Christmas Shopping

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Christmas Shopping

An R.L. Mathewson Chronicle

“Get in the truck,” came the demand that would have normally had her running the other way and yelling for her Dad, but since she had a math test waiting for her at school today …

Mikey turned around and climbed into the black pick-up truck, shoving her best friend out of the way in the process and once he accepted the fact that she was sitting next to the door, she shoved her backpack onto his lap, adjusted her baseball cap, put her seatbelt on, grabbed her baseball out of her bag, and sat back with a sigh and another wiggle to ensure that the large boy glaring at her understood that the large comfortable passenger seat was hers. He responded by tossing her bag in the back, unclipping her belt, picking her up and shifting towards the right before promptly depositing her in the middle where she was expected to use a lap belt and accept less than half the foot space while squeezing in between him and his father.

Narrowing her eyes on the large jerk settling in with a book in the comfortable passenger seat that was rightfully hers, she promptly unclipped his belt, climbed onto his lap, forcing him to shift the book out of the way before she grabbed the belt, clipped it, and settled back with her arms folded over her chest with a glare aimed at the passenger rearview mirror that dared him to try anything as she began rolling the baseball between her hands. With a glare of his own, he wrapped his arm around her, shifted her to the side and returned his attention to his book while she sat there, deciding to gloat.

That is until he retaliated by poking her in the side, which led her to decide that perhaps she should be the bigger person and stop glaring. That left her with nothing to do but focus her attention on the man driving them in the opposite direction of her school, which she was actually okay with.

“So, what are we doing?” she asked, shifting to get more comfortable.

“Christmas shopping,” her seat mumbled as he turned another page.

Worrying her bottom lip, she said, “I don’t have any money.”

“Yes, you do,” Sebastian said, shifting a bit so that he could reach into his pocket and pull out the Ziploc bag with the sixty-five dollars and ninety-three cents that she’d been saving and handed it to her.

“When did you get this?” she asked, as she slid the money into her coat pocket.

“When you told your mom that you were finishing your homework, but you were really looking up the symptoms for the Ebola virus,” he said, sounding amused.

“I have a geometry test,” she said, regretting her choice of blush for the mystery “rash” that she’d been hoping would get her out of going to school.

“That’s what I figured,” he murmured, already lost in his book.

“Do you want me to bring you to school so you don’t miss your test?” Uncle Trevor asked, making her frown.

“Why would I want that?” she asked, blinking at the man that really should have known better.

Chuckling, he kept driving. “Did you eat breakfast?”

“I was too busy faking a fatal illness to eat breakfast,” she said, sighing because she really could have gone for one of her mother’s coffee rolls this morning.

“That is time consuming,” he said, chuckling as he pulled into Dixon’s Bakery.

“It really is,” she agreed on a sigh as she waited for him to park the truck so that she could climb out, accidentally elbowing her best friend in the process and headed for the front door, happily humming along the way.

“Brat,” Sebastian said, reaching past her to open the door for her.

“Thank you,” she said with a sniffle as she walked past him and-

“Think nothing of it,” he said, stealing her baseball cap off her head and putting it on as he strolled past her and joined the long line of customers waiting to get their hands on one of Dixon’s famous baked goods.

Rolling her ball between her hands, she joined him in line, waited until Uncle Trevor was distracted by the large tray of sticky buns being brought out, raised her foot, brought it down on Sebastian’s foot, and plucked her hat off his head when he bent over with a gasp of pain to check his foot. Making sure to appear innocent, she returned her attention to her favorite uncle since she was no longer speaking to her Uncle Eric since he’d been responsible for pointing out that her “rash” had rubbed off on her shirt.

“So, what did you need me for?” she asked, rolling her ball between her hands only to pause when she caught the murderous glare on her best friend’s face and decided that it would probably be for the best if she shifted closer to Uncle Trevor for safety.

“I need help picking out Zoe’s gift,” he said, reaching over to fix her hat and twin braids.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, jerking a thumb in Sebastian’s direction.

“We wanted a girl’s opinion,” Uncle Trevor said as they moved up in line.

Blinking, she looked up at him and said, “You know I’m a tomboy, right?”

Chuckling, he said, “I think I picked up on that.”

“Why didn’t you bring Jessica?” she asked, again not that she was upset that she was missing school, but she was curious.

“She can’t keep a secret,” Sebastian said, which Mikey had to admit was true.

“Okay, so what are we getting Aunt Zoe for Christmas?” she asked, only to be met with matching blank stares.

“You have no ideas, do you?” she asked, having a bad feeling about this.

“None whatsoever.”