Carols and Crushes

by Natalie Blitt

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Recipes

  Teaser

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  It’s 11:48 p.m. and I can’t sleep.

  This is a big problem.

  I’ve tried deep breaths. I’ve tried counting to two hundred and counting backward from two hundred (I couldn’t remember which one was supposed to be good for falling asleep). I’ve tried reading. I’ve tried reading really, really boring books.

  But nothing is working. My heart is racing and I truly now understand what it means to have ants in your pants, because I can’t stop moving.

  I side-eye the paper that hangs above my desk. Even in the pitch-black of my room, I can make out the list of songs we will be preparing for the holiday concert.

  Tomorrow is the first day back to school after Thanksgiving break. It’s the day we will officially start rehearsing for the concert. And Mrs. Hamilton, the teacher who heads up our school chorus, will announce how the soloists will be chosen this year.

  Don’t think about tomorrow, I tell myself.

  I can’t think about how excited I am to finally be in the middle school holiday concert, the same one I attended wide-eyed every year when I was in elementary school.

  I can’t think about what it might feel like if I get picked to be a soloist.

  Even though, clearly, I can’t think of anything else.

  I flip over so I have my back to the song list tacked above my desk. This way I’m staring through the window at the dark sky, inky black with only a smattering of stars.

  Silent night. Holy night.

  I can’t help it. Even looking at the sky makes me think of the concert and Christmas carols and …

  This is ridiculous.

  I climb out of bed and grab the sheet of paper that has been taunting me since I got into bed two hours and twelve minutes ago. I’ll look over the list of carols one more time, and then I’ll be able to fall asleep.

  • Silent Night

  • Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

  • Walking in a Winter Wonderland

  • It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

  • Let It Snow

  • All I Want for Christmas Is You

  Pure poetry!

  I visualize myself onstage, the rest of the chorus standing behind me. I can hear the restlessness in the air, the faint squeaking of chairs in the audience, the unwrapping of candies from noisy cellophane. My heart beats hard in my chest and my hands are clammy. But when my turn comes, I take a breath and the notes drift out of my mouth. The notes are quiet at first, maybe even a little too quiet. The crowd leans forward, as if they know something big is coming.

  And then my voice takes root, and I can feel it echoing through my body, through my chest, vibrating my vocal cords, and then bellowing out as the sweetest sound.

  The crowd remains quiet. Wrappers have been forgotten, children no longer cause chairs to squeak.

  The chorus joins me when it comes to the pa-rum-pum-pum-pums, while the beatboxers mimic the sound of the drums, and it’s magical.

  We are singing “The Little Drummer Boy.” Even though it’s not on the list, it’s my favorite carol. The beating of the drum fills my heart, and my whole body vibrates with the energy.

  It’s now time for Eric Sosland to step up and join me in the solo. He takes my hand and I feel the energy shooting between the two of us. The audience is mesmerized. My mom has a tear in her eye.

  And this is just the first song. Wait until they hear me and Eric do “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” They may need to cancel all further concerts because nobody will be able to compete with this year’s.

  The door creaking open makes me jump at least a foot and yelp. Loudly.

  “Shhhh,” my sister, Sadie, begs, closing the door behind her. “You’ll wake up Mom and Dad.”

  The list of songs is now clutched in my hand, pressed against my racing heart. “You scared me!”

  “Sorry!” she says as she walks quietly over to my bed. “I heard you moving around, so I knew you were awake.”

  “I could have been sleepwalking,” I growl.

  Sadie rolls her eyes. Did I roll my eyes when I was seven? I can’t even imagine. I think I spent all my time reading horse books and fairy tales.

  Which I wouldn’t say out loud to Sadie. I feel a flash of guilt. Sadie has trouble with reading.

  And also, apparently, with sleeping. (That makes two of us.)

  My sister plops onto my bed and scootches over to the window. “Hey, Charlie?” she says.

  “Yeah?” I answer, making room for her.

  “When are you going to put up your decorations?”

  I pretend for a moment not to know exactly what she’s talking about, but she’s no dummy. “Mom said not until December tenth.”

  “Why?”

  “I dunno.” I sigh. Mom and I got into an epic throw-down fight after Halloween when I brought down the Christmas boxes from the attic. She said we had to wait until at least after Thanksgiving. Then, this past weekend was Thanksgiving, and Mom pushed the date into December. Typical.

  I love Christmas. I always have. I love everything about the whole holiday season: the decorations, the songs (of course), the movies, the treats (what’s better than hot cocoa with whipped cream?). I even love winter: the snow and the cold and the big boots and thick sweaters I get to wear.

  People sometimes say I love Christmas so much because my name is Charlotte—Charlie—Dickens. Just like Charles Dickens, the author of A Christmas Carol. When my parents named me, though, they weren’t thinking of A Christmas Carol. My dad’s last name happens to be Dickens, and he and Mom thought it would be clever to name their daughter after an author they both love. I’m worried that maybe they were thinking of other Charles Dickens books, like Oliver Twist (which is a super-depressing story) or A Tale of Two Cities (which I haven’t read but I bet is depressing, too) instead of A Christmas Carol.

