Thanks for taking the time to check out my first ever fan fiction – after you finish reading, please leave a review, whether negative or positive. Any feedback is appreciated:)
It was that time of year again in South Park – that special time, once a year, when colorful lights outline each house, trees happily glower and display their sparkling beauty through the frosted window, and stockings are cautiously perched on top of the smoky fireplace. Yes, every new day was leading up to the climax for the month of December – Christmas!
Kyle Broflovski himself seemed to be caught up in this feverous spirit as he walked into his classroom on a snowy Monday morning, quietly humming a Christmas carol under his breath. He had no idea how this particular song had filtered its way into his mind, but there it was, continually replaying itself over and over again. Joy to the world, the Lord is come…
Smiling to himself, he was seconds away from emerging into his classroom when he suddenly stumbled over something on the floor; with a dull thud, he landed heavily on the tiled floor. Gasping in pain and rubbing his wrist, he looked around for the source of his fall and his face flushed with anger as he realized that it had been no other than Eric Cartman's foot – Cartman, the evil, racist asshole of a friend whom Kyle had been clashing with non-stop ever since the two had met.
Jumping heatedly to his feet, Kyle lashed out at his only known enemy. "What the hell was that for, fatass!"
Cartman was laughing, his three chins wobbling under the hearty chuckles. "You should've seen your face there, Jew – it looked like you were about to shit your pants or something. Perhaps you should stop walking around in your little Jew bubble and pay attention to what's going on."
At this, Kyle's fists clenched and his teeth gnashed together; but he somehow mustered enough self-control to resist punching his fat face and, instead, entered the classroom. Much to Kyle's annoyance, however, Cartman trailed Kyle inside like a pesky fly hovering about sugar.
"Aw, Kyle, come on – it was funny!" Cartman protested, taking his usual seat next to Kyle. "Look, it's not like you even got hurt or anything. Lighten up, will you? You Jews just love to blow things out of proportion, huh?" He paused as Kyle slammed his books onto his desk. "Oh, great, now you're ignoring me? All Jews ignore people or hold long grudges when they're mad at someone. I see it in the movies all the time. Yeah, you Jews are queer folk, no doubt about that."
Kyle, still focusing all his strength on ignoring Cartman, was then relieved of this tedious struggle by the arrival of his best friend, Stan Marsh, who – by the looks of it – had been caught up in the early December blizzard, as his face was flushed with the cold and his hat was covered with a layer of snowflakes.
"Hey, dude, what's up?" Stan cheerfully greeted Kyle, slinging his backpack on his desk. Melted snow dripped from it, creating a small puddle beneath it. "We've got at least another couple inches of snow this morning – wanna go ice-skating at Stark's Pond after school today?"
"Sure, dude, sounds like fun," Kyle agreed, the anger and resentment draining from his face. He was lucky to have Stan as a friend – whenever Cartman upset him (which was usually the case), he could always count on Stan to cheer up him again.
Within the next five minutes, the classroom generally began to fill up; the students took their seats, animatedly talking about Christmas, snow, and other things, until Mr. Garrison – their teacher – entered the room, and the room gradually fell silent.
"Well, children, I have some news for all of you," Mr. Garrison said, taking his stance at the front of the room as usual.
"You're retiring? Oh, no, wait – you're ill with a terminal disease and you have to quit teaching forever," Cartman responded saucily.
"Shut up, you little cream puff!" Garrison snapped. "We could only hope for a little bastard like you to come down with cancer!" He then cleared his throat and continued, "No, I just finished talking with Principal Victoria, and she proposed some idea that all you little snots can participate in this year."
Stan caught Kyle's eye and made a sarcastic face; Kyle stifled a laugh. Whatever idea Mr. Garrison and their principal had cooked up certainly didn't interest him; in fact, past experience had taught him that whenever Garrison dangled the opportunity to participate in a scheme of his in front of Kyle's nose, it was best not to accept the offer.
"Because families around here are lazy sons of bitches and apparently don't have enough money to buy Christmas gifts for their bastard children, she wanted us to raise money for them." Mr. Garrison rolled his eyes, as if helping the poor was below him. "And because none of you kids seem to like participating in 'volunteer work', she figured something that centered around Christmas would get your attention. Therefore –" he paused on his word, a ghost of a smile on his lips – "the fourth grade will be putting on a Christmas pageant!"
Silence greeted his speech, only to be broken by Wendy Testaburger seconds later. "Isn't the church already having one?" she asked dubiously. "If we do end up having a pageant and charging money for it, who's going to want to come to ours if they can go to the church's for free? And where are we going to get the money to put together a Christmas pageant in only three weeks? Where's the organization? How will this work?"
