their kids. We sat down and had lunch with Patricia, oh—back in November, when you first asked me about this. I’ll have to thank you for comin’ to me to ask about this, my word, or I’d have never met ‘Tricia! She’s a hoot!”

“Anyhow, Patricia’s sister-in-law Helen got a hold of another friend of hers in Little Rock, who has a granddaughter who—well, long story short is, that this girl Amy Lee and her friends do play together at a bar called Vino’s, there. And, Amy and her friends did release an EP album, whatever that is, but hon, I’m sad to say they say it sold out, way back earlier on in the year. Almost right away! I guess they only made a few dozen copies?

“Haven’t had a chance to ask any more than that, I’ve been so busy with preparing for Christmas. I’ve got you the phone number for Vino’s, though! Helena—Patricia’s sister-in-law—was able to jot it down from her Arkansas state yellow pages. Do you have a pen or pencil handy to write this down?”

“I—I’m ready,” Tabitha confirmed, grabbing a leftover scrap of Christmas wrapping paper and the felt-tip marker she’d been using to write in names on the gifts.

In a patient tone, Mrs. Williams recited an area code and then a phone number, which Tabitha repeated out loud and copied down onto the scrap in the squeak by squeak of marker.

“Now, I do have to warn you, you’ll want to ask Sandy first and get permission before you try making any long distance calls! Those aren’t cheap, I’m afraid.”

“Oh—of course,” Tabitha winced at the reminder. “Right. Well—thank you! Thank you so much, this has been—you’ve been an enormous help! I think that if I can’t ask around there and get someone to sell or copy me something onto a cassette tape, then… maybe I’d be able to find out when they perform next, and plan a trip out to see them. It would make Elena’s whole world! I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”

“Oh-ho, a trip?” Mrs. Williams sounded delighted. “That does sound wonderful, but again to warn you dearie—Little Rock is an eight hour drive from here! That’d be a full day of driving to get there, a stay overnight, and then a full day to get back, just about. Hmm, probably more. Whenever our Methodist Youth drive out to a concert, oh, well you know the concert itself is sure to take up most of a day all by itself.”

“Hmm,” Tabitha tapped her lip in thought. “Definitely a big weekend trip then, whenever we can find out the dates and get it all arranged.”

“Well, keep me in the loop on that!” Mrs. Williams laughed. “I’ve gotta go check my cookies. Do you bake? I’m running out another batch every few days this month it seems, so I’ve been tryin’ to mix it up and do a little bit of everything, so we can have a whole spread.”

“Ooh, that sounds fun,” Tabitha grinned. “I want to ask Mrs. Macintire if I can do some little batches here with Hannah… but I’m not sure if I should. She went out and bought a Christmas tray of sugar cookies from Food Lion, but she’s already had to police them!”

The tray had been moved to a hiding spot out of reach up on top of the refrigerator—the cookies kept ‘disappearing,’ and Hannah’s indignant claim of innocence at the time had been marred by sugar crumbs on her blouse and colored sprinkle smear by her lip. Hannah was now only allowed one each day, contingent on excellent behavior, and only after she’d finished supper.

“Hah! Well, I can understand that, I must’ve gained another pound or two just since Thanksgiving!” Mrs. Williams guffawed. “It’s my own fault—heck, I’ve got a batch of peanut butter crunch almost out of the oven, and the whole house just smells delicious.”

“Oh no!” Tabitha felt genuine sympathy for her—just imagining the scent of fresh-baked cookies had her stomach growling. “That’s just… that’s simply terrible!”

“I know!” Mrs. Williams agreed. “Someone save me from myself! I’m doing just about everything but Snowballs, this year—I’m not a huge fan of coconut, so the Williams men here just have to tough it out without them.”

“Those poor, poor souls,” Tabitha chuckled.

“I know! All they have are chocolate crinkles, ricotta puffs, brownie brittle, ginger bakes, peanut butter blossoms… aw shoot, hon. I think these are ready, I really do gotta go.”

“Don’t let them burn!” Tabitha exclaimed. “Happy holidays, and thank you again!”

“Happy holidays, dear!” Mrs. Williams called out.

