Holiday Havoc!

Author: Amelia Z.

"Look, kids! It's snowing!"

Dad always gets excited when the first few snowflakes fall from the sky.My brothers always hurry to the window. Mom always takes her time having one last look at the cabbage stew before joining the family. They gaze at the dark Christmas night.

I, on the other hand, have just started watching them from the start of the stairway, tapping away with slight impatience.

I almost had the perfect opportunity to leave without the gang without them noticing almost-but then Danny heard my slipper meet the first step down our windy stair case.

"Come on, Gretch, soup's on."

I turned my head ever so slightly, hissing out my response. "Mom said not for ten more minutes, Danny," I told my twin brother. "I'll be right back, okay?"

He joked around, like all my brothers do. "No! Don't leave me!" he smiled, thinking it to be funny, but he was just giving me more attention.

"Good-bye," I said and hurriedly tip-toed down the stairs.

Once he finally understood why I was leaving, he said, "…Then I'll come with."

"Okay then."

But our dad knew we were up to something and used his bony fingers (that I sadly did not inherit) to hook them to the necks of our clothes.

"Hold your horses, kids. It's Christmas." He was a monstrous tower above us, bending down to meet our eyes (my eyes, Danny's eye holes). The Pumpkin King certainly cannot get it around his skull that not everyone cares so much about Christmas. Of course, I've never tried to directly inform him of this fact, but I thought he'd get the point by now. I guess he needed more than clue, then.

"Christmas is just like every other day, Dad…except that laundry detergent falls from the sky." My brothers laughed—even mom smirked, but dad looked at me funny.

"Gretchen, that's not laundry detergent," he said, a bit perplexed, straightening up to his full height.

"I know-"

"-That's snow!"

"Thank you, Captain Obvious."

The boys laughed even harder. I almost broke my straight face, too.

"Gretchen." He looked at me sternly.

"Christmas is nonsense, dad. Absolute nonsense!"

Dad smiled and nodded. "It is, isn't it?"

"Not good nonsense. Just plain nonsense," I heard myself say aloud. "Christmas is just extended family night."

"…So you're saying you don't like the extra time with your family?" dad said.

"No—well, yes, but I didn't mean—ugh!"

Mom always knows what I mean, so she helped me out on this one. "Gretchen and Daniel can be in their room until the cabbage is cool enough."

I thanked mom in my head. She's a life-saver.

Then everything was back to normal while the rest of my siblings laughed at Calvin falling off his chair.

By this time my parents rush to my older brother to check on the back of his head where it's been cracked quite a few times. Danny and I take this with a grain of salt and hurry to our room. I'd love to slide down our staircase one day—just saying. I wish you could see it—the steps are wooden that creek and the rails are made of thin but sturdy granite-colored metal that twists and curves all the way down to my floor. Our house isn't huge, but freakishly tall, our staircases elaborate. The only room I've never been on is to my dad's work place. I've been told it's the tallest, coolest room in the whole house, and when Danny and I turn 13 we'll be old enough to go in there (don't ask me, it's a coming-of-age tradition, which I kind of enjoy).

Our room is at the very bottom of the house. Danny and I have our own little brick hallway that is just awesome. It carries echoes really well, so when I feel like eavesdropping I can very easily do so.

"You know, Sally," dad said turning away from the boys and more to the stew (I could tell because his voice grew softer), "We schedule family nights. It's not like everyone miraculously wants to do the same thing."

There was a pause, so I'm assuming that mom was taste testing the cabbage when dad was talking.

She replied, "But everyone likes family night. It's nice."

I see dad turning away from her and staring blankly at the stairs.

I heard him clearly when he said, "Not everyone." I stepped back into the shadows even though there's no chance dad can see me anyway.

"Gretchen is different. She needs time to be with herself—to think."

I presume my brothers heard my name and decided to spontaneously chime into the conversation.

"About what?" Jeremy asked. "What is wrong with her?"

Thanks.

Q tried answering the question, but just made it worse.

"Gretch is just trying to deal with being a social outcast at school. She also has to come home to us, so…"

"Q!" mom and dad said together, the boys bursting with laughter.

"What?"

"I think," Calvin said, famous for his "realistic" thinking, "our baby sister is plotting the best world take-over Halloween Town has ever known!"

Over the roaring sound of chortles and guffaws from the triplets, my eldest brother scolded all of them. "You guys are idiots. One day all your heads will pop off for laughing so much." Zeebo paused until he had everyone's attention. "Q is actually really close to the issue at hand, but I'm afraid he missed something—school starts right after Christmas, which is the reason why she's not ever in an anticipatory mood during Christmas."