"Oh-ho, figures Wendy has to raise some serious questions over something so stupid!" Cartman interjected tauntingly. "Although she is right about one thing… nobody's going to want to come to a pageant we put together. They'd be better going to the church's, which is saying something."
"Oh, will you shut up, you fat cupcake?" Mr. Garrison yelled, glaring with pure venom at him. This, however, had no effect on Cartman, as he continued to sit there with a mocking smirk on his face. "Victoria's already talked to Father Maxi and explained how our pageant would raise money for the poor, so he's canceling the church's pageant for ours. Any props, costumes, anything else the church would usually use is now readily available for our use. And, to answer Wendy's question, somebody in this class can be the official overseer of this pageant. That means that he or she gets to direct the pageant and be in total control of the whole thing. There'll be other positions too, like assistant director and a bunch of other things."
Bebe now raised her hand. "Will everyone get to participate in this pageant?"
"Of course everyone can. This is going to be a huge pageant – we're going to need lots of people helping out. Oh, now what, Eric?" For Cartman had raised his hand.
"Well, I was just wondering whether or not the overseer will paid for taking control of the pageant," Cartman explained calmly.
Beating Mr. Garrison to a response, Kyle spoke up angrily. "Of course not, fatass! This is all volunteer work for the needy families!"
"Oh, great, now a Jew's preaching to me about sharing with the poor! A Jew, who's so greedy and protective of his riches that it's absolutely repulsive!" responded Cartman in disgust.
"Oh, for the love of God, will you kids shut up?" Garrison asked in exasperation. "You're making this whole deal harder than it should be, and we have to wrap this whole thing up soon – rehearsals start tomorrow afternoon. Now, who wants to be the overseer of this pageant?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Kyle saw Cartman smile with a hungry and greedy look upon his face, his arm poised to be raised in the air. He knew Cartman well enough to know what was going on inside his mind – stealing money from the pageant's profits, negatively controlling the pageant, suppressing any intelligent ideas others from other positions would contribute… in those three seconds, Kyle fully understood the precariousness of this situation and how important it was for Cartman not to become overseer of this pageant.
Beating Cartman's hand by a fraction of a second, Kyle triumphantly pierced the air with his hand as he shot it up, a triumphant look forming in his eyes.
"Very well, then, Kyle – you can be overseer," Mr. Garrison said, writing his name on a piece of paper. "Now, who's going to be his assistant?"
Cartman turned to Kyle, an outraged look in his face. His mouth opening and closing stupidly, he seemed to be taking in what had just occurred. Finally, as Mr. Garrison was in the middle of asking, yet again, who wanted to be the assistant, Cartman roared out angrily, "A Jew? A Jew directing a Christmas pageant? He'll fuck it up! I should be overseer; I have so many ideas for it!"
"I'm sure you do, you little bastard!" Mr. Garrison responded scathingly. "I wouldn't have elected you anyway – Kyle's better in academics and he could contribute better to this pageant than you. Besides, if I turn him away, that could earn me another call from his mother…" Garrison then did a half-shudder, perhaps remembering past encounters with Sheila Broflovski. "But if it means that much to you, Cartman, then I'll just make you assistant overseer."
"What? No!" Kyle interjected in dismay. "Put me with Stan – Kenny – Butters – anybody else but fatass!"
"Or how about you just throw Kyle off the face of the earth and make me overseer, so this pageant can be run like it should!" Cartman pressed angrily.
Suddenly the whole class burst into argument, each student yelling different things. Some students, like Butters, cowered in their seats, anxious looks upon their faces.
"OH, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WILL YOU KIDS SHUT THE FUCK UP?" Garrison roared. The class, at once, fell silent. "I'm sick of having to deal with you little bastards day in and day out! Now, listen up – Principal Victoria and Father Maxi want us to do this, so we're doing it – and because you kids are just fucking up everything, I'm going to now decide who does what. No exceptions and no complaining!" He took a deep breath, then continued in a calmer voice, "Kyle is going to be overseer and Cartman will be his assistant. The rest of you can either participate in the pageant itself, scenery, or stage crew. I'll post a sign-up sheet later for you to sign. Any questions!" He didn't even pause to allow questions to flow through, but instead continued with, "Okay, now put everything away, and let's now learn about why Jennifer Aniston is a whore in Friends."
As the class opened their notebooks and began to mentally prepare themselves for the lessons, Kyle and Cartman exchanged looks of disgust. It was evident neither wanted to work with the other; but, as Kyle reasoned to himself, at least he was the overseer of the pageant, and – for the first time – Cartman was in a position beneath his. That was enough information to pacify him for the time being.