At the muffled click and then tone, Tabitha hung up the phone and carefully set it to the side.

I feel… much better, Tabitha decided. I had an awful few days after seeing my parents, sure. But, I had a great birthday. I’ve played with Hannah since then, I went out with my friends—it was so cool. Just driving around and talking! Every hour I spent alone and miserable last life was just such a waste.

She carefully folded the wrapping paper over the VHS tape for Hannah in neat creases and closed the excess with tiny bits of Scotch tape from the little clear plastic dispenser. It had been decided that Hannah’s present needed to look extra, with all the bells and whistles like an overwrap of ribbon and a giant bow. She didn’t want it to be hard for the little girl to open though, so she pre-cut the ribbon after it was tied and then closed the cut with a little hidden bit of tape. Hopefully, the whole thing would tear away easily and not be a frustration.

“Hopefully the tape won’t just unstick and have the ribbon fall off,” Tabitha lifted it up and turned it this way and that, checking her work. “Because, the big stupid bow? It’s super cute.”

Getting Elena an Evanescence album before the band exploded into popularity had been a bit of a long shot, but Tabitha wasn’t too put out about it. If things worked out okay, she’d be able to coordinate with Mrs. Seelbaugh and work out some kind of surprise trip down to see Amy Lee play live sometime around Elena’s birthday. She felt like a rift was forming between them, and Tabitha didn’t want to push on the time travel argument and create more distance.

Unless it’s SUPER clear that yeah, Evanescence is AWESOME, and I totally knew it from the future, Tabitha sported a wry smile. Hah. Need to just actually PROVE something. Words are cheap. And, Elena really is a good friend. She was wrong about the Julie thing, sure. But she still made sure someone knew. Just in case. Like I should have done back then. That’s important, and I know it couldn’t have been easy for her to do. It’s never been easy for me to talk to anyone about the Ashlee stuff.

Her first idea for Elena’s Christmas present was, however, kaput. The fallback plan was already in place, but would need a bit of work. On a trip several months ago with her grandmother, they’d snagged a snazzy black leather jacket from Salvation Army. Tabitha’d had eyes on the particular jacket for a while as she went through the rows of hanging items browsing for finds, planning on maybe wearing it and a pair of shades to the Matrix premiere with her friends next year.

Rather than branded fashion or simple classy wear for over a suit it seemed to be one for motorsports—it was designed to be a snug fit, had extra closure snaps, and the elbows and shoulders seemed reinforced with extra layers stitched in. More to the point, it looked really cool! So, when the day rolled around to where blue tags were half-off, Tabitha had bought it for six ninety-nine. Its sleeve didn’t fit around her cast, so she never got to properly try it on, and in addition its zipper was broken, but for seven bucks it was hard to complain.

I’ve never replaced a zipper, but even worst-case scenario, I imagine we could just shuck it off with the seam ripper, rig up buttons and eyeholes in like, seven or eight minutes.

Alicia was harder to shop for. Following her first gut instinct, Tabitha wanted to introduce Alicia to anime and manga properly. However, this just wasn’t much available here in 1998, yet. This was the strange before times, where manga did not occupy an entire gigantic wall of every bookstore. Hot Topic had a few anime titles, and from a brief inquiry with Casey recently Family Video also had three or four anime videos for rent, but that was it.

I feel like in my last life, Alicia must’ve for sure been into anime in the coming years, Tabitha pursed her lips as she leaned back against the bed. Maybe had lots of Inu Yasha drawings, or Cardcaptor Sakura sketches, Escaflowne, CLAMP, stuff like that. She seems the type. Loves movies, has that huge infectious enthusiasm for the stories she loves, that just kind of beams out of her when she smiles. Alicia’s cuter than she realizes when she smiles! And, she’s already made a Star Wars costume—she’s like a proto-cosplayer, already.

“So—it’s nineteen ninety-eight, and it’s semi-rural small town Kentucky,” Tabitha muttered to herself. “And, I just have a week or two left. Where am I gonna find bootleg fansub tapes of stuff like Revolutionary Girl Utena? Sandboro? See if Ziggy has a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend into anime? Mrs. Williams managed to do it for Evanesence…”

“You’re sure you’re gonna be okay?” Mrs. Macintire asked. “If you’re havin’ second thoughts, just say the word and I’ll turn us around.”

