Текст книги "Dash & Lily's Book of Dares"

Автор книги: Rachel Caine

Соавторы: David Levithan
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being a hat I made for my fourth-grade school Christmas pageant production of A Christmas Carol(ing) A-go-go, the Dickens-inspired disco musical

I had to heavily lobby our school principal to al ow to be staged. Some people are so rigidly secular.

My out t complete, I walked outside toward the subway. I almost returned inside to change my shoes from the majoret e boots to my old

familiar Chucks, but the tapping noises from my feet hit ing the pavement were comfortingly festive, so I didn’t, even though the boots were too

big and my feet kept almost walking right out of them. (These boots were made for … slipping out of … la la la … ha ha ha.)

I had to acknowledge that despite my excitement to fol ow the trail of mystery snarl, any boy who left me a ticket to see Gramma Got Run Over

by a Reindeer would unlikely turn out to be a keeper. The title, quite simply, o ended me. Langston says I should have a bet er sense of humor

about these things, but I don’t see what’s so funny about the idea of a reindeer going after one of our senior friends. It is a known fact that reindeers are herbivores who subsist on plant life and shun meat, so I hardly think they’d be gunning for someone’s gramma. It upset me to think

about a reindeer harming Gramma, because we al know that if that happened in the real world and not in the movies, then the Wildlife Service

would go hunting for that reindeer and do away with the poor antlered guy when it was probably Gramma’s fault get ing in his way like that! She

always forgets to wear her glasses and osteoporosis hunches her walk and slows her down. She’s like a walking bul ’s-eye for dear ol’ Bambi!

I gured the whole point of bothering going to the movie at al would be to possibly get a look at mystery boy. But the dares he’d left inside my

stocking with the Moleskine notebook, on a Post-it note placed onto the movie ticket, had said:

DON’T read what I wrote in the notebook until you’re at the theater.

DO write down your worst Christmas memory in the notebook.

DON’T leave out the most horri c details.

DO leave the notebook behind for me, behind Mama’s behind.

Thank you.

I believe in honor. I didn’t read the notebook ahead of time, which would be like peeking in your parents’ closet to see your Christmas present

stash, and I vowed to hold o reading it until after the movie.

As prepared as I’d been to dislike Gramma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, I was completely unprepared for what I’d nd at the cinema. Outside

the theater showing this particular movie, there were rows of strol ers in uniform formation against the wal . Inside was complete pandemonium.

The 10 a.m. show, apparently, was the Mommy and Me viewing, where moms could bring their babies and toddlers to watch real y inappropriate

movies while the lit le ones babbled and burped and cried to their hearts’ content. The theater was a cacophony of “Wah wah” and “Mommy, I

want …” and “No!” and “Mine!” I barely had a chance to pay at ention to the movie, what with having Gold sh crackers and Cheerios thrown in

my hair from the aisles behind me, watching Legos hurl through the air, and unsticking Great-aunt Ida’s taps from the sippy cup liquid spil age on

the oor.

Children frighten me. I mean, I appreciate them on a cute aesthetic level, but they’re very demanding and unreasonable creatures and often smel

funny. I can’t believe I ever was one. Hard to believe, but I was more put o by the movie theater than the movie. I only made it through twenty

minutes of watching the black comedian man playing a fat mama on the screen while rows of mommies tried to negotiate with their toddlers in

the seats before I couldn’t take it any longer.

I got up from my seat and went outside the movie theater to get some peace and quiet in the lobby so I could nal y read the notebook. But two

mommies returning from taking their toddlers to the pot y accosted me before I could dig in.

“I just love your boots. They’re adorable!”

“Where did you get that hat? Adorable!”

“I AM NOT ADORABLE!” I shrieked. “I’M JUST A LILY!”

The mommies stepped back. One of them said, “Lily, please tel your mommy to get you an Adderal prescription,” as the other tsk-tsk’d. They

quickly hustled their tykes back into the cinema and away from the Shrieking Lily.