  A Christmas Carol is not depressing. Nothing about the holidays can be, really.

  But the rest of the Dickens family is not into the holidays the way I am. I mean, we get a tree (a small one) and exchange presents on December 25. But my parents only put up the tree the day before and then take it down as quickly as possible (Mom complains about all the pine needles falling everywhere). And my parents prefer giving “experiences” instead of actual wrapped gifts—things like cards promising a family trip. They think it’s more meaningful that way and avoids the “commercialism” of the holidays. I get that, but sometimes I wouldn’t mind a big box to unwrap.

  And if it were up to me, Christmas would be a two-month-long celebration, not a one-day thing.

  I shake my head, pushing Christmas out of my thoughts and focusing on my little sister.

  “Sadie, you’re supposed to be asleep.” I tack the song list back up on my bulletin board and slip back under the covers. For a long time, Sadie and I slept in the same room, but when I turned twelve, I put my foot down and insisted I needed my own space. Which means that I’m now sleeping in what used to be the guest room and whenever actual guests come, I have to go back to my bunk bed with S
adie. Which is also why Mom is picky about how messy my room can get, and about the idea of decorations. Apparently, it doesn’t feel like a guest room if there are Christmas lights framing the window, or wreaths and sprigs of holly all over the place.

  I try not to argue because I did technically agree to these conditions. However, I don’t understand why my older brother, Jed, doesn’t need to give up his room to guests and bunk up with Sadie. Though I can’t imagine Jed being able to remove all the sports stickers and posters that decorate every available inch of his wall space.

  “I can’t sleep,” Sadie admits. She’s staring out the window, so I can’t entirely see her face. But her voice is sad, which is the only reason I don’t say: Thanks for that, Captain Obvious.

  “Are you worried about something?” I ask. I lie back in my bed, pulling my knees up to my chest. Now I’m actually a little tired.

  “I’m supposed to meet with the reading person tomorrow,” Sadie says. Her words are so quiet that I almost miss them.

  “But Mom said you shouldn’t worry about it. The reading specialist’s job is just to figure out what you need help with so that they can—”

  “I don’t need help!” Sadie says, probably a little louder than she’d intended to. “The reading lady is going to tell me I’m dumb and that I’ll have to keep reading these dumb little kid books for the rest of my life. And—”

  “Sadie, that’s not what’s going to happen.”

  “But what if it does?”

  I’m suddenly exhausted. I understand Sadie’s tendency to worry. I’m worried, too—about the holiday concert.

  “Do you want to come snuggle with me?” I ask, and almost before the words are out, Sadie’s on the move. I open my arms and Sadie clambers in close, and I smooth down her hair, which is the same dark-blond shade as mine.

  While it helps that I have a full-size bed, I also know that within a second of falling asleep, Sadie’s little body will be covering the entire mattress.

  Tomorrow, I think as I yawn. Tomorrow I’ll find out exactly what’s happening with the concert.

  Eleanor Roosevelt Middle School is a crazy mess of a school at any time. But this morning’s snowstorm didn’t help at all. And it wasn’t the kind of pretty snowstorm that I love. It was wet and gray and slushy. You can’t even go sledding on it; it just melts and freezes and goes dark and gross.

  I meet my best friend, Renee Levine, in the hallway by our lockers, both of us dripping in our parkas and soggy snow boots. Everyone pushes and elbows in the crowd around us.

  All the elementary schools in the district feed into our one tiny middle school. There’s been talk about expanding the building, but according to my dad, nobody can agree on where the money should come from. So the school just keeps adding trailers when they run out of classrooms.

  Which is a pain when it’s anything but gorgeous outside.

  “I hear a West Side bus got stuck and they had to send a new bus,” Renee informs me as we put our parkas away. “And two South Side buses were really late to start their routes.”

  Renee always knows the gossip since her aunt works in the office and coordinates our elaborate busing system.

  “Is the West Side bus here yet?”

  It seems impossible that three buses are missing; the hallways are completely filled with wet jackets and boots.

  “Nope. And yes, it was Eric’s bus.”

  That’s the thing about best friends, they know what you’re really asking.

  “That’s not what I was asking,” I lie.

  “Oh?” Her eyebrows go up. Renee’s hair is as thick and curly as mine is thin and straight. We frequently argue about which sucks more, though I still maintain that Renee only argues to make me feel better. Because curly hair is way better than wispy hair. Except, when Renee raises her eyebrows, the curls coming down from her forehead blend in with her brows and it makes her look like her hairline starts just above her eyes.

  It always makes me laugh. In a good way.

  “I’m sorry,” she fake apologizes with a wry smile. “I just figured that since you didn’t ask about the South Side buses, you were concerned about someone on the West Side bus. And given that you keep staring at Eric’s locker, I guessed it was him.”

  I snort. I like to think Renee’s the only one who knows about my epic crush on Eric Sosland, the crush that started in fourth grade when we were put in the same “family unit” for our Mayflower project. Three weeks of pretending to be Eric’s wife for social studies class and … Well, it sounds dumb, but I think it changed something between us.

