3

By Icewine Rose

Chapter 2

The Red Shirt

"I'm gonna miss this room." Bernard thought, as he looked around his room for one last time before he teleported to…oh, what was her name…"Was it Cathy, Caitlyn…Catherine! That was it!" Before he teleported to Catherine's house. Right now, he was incredibly thankful for Abby. She had made him much less anxious than he usually would be in this instance. "Even though she had laughed at me at first."

"Hey, Bernard."

Bernard rolled his eyes. "Hello, Curtis."

"Santa wanted me to tell you something."

Bernard turned around, resisting the temptation to swing his suitcase around his body, which he was holding in his right hand. He always tried to act as mature as possible around Curtis in such a way that could only be described as an older sibling trying to show his friends his superiority over his little brother.

"What, Curtis?" he asked, in his usual "oh, really?" tone that he used when talking to Curtis.

"He said be sure to teleport not a few blocks away from her house, but at the end of her driveway, and that his instructions would make sense when you actually get there." Curtis said, crossing his arms in front of him. "And before you ask, I didn't nominate you."

"Excuse me?"

"I didn't nominate you."