I found a hiding place behind a huge, standing cardboard cutout advertisement for Gramma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. I sat down cross-legged

behind the cutout and opened the notebook. Final y.

His words made me so sad.

But they made me especial y glad I’d got en up at four that morning to make him cookies. Mom and I had been making the dough al month and

storing it in the freezer, so al I’d had to do was thaw out the various avors, place them in the cookie press, and bake. Voilà! I made a cornucopia

tin of spritz cookies in al the available avors (a strong a rmation of faith that Snarl would be worthy of such e orts): chocolate snow ake,

eggnog, gingerbread, lebkuchen spice, mint kiss, and pumpkin. I’d decorated the spritz cookies with appropriate sprinkles and candies according to

each one’s avor and wrapped a bow around the cookie tin.

I took out my headphones and tuned my iPod to Handel’s Messiah so I could concentrate on writing. I resisted the urge to mock-conduct with the

pen in my hand. Instead, I answered Mystery Boy’s question.

My only bad Christmas was the year I was six.

That was the year that my pet gerbil died in a horrible incident at show-and-tel at school about a week before Christmas break.

I know, I know, it sounds funny. It wasn’t. It was actual y a gruesome massacre.

I’m sorry, but despite your DON’T request, I must leave out the horri c details. The memory is stil that vivid and upset ing to me.

The part that real y scarred me—separate from the guilt and loss of my pet, of course—was that I earned a nickname after the incident. I had

screamed like heck when it happened, but my rage, and grief, were so big, and real, even to such a lit le person, that I couldn’t make myself STOP

screaming. Anyone at school who tried to touch or talk to me, I just screamed. It was like basic instinct. I couldn’t help myself.

That was the week I became known at school as Shril y. That name would stay with me through elementary and middle school, until my parents

nal y moved me to a private school for high school.

But that particular Christmas was my rst week as Shril y. That holiday, I mourned not only the loss of my gerbil but also that bizarre kind of

innocence that kids have, believing they can always t in.

That was the Christmas I nal y understood what I’d heard family members whisper in worry about me: that I was too sensitive, too delicate.

Di erent.

It was the Christmas I realized Shril y was the reason I didn’t get invited to birthday parties, or why I always got picked last for teams.

It was the Christmas I realized I was the weird girl.

When I nished writing my answer, I stood up. I realized I had no idea what Mystery Boy had meant by tel ing me to leave the notebook behind

Mama’s behind. Was I supposed to leave it on the stage in front of the screen showing the movie?

I looked over to the concession stand, wondering if I should ask for help. The popcorn looked especial y yummy, so I went to get some, nearly

knocking over the cardboard cutout in my hungry stomach’s sudden urgency. That’s when I saw it: Mama’s behind. I was already behind it. The

cardboard cutout was a picture of the black man playing fat Mama, whose rear end was particularly huge.

I wrote new instructions into the notebook and placed it behind Mama’s behind, where no one would likely see it except for the one who came

looking for it. I left the red Moleskine along with the box of cookies and a tourist postcard that had been stuck to a piece of gum on the oor in

the movie theater. The postcard was from Madame Tussauds, my favorite Times Square tourist trap.

I wrote on the postcard:

What do you want for Christmas?

No, real y, don’t be a smart aleck. What do you real y real y real y supercalifragiwant?

Please leave information about that, along with the notebook, with the security lady watching over Honest Abe.*

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Lily

*PS Don’t worry, I promise the security guard won’t try to feel you up like Uncle Sal at Macy’s might have. I assure you that wasn’t sexual so

much as he’s genuinely just a huggy kind of person.

PPS What is your name?

ve

–Dash–

December 23rd

The doorbel rang at around noon, just when Gramma Got Run Over should have been get ing out. So my rst (admit edly irrational) thought was

that somehow Lily had tracked me down. Her uncle in the CIA had run my ngerprints, and they were here to arrest me for impersonating

someone worthy of Lily’s interest. I took a practice run for the perp walk as I headed over to the peephole. Then I peeped, and instead of nding

a girl or the CIA, I saw Boomer shifting from side to side.

