Christmas Vacation
By Alicia Maxwell Winner
It was noisy in the classroom. There was yelling and loud laughing and shouting echoing all through the room. The teacher had given up on trying to calm down the class a long time ago. It was the last day of school before Christmas vacation anyhow so what was the harm in letting the students talk?
"Finally, Christmas vacation at last!" Duo smiled swinging his feet up onto the desk.
"Mister Maxwell! Feet off the desk or you'll spend the first hour of your vacation polishing every desk in the class room!"
"Yes Miss Bech," Duo took his feet off the desk.
"How many times has she singled you out to yell at this year?" Trowa asked.
"I counted a hundred and twenty-nine before I stopped caring. I don't see why though; Heero's always doing the same thing as me when she singles me out to yell at. Take a look," Duo nodded toward Heero. Sure enough, Heero had his feet up on the desk.
"So how should we spend our Christmas vacation guys?" Quatre asked.
"I'm going sledding down the biggest hill I can find when the snow gets thick enough whether you guys want to or not," Duo replied.
"Oh no you're not! I'm not spending my vacation taking care of frostbite and scabs!"
"I'm not going to fall off the sled this year, Alicia."
"Of course you are. You say you won't every year and yet every Christmas vacation you fall off the sled anyhow," Trowa contradicted.
"So what do you want to do this holiday Trowa?" Quatre asked.
"Spend some time with my sister."
"Aw, that's sweet."
"She bribed me into it."
"I did not!" I said. "I just said it would be nice if Trowa and I actually hung out over the holiday like we did back when we were pilots."
"Then she threatened to blow up Heavyarms if I said no," Trowa whispered to Quatre. My sensitive ears picked it up.
"I never said anything at all about Heavyarms you liar!"
"Miss Maxwell! Keep it down back there!"
"Yes ma'am!" I replied.
"Looks like Alicia can't get used to being in a classroom rather than a military squadron," Quatre chuckled pointing to my hand which I had subconsciously into a salute.
"You think that's weird? Here's a real killer- she hasn't been in a military squadron in ten years," Trowa stated.
"She was in a military squad at age seven!?" Quatre exclaimed. "I heard her say it all happened when she was young but… I just figured she was older. Like fourteen or somethin."
"By the most recent military standards since weapons were eliminated fourteen is a common age to enter the military," Trowa replied.
"I suppose so…. Now what are we going to do for Christmas? I've only heard individual plans so far."
"I know," I said, "but it's a secret until vacation actually starts."
"Oh come on Alicia! Spill it! There's only five minutes left until vacation starts!" Duo said swinging his feet up on the desk again.
"Mister Maxwell!"
"Sorry ma'am!" Duo pulled his feet off the desk again. "C'mon! Tell us Alicia!"
"Okay I'll give you a hint," I smiled. "What's this?" I handed him my ski lift pass.
"It's a ticket for a ski lift," Duo blinked.
"It's a pass. It'll give me all the trips up the slopes all through Christmas break."
"And that relates to the way we spend our holiday how?" Duo asked me.
"Isn't it obvious? She intends to spend Christmas on the slopes," Trowa said.
"Exactly. I rented out a cabin in the Great Ice Mountains for all of us to share."
"Are you serious?" Quatre asked. "Can you seriously afford that? Maybe I sho--"
"Quat relax. I got it. I have the money to pay for it."
"So we're really going? All of us?" Duo asked.
"No we're tying you and Wufei together and locking you in my closet before we leave. Of course we're all going you numskull!"
"What are you guys arguing about?" Heero asked peering over the top of his book- How to Hack By: Heero Yuy (1). Why he was reading a book he had written himself I have no clue. Maybe he was really reading a comic that was hidden in the book. After all, I had found a huge stash of DBZ graphic novels under his bed the one time he paid me to clean his apartment.
"We're going to a ski lodge for Christmas Heero!" Duo replied.
"Define 'we'."
"You, Tro, Quat, Duo, Wufei, and me and the girls if they wanna come," I said.
"What about Zechs?" Quatre asked. "You can't just leave him out of the picture because you two have a history of rivalry."
"Fine," I sighed, "he can come."
"Nice going Quatre! Now you'll have to listen to those two arguing for two straight weeks!" Wufei yelled.
"Mister Chang!"
"Grr," Wufei growled. How he detested being in school. Especially with all the teachers yelling at him for being… well… a big mouth.
"I'll have to listen to it? Uh-uh we're all gonna hear it."
"No way Quatre! I'm not going on that ski trip!"
"What's the matter? Wufei an acrophobiac? Or maybe little Fei can't ski?" I laughed.
"My name is Wufei, onna! WUFEI!"
"MISTER CHANG!"
Two hours later Duo, Quatre, Trowa, and I were packing and loading up the car. I went back into the house and up to Quatre's room where I went into the closet and got my box of comics.
"Come on. Hurry up or they'll leave without us," He came over to me and grabbed my hand.
About three hours later we arrived at the cabin. Heero and Relena were waiting outside for us. I suppose they got done their packing quicker because Heero lacks the skills to have a decently long conversation with anyone. We got out of the car and went inside.