  Not that he and I have ever talked about it.

  Or talked much at all …

  “It’s cold outside,” I mutter. “I was concerned about everyone getting to school.”

  Renee laughs as she bangs her locker shut. “Well, the bigger issue is that they’re going to have to rearrange stuff today so that nobody is missing classes because of the buses. They’re even talking about canceling the lunch period and having classes meet in the cafeteria.”

  I pull my hair up into an elastic on top of my head and twist it a few times until it becomes a makeshift bun. Then I sling the long strap of my briefcase bag over my shoulder.

  While I love my high boots and big sweaters, my brown leather briefcase is my absolutely favorite possession. My grandmother brought it back for me from Italy when she and my grandfather went last year. I know my parents thought it was a bit much, and they dropped some hints that I should save it for when I’m in high school. Or college. As if I could wait that long. They argued that it could get lost or ruined, but they’ve now admitted how wrong they were. This bag is my precious. Especially since it contains my journals and my favorite pens. And it goes perfectly with every outfit.

  Or rather, I select outfits based on whether they’d go nicely with the bag.

  “Wait, but what about chorus?” I ask Renee. Because chorus is an elective, it’s held during lunch. Sports teams get the after-school times and chorus gets lunch. Not that there’s any preferential treatment going on.

  They can’t cancel chorus today. They just can’t.

  “Not sure.” Renee is in chorus, too, but it’s not an obsession for her like it is for me. At first she wasn’t going to even sign up for it, but I promised her it would be totally fun, and so far she seems okay with it.

  Someone’s wet scarf hits me in the face as I shut my locker. Please don’t cancel chorus, I beg the universe. Please, please, please.

  * * *

  Apparently someone is listening to me. Or at least somewhat listening. Chorus is still on, but it’s shortened to a half-class. Which kind of bites, but it’s enough time for Mrs. Hamilton to tell us what’s going on with the concert.

  Except she’s not there.

  For the first few minutes, there was excited chatter and now … we’re all nervous. Because Mrs. Hamilton is never ten minutes late for anything. If this were any other class, we would have walked out. But this is chorus. And it’s already shortened. Why would Mrs. Hamilton waste any of the little time we have?

  “What do you think is happening?” I mumble to Renee without looking at her. Instead, I’m staring across the room, not at the door where Mrs. Hamilton might walk through nor at the clock, but rather at Eric. He looks like he always does: tall, with brown skin, and close-cropped curly dark hair. And of course, he’s ridiculously cute. But he looks nervous, and I know he’s as anxious as I am to hear about the concert.

  That’s one of the things that makes it clear that Eric and I are a good match: We both love to sing. Eric’s one of the best boy singers in chorus, so he’s practically a shoo-in for a solo. And if I got one of the other two solos, that would be …

  Well, it would literally be a dream come true since I actually dream about it on a regular basis.

  When the door swings open, we all quiet down. Except it’s not Mrs. Hamilton who walks in but the vice principal, Mr. McHenry. When he steps into the classroom, the room goes from q
uiet to still.

  I crane my neck to see Mrs. Hamilton, but the door shuts behind Mr. McHenry.

  Uh-oh.

  Mr. McHenry gives us all a tight-lipped smile and then sits on the front edge of Mrs. Hamilton’s desk. He takes a deep breath and lets it out.

  “So I have good news and bad news,” he starts.

  I hope he doesn’t make us vote as a class on which one we want to hear first. I know he’s trying to be the “cool” vice principal, with his hipster glasses and sneakers. He never wears suits like the principal wears. But I wish he would just get to the point.

  “The good news,” he goes on—phew, “is that Mrs. Hamilton gave birth to a very healthy baby boy on Thanksgiving Day.”

  “Wait, I thought she wasn’t due until Christmas Day?” asks Matthew Yee, who is captain of the middle school basketball team. Matthew is also one of the most popular kids in the grade. Everyone seems to like him.

  Except maybe me. Because there’s something really irritating about how everybody fawns all over him. I’m not sure why he needed to add chorus to the mix of all his extracurriculars. Between his big group of friends and his basketball schedule, I don’t get his interest in singing. It seems fake.

  “Maybe the baby got Christmas and Thanksgiving mixed up,” Kyle says. He’s one of Matthew’s popular friends in chorus, and I scowl at the two of them. I want to just tell them to be quiet but, luckily, Mr. McHenry does it for me. With a look.

  I like this guy more already.

  “The baby was born prematurely, but so far, that doesn’t seem to have caused any problems,” Mr. McHenry explains. “He’s already out of the NICU, and they’re bringing him home either Tuesday or Wednesday.”

  Okay. So that’s the bad news. We have to wait a bit …

  “All this of course means that Mrs. Hamilton has begun her maternity leave early and will be gone until the beginning of next semester. And sadly, that brings me to the bad news.”

  I freeze.

  “The holiday concert has really been Mrs. Hamilton’s project since the beginning,” Mr. McHenry continues. “If we’d known earlier that she would be leaving before the concert, we could have found someone from the community to take it over. But at this point, it’s just too late.”