“Boomer,” I said.

“I’m out here!” he cal ed back.

Boomer. Short for Boomerang. A nickname given to him not for his propensity to rebound after being thrown, but for his temperamental

resemblance to the kind of dog who chases after said boomerang, time after time after time. He also happened to be my oldest friend—old in

terms of how long we’d known each other, certainly not in maturity. We had a pre-Christmas ritual dating back to when we were seven of going to

the movies together on the twenty-third. Boomer’s tastes hadn’t changed much since then, so I was pret y sure which movie he was going to choose.

Sure enough, as soon as he bounded through the door, he cried, “Hey! You ready to go see Col ation?”

Col ation was, of course, the new Pixar animated movie about a stapler who fal s helplessly in love with a piece of paper, causing al of his

other o ce-supply friends to band together to win her over. Oprah Winfrey was the voice of the tape dispenser, and an animated version of Wil

Ferrel was the janitor who kept get ing in the young lovers’ way.

“Look,” Boomer said, emptying his pockets, “I’ve been get ing Happy Meals for weeks. I have al of them except Lorna the lovable three-hole

punch!”

He actual y put the plastic toys in my hands so I could examine them.

“Isn’t this the three-hole punch?” I asked.

He slapped his forehead. “Dude, I thought that was the expandable le folder, Frederico!”

As fate would have it, Col ation was playing at the same theater to which I’d sent Lily. So I could keep my playdate with Boomer and stil

intercept Lily’s next message before any rascals or rapscal ions got to it.

“Where’s your mom?” Boomer asked.

“At her dance class,” I lied. If he’d had any inkling that my parents were out of town, he would’ve been on the horn to his mom so fast that I

would’ve been guaranteeing myself a Very Boomer Christmas.

“Did she leave you money? If not, I can probably pay.”

“Don’t you worry, my guileless pal,” I said, put ing my arm around him before he could even take his coat o . “Today, the movie’s on me.”

I wasn’t going to tel Boomer about my other errand, but there was no get ing rid of him when I ducked behind Gramma’s cardboard booty to nd

the loot.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Did you lose your contact lens?”

“No. Someone left something for me here.”

“Ooh!”

Boomer was not a big guy, but he tended to take up a lot of space, because he was always jit ering around. He kept peering over cardboard

Gramma’s shoulder, and I was sure it was only a mat er of time before the minimum-wage popcorn sta would evict us.

The red Moleskine was right where I’d left it. There was also a tin at its side.

“This is what I was looking for,” I told Boomer, holding up the journal. He grabbed for the tin.

“Wow,” he said, opening the lid and looking inside. “This must be a special hiding place. How funny is it that someone would leave cookies in

the same place that your friend left the notebook?”

“I think the cookies are from her, too.” (This was con rmed by a Post-it on the top of the notebook that read: The cookies are for you. Merry

Xmas! Lily.)

“Real y?” he said, picking a cookie out of the tin. “How do you know?”

“I’m just guessing.”

Boomer hesitated. “Shouldn’t your name be on it?” he asked. “I mean, if it’s yours.”

“She doesn’t know my name.”

Boomer immediately put the cookie back in the tin and closed the lid.

“You can’t eat cookies from someone who doesn’t know your name!” he said. “What if there are, like, razor blades inside?”

Kids and parents were streaming into the theater, and I knew we’d have front-row seats to Col ation if we didn’t move a lit le faster.

I showed him the Post-it. “You see? They’re from Lily.”

“Who’s Lily?”

“Some girl.”

“Ooh … a girl!”

“Boomer, we’re not in third grade anymore. You don’t say, ‘Ooh … a girl!’ ”

“What? You fucking her?”

“What? You fucking her?”

“Okay, Boomer, you’re right. I liked ‘Ooh … a girl!’ much more than that. Let’s stick with ‘Ooh … a girl!’ ”

“She go to your school?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Look, we’d bet er get a seat or else there won’t be any seats left.”