“It’s going to be alright,” Tabitha assured her. “If my dad wants to try to lecture me or argue or anything, I’ll shut him down or just leave the room. I’m not putting up with it today. Not on Christmas.”

They were in Mrs. Macintire’s sporty Acura, which seemed to Tabitha to be where Sandra and her spent the most time together. That wasn’t to say they didn’t chat at the house now and then, but there Mrs. Macintire seemed to be in a different gear. At home, the woman could laze about, vegetate in front of the television or just lay in bed reading next to her husband for hours. When Mrs. Macintire was in her car and going someplace, she became active and lively and filled with purpose—these were the moments where she most wanted to plan things and discuss and think things through.

Tabitha clutched a paper bag from Food Lion in her lap, which contained the wrapped Gameboy Colors for the boys, Holiday cards, and four gashapon plastic toy capsules she’d received after feeding an exorbitant amount of quarters into the vending machine up by Food Lion’s front windows. She’d had a last minute clever idea for what she could do with them.

“I just hate the idea that he’s gonna cause some stupid fuss and leave you in a bad mood around Christmas time,” Mrs. Macintire sighed. “Ugh, that man…”

“It’ll be fine,” Tabitha shrugged.

They’d already had a quiet Christmas eve celebration the previous night, with Tabitha remembering to ask for them to move it forward to early evening rather than just before bed so that there was enough time for Hannah to watch a movie. Tabitha had received a gorgeous dressy pair of white sandals not unlike the pair she’d borrowed back on black friday, as well as another Disney CD and a Mariah Carey CD—her Butterfly album. She was a bit perplexed by that one, having never been much of a Mariah Carey fan, but went with the assumption that it was Officer Macintire’s pick, and that he hadn’t really known what to get her.

Then, Mrs. Macintire had retired for the night to spend private time with her husband, while Tabitha curled up under a blanket with Hannah in the living room to watch the gift Tabitha had picked out for her—Kiki’s Delivery Service, the only Ghibli movie she thought she could get her hands on in 1998. It was an enjoyable evening, and Hannah loved the movie, the little girl mostly seeming surprised that she’d never even heard of it before.

Five or six more years for Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle, Tabitha thought to herself with a wistful smile. Maybe TEN more years for Ponyo. Kinda iffy on the exact dates, just somewhat remember the general timeframes.

As for the adults in her life, Tabitha bought holiday cards. Most of her budget was reserved first for children, then the kids her age, and it was embarrassing to realize all of the grown ups were something of an afterthought. She spent the last fourteen dollars of the money set aside for Christmas spending on nice Hallmark cards, and then spent three evenings and two mornings writing in them. Rather than some generic well wishes concise enough to be read aloud to everyone upon opening the card in a performative Christmas display, Tabitha put time and thought into writing multiple paragraph entries earnestly expressing how thankful she was for each of them and how much she appreciated them being a part of her life.

Even dad, Tabitha felt her mood sober all over again. Because—just a few weeks ago I was thinking to myself he was the greatest dad in the world. Yeah, we do have issues. Because he’s wrong about family things and stupidly stubborn about it. But ASIDE from that, he has always been kind and cared about me and been a pretty good dad.

“Tabitha’s here!” Nicholas exclaimed from the window.

“Finally,” Aiden huffed.

“Did she bring presents?!” Sam demanded, jockeying with Nicholas for the position at the glass pane.

“She’s—ow, cut it out doofus—she’s got a huge bag!” Nicholas reported.

“Huge? How huge?” Aiden started towards the front door, but Joshua beat him there.

Tabitha! Joshua couldn’t help but be thrilled as he swung open the apartment door.

The air was frigid but the front yard wasn’t exactly a beatific winter wonderland—all the grass was dead this time of year, a sick looking greenish-yellow at odds with the oranges and browns of wet leaves strewn about everywhere. There had been snow in the air earlier this week, but to the boy’s disappointment it just wasn’t cold enough for snow to stick on the ground. Some of the leaves near the curb had a rime of frost on them, and they could all see their breath, but that was about as exciting as winter was going to get.