To sum up the next few hours I'll be brief. Ten minutes after we were settled in we sent Relena and Heero out to get groceries and the rest of us began decorating. A half-hour after that, Wufei and Sally arrived with an unexpected guest.
"Who's that?" Duo asked nodding his head toward the little girl. Her hair was jet-black and so were her eyes; she was obviously a relative of Wufei.
"Meet my niece. My sister sent her to China to study abroad a few months before L5 was blown up. Took a while to find her again."
About an hour later Cathy and Hildie arrived. Hildie was greeted with smiles all around and a huge hug from Duo while Cathy was greeted with a hug from Trowa, smiles from Sally, Quatre, Duo, and Hildie, and a threatening glare from me. I had told her the wrong address hoping she'd give up and go home. I suppose Trowa gave her the right address. Curse it all! Now I'd have to spend two weeks with my dear-sweet brother's nasty bratty girlfriend. Ten minutes later Heero and Relena came back with arms filled with groceries.
After two more hours of waiting and playing cards, Noin and Zechs arrived.
"Sorry we're late! We got called out to a meeting," Noin said.
"Nice shirt Noin," Duo laughed. Noin looked down only to realize she was wearing one of Zechs' shirts.
"Oops…"
"I told you not to dress in the closet. You can't see anything in there," Zechs said.
"Now that everyone's here let's break out the eggnog!" Duo said.
"Ew! You actually drink that!?" Relena exclaimed.
"Yeah! It's good!"
"Well too bad; there isn't any," Heero said.
"Aw man…. Oh well, It's sledding time!!!!!" Duo pulled his sled out of the closet heading for the door.
"Duo NO!" Hildie and I tackled him in an attempt to save him from injury. We hit each other before hitting him though.
"Time to sled down the steepest hill around! Yahoo!" Duo yelled running across the snow-covered chilly ground.
"Someone call 911 and ask them to have a helicopter on standby," I begged before dashing out the door after him. I followed him for an hour. We just kept running and running. I finally got sick of it, lunged full-force forward tackling him.
"Ow! Alicia!" Duo said as he forced me off of him.
"Don't ever try this again! You'll get yourself killed sledding down one of these huge slopes!" I yelled at him before snatching the sled from him.
Two hours later I was back at the cabin. It felt great being in the warmth of the cabin again. Quatre came in the door and walked over to me flopping down on the couch beside me.
"Trowa took me snowboarding. Convinced me there was no harm in trying it. Tell me, is this considered harm?" He pulled up the sleeve of his outfit to show me a frostbitten six-inch gash.
"Oh no… how'd that happen?"
"Tree. I'm lucky to still have my head."
"Let's go clean that up," I took him into the kitchen. I took a warm washcloth and wiped his wound carefully wrapping up the cut after I finished cleaning it.
"I don't see why my father never liked you. You're such an angel."
"Come on Quat. I'm a Maxwell. We're major fighters. It takes a great deal of work to tame a Maxwell child enough so that they can give up fighting."
"Even you, Duo, and Trowa?"
"Trowa's a Barton now. He's still my brother but he's free of the Maxwell blood since he took on the name of Barton. Duo was always the weak link in the Maxwell chain so I suppose he was easier to tame with his weaknesses. As for me… Quatre, I'm a fighter. I'm afraid I'm always gonna be a fighter."
"That doesn't bother me. You're a fighter; I can accept that."
"That's good to know. Hey Quat, where's Trowa anyway?"
"Oh yeah, he went up to the main ski lodge with Cathy to meet up with Hildie, Duo, Sally, Wufei, and Nikki."
"Nikki? Who's she?"
"Wufei's niece. He never told you her name?"
"Nah, but who cares. Say where are Yuy and the Peacecrafts?"
"Noin, Relena, Zechs, and Heero went skiing. Apparently Heero isn't perfect cause I saw him beef it on a bunny slope on my way back here."
"Oh dear God! Please say you're joking!" I laughed.
Quatre and I kept talking for about an hour. Then everyone else came back. On his way in, Duo stubbed his toe somehow.
"DAMMIT!" He cried.
"DUO!" Hildie yelled at him. That was just enough- an avalanche started. Within five seconds we were trapped in the cabin.
"We're completely snowed in," Heero murmured.
"At least we have enough food to last until a rescue crew finds us," Relena said.
"I'm not waiting around for a rescue crew," Heero stood up. "I'm gonna go dig a way out through the upstairs window."
And he did. And we went home and had a great holiday sleeping over at Heero's apartment…
You didn't really believe that story did you? Well if you did let me tell you- I lied. Here's what really happened….
After the avalanche covered the cabin, Heero got mad and started chasing Duo and threatening to kill him. When the rest of us intervened, Heero decided he'd kill all of us. It took two hours of running from Heero for Trowa to formulate the idea of escaping through the upstairs window. He broke away from the rest of us and, while Heero was preoccupied with chasing us, carved out a tunnel. He came to us and led us out through the tunnel but Duo put his foot in the wrong place, causing the tunnel to cave in on the last one of us- Heero. When Heero got out he was furious. He chased Duo halfway down the hill before Duo tripped, fell onto someone's sled, and went flying down the hill on it. Guess Duo got to go sledding after all….
As I conclude this story let me wish you a happy holiday. I hope you have as much fun as I'm having right now…
The End