“Do you like her?”

“I see someone took his persistence pil s this morning. Sure, I like her. But I don’t real y know her yet.”

“I don’t do drugs, Dash.”

“I know that, Boomer. It’s an expression. Like put ing on your thinking cap. There isn’t an actual thinking cap.”

“Of course there is,” Boomer said. “Don’t you remember?”

And yes, suddenly I did remember. There were two old ski hats—his blue, mine green—that we’d used as thinking caps back when we were in

rst grade. This was the strange thing about Boomer—if I asked him about his teachers up at boarding school this past semester, he’d have already

forgot en their names. But he could remember the exact make and color of every single Matchbox car with which we’d ever played.

“Bad example,” I said. “There are de nitely such things as thinking caps. I stand corrected.”

Once we found our seats (a lit le too much toward the front, but with a nice coat barrier between me and the snot-nosed tyke on my left), we

dove into the cookie tin.

“Wow,” I said after eating a chocolate snow ake. “This puts the sweet in Sweet Jesus.”

Boomer took bites of al six varieties, contemplating each one and guring out the order in which he would then eat them. “I like the brown one

and the lighter brown one and the almost-brown one. I’m not so sure about the minty one. But real y, I think the lebkuchen spice one is the best.”

“The what?”

“The lebkuchen spice one.” He held it up for me. “This one.”

“You’re making that up. What’s a lebkuchen spice? It sounds like a cross between a Keebler elf and a stripper. Hel o, my name ees Lebkuchen

Spice, and I vant to show you my cooooookies.…”

“Don’t be rude!” Boomer protested. As if the cookie might be o ended.

“Sorry, sorry.”

The pre-movie commercials started, so while Boomer paid rapt at ention to the “exclusive previews” for basic-cable crime shows featuring stars

who’d peaked (not too high) in the eighties, I had a chance to read what Lily had writ en in the journal. I thought even Boomer would like the

Shril y story, although he’d probably feel real y bad for her, when I knew the truth: It was so much cooler to be the weird girl. I was get ing such a

sense of Lily and her twisted, perverse sense of humor, right down to that classic supercalifragiwant. In my mind, she was Lebkuchen Spice

–ironic, Germanic, sexy, and o beat. And, mein Got , the girl could bake a damn ne cookie … to the point that I wanted to answer her What do

you want for Christmas? with a simple More cookies, please!

But no. She warned me not to be a smart-ass, and while that answer was total y sincere, I was afraid she would think I was joking or, worse,

kissing up.

It was a hard question, especial y if I had to bat en down the sarcasm. I mean, there was the beauty pageant answer of world peace, although I’d

probably have to render it in the beauty pageant spel ing of world peas. I could play the boo-hoo orphan card and wish for my whole family to be

together, but that was the last thing I wanted, especial y at this late date.

Soon Col ation was upon us. Parts of it were funny, and I certainly appreciated the irony of a lm distributed by Disney bemoaning corporate

culture. But the love story was lacking. After al the marginal y feminist Disney heroines of the early to mid-nineties, this heroine was literal y a

blank piece of paper. Granted, she could fold herself into a paper airplane in order to take her stapler boyfriend on a romantic glide around a

magical conference room, and her nal rock-paper-scissors showdown with the hapless janitor showed brio of a sort … but I couldn’t fal for her

the way that Boomer and the stapler and most of the kids and parents in the audience were fal ing for her.

I wondered if what I real y wanted for Christmas was to nd someone who’d be the piece of paper to my stapler. Or, wait, why couldn’t I be the

piece of paper? Maybe it was a stapler I was after. Or the poor mouse pad, who was clearly in love with the stapler but couldn’t get him to give

her a second look. Al I’d managed to date so far was a series of pencil sharpeners, with the exception of So a, who was more like a pleasant

eraser.

I gured the only way for me to real y nd the meaning of my own personal Christmas needs was to leg on over to Madame Tussauds. Because

what bet er barometer could there be than a throng of tourists taking photos of wax statues of public gures?