“Close the front door, for heaven’s sakes!” Grandma hollered over. “What, were you raised in a barn?!”

They weren’t supposed to let all the heat out, so Aiden and Joshua shoved each other in the doorway for a moment before stepping out on the porch and closing it behind them. The pretty lady from the roller rink who’d helped stand him back up when he fell was waving at him from a car, and Tabitha was struggling her way free of the passenger’s side with a big paper grocery bag.

“Presents!” Aiden cried, running down the steps and immediately slipping on a slick patch of leaves.

“Careful!” Tabitha called over. “Are you okay?”

It wasn’t even a bad fall, and Aiden deserved it anyways so Joshua dashed his way past where his brother was clambering back up to his feet and ran over to Tabitha in a surge of excitement. Despite Tabby wearing that same old hoodie he’d seen her wear all winter and a pair of ordinary jeans, Joshua was struck by how lovely his cousin had become. Not beautiful, exactly, and gorgeous was probably too far. Lovely seemed to fit just right. Her red hair looked nice, she was pale but had those kind and delicate features. She was just really pretty.

More importantly, she had presents!

“Christmas presents?!” Joshua crushed in to give her a big grappling hug.

“Yes, yes, I have your presents for each of you,” Tabitha awkwardly patted his shoulder with her cast hand, hefting the paper bag up higher in her other arm so that he couldn’t peek over the edge and see inside.

“Can we open them?!” Joshua disengaged from the hug and opened his arms, offering to take the burden of carrying that heavy thing from her.

“Not yet!” Tabitha gave him an exasperated smile before looking past him. “Aiden, are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” Aiden reported, catching up to them but not stepping in for a hug.

He just wants presents, but he doesn’t even LIKE Tabitha, Joshua decided, giving his brother an unfriendly stare. He’s taking stupid mom’s side. Which is DUMB. Dumb and like, totally ungrateful when he’s wanting presents from Tabby still. What a philistine!

Philistine was edging out paramecium brain as this week’s popular word exchanging back and forth between the boys, despite grandma’s insistence that they were using the word wrong. It was a diss word, how could they possibly be using it wrong? They used to be allowed to say swears back when they were with their parents, but around grandma they’d get in trouble even saying tame ones like shit and dickbag. Abbreviating it to D-bag wasn’t quite as impactful and didn’t really satisfy when the brothers were insulting each other back and forth.

“Merry Christmas, boys!” The pretty lady in the driver’s seat called.

“Merry Christmas,” Joshua answered with an awkward stare.

“Are my parents here, yet?” Tabitha asked. “Uncle Alan and your auntie Shannon? I don’t see his truck.”

“Nope,” Joshua said. “Do you want me to help you carry that?”

“I think I’ll manage,” Tabitha said in a dry voice, brushing past his grabby hands. “You just want to peek at the presents!”

“Just a peek!” Aiden begged. “Pleeaaase.”

“I was just gonna help carry them, I wasn’t gonna look!” Joshua promised. “I swear.”

“Uh-huh,” Tabitha’s skepticism was apparent as she stopped by the driver’s side window of the car. “I’m off… I suppose. Wish me luck?”

“You’ll be fine,” The driver lady assured her. “Have a great Christmas, and have fun! Call me if you need to, for anything. Okay?”

“I will,” Tabitha said. “Thanks for the lift. Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas!” The lady said, giving them another small wave as she pulled on down the street.

“We’re not allowed to open presents until everyone’s here,” Joshua said, a small hop helping convey his urgency. “Gramma said this year we havta have a big family Christmas.”

“Are you boys doing okay?” Tabitha asked.

“Yeah?” Joshua responded, confused by the question. “We want to open all the presents.”

“No durr,” Aiden performed an exaggerated eye roll.

Joshua watched as Tabitha let out a long, slow sigh that turned into vapor in the chilly December air. She seemed distracted, on edge even, and her gaze followed the lady’s car as it rolled on down the street, paused at the stop sign, and then made a turn to disappear down the neighborhood.