"Oh right!"

"School, yeah."

"That's true."

"But," said Zeebo, "Gretchen doesn't really like Christmas to start with."

My brothers considered this. I imagined them tapping their skulls and crossing their arms and such. "I hadn't really thought about that."

"No, me neither."

"That just shows you how unobservant you are." "Yeah, okay, twerp," said Zeeb. "Plus, she's still holding a grudge about the forest."

Danny caught me listening in. He tapped my shoulder.

"Do you want the report or not?"

I kinda stood there. I stared blankly at the stone floor. You know, I should be allowed to dislike Christmas. There's no law saying I can't, but why do I feel so guilty? And why shouldn't I be allowed in the forest?

"You're not doing anything wrong," my brother told me, reading my mind. "It's seriously okay if you don't like Christmas. But we're doing something about the forest right now like you insisted so badly."

"Okay," I said.

"I get that you don't like the change of the mood."

"Exactly," I said. "But it's like I'm letting him down."

"Nonsense."

Neither of us wanted to argue, so we put it behind us for now and went into our room. Danny had already made our secret drawer revolve to reveal Tanith and Tape with their tiny projector.

Tanith is Danny's pet bat and Tape's my rat.

"What didya girls find today?" Danny asked happily.

Tanith squeaked and flew to his head with her camera anklet, shaking it in his face.

"Alright, alright, I'm on it," he chuckled.

Meanwhile, Tape jumped from the secret top drawer to my desk and scurried up to my shoulder.

Because of good genetics, Danny's fingers were perfect for activating Tanith's microscopic "camlet". He pressed the button with ease. The projection flashed in our faces. We twirled our heads around to see our plain and grainy wall turn into the very heart of the forest. It was dense. It was desolate. It was an absolutely, indescribably amazing place! The trees touched the sky they were so tall. The soil looked so smooth yet so ancient and dry. The dead grass was also dry, a brownish-yellow color. The place was as quiet as a dead man's grave—except for a little squeak from Tanith once in a while (and even that was cool because she made this huge echo with one little tiny squeak).

I am (and probably never will be) allowed to go in there—especially to search for the holiday doors. I was told my feet would fall off before I'd get to them, but I feel like something is out there for me to find. Something they've been hiding from me—

-like my destiny!

So that's why Danny and I decided to see if Tanith could at least give us a visual while hunting for sticky leaves, her favorite food (they come from particularly old trees, so the forest is where she primarily goes out to eat).

Just when the setting sunlight hit a certain area of the forest, we heard all the boys hollering our names. This was not a good sign.

"Danny! Gretchen!"

"SOUP IS ON!"

"Gretchy! Daniel!"

"We're goin' down!"

In a panic, I grabbed Tape and put him back into the shelf. I started to feel the herd of Skellingtons coming closer. Danny struggled to switch the camlet off, but right when the projection disappeared, his bat took it and hurled herself into the shelf while Danny and I put it back to the way it was.

We both forgot that our door was locked, so when our brothers came to carry us back up the living room, we frantically switched the lock open before they got any brilliant ideas to destroy the door.

Like usual, I let Q and Calvin take me. Danny, though, jumped as high as he could and hung on a window pane until Jeremy decided it would be fun to climb him.

"You know, its fun until someone's limb is ripped off," Zeeb warned, watching them closely. It's happened before. One time I tried defending myself, Calvin ripped my hand clean off my arm, and I still can't sew very well yet, so I had to ask my mom to do it for me—embarrassing!

I heard Jeremy doubt his brother's wisdom, but just one moment after, we all heard the sound of a bone popping out of it socket.

This is the end of the first chapter, but before I leave you to wonder what happens next, I'll tell you a little about myself—like I'll do after every chapter with each character in my story, K?

As you have found out, I am Gretchen Skellington, the narrator of my own life—and not to mention the only daughter of the Pumpkin King.

I am the spitting image of my mother, which isn't a problem for me—anymore.

See, I ended up with almost the same features and (un)coordination as mom—except that my feet are really, really pigeon-toed and I'm stitched differently. My hair used to be the same, though—long and stringy, so I decided to cut most of my hair off because it was too long to handle. I knew it wouldn't grow back, but hey, I think it says "Gretchen is comin' to town!" That could totally be a song.

Catch ya later, Gretchen S.