The Sister Of Popular

Chapter Thirty-One

"How do you guys stand having Christmas in the winter?" Aiden complained as we waited for my mum to come downstairs. "Australian Christmas barbecues are so much better."

Levi and I laughed, and I said, "White Christmases are way better."

Aiden raised an eyebrow. "Does it look like snow outside to you?" He gestured towards the window, which showed a scene of heavy rain and mud.

"Well, no, but come on. You have Christmas songs talking about snow, and you get to wrap up warm next to the fireplace in Christmas jumpers..."

"Or you can be warm anyway in Australia," Aiden said, and before I could argue for Team British Christmases, my mum came in with three boxes of chocolate and four Santa hats balanced on her arms, and after placing the items on the floor, she went and turned the family iPod on to play Christmas music.

"Merry Christmas!" My mum said, grinning, and went to sit down on the sofa. "You can open your presents now, oh, and Aiden, your mum wants to Skype you soon. She says she's sorry she couldn't come to England for the millionth time, but one of her best friends has just had a baby? I don't really know."

Aiden chuckled. "Yeah, her friend Christie," he said, reaching for a small present in the middle of the tree that was from a cousin. "I've seen pictures, Lily's adorable!"

Levi and I took this as a prompt to start opening presents, and half an hour later, our floor was littered with wrapping paper and gifts from various relatives and family friends were thrown around. Mine included a set of oil paints, an iTunes gift-card, a GCSE Maths textbook (from my Uncle Dave, who was a doctor and his children went to grammar schools, and he was convinced that everyone would go to hell if they didn't get A's in their GCSE's...or something like that), a card-decorating kit and lip-balm amongst other presents. My mum still hadn't given me any presents, but then, I hadn't been the calmest child recently. Nor had any of my friends (although if they were still my friends and how they would get them to me, I didn't know) or Levi, unless you counted swapping a small bag of sweets each.

I wasn't particularly appreciative of a bag of Revels when Levi knew that they were possibly the worst sweets ever to be invented.

I let that brush off though, as I teared off some red snowman paper off another box. It was a handknitted jumper sent from Auntie Liz, Aiden's mum, from Australia. It was a blue one with my name written in white on it, and when I looked over at Levi and Aiden, they had jumpers as well with their names on it - however, Aiden had also received an iPad.

"Wait," I said slowly. "Aiden, did you get an iPad?"

"Yeah," Aiden shrugged, reaching for his last present from his dad.

"An iPad?" I repeated.

"Why are you so surprised? It's no big deal," Aiden said dismissively. "I'm happy for it, of course, but a lot of other kids in my year have one."

I sighed, folding my jumper and placing it on the stack of clothes I had received. Levi was humming along to the Christmas song playing. "You don't seem shocked."

Aiden didn't bother to reply, and instead carried on opening the present that was made up of so much duct tape that it was almost impossible to rip apart. Levi and I helped Aiden, and we pulled on the tape until the last bit finally came undone (after using so much strength that our Santa hats got catapulted across the room), and Aiden revealed the gift to be some video games.

"Seriously?" Levi remarked, picking up Heavy Rain and reading the description. "And our mum hasn't even-"

My mum then took that moment to come in with four cardboard boxes. "Your presents! Sorry I didn't have time to wrap them, what with the...events of this month."