“I just—” Tabitha started to say something and then seemed to hesitate. “We want you boys to have an amazing Christmas. A memorable one. Even though your parents won’t be here. Maybe… especially because your parents won’t be here.”

“We’re fine,” Aiden sounded a little defensive. “It’s not even a big deal.”

“It is, though,” Tabitha shook her head.

The teenager adjusted the paper bag to one hip and then she hunkered down to kneel, so that she would be at eye level with them. Joshua caught a glance of the wrapped presents over the lip of the bag before averting his eyes with a sense of guilt.

“You’re excited about presents now, I get it,” Tabitha forced a small smile for them. “But… as the years go on by, the toys and games’ll mean less and less to you.”

“Pssh, yeah right,” Aiden scoffed in disbelief. “Yeah—I don’t think so.”

“They will!” Tabitha insisted. “You’ll have your own money someday, and the freedom to buy whatever you like. Even toys and games, if that’s what you’re interested in then.”

“We’ll still want free presents at Christmas,” Joshua argued.

“What I’m saying, is,” Tabitha blew out another slow breath. “When you get older, there’s going to be all sorts of things that no amount of money can ever buy. Grandma’s not going to be around forever, and one day the time will come when we won’t get to have any more Christmases with her. It’s easy to scoff at the family part of Christmas now, when you can take it for granted.

“It’s not just Grandma, either—you four boys have grown up together and basically never been apart,” Tabitha pointed out. “Eventually, the time will come when you’re each eighteen, when you each go out on your separate paths to make your way in the world. Maybe you’ll stay in touch with each other and still remain close—maybe you won’t. Some of you may be too busy to make time for Christmas get-togethers, some of you might have your own families to worry about someday. Some of you might even be in prison—yes, it is a possibility.”

“No way,” Aiden shook his head.

“Either way, years and years from now you’ll look back on this Christmas, and it probably won’t be the toys and games you wind up missing,” Tabitha concluded. “Those will be things you can get yourself any time you please.”

“We get it, we get it,” Aiden threw his hands up in exasperation. “Be thankful for what we have and all that blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, yackety-smackety.”

“Appreciate our family, even when really they’re a bunch of lame bozos,” Joshua added. “I mean—except for you, obviously. And grandma. But like, Tabitha, it’s easy for you to say all that, you don’t havta deal with three brothers every day. And I’m the youngest!”

“Hmm, you’re right,” Tabitha gave him a wry smile and reached up to brush his bangs back from his forehead. “I know, I know. I get it. Everyone who has presents for you just wants to be all preachy about appreciation! Right?”

“Yeah, kinda?” Joshua gave her an expressive but what can you do shrug. “But, it’s okay.”

“We’re used to it,” Aiden put on an aggrieved face. “Now—c’mon!”

“Alright, alright,” Tabitha chuckled, rising back up to her feet with an unsteady waver and hefting the bag up again. “Thank you for humoring this old lady, at least. I do start to get sentimental about it all here in my twilight years of, uh… fourteen.”

Okay, that made me FEEL old, Tabitha did her best not to grimace as she followed the hyper Joshua and overenthusiastic Aiden up the porch steps and inside the apartment.

Guess before you know it, you just start getting into these patronizing lectures—about how they need to savor these childhood moments, before they’re gone. When actually, I might as well be speaking Swahili, right? They literally CANNOT understand what I’m talking about. Being a kid is all they know, and the contexts of adulthood might as well be sixth-dimensional incomprehensible screeching from beyond the gellar field. What does anyone even gain from attempting to describe concepts they’re not going to be able to grasp? Is it for my own benefit, so I can feel better about myself? Is it so I can say ‘I told you so,’ later on?

Grandma Laurie’s place was uncomfortably warm while still bundled up, and so Tabitha shed her jacket and carefully hung it up on the rack near the door. Just like last time she visited, the apartment was neat and tidy and had been vacuumed recently, and it was amusing to her that this was getting to be her new impression of grandma Laurie’s place. Throughout the summer it had been a regular pigpen of toys everywhere and messes left by her cousins, and she liked to imagine her positive influence was leading them to become less like slovenly wild children.

