Sami's Christmas Wish List

Sami's Christmas Wish List-A Novella

SAMI's CHRISTMAS WISH LIST

A GIRLS of THOMPSON LAKE Novella

BY

PJ Sharon

Chapter 1

"Samantha Jean, you get down here right now!"

My last Christmas break before graduating and being catapulted into the real world, and I was about to be grounded...again. I blew out a sigh as I heard my mother's footsteps pound up the stairs. Annoyed, I turned off the music right in the middle of an awesome drum solo and waded through the piles of dirty clothes, prepared for another lecture about the evils of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. A smirk lifted the corner of my mouth as the sound of Julie Andrews singing her Christmas classic, "These are a few of my favorite things..." popped into my head. I yanked open the door to meet my mother's furious expression, which turned to all-out rage when she caught me smiling.

"Do you think this is funny?" She shoved my recent report card in my face. I took the piece of paper and glanced at it before folding it and stuffing it into my back pocket. Her arms squeezed across her chest, making her boobs look enormous in the low-cut sweater she wore. Mine were big, but hers needed their own zip code. I only hoped I was less obvious. I buttoned my flannel shirt one more notch and rolled up the sleeves. A slew of bracelets dangled in a long row, covering each forearm.

My gaze came up to meet hers—currently dark and menacing. I blinked, cleared my throat, and stared at my feet as I pulled my T-shirt down and tied the tails of my flannel at my waist. Jeans hung loose on my hips, clearly a size too big, but infinitely easier to breathe in than the skinny jeans Mom sported. The pant legs of the ratty denims pooled in folds around my ankles, all but engulfing the black combat boots I'd found at the Thrift shop last fall. The look suited my mood.

"I know I need to do better, but I still have one semester to pick up my grades." Before she cut in with what would likely be an hour-long tirade and an effort to ground me for the rest of vacation, I brushed past her. "Don't worry, Mom. I'll graduate. I promise. Right now, I have to get to the church. I'm practicing with the kids for the Christmas pageant, and then I'm working at the rink tonight. Penny's going to pick me up and drop me off."

I thumped down the stairs with only a cursory look back to see her staring disgustedly from me to my room. "We are not done here, young lady! And this room..."

"I'll be home around ten. Bye, Mom. Love you!" I ran through the kitchen, grabbed a bruised apple from the fruit bowl, and escaped out the back door. No way was I going to let my mother—or my lame grades—keep me from enjoying a sunny, fifty-degree day in December. I had the next two weeks of relative freedom, and I wasn't going to waste a minute.

Global warming be damned, the sun on my face felt like a little piece of heaven, even if the ground was snow covered and soggy, and the weather seemed more like Easter than Christmas. The few inches we'd had over the weekend had melted down from a fluffy blanket of pure white crystals to an inch of brown crusty mud.

I bit into the apple and savored the sweet tang. As I rounded the side of our building, the smell of manure hit my nostrils. Despite being late already, I took a slight detour, traversing the small patch of land that divided the Woodland Hills Condos from Harper's Farm. There, I leaned against the fence to admire the horses. Iris, a chestnut mare, trotted over. I'd worked the farm during hay season in exchange for a few bucks and a chance to ride the horses. Other than the backbreaking work of cleaning stalls and lifting forty-pound bales of hay, the trade wasn't too bad. The horses made it all worthwhile. One horse in particular had stolen my heart.