Young Adult author Aiko Bradley wants some worldly experience and who better to teach her than the worldliest of men-Maximilian Croft?
From his daredevil stunts to his decadent affairs, Max is everything a perfect heartbreaker should be-one that Aik...
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We finally had our first massive dump of snow in December, just two weeks before Christmas.
There had been a few dustings and little swirls here and there but for the most part, winter had been a little damp in Charlottetown.
"Hey, guys!" I beamed at my mother and stepfather, Dan, as I scrambled through the front door. They were sitting at the living room, having a cup of something warm. My Mom was cross-legged on the floor, writing what looked like her annual pile of Christmas cards to give to people at work, and Dan was reading a book.
"Are you guys all done shovelling the snow?" he asked. He took a good look at my face and shook his head. "Of course not."
"The boys decided to build a snowman," I admitted, toeing off the pair of chunky winter boots I'd borrowed from my mother and leaving them on the mat. "Mom, I'm going to steal a carrot and some buttons. And probably one of Hiro's old scarves."
My mother glanced at me, pushing her glasses up in a habit identical to mine.
"Shouldn't you all be too old for this?"
"Never!" I cheekily said before heading for the kitchen to ransack the fridge for a carrot.
Mom came in with a ratty blue scarf and went through one of the drawers in her sideboard where she had a little sewing kit. "I don't have any matching ones but here you go."
I happily accepted the buttons and walked with her back to the front door. "Do you have a hat, too? Something you don't like?"
She perked up and opened the front coat closet. "Actually, I do. Wilma from work knitted me a toque for Christmas. As much as I love that woman, she can't coordinate colors to save her life."
My mother presented me a knit beanie (toque for Canadians) in an unfortunate combination of yellow, baby blue and neon orange. My mother wasn't the best at color coordination either but this one really was quite visually offensive. "Have at it."
She and Dan followed me outside to the small front lawn where my two brothers were packing and smoothing the surface of the snowman's head. It was about three feet tall and significantly lumpy on the sides.
Despite my gloves, my fingers were freezing by the time we'd put the eyes and nose on. Kaz and Hiro wanted small branches for arms and Dan agreed to break off some from the leafless white birch tree in the corner of the yard.
"Come inside and warm up. My cookies should be ready now," Mom said when Hiro and Kaz started arguing about the length of branches they needed. "Let the boys finish it up. They're going to argue for a while until Dan just decides for them."
I smiled, still watching my brothers even as I put an arm around my mother. "Do you think they're going to like California? There won't be snow but they'll visit in the summer anyway."
