CHAPTER 1 - LO'S CHRISTMAS WISH
Of all the stories posted here in the Stoked section, I haven't seen any devoted to a Christmas-themed Stoked story, so to commemorate this time of the year, I'm going to work on such a story, the first Christmas-themed Stoked fic to my knowledge to be posted here. It may be posted out of order to what goes on in the events of my storyline timeline, but anything that gets mentioned here that ties in to earlier events that take place while the groms are working at Surfer's Paradise in my current timeline will be explained in future stories.
Also, as a departure from my usual light-hearted fare, this is going to be my first T-rated Stoked fic, with a somewhat heavy and bittersweet theme to it that will develop later in this fic. I'm not going to reveal what it is right now (outside of the story summary and what genre category you've seen the story filed in), so you'll have to stay tuned and keep reading to see what it is.
The events in this story start out in early-December, about three months after the events of Gromfest.
Surfer's Paradise, the flagship hotel of the Ridgemount Resorts chain long known for being a surfing mecca for tourists and residents of the town of Sunset Beach alike, was not looking so much like a surfing resort as the calendar turned to December as the hotel was now decorated, inside and out, in Christmas ornaments in preparation to celebrate the holidays. Under orders from hotel owner Mr. Ridgemount, Bummer supervised the decoration of Surfer's Paradise as the hotel exterior shone in shades of red and green at night under Christmas lights, while a fir tree outside on the hotel boulevard was similarly decorated with lights of multiple colors.
Inside the hotel lobby, everything in sight there, from the Pirate Ship restaurant to the Lobbyquarium to the gift shop to the front desk, were decorated with lights, colorful garlands, tinsel and other decorations. The centerpiece of the Christmas display was a 25-foot-tall tree standing in the middle of the lobby, decorated (not surprisingly) with ornaments bearing the hotel's Wipeout Whale logo. Also not surprisingly, Wipeout, the hotel's costumed killer whale mascot, got into the holiday spirit by dressing in a Santa hat and coat.
Meanwhile, up at the Ridgemount penthouse at the top of the hotel, the spacious living room was decorated resplendently in gold and silver-colored garland and pots of poinsetta plants, while in one part of the living room stood an artificial Christmas tree with gold garland, ornaments of red, green and blue and fiber-optic lights, along with an angel at the top of the tree. The Ridgemount family had kept busy decorating their home just prior to the turn of the month and Mr. and Mrs. Ridgemount were proud of the results. Socially-conscious oldest son Ty began volunteering with Christmas charities, while youngest son George was simply looking forward to getting the Christmas gifts he wanted from his list when he was not busy tormenting and harassing his older sister Lo.
As for Lo, the middle child of the three Ridgemount offspring, she was feeling out-of-sorts as December began. When the summer tourist season ended in September after Labor Day and school began, she was very happy to be able to return to the penthouse after spending the summer staying at the rundown hotel staff house with staff newcomers Reef, Fin, Broseph and Emma, along with returning staff Johnny, Ripper, Lance and Kelly, most of whom she became friends with right away (except, at least initially, for Kelly, which only happened later after the originally mean-spirited Kelly made a turn for the better due to personal events). Lo and the rest of the staff she stayed with over the summer got involved in some adventures and antics (mostly good, but also one or two bad), capped by the opportunity to go surfing with her friends, that gave her a summer to remember.
But now, since most of the summer staff (except for Broseph and Johnny, both of whom were locals) left after the Gromfest surfing competition at the end of the tourist season to return to their respective hometowns and begin school again (or in Kelly's case, to begin her first year of college), Lo felt somewhat lonely without most of her friends from the summer around. She had known Broseph and Johnny since before she had to start working at the hotel as a Pirate Ship waitress and occasional babysitter (due to the aftermath of the events of her party at the end of the previous school year) and went to school with both of them in Sunset Beach, and she kept in touch with her new friends via e-mails, phone calls and webcam chats, but to Lo, it was not really the same as having Reef, Fin and Emma, and even Kelly, around, and that loneliness became more evident as the Christmas season began.
Lo was in the middle of writing her thoughts about the start of the holiday season in her diary in her room when, suddenly, she felt the wet impact of a snowball thrown against the back of her head. Startled and angry at once, Lo whirled around in her chair at her desk and saw George standing and laughing in her bedroom doorway. "Haha, gotcha!" George laughed as he pointed at his big sister.
"Ooooohh!" a steaming Lo fumed as she leaped up out of her chair and chased a still-laughing George out of her room and down the stairs to the living room. "I'm gonna kick your butt clear across the living room if you don't stay out of my room, you little troll!" Lo yelled at the bratty 10-year-old as he ran down the hallway leading to the elevator which led down to the hotel lobby, which he ducked into just as the Ridgemount kids' mother came out.
"You'll have to catch me first, sis-twerp!" George taunted Lo from the safety of the elevator just before its doors closed to take him down to the lobby.
After returning to her room briefly to get something, Lo locked her room door and went back downstairs to the living room, where she sat down on the couch with a sigh and began moping. As Lo sat there, her mother came into the living room and saw her looking blue. "Are you okay, honey? You look a little down in the dumps," Mrs. Ridgemount asked while sitting down beside her daughter.
Lo lifted her head and let out another sigh. "George keeps coming into my room when he has no business to," she complained. "I don't know why Daddy doesn't do something to rein him in and stop him from harassing me."
"I know, dear," Mrs. Ridgemount said as she attempted to console her daughter. "I don't like seeing you and George fighting either, but I know that he likes to push your buttons a lot. Just so you understand though, I've got your back."
"Thanks, Mom," Lo said with a half-smile.