I knew Boomer would be game for a eld trip, so after the stapler and the piece of paper were safely frolicking over the end credits (to the

dulcet tones of Celine Dion piping “You Supply My Love”), I shanghaied him from the lobby to Forty-second Street.

“Why are there so many people out here?” Boomer asked as we bobbed and weaved roughly forward.

“Christmas shopping,” I explained.

“Already? Isn’t it early to be returning things?”

I real y had no sense of how his mind worked.

The only time I had ever been in Madame Tussauds was the previous year, when three friends and I had tried to col ect the world record for

most suggestive posings with wax statues of B-list celebrities and historical gures. To be honest, it gave me the heebie-jeebies to go down on so

many wax gures—especial y Nicholas Cage, who already gave me the heebie-jeebies in real life. But my friend Mona wanted it to be a part of her

senior project. The guards didn’t seem to mind, as long as there was no physical contact. Which made me expound upon one of my earlier

theories, that Madame Tussaud had been a true madam, and had started her whole operation with a waxwork whorehouse somewhere near Paris,

Texas. Mona loved this theory, but we could nd no proof, and thus it did not transform into true scholarship.

A wax replica of Morgan Freeman was guarding the entrance, and I wondered if this was some kind of cosmic payback—that every time an

actor with a modicum of talent sold his soul to be in a big Hol ywood action picture of no redeeming social value, his sel out visage was struck in

wax and placed outside Madame Tussauds. Or maybe the people at Madame Tussauds gured that everyone loved Morgan Freeman, so who

wouldn’t want to pose with him for a quick snapshot before stepping inside?

Weirdly, the next two wax gures were Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, con rming my sel out theory, and also making me

wonder whether Madame Tussauds was deliberately keeping al the black statues in the lobby. Very strange. Boomer didn’t seem to notice this.

wonder whether Madame Tussauds was deliberately keeping al the black statues in the lobby. Very strange. Boomer didn’t seem to notice this.

Instead, he was acting as if he were having real celebrity sightings, exclaiming with glee every time he saw someone—“Wow, it’s Hal e Berry!”

I wanted to scream bloody murder over the price of admission—I made a note to tel Lily that the next time she wanted me to fork over twenty-

ve bucks to see a wax statue of Honest Abe, she should slip some cash into the journal to cover my expenses.

Inside, it was a total freak show. When I’d visited before, it had been nearly empty. But clearly the holidays had caused a lot of family-time

desperation, so there were al sorts of crowds around the unlikeliest of gures. I mean, was Uma Thurman real y worth jostling for? Jon Bon Jovi?

To be honest, the whole place depressed me. The wax gures were lifelike, for sure. But, hel , you say wax and I think melt. There’s some kind

of permanence to a real statue. Not here. And not only because of the wax. You had to know that in some corner of this building, there was a

closet ful of discarded statues, the people whose spotlight had come and gone. Like the members of *NSYNC whose initials weren’t JT; or al the

Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls. Were people real y buddying up to the Seinfeld sculpture anymore? Did Keanu Reeves ever stop by his own statue,

just to remember when people cared?

“Look, Miley Cyrus!” Boomer cal ed, and at least a dozen preteen girls fol owed him over to gawk at this poor girl frozen in an awkward (if

lucrative) adolescence. It didn’t even look like Miley Cyrus—there was something a lit le o , so it looked like Miley Cyrus’s backwater cousin Riley,

dressing up and trying to pretend to be Miley. Behind her, the Jonas Brothers were frozen mid-jam. Didn’t they have to know that the Closet of

Forgot en Statues would cal to them someday?

Of course, before I found Honest Abe, I needed to gure out what I wanted for Christmas.

A pony.

An unlimited MetroCard.

A promise that Lily’s uncle Sal would never be al owed to work around children again.

A swank lime-green couch.

A new thinking cap.

