I know that it's not quite the holiday season yet and I wasn't planning to start this story until December, but since it's been pretty cold here and we even got a little bit of snow the other day, I was really just in a Christmas mood. Anyways, this story takes place a few months after my other story Dominoes so you might want to read that if you want to understand some things mentioned.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kickin' It
"Well, how fun was that?" My dad said cheerily as we trudged inside, finally finished with our annual Christmas caroling. I faked a smile and nodded in reply, rolling my eyes after he looked away,
Though Matt, Emily, and I had long outgrown our family's Christmas traditions, our parents, unable to accept that their children are growing up, have kept them going year after year. So every Christmas break, we all head to Minnesota to stay with my grandparents in the house my dad grew up in. Then the festivities begin. They consist of my very tone deaf family going door to door, singing Christmas carols, followed by entering the annual gingerbread house contest, decorating the tree with our own handmade ornaments, writing letters to Santa (even though I thought my older siblings and I had all made it pretty clear that we knew the truth years ago), ice skating in the backyard, baking cookies, and finally on Christmas Eve, we were all forced to watch a marathon of Christmas movies. In addition, all of these had to be done wearing elf hats and ridiculous reindeer sweaters.
Fortunately, my mom had asked Kim's family to join us this year. Inviting friends had always been against the rules of our traditions since my parents wanted it to be an all family thing, but this year they had made an exception because it was the Crawfords' first Christmas without Chuck. Knowing my mother well, I had casually mentioned this and just as I expected, thirty seconds later, she was on the phone with Kim's mom, giving her directions to our grandparents' house.
We were just about to begin our gingerbread house when a car pulled up in the driveway.
"But Kim! How will Santa know I'm here if I forgot to leave him the note? He's going to go to our house and see that we're not there and won't leave anything! Then I'll never get a skateboard! I'll be the only one without one!"
"Brandon…" Kim's voice was weary. "For the last time, Santa knows you're here, okay?"
"How do you know?"
"I just know."
"But-"
I quickly threw open the door, rescuing Kim from having to answer any more of Brandon's questions. The three Crawfords were unloading their car and looked up as I walked out. "Hey!" I was pleased to see Kim's expression shift from exasperation to excitement as I ran to greet her. She sighed in relief as we hugged.
"You have no idea how happy I am to see you." She looked over at her younger brother, who had taken to pulling gift wrapped boxes out of the trunk, shaking each one and trying to guess what was inside, before turning back to me. "Brandon has been driving me crazy," she whispered.
I grinned. "I figured. If it helps, I'm a little sick of my family too." I helped her with her things as the rest of my family came outside. My dad grabbed a suitcase and Matt offered to help with the presents but Brandon had insisted on taking care of that himself. When were finally inside and Kim's family had had the chance to get their things set up, we all gathered in the kitchen for some hot chocolate. When everyone else was deep in conversation, I motioned for Kim to follow me. We abandoned our mugs and I led her downstairs to the game room. It was the biggest room in the house, filled with board games, a large TV, and a couple different game consoles.
"Whoa." Kim's eyes were wide. "This is pretty awesome."
"Yep. My grandparents are loaded. I can't think of a game we don't have." I leaned against the couch and watched as Kim looked through all the board games. "But it's not too often that I get to actually use any of this stuff because of our stupid Christmas traditions. Lame, right?"
Kim shrugged but didn't look up. "I guess." Her eyes lit up and she pulled a game from the shelf. She held it up for me to see. It was Monopoly. "What do you say?"
I smiled and joined her on the floor where we began a long game of Monopoly which soon became three. Kim won each time and refused my third request for a rematch.
"Oh come on," I complained. "I bet I can beat you this time. It really would be good for you to lose, you know. All these victories are just feeding that ego of yours. That's not healthy."
"All I got from that was you admitting that I win a lot. Let's play something else."
As we searched through the other games, Emily came down the stairs. "Jack, we're off the hook on the gingerbread house! Mom and Dad were so happy that Brandon was excited for it that they completely forgot about the rest of us. Same goes for the ornaments. Kim, I'm really loving your brother."
"Yes!" I exclaimed. "Wait, where's Matt?"
"Oh, Kim's mom got him into this conversation about college and all that stuff. He'll probably be up there for a while." I wasn't surprised. Matt's a Philosophy major at Cornell, on the road to becoming a lawyer. Parents love him.
"So what do you all want to do?" Emily asked. "I wasn't interrupting anything, was I?" She looked at us curiously.
"Nope you're good. How about Mario Kart?" Kim suggested.
"Sounds good to me," I replied and Emily agreed.
We were eventually joined by Matt as we gladly let Brandon soak up our parents' and grandparents' attention for the rest of the night. So far, this Brewer Family Christmas was shaping up to be a very wonderful holiday.
The next day was Christmas Eve and Kim and I had gotten up early to hang out in the game room. We were fully immersed in a game of Clue when Mrs. Crawford came downstairs. She looked panicked.
"What's wrong?" Kim asked, concern in her voice.