"I know that's not the only thing troubling you," Mrs. Ridgemount said. "So spill girlfriend, what's on your mind?"
Lo did not usually like it when her mother used hip-hop lingo, especially when she would become embarrassed by Mrs. Ridgemount using such talk in front of her friends, but she did not feel up to objecting this time. "I've just been feeling pretty down since the start of the Christmas season," she began. "I've been thinking about the friends I made during the summer while I stayed in the staff house and the good times we had. I've missed them since most of them left after Gromfest to return home to school." Lo then took out some photos she had retrieved from her room, which she had taken on her digital camera during Gromfest. "I'm glad at least that Broseph and Johnny live in town and we go to school together and hang out often," she said as she looked at Broseph and Johnny's photos.
"That's good," Mrs. Ridgemount said. "How about the others?"
Lo then sorted through the other photos, describing each friend as she looked at their respective photo. "Reef could really be a kook and a showoff a lot of times," she said, "but he also made me laugh a lot. Fin could be tough as nails when she needed to be, but she had a softer side to her too and she was laid back and fun to be with. Emma was really nice and sweet and eager to learn surfing, and both she and Fin were like sisters to me and I could talk with them about anything, gossip with them about boys and just hang out with them at the hotel, in town or on the beach while surfing." As she talked about Fin and Emma, Lo went through a photo of herself and Fin posing together with their arms over each other's shoulders, then one of herself and Emma together, then one of all three girls together.
"Then there's Kelly," Lo continued as she came upon Kelly's photo. "I didn't really like her much at first because of the way she treated me when I had to start work waitressing at the Pirate Ship, but when she started to change for the better after a while and became a bit nicer, I started seeing her in a different light. I found out later that she treated me like she did at first because she had this perception of me based on someone she once knew in high school and didn't get along too well with. Put all that together with my attempts to become a better person myself over the summer, and she changed her opinion of me over time and realized that I'm nothing like this girl she knew from her high school. After that, we started getting along a lot better."
"That's good to hear," Mrs. Ridgemount said, "and I'm happy that the friends you made could make a difference for you."
"Yeah," Lo agreed, now feeling a bit lighter in spirit as she then turned to give her mother a hug. "You know something, Mom?"
"What's that, sweetie?" Mrs. Ridgemount asked.
"I just had an idea," Lo said, "and I want to talk to both you and Daddy about it. Is he in his office right now?"
"Of course he is," Mrs. Ridgemount said. "What do you have in mind?"
"It's something big," Lo explained, "but I'll tell you both soon enough."
"So let me get this straight, Lauren," Mr. Ridgemount said from behind his desk in his office as he spoke with Lo about her idea while Mrs. Ridgemount stood beside her. "You want to invite Reef, Fin, Emma and Kelly to come back to Surfer's Paradise to spend the Christmas holidays?"
"That's right, Daddy," Lo answered. "I wanted to bring them back here to share the holidays with us. I'd love to see them back here again, and I'm sure Broseph and Johnny would too."
"Maybe you could explain to me why I'd do this for you," Mr. Ridgemount said.
"You've seen the report card I got for the first term, Daddy," Lo explained. "I've been keeping my marks up from the start of the school year, straight As across the board. I've also stayed out of trouble for months now - well, mostly out of trouble, aside from tying up George with duct tape that one time back in October to keep him out of my room," she added with a sheepish grin. "Mainly though, I want to see my friends again for Christmas because I've been feeling a bit lonely lately without them around."
"Well, you do know that Christmastime is usually the time that we travel out of the country for our vacation, right?" Mr. Ridgemount told Lo. "I had planned on taking the family to Florida this year."
"I know, Daddy," Lo said. "But this time, I'd really love it if I could have my friends here for Christmas vacay this year. I've done my very best to stay out of trouble and do good in school, so would you do that for me?" At that point, Lo clasped her hands together and put her trademark twinkle in her eyes, which she usually did when she really wanted something. "Please?"
"It would really mean a lot to her, dear," Mrs. Ridgemount said to her husband. "Don't forget all the times that she helped you stay a step ahead of Captain Ron and keep Surfer's Paradise's as the top resort hotel in Canada."
Mr. Ridgemount then stood up from behind his desk and walked around to face Lo and Mrs. Ridgemount. "You do have a point," he said. "Lauren, you and your friends have been a great help to me when dealing with Captain Ron all those times. In that case," he continued, "I can always put Florida off to another time."
"So does this mean...?" a hopeful Lo asked.
"Reef, Fin, Emma and Kelly are all welcome to stay here at Surfer's Paradise for the holidays," Mr. Ridgemount declared, "and they can also bring along a friend or relative as a guest."
A very happy Lo closed her eyes and squealed excitedly with delight on hearing the news. "Oh, thank you, Daddy!" she said as she rushed over to hug her father in gratitude. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Lo then turned to her mother and hugged her as well. "Thank you too, Mom," she said gratefully to Mrs. Ridgemount. "I love you both sooo much!"
"You deserve it, Lauren," a pleased Mr. Ridgemount said, glad to see his daughter happy about the new holiday plans.
"You know we're happy to help, sweetheart," Mrs. Ridgemount said to Lo.
"Excuse me a minute, Daddy, Mom," a smiling Lo said as she headed toward the office doors. "I'm going to go call Fin and the others to let them know the good news. This is so awesome!"
Coming up, Reef and Fin become the first to get invites from Lo to return to Surfer's Paradise for Christmas break.
Stoked (c) Fresh TV Inc. and Teletoon. I don't own the show or any of the characters except for my OCs.
Comments and reviews are welcome.