Wow- you guys have been great! This story took off lightning fast! :D Short chapter, but I'm posting frequently, so don't panic, and thank you again :)
It's finally December 1st which means 25 days until Christmas- but it also means I can sing Christmas songs without getting in trouble! My throat picked a great day to start hurting!
Disclaimer: I don't own any Christmas carols, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the Heroes of Olympus, or the Star Wars trilogy. I'm going to go sit in a corner and cry now.
2
Deck the Halls
Difficulty one had been encountered that night, after Aggie was asleep and they were all huddled on the center area between all the bunks lining the wall, and drew blueprints and notes. Oh yeah- this was a full heist. With one Hurdle already.
Decorating.
They had these glowing orbs of light all over the Big House's walls on Christmas, but that wasn't going to cut it. Not if they were going to do this children-of-Hermes style (that meant big and dramatic and overboard).
Travis had actually figured out how he was going to do this.
The next morning, after breakfast and sending Coco and Aggie to go do… Whatever; he rounded up the children of Aphrodite and Hephaestus in the forges- only one group being particularly happy about that. The Aphrodite girls were trying not to get oil on their hands, or to take in the concrete, underground parking lot like smell. Someone tried to spray some perfume and that lasted about 2 seconds. They needed Febreze on steroids here.
"Okay; look; we need help." Travis said. "You know Aggie? About this tall, missing teeth, in our cabin? Yeah; she still believed in Santa."
There were a few snorts; chuckles and the cooing that came with any sentence that had 'Aggie' in it.
"Yeah, it's adorable." Josh said. "Problem is; we have no Santa to have her believe in."
"Oh man, that's not going to go well." Piper said.
"Exactly. So this is what we're planning."
Shoelace and Mariah held out a blueprint.
"First step for Christmas; decorating. We need help, the little orb things on the Big House are not what a 5 year old sees as Christmas. We were thinking a couple of paper snowflakes, light sets and so forth?"
"We'll do it," Jake raised his hand, looking over his shoulder at siblings who nodded. "We're looking for stuff to work on anyways. We've got a couple of Christmas lights that only need the wire to be replaced.
"Good."
"So, what are we here for?" Drew asked.
"Design. And cutting paper snowflakes." Poppy said. "We need all the help we can get."
"And what are you guys going to be doing?" Nyssa asked. "More of that? Because you guys are not going anywhere near our tools."
"No," Connor said.
"We're tackling the bigger problem." Travis said.
"Listen up," Travis said at the next counsellor meeting. "We have a kid who believes in Santa Claus in our cabin." Someone sniggered.
"Is it Connor?" Clarisse asked.
"She's five." Travis said. "Aggie Sanchez? Agatha Sanchez if you want the real name? Her."
"Well, that's normal, she's a little kid." Butch said.
"Exactly; so from this point on, no Santa jokes and doesn't anybody dare tell her that he's not real." Travis said.
"How are you going to keep the believing up? We're not a very Christmasy place," Percy said.
"We're handling it. Just sit back and observe." Travis said. "Just nobody blow it. Pass it on."
"But not to Aggie," Connor said.
Travis had Aggie on his shoulders and she was getting her fingers stuck in tape.
"Oh, man Aggie." He said. "Mariah! Help!" He called.
"Again?" She asked. Poppy was standing on her back to twist-and-tie bright red lights to the cabin. Mariah got up and let Poppy fall.
"Gee thanks!" The redhead sister said sarcastically.
Travis kneeled so Mariah had at least a chance at reaching Aggie's fingers. She got the tape off pretty quickly (they'd been decorating the Big House and the cabin all afternoon).
"I said give her small pieces." Mariah said.
"Connor was the one to give her the tape!" Travis defended. Mariah took a small piece, no longer than her pinky.
"There," she said sticking it to Aggie's fingers. "Now go sticky-tape your snowflake on the door."
Aggie happily did so.
"Another one?" Aggie asked.
"Nope, that's it Ags." Travis said, lowering her into his arms.
"Are all the cabins going to be pretty?" Aggie asked.
"I don't know," Travis said. He really didn't see Clarisse skipping around cabin 5 with a strand of lights and a bucket full of crystal; especially not with Frank and Reyna there for the holidays. "I don't think so."
"Why?" Aggie asked. Kid with a million questions.
"Because we're wasting too much tape here," Travis said, sticking one on her nose. Aggie laughed and went cross-eyed trying to look at it before pulling it off and putting it in Travis' hair.
"Aww, great, thanks." He said. He wasn't even going to try locating the tape. Aggie laughed, and it sounded like bells. Not big church bells like announcing-to-the-world that someone got married kind of thing, but like… Jingle bells.
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bell rock.
Jingle bells swinging, jingle bell rock…
Oh great.
He realised that Connor and Packrat on the other side of the cabin were bellowing out 'Fa la la la la's by the second and someone inside was humming Silent Night.
Maybe this was getting to all their heads, Travis thought.
"What are you doing?" He said, suddenly realising that Aggie was messing around in his hair like a monkey looking for bugs.
"Finding tape for the other cabins," Aggie said.
Okay, Travis thought. Maybe this was getting to all their heads in a good way.