"I forgot Brandon's skateboard. I was in such a rush to beat traffic yesterday that I must've left it in my room. I don't know what to do! The roads are covered in snow. I can't drive to the store in this weather. Kim, what am I going to do?"
I looked at Kim. She seemed to be deep in thought. "We'll do it," She said suddenly.
"What?"
"We can do it. We'll walk. Right Jack?" She gave me a pleading look that I just couldn't say no to.
"Yeah, we can do it. It'll be fun," I said.
Kim's mom sighed in relief. "Thank you so much." She handed some money over to Kim. "But be careful," she said firmly. "And keep your phone with you, alright?"
Kim nodded in agreement and grabbed my arm. "Come on."
After we had been covered from head-to-toe in layers, we stepped into the snow and headed for the store. I used the map on my phone to find the way. We seemed to be doing really well at first but soon, the snow was falling so hard, we couldn't see.
"Didn't we just pass that sign?" Kim asked.
I looked to where she was pointing. "No, I don't think so." I replied, my confidence only present on the outside.
She didn't seem to be fully satisfied by my answer, I wasn't either, but she didn't push it any further. A few minutes later, there was no road. We seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.
"Jack, where does your phone say we are?"
I checked back at it but the screen had gone black and when I tried to turn it back on, it wouldn't. "It's dead."
Kim groaned. "We're lost."
"No we aren't," I argued. "Let's just use your phone."
"I don't have maps or GPS on mine."
I sighed. "Oh no."
Kim crossed her arms in annoyance. "I told you we were lost."
"Try calling your mom. Maybe she'll know what to do."
Kim tried but there was no signal. We were now officially lost.
We continued walking but only seemed to get more and more confused about where we were. Eventually Kim stopped walking. "Jack, let's take a break. We're not even getting anywhere."
Unsure what to do next, we sat in the snow and stared at each other. Kim looked at her phone. "We've been gone for an hour. Do you think they'll come look for us?"
"No idea. They probably think we took a longer way to get away from them or something."
After a long moment of silence, we began playing tic-tac-toe by drawing in the snow. It was fun at first but when it started to get boring, we decided to get up and start walking again.
"Well, since we're stuck out here, at least we get to miss ice skating," I said.
Kim shoved her hands in her coat pocked stared at her feet as we walked. "Yeah."
"Who knows, maybe we'll miss cookies and Santa letters too. Can you believe that-"
"Can we talk about something else please?" The annoyance in her voice took me by surprise but I agreed not to continue with the topic.
We made small talk for a little while but our conversation began to die down and we decided that at the moment, we were more comfortable with silence. After what seemed like another hour, I was almost ready to give up. Then I noticed a figure. "Kim, look. Maybe they can give us directions."
"Jack I don't-"
I didn't listen. Instead I took off running, looking half mad, waving my arms. "Hey! You over there!"
"Jack!" Kim called, running after me.
It wasn't until we got closer that I realized that it wasn't a person I was waving at. It was a moose. And we had just entered its territory. I froze and prayed silently that it hadn't seen me. Kim was next to me, calmly walking backwards, her eyes glued to the moose. I followed her example but it was too late. It had already seen us. Kim looked at me and we both took off running in the other direction. I looked behind me and my worst fear was confirmed. The moose was chasing us.
We came across a ledge. The drop wasn't too far but the concern had more to do with the ice below. We didn't have much choice though so we jumped and ended up sliding down a ramp of ice, landing safely on the ground. The moose lingered by the ledge for a moment but eventually turned and walked away. The sight of that was enough for me to start laughing. It took me a moment to realize that Kim wasn't laughing with me.
She was on her knees, the money her mom gave her in her hand. The snow had made it soggy and it was starting to tear. I stopped laughing. "Kim-"
She just sighed and threw the money into the snow, kicking it away as she stood up. "Just great. No money. No phone. We have no idea where we are. And now Brandon isn't going to get his Christmas wish tomorrow."
"Kim, it's not a big deal."
Kim spun around to face me. "Yes it is! You just don't get it! If you hadn't gotten us lost-"
"How did I get us lost? You were the one who wanted to come out in this snowstorm just to get a stupid skateboard!"
"Yeah, well at least I wasn't the one who got us chased by a moose!"
"I didn't know it was a moose!"
"How do you get a person confused with a moose!?"
"It was really hard to see, okay?!"
If someone had walked by just then, we would have been quite a sight to see. We were clumsy on the ice, slipping when we were trying to be serious. I tried to keep my balance and I could see that Kim was too. "Kim, maybe we should talk about this when we're safely off the ice."
"No! I want to talk about it right now! You know, at least I want to something for someone else! You only care about yourself! You're selfish!"
"I came out here for you! How is that selfish?!"
"The only reason you even wanted me to come here is so you could get out of your family's Christmas traditions!"
I stomped my foot on the ice. "That's not true!"
Kim opened her mouth to say something but quickly closed it. I was confused at first but then I heard it. The ice beneath our feet was beginning to crack but there was no way off of it. Before I could come up with a plan, the ice gave and we both fell in.
