A/N: A collection of short related chapters leading up to Christmas day. :) Enjoy!
"Is it straight?"
"I think it's about 7 degrees off. Shel, could you just stop obsessing over that sock? We have a test tomorrow! And it's going to be the last one before the holidays! So it counts like, double!"
"Firstly, it's not a sock. It's a stocking. And who cares about the test? It's Thursday! Tomorrow's gonna be Friday then Saturday, then Sunday then Monday then Christmas! I don't know for the life of me how you can stay so calm."
Shelby gave the stocking pinned to the wall above her desk one last squinty-eyed inspection, shifted it up 7 degrees and bounded over to Laura, who was sitting on her bed reading a textbook.
Then she promptly snatched it out of her hands and threw it into the air. "Lighten up!" she cheered.
An irate Scottie stood up and retrieved her textbook from the floor. "I'm going to study at Otto's," she grumbled, slapping her hand against the panel next to the door and when the door slid open, exited.
Inside the room, Shelby clapped her hands happily. "Finally! Now where was her present…?"
Otto and Wing's room wasn't much better off. In fact, it was probably worse. There were shiny snowflakes on strings hanging from the ceiling, two socks- er, stockings pinned to the bathroom door and even a mini Christmas tree strung with lights that blinked red, green and white.
As Laura stood in the doorway trying to digest the fact that the room seemed to have suddenly… transformed, Otto popped up in front of her wearing a fluffy Santa hat.
"Hi Laura!" he said, and plopped an identical Santa hat on her head.
She grabbed it by the pom-pom and yanked it off, resulting in several red hairs to be charged by static and stand up, floating like jellyfish above her head. "And I thought you of all people would at least be going through your notes for the test tomorrow."
Otto grinned. "I don't have to study – you know that Laura! And besides I have to get all his stuff up in time for Christmas!" He waved his arms up and down frantically.
It was only then did Laura notice the giant box on the floor filled with – were those decorations?! "You mean…" she stuttered, "…there's more?!"
"Well of course!" Otto exclaimed, waving his arms around even more. "You think this is all?"
With that, he turned and snatched something from the box and threw it at Laura. It hit her full in the chest and she staggered backwards, dropping the textbook with a thunk.
The something was poky. And it was sharp. And scratchy. And…plastic.
Laura peeled it off of her black Alpha stream jumpsuit and looked at it. A wreath. Festooned with fake plastic berries on the fake plastic bristles.
"Hang it up on the door, will ya?" Otto called from the box, where he had stuck his head, shoulders and arms in it to a depth that seemed illogical given the height of the box.
"But it'll fall off when the door opens," Laura informed him, clutching the wreath and staring at the white door.
Finally Otto's head popped out from the box. "Then nail it above the door!" Then he resumed rummaging around in the box…
…leaving Laura standing in the middle of the room wondering how the heck she was supposed to nail a wreath above the door without 1) a hammer 2) a nail and 3) a ladder.
"Otto…?" she began, now staring at the white wall directly above the door.
"Yep?" Otto asked, pulling himself out of the box dragging after him a blow-up reindeer. Or at least that's what it looked like.
"No hammer, no nail, no ladder. Sorry, I'm not getting this up, unless you've suddenly gotten some magic skills to conjure all those things out of thin air." Laura said, shrugging.
"Actually…"
"You have magic?!"
"Wiiing!" Otto called.
Said person appeared behind Laura, seemingly out of thin air. Seemingly.
Otto snapped his fingers at Wing. "Take care of the wreath."
Nodding, the tall Asian took it from Laura's hands and held it against the wall above the door. Then he slammed his palm down on the wreath and it stayed.
"What- but Wing! You're not going to let Otto just boss you around like that, are you? And how did you even get that to stay? And… and-" Laura exploded.
Wing leaned down and muttered to her. "Better just do what he says until the whole holiday thing blows over."
Laura pursed her lips and thought. It did make sense. All they would have to do was to help them put up decorations and deal with all the relative craziness and the so-called holiday spirit until Christmas was over and things would go back to normal. Or as normal as things could be when you lived in a volcano where teens were being trained to be villains who occasionally fought against more villainous villains. Yes, she would put up with the crazy Christmas preparations.
But that didn't mean she would have to enjoy it.
A/N: Next update in a couple days… ^-^