Which is ridiculous, it’s obvious they just cleaned because they were preparing for company, Tabitha chided herself with a knowing smile. Still. It looks nice. They even have a tree!

It was a five foot tall plastic Christmas tree with rather sparse branches, decorated with an assortment of colored balls and then ‘kids-craft’ ornaments. If she were to speculate, she would assume each year at elementary school around this time of year the classes had them make up ornaments with styrofoam, glue, construction paper and glitter.

Some of the dangling things were shaped like gingerbread men, some were slightly squashed snowflake paper lanterns, there were candy-cane ones with a letter of a boy’s name positioned on each of the twisting stripes, there were snowmen heads with stovepipe hats, a Santa Claus with a beard made out of painted macaroni, and a few slapdash creations of glue and paper she couldn’t even begin to guess at.

Oh, wait—I guess that one’s originally a pine cone? Probably spray-adhesive and glitter on a pine cone, then construction paper ‘ornaments’ and… I think those are googly eyes?

Beneath the tree was a poor-man’s family Christmas present pile, and Tabitha regarded it with a wry smile for a moment. Unlike the collection of seventeen different wrapping paper rolls Tabitha had been given freedom to raid over at the Macintire’s, all of the ones here were in a binary of two colors; festive holiday green paper, and light blue paper. Upon closer inspection, the light blue design was adorned with clip art balloons and confetti and the words ‘Happy Birthday,’ indicating the wrapping paper roll had been borrowed from another occasion.

Still, it has a lot of heart, Tabitha slipped out of her new shoes and headed towards the kitchen in search of her grandmother. The Macintires aren’t even having much of a proper Christmas; it’s just a big ‘Hannah gets a ton of presents’ day over there.

With Officer Macintire still on orders for bedrest and Mrs. Macintire working a lot of hours, Sandra had made the executive decision to not bother hauling in a big tree this year or dragging all of their decorations down from the attic. Hannah had sulked about it for a bit, and Tabitha had volunteered to do all the legwork if necessary, but Mrs. Macintire was able to justify her veto by waving it off and saying that this year they could just go visit the Williams family for brunch sometime in the next few days. Mrs. Williams was sure to have gone all out, and their community over there was apparently one of those weird suburban areas where neighbors got competitive about Christmas light displays along the rooftops, bushes, and yards.

Well, and then Officer Macintire made some kinda off-color jokes about them going Jewish just for this year, Tabitha wanted to cringe at remembering. I don’t know. Maybe I’m biased. The best Christmas is one spent here, with the boys! All of them are practically VIBRATING with Christmas spirit.

“Hi Tabitha!” Samuel stood up from where he had been sitting on the couch—well, he stood up on the couch. “Merry Christmas!”

“Get down,” Tabitha swatted at him with a smile. “Merry Christmas. Nicholas, you have icing all over your face. Just FYI, little guy.”

“I know,” Nicholas grinned. “Gramma made cinnamon rolls!”

“I can still smell them!” Tabitha said, leaning back as Samuel tried peeking into the paper bag in her arms. “Are there any left?”

“Uhhh, I think they’re all gone actually,” Joshua said, rushing past her. “But, I’ll go see!”

“Save one for Tabitha!” Samuel hollered.

“Um, save a couple for me, please,” Tabitha corrected. “Were you all waiting on me?”

“We still havta wait for uncle Alan and aunt Shannon, too,” Aiden informed her with a scowl. “And—they're not even here yet! It’s practically noon already! We want to open presents!”

“We wanna open presents!” Nicholas joined in. “It’s noon already!”

“It’s… a quarter past nine, actually,” Tabitha pointed out with a glance at the VCR’s digital display. “But, I totally get it! Happy I get to see you guys again so soon. Oh, and—thank you all again for going to my birthday party.”

“It was really cool,” Samuel said with a shrug. “We never get to go skating.”

“We never get to go see movies much, either,” Nicholas griped. “Like, hardly ever.”