I had never been colder in my life. I saw Kim's head disappear underwater, I had managed to keep mine up, but I was having trouble processing what I was witnessing. My brain wasn't working properly. It took a minute but I soon became aware of my surroundings and I realized that I was hyperventilating. Then I realized that Kim hadn't resurfaced. I found a sturdy section of the ice and pulled myself out. I could see Kim through the ice. It had covered her opening and she was pushing it, but it wouldn't budge.
Using a tactic I had learned from my grandfather about falling in ice water, I rolled over to wear Kim was to keep from breaking the ice underneath me. I motioned for her to move to the side. I pulled out my phone and began smashing the ice with it. Surprisingly, the force was enough to break it and I was able to pull Kim out.
When we were safely away from the ice, I threw my broken phone aside and we both collapsed into the snow. Kim was coughing up water and neither of us could stop shaking. I was ready to give up. There was no one around for miles and we had just fallen through ice water. We were both going to get hypothermia and die. On Christmas Eve.
"Wow! You two don't look so well! Need a lift?" I looked up. There was a man standing over us. He was high on the chubby side and had a huge white beard. He must have been clearing the roads because parked near us was one of those snow tractors. He helped us into the tractor and we rode to a small house.
Soon after being instructed to each take a hot shower, our clothes were put in his dryer and we were sitting in front of a fire, supplied with warm blankets and clothes that were much too big for us. A woman, presumably his wife, entered the room, carrying a tray of cookies and hot chocolate. Seeing the cookies made me realize how hungry I was and I happily took one off the tray. The man, who had introduced himself as Nick, sat across from us as we ate.
"So," he said. "Would you mind telling me what you kids were doing outside in this weather?"
It seemed a little odd to be telling a complete stranger how we had spent the last few hours, but he had saved our lives. We at least owed him an explanation. So we told him. I was a little embarrassed when he laughed about the moose incident but luckily, he didn't push that topic any further. When we finally finished the story, he looked at Kim. "Why is getting this skateboard so important to you?"
"I just want my brother to have a good Christmas. We lost our dad several months ago and since then, he's had a lot of disappointments. Our family used to have so much fun on Christmas. We had these traditions-" Kim looked at me and I felt my stomach twist itself into a knot. Then she turned back to Nick. "Now it's just so hard to, so I just wanted him to have fun. To actually get something he's looking forward to."
"I see." Nick rubbed his beard.
Just then, Nick's wife entered the room, holding our clothes. We changed and after making a quick phone call to my parents to tell them we were okay, we headed out.
"Oh and Kim?" Nick called as we stepped out the door.
Kim quickly turned her head, just as confused as me. I didn't remember telling Nick our names. "Yes?" she asked warily.
He gave her a huge smile. "Don't worry about your brother."
Kim just nodded in reply, smiling back but I could tell she was freaked out. We closed the door and found that there was a road close to where we had fallen in the ice. Kim bent over and picked something up out of the snow. It was my phone. She held it out to me.
I reached for it but she kept it in her hand, even though mine was already on it. After a moment, she let go and I put it in my pocket. "Thank you," She said.
I smiled at her. "You didn't really think I was going to let you die, did you?"
"I'm sorry I called you selfish."
"You don't need to apologize. I was selfish. I was so focused on getting out of those activities that I didn't realize how hard it is for you right now. I shouldn't have complained. I'm sorry that I couldn't see how lucky I really am to have my whole family together for Christmas."
"It's okay."
We stared at each other for a moment not moving. Then I kissed her. She seemed surprised so I pulled back but she just smiled at me and kissed me back. When our kiss finally ended, I took her hand and we began the long walk home.
When we had finally arrived home, we were immediately asked a million questions. We didn't tell them everything. Just that we had gotten lost and a kind stranger had let us borrow their phone to call home and that I had dropped my phone on the road. They seemed pleased with our answers.
"We were just about to decorate the cookies but if you two would rather go play a game downstairs, that's alright with me," Mom told us.
"Actually," I smiled at Kim and then looked back at my mom. "I would love to decorate some cookies right now."
After we finished with the cookies, we all gathered in the basement and to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas, Elf, and It's a Wonderful Life. It was actually pretty great.
The next morning when we all went to the living room to open presents, I saw Brandon excitedly pulling something out from under the Christmas tree. It was a skateboard with a red ribbon tied around it. Mrs. Crawford shot both me and Kim a look of gratitude. After her mom looked away, Kim turned to me, her eyes wide with confusion. "You don't think-"
"No, that's not possible."
"Then where did it come from?"
"Maybe my grandpa went and got it or something."
"Yeah…Maybe."
Kim and I left it at that but I don't think either of us really believed it.
So that's the end of Kim and Jack's Christmas story. I hope you enjoyed it. Please review and tell me what you think! Next chapter is all about Jerry who finds himself in the middle of some family drama on Christmas. Until then, thank you so much for taking the time to read this!
