Read Online Jingle Boy by Kieran Scott - Free Book Online

wiping under her eyes with both hands.
    “Paul! You startled me!” she said, faking a smile. Her eyes traveled down my body. “Are you still in your pajamas?”
    Guilt settled over me like an iron blanket. “Yeah,” I said. “Sorry. I just—”
    “It’s all right,” she said, waving her hand and turning back to her cocoa. “Maybe it’s a good idea. I just might join you. . . .”
    And then she started crying again, her shoulders shaking. I couldn’t take it anymore.
    “Mom? What’s wrong?” I asked, walking into the kitchen and leaning into the back of one of the wooden chairs around the table.
    “Ooooh . . . I was fired,” my mother said. Actually, she almost sang it in her high-pitched voice. Like she was saying, “Ooooh . . . I’m so happeeeeeee!”
    “What?” I blurted out. “Why?”
    My mother shrugged as she measured out enough cocoa to warm a wagon train in the dead of winter on the plains. She shook her head as she talked, spooning powder into mugs. I wondered if she was expecting someone or if she actually had cracked. I had a sinking feeling it was the latter.
    “That Awful Woman saw me taking your return without the receipt and instead of
asking
me what I was doing and maybe
waiting
for an explanation, she went directly to Mr. Steiger and told him she’d seen me taking an illegal return.” She dropped her spoon and turned to me, her eyes wide and red. “She used the word ‘illegal’! Like I’m some kind of common criminal!”
    “I don’t believe this,” I said, my heart hardening into a heavy, cold stone. I pulled out the chair and dropped into it, resting my head in my hands. “That Awful Woman” was the euphemism my mother used for Marge Horvath, the assistant manager who had made me pry the pendant out of her bony little fingers the day before. Well, actually, made
Holly
pry it out of her fingers.
    “Mr. Steiger called me into his office and told me that my conduct was unacceptable, and then he started telling me that there has been some money missing from registers recently and he was going to call a meeting about it tonight, anyway, but that since the money is always missing after my shifts, they were pretty certain that they had their culprit and this solidified it.”
    My mother was babbling now, her voice steadily rising in pitch until it could be heard only by mice and small dogs. All I could do was stare down at the holly-bordered place mats on the table and listen to the little voice in my head taunting me.
“This is all
your fault, all your fault, all your fault.”
The voice sounded suspiciously like the elves from my prefire nightmare.
    “They think I’m a thief, Paul! They think I’ve been stealing from them!”
    Suddenly my mother seemed to realize that she had measured out half the can of cocoa and that there was nobody here to drink it. Her shoulders collapsed and she brought her hand to her head.
    “It’s gonna be okay, Mom,” I said, even though I had no proof that this was in any way true.
    “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said, sniffling. She sat down at the table right across from me and picked at the corner of the place mat in front of her, looking like a forlorn little girl. It’s pretty weird when you see your mother so vulnerable. It kind of makes you feel like you aren’t a kid anymore.
    I got up, walked around behind her, and wrapped my arms around her back. She reached up and patted my forearms, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
    “What would I do without you?” she said quietly.
    Then I
really
didn’t feel like a kid. I wanted to say something to make her feel better. Anything encouraging. But nothing came to mind. It seemed like the spirit of Scrooge had settled in over our once Christmas-spirited household and I had no idea how to make it go away.
    For the first time in my life, Christmas Sucked with a capital S.
    “Make it fast, man. We gotta get to the gym before the rush,” Marcus told me as I jumped out of his car in