Chapter 25

"I can't wait to open my Secret Santa present today!" Iggy said happily, on the bus ride to school.

I nodded. "Uh…yeah…" I trailed off. "Me too."

So, it turns out that when you make sugar cookies with no sugar, they don't really turn out too well. And that when Nudge set the oven at 800 degrees, that made them even worse. With no other choice, we'd shoved the burnt, disgusting cookies – Gazzy had actually tried one, and even he didn't like it – into an old gift bag that we'd found in Jeb's desk.

I wondered how we were supposed to give our gifts to people without them seeing it. I mean, Iggy was blind, but what about everyone else?

When we got to class, Mrs. Jenkins had the answer. "Hand me the gifts, and then stand outside. I will give each gift to its rightful owner." I handed her the bag of cookies, then walked outside, waiting for Iggy and Fang.

After what felt like hours of standing outside with Jaz blabbering about how she couldn't wait to see who her Secret Santa was, we finally got to go inside.

On my desk, there was a small box. I tore the paper off of it eagerly, opening the box.

There was a pencil inside – one of those cheap quality Christmas pencils. This one had happy-looking Santas all over it.

I frowned. "What am I supposed to do with this crap?" That's when I spotted a piece of paper at the bottom. It said, Merry Christmas from your Secret Santa.

I squinted at the note, realization dawning upon my face. It looked like Fang's handwriting.

I looked up, narrowing my eyes at him. He would give me a stupid gift like this.

"What did you get?" Iggy asked as he finally managed to open his bag.

"A dumb pencil," I muttered, looking around the room. Other kids were getting things like candy and cookies and books and stuff. I was stuck with a pencil.

Fang was without a doubt, the worst Secret Santa ever.

I looked back at Iggy. "Hey, what did you get?" I asked nonchalantly.

"Well," Iggy said, "I can't tell, but it smells like burnt cookies."

Fang peered over his shoulder. "It is burnt cookies," he murmured, then looked at me, arching an eyebrow.

I shrugged, and he rolled his eyes. He knew.

~~::~~

"Okay, it wasn't just my fault!" I explained to Fang later at P.E., after Coach Thompson paired the two of us up. "It was Gazzy and Nudge's fault too! Nudge set the oven at 800 degrees!"

"Have you ever tried to cook anything in your life?" he asked. "You can't bake anything at 800 degrees."

I crossed my arms over my chest. "And I'm sure you do, right?"

"At least I'm not stupid enough to forget the sugar."

I frowned. "Okay, so forgetting sugar in the sugar cookies was a bad idea. But since when do you know how to bake?"

"I don't," Fang responded. "I have common sense."

"Ugh!" I yelled in exasperation, making our whole class look at me strangely. Then I lowered my voice, glaring at Fang. "Okay, here's the deal. We're going to get a much better gift for Iggy. You are going to come with me and help." Unfortunately, Mrs. Jenkins had explained that we needed to continue giving gifts to our Secret Santa person for the entire week. Ugh.

Fang frowned. "Or what?"

"Or…." I trailed off. "Or else! And you don't want to know what the else is!"

He shook his head, then looked back at me. "Okay, fine. I'm in."

~~::~~

If the goal of going to the mall was to get Christmas gifts for everyone else, I was doing pretty good. I'd already bought a teddy bear for Angel, the first nail polish set I saw for Nudge, and a Hot Wheels set for Gazzy. I'd even managed to buy a CD of Fang's favorite band when he wasn't looking.

Which still left me with trying to find a gift for Iggy.

"I told you, you should buy him something romantic!" Nudge said dreamily. Yes, she'd insisted on coming. Gazzy had begged too, but we'd needed someone to distract Iggy. "Boys love romance!"

Fang looked appalled. "No we don't."

"Don't deny it!" Nudge squealed.

Fang made an expression like he was ready to throw Nudge down the escalator. I didn't blame him. I'd already given Nudge her Christmas gift in an attempt to make her shut up, but so far, that wasn't working.

Somehow, we wandered into a random store. "Hi!" a cheerful lady at the counter said. "Can I help you today?"

"I'm looking for a gift for a friend," I said.

"A romantic gift," Nudge butted in, but I shoved her away.

The lady smiled, pulling out some books. "Well, may I recommend-"

"HE CAN'T READ!" I yelled, crossing my arms over my chest. The lady looked taken aback.

"What did you expect at Barnes and Noble?" Fang asked, sounding irritated. That's when I finally had the sense to look around and realize we were in a book store.

Oh.

"Sorry," I murmured, dragging Nudge out the door as Fang led the way.

"Well, this is a huge waste of time," I muttered, then looked at Fang. "You're not helping, and you're supposed to be helping! What do guys like?"

Fang shrugged, and I facepalmed. "Okay. Fine."

Nudge raised her hand. "Oooh, I know!"

I glanced at her, starting to smile. Someone finally had an idea. "Yeah?"

"We should go to Forever 21!" she shrieked.

Fang and I groaned. "I don't think Iggy wants anything from there."

We started heading towards the food court. "Maybe you should just buy him food," Nudge suggested.

I shook my head. "Nah… that won't work."

"What about that?" Fang asked, pointing at a store in the other direction. My eyes followed the direction his finger was pointing in, and then I grinned.

"Yeah. That's perfect."