It seemed I was incapable of coming up with a serious answer. What I real y wanted for Christmas was for Christmas to go away. Maybe Lily

would understand this … but maybe she wouldn’t. I’d seen even the hardest-edge girls go soft for Santa. I couldn’t fault her for believing, because I

had to imagine it was nice to have that il usion stil intact. Not the belief in Santa, but the believe that a single holiday could usher in goodwil

toward man.

“Dash?”

I looked up, and there was Priya, with at least two younger brothers in tow.

“Hey, Priya.”

“Is this her?” Boomer asked, somehow diverting his at ention long enough from the Jackie Chan display to make it awkward for me.

“No, this is Priya,” I said. “Priya, this is my friend Boomer.”

“I thought you were in Sweden,” Priya said. I couldn’t tel if she was irritated at me or irritated at the way one of her brothers was stretching out

her sleeve.

“You were in Sweden?” Boomer asked.

“No,” I said. “The trip got cal ed o at the last minute. Because of the political unrest.”

“In Sweden?” Priya seemed skeptical.

“Yeah—isn’t it strange how the Times isn’t covering it? Half the country’s on strike because of that thing the crown prince said about Pippi

Longstocking. Which means no meatbal s for Christmas, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s so sad!” Boomer said.

“Wel , if you’re around,” Priya said, “I’m having people over the day after Christmas. So a wil be there.”

“So a?”

“You know she’s back in town, right? For the holidays.”

I swear, it looked like Priya was enjoying this. Even her pipsqueak brothers seemed to be enjoying this.

“Of course I knew,” I lied. “I just—wel , I thought I was going to be in Sweden. You know how it is.”

“It starts at six. Feel free to bring your friend here.” The brothers started to tug on her again. “I’l see you then, I hope.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sure. So a.”

I hadn’t meant to say that last word aloud. I wasn’t even sure Priya heard it, she was whisked away so fast by the running tugs on her clothing.

“I liked So a,” Boomer said.

“Yeah,” I told him. “So did I.”

It seemed a lit le strange to have two run-ins with Priya while on my Lily chase—but I had to dismiss it as coincidence. I didn’t see how she or

So a could possibly t into what Lily was doing. Sure, it could be one big practical joke, but the thing about So a and her friends was that while

they were always practical, they were never jokers.

Natural y, the next consideration was: Did I want So a for Christmas? Wrapped in a bow. Under the tree. Tel ing me how frickin’ great I was.

No. Not real y.

I’d liked her, sure. We’d been a good couple, insofar as that our friends—wel , her friends more than mine—had created this mold of what a

couple should be, and we t into it just ne. We were the fourth couple tacked onto the quadruple date. We were good board game partners. We

could text each other to sleep at night. She’d only been in New York for three years, so I got to explain al kinds of pop cultural references to her,

while she’d tel me stories about Spain. We’d made it to third base, but got stuck there. Like we knew the catcher would tag us out if we tried to

head home.

I’d been relieved (a lit le) when she’d told me she had to move back to Spain. We’d pledged we’d keep in touch, and that had worked for about

a month. Now I read the updates on her online pro le and she read mine, and that’s what we were to each other.

I wanted to want something more than So a for Christmas.

And was that Lily? I couldn’t real y tel . For sure, the last thing I was going to write to her was Al I want for Christmas is you.

“What do I want for Christmas?” I asked Angelina Jolie. Her ful lips didn’t part with an answer.

“What do I want for Christmas?” I asked Charlize Theron. I even added, “Hey, nice dress,” but she stil didn’t reply. I leaned over her cleavage

“What do I want for Christmas?” I asked Charlize Theron. I even added, “Hey, nice dress,” but she stil didn’t reply. I leaned over her cleavage

and asked, “Are they real?” She didn’t make a move to slap me.

Final y, I turned to Boomer.

“What do I want for Christmas?”

He looked thoughtful for a second, then said, “World peace?”

“Not helpful!”

“Wel , what’s in your Amazonian hope chest?” Boomer asked.

