A/N: Hey all! I'm not going to answer reviews this time, but I will next time. I just woke up and I'm too tired to be at all logical. Anyways, this chapter is dedicated to Karen, my new editor. If it wasn't for her, you'd be reading a chapter full of gramatical mildew and as many spelling errors as stars in the sky. I probably spelled words in the Author's Note wrong! Oh well!
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Gil was running 'round the mall, two shopping bags, filled to bursting, clutched in his hands. Christmas was drawing nearer; it was already December fourteenth, and he had almost all of his gift-buying taken care of. He had yet to find the perfect present for Catherine. She already had all of the electronics he'd looked at, all of them gifts from Sam Braun. Not even the most elegant clothes seemed to do her beauty justice.
Something caught his eye in a nearby shop, and he hurried over to examine it. The store was full of racks upon racks of the most gorgeous clothing suited for a beautiful young debutante such as Catherine. Gripping his find in one hand and the handles of his bags in the other, Gil made his way to the counter to pay for the final gift on his list.
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Sara was wandering up and down a street lined with indie shops, each window leaving a square of light on the sidewalk in front of it. The sun had all but set, and Sara wasn't nearly done with her shopping. She walked through the open door of a promising store and began to snoop around.
"Perfect for Greg," Sara said under her breath, holding up an item from the shelves of knick-knacks. She looked at the price tag, though, and quickly set it back on the shelf, hurrying out of the store.
Feeling dejected, she went back to pacing around the various stores. She counted the money she had left, a diminished wad of crumpled bills that had, earlier that morning, been a crisp stack of sixty-five dollars. She remembered earning every cent, mowing lawns and walking vicious dogs, finally making enough money to give her friends the gifts they deserved.
"But I can't find anything for them," Sara reminded herself. "Not for Nick and Greg, at least."
She went into a small store she had noticed earlier, glancing at the objects that were prominantly displayed in the window. None of them fit Nick, or Greg, and she was about to walk out of the store when a cheery sales lady stopped her. Sara was about to roll her eyes when the woman said something that intrigued her.
"I'm the best person here to help you pick out a gift," the woman said, the bounce in her voice grating on Sara's eardrums. Something about this chipper young woman made Sara want her help.
"I've got these two friends," she said, "and I can't find anything to get them for Christmas. One of them's really hyper, he skateboards, and he's obsessed with coffee. The other is sort of mellow, he's on the mathletes team and he's really protective of his friends. Any ideas?"
The woman laughed, motioning Sara further into the store, and handed her two items. "For your skater friend," she said, motioning towards the one in Sara's left hand, "and for the mathlete." She pointed at the object in Sara's right hand, then stepped behind the counter to ring them up. Sara was delighted, and she walked home smiling to herself and thinking of the looks on her friends' faces when she gave them their presents.
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Greg was looking in the skate shop where he worked. They gave him a great employee discount, and he had decided to get every one of his friends the same thing. He walked to the counter with the purchases, then stepped behind the counter to ring himself up. Looking hurridly to the left and right, he made sure no one was watching as he took an extra ten percent off the price. Sticking the money into the register, Greg set down the eight boxes on the floor and hummed absentmindedly, imagining what Sara would say when she saw him on Christmas Day.
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Archie was frustrated; he was stuck on the gift for Mia. He'd been through the mall, paced countless streets, and, he remembered with a shudder, even stopped to look in the window of Victoria's Secret.
He stopped next to an open door, the sandwichboard sign outside telling him the store was called Ipnosi. He walked in past the fountain displayed prominantly in the middle of the small shop, rifling through the racks of clothing as he went.
He quickly found himself at the back of the shop, sitting on a chair next to the floor-to-ceiling doors of the changing rooms. He'd gone through almost every shelf, rack, and bin, and he was beginning to think that this store was as fruitless as the ones that had preceeded it. Turning to the last place in the store he could look, a long bar full of clothes-hangers that stuck out from the wall, he eyed a dress nervously. It was black and seemed to be the perfect fit for Mia. "And it's on clearance!" Archie's mind shouted gleefully.
He hurried home with his bags of shopping, wrapping them up the moment he was safely in his room, and storing them away in the back of his closet, under a pile of shirts that had fallen off their hangers.
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Catherine was satisfied with all her purchases. It had only taken her an hour and a half to find everything, and now her gifts were spread neatly on her bed. She had a pile of wrapping paper next to them, on her pillow, and she was deciding which paper would go to which person.
"Pink for Sara," she thought methodically, wrapping her friend's present with pale pink paper and tying it off neatly with a bow. "Blue for Jim."
She went on like this, covering each present in paper and securing it with a matching ribbon. She hummed a tune from a movie she'd gone to see the previous Saturday, and every other Saturday, for that matter. It was a bit of a ritual, one she'd decided to share with her friends soon enough. She sang softly, mumbling a little as she sang. "Touch-a-touch-a-touch-a touch me! I want to be dirty!" She began to dance as she wrapped, each gift being scribbled with the name of it's recipient before being tossed on the bed. Finishing up with "Green for Gil," she smiled down at the gift she'd picked out for him. She scooped it up, turning the box over in her hands, giving it a quick good luck kiss before setting it down on its square of paper and wrapping it neatly, writing his name across the top with black sharpie, singing all the time.
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A/N: Just a quick note. The song Catherine sings is very important, it will come into play in late February, I think. I hope you have all gone to the occult celebration of this movie, or at least seen the film at home, because if you haven't, then the chapter where they go to see it won't make much sense. Or maybe it will. I don't know.
Much love to all my faithful readers/reviewers!
Maddy