“Well, it’s not much, but I do have presents for you guys this year—”

“Gramma says twenty minutes on the next batch of synonym rolls!” Joshua yelled from the kitchen. “She’s makin’ a whole bunch more!”

“—Thank you, Joshua!” Tabitha called back. “Cinnamon.”

“Synonym. That’s what I said—cimma-mim. Cimma—CIN-namon.”

“Hm,” Tabitha quirked another smile. “Well, can you boys do me a real big favor? Can you all go and help grandma in the kitchen for a second, maybe get plates and everything to set the table so we can all eat soon as my parents get here?”

“No way—we’re all havin’ breakfast after opening presents,” Samuel blurted out.

“Yeah,” Aiden agreed, looking horrified. “Has to be after.”

“I mean, either way,” Tabitha stuck out her tongue. “Go help grandma! Scoot. So that I can sneak these presents into the pile.”

“Go help grandma!” Samuel stiffened and gave her a salute at mention of presents.

“Go help gramma!” Nicholas bounded off the couch and managed to shove Aiden out of the way.

“Hey!” Aiden protested, failing to tug Samuel back as they all rushed towards the kitchen. “Go help gramma!”

“Guys. It’s not even ready yet, she said—” Joshua’s confused voice sounded from the kitchen.

“Shut up, stupid!”

“Yeah, we’re helping grandma.”

“Tabitha brought presents, doofus.”

“I’m the one who even told you she was gonna!”

“Did not.”

“I did too!”

“Boys, boys,” Grandma Laurie exasperation could be heard. “Aiden, don’t—Samuel, put that down, you’re liable to burn yourself. Joshua, those’re oven mitts, not boxing gloves, you stop that.”

As quickly as she could, Tabitha dropped down into a crouch, hugging the paper bag against herself with her cast hand while she withdrew the present on top, the gameboy color for Samuel—and slid it beneath the couch, pushing the gift in until the upholstery skirting of the couch completely concealed it. Then, she rose and hurried down the hallway. Nicholas was next, and his gift was hidden in the bathroom cupboard. She peeked out to see if the boys were still occupied, and then made a beeline over towards her cousin’s room.

Huh, they got a second bunk bed, Tabitha hesitated for a moment, bag starting to crumple as she pulled out Aiden’s gameboy color. Okay, no clue who sleeps where, just gonna put it under the pillow over here. The note says HIS pillow, but well—he’ll find it!

Crossing through the hallway again, Tabitha scampered through the open door to grandma Laurie’s bedroom in the back and took out Joshua’s present, managing to hide it just to the side of the television she had on her dresser there. Scavenger hunt-style instructions were already prepared, written along with Merry Christmas wishes on little slips of paper that she had hidden in the little plastic toy capsules won from the Food Lion vending machine.

Well, not really much of a scavenger hunt, I guess, Tabitha couldn’t stifle her enormous grin of excitement.

She dashed back out to the apartment’s living room and then buried the four small and unassuming gashapon capsules deep in the pile of presents beneath the tree. With her overwrap of Christmas paper and the big bows, the things now rather resembled large, oblong eggs. Or maybe acorns.

Still should be fun, though!

Her original idea had been to lead each of the young boys on a three or four stage wild goose hunt across the apartment for locations where she had hidden written clues in little Pokeball capsules… but pragmatism had simplified her plan quite a bit. Using riddles seemed too close to torture for elementary-age boys undoubtably eager to find their presents, so she’d just jotted down directly where their prize would be hidden. Also, actual plastic Pokeball toys were expensive, and even using little vending machine toy capsules had cost her three quarters each! Which was quite a ripoff, considering the three sticky hand toys and single bouncy ball she got in return were probably worth pennies.

The Christmas cards she got for the grown-ups were already in their respective envelopes, and she carefully placed each of them on top of the present pile. For: Grandma, the first one read. Dad, another one stated in simple cursive. To: Mom, the one beside it said. Tabitha stared at them each for a long moment before standing back up and withdrawing from the little tree, and as if her attention had summoned them—she looked up to see that through the front window, her father’s truck was pulling in to park.

Her parents had arrived, and it was time for Christmas.