“My WHAT?”

“You know, on Amazon. Your hope chest.”

“You mean my wish list?”

“Yeah, that.”

And just like that, I knew what I wanted. Something I had always wanted. But it was so unrealistic it hadn’t even made it to my wish list.

I needed a bench to sit down on, but the only one I could see already had Elizabeth Taylor, Hugh Jackman, and Clark Gable perched atop it,

waiting for a bus.

“I just need a sec,” I told Boomer before I ducked behind Ozzy Osbourne and his whole family (circa 2003) to write in the Moleskine.

No smart-assness (assy-smartness?) here.

The truth?

What I want for Christmas is an OED. Unabridged.

Just in case you are not a word nerd like myself:

O = Oxford

E = English

D = Dictionary

Not the concise one. Not the one that comes on CDs. (Please!) No.

Twenty volumes.

22,000 pages.

600,000 entries.

Pret y much the English language’s greatest achievement.

It’s not cheap—almost a thousand dol ars, I think. Which is, I admit, a lot for a book. But, criminy, what a book. It’s the complete genealogy of

every word we use. No word is too grand or too in nitesimal to be considered.

Deep down, you see, I long to be arcane, esoteric. I would love to confound people with their own language.

Here’s a riddle for you:

My name is a connector of words.

I know that’s a childish tease—the truth is, I’d love to let the mystery remain, if only for a lit le longer. I bring it up solely to emphasize the

point—that even though my parents had no idea (and I’m sure my father would have worked wil ful y against it), somehow they pegged me with

my very name to know that while some fel ows would nd their creature comfort in sport or pharmacy or sexual conquest, I was destined to get

that from words. Preferably read or writ en.

Please note: In case you happen to be an heiress, hoping to bestow a Christmas wish on a lonesome mystery boy/linguistic rabblerouser—I

actual y don’t want to get the OED as a gift, as much as I would love to have one. I actual y want to earn it, or at least to earn the money (through

words, in some way) to get it. It wil be even more special then.

This is about as far as I can go without some sarcasm creeping in. But before it does, I must say, with utmost sincerity, that your cookies are good

enough to bring some of these wax statues back to life. Thanks for that. I once made corn mu ns for a fourth-grade project on Wil iamsburg and

they came out like basebal s. So I’m not sure how to reciprocate … but, believe me, I shal .

I was worried I was being a lit le too much of a word nerd … but then I gured a girl who left a red Moleskine in the stacks of the Strand would

understand.

Then came the hard part. The next assignment.

I looked over to the Osbournes (they were a surprisingly short family, at least in wax) and saw Boomer st-pounding with President Obama.

Stovepiping over the rest of the politicians was Honest Abe, looking like the European tourists taking his picture were worse company than

John Wilkes Booth. Next to Abe was a gure I pegged as Mary Todd … until she moved, and I realized it was the guard I was supposed to seek.

She looked like an older, less bearded version of fondle-friendly Uncle Sal. There was, it seemed, no limit to the number of relatives Lily could

employ.

“Hey, Boomer,” I said. “How would you feel about doing something for me at FAO Schwarz?”

“The toy store?” he asked.

“No, the apothecary.”

He looked at me blankly.

“Yes, the toy store.”

“Awesome!”

I just had to be sure he was free on Christmas Eve.…

six

(Lily)

December 24th

I woke up on Christmas Eve morning, and my rst instinct was sheer excitement: Yay! It’s nal y the day before Christmas—the day before the best

day of the year! My second reaction was pitiful remembrance: Ugh, and with no one here to share it with. Why had I ever agreed to al ow my

parents to go on their twenty– ve-years-delayed honeymoon? Such a brand of sel essness was not meant for Christmastime.

Grandpa’s calico cat, Grunt, seemed to agree with me about the day starting out less than auspiciously. The cat aggressively rubbed himself across

the front of my neck, draping his head over my shoulder, then growled his signature grunt directly into my ear to indicate, “Get out of bed and

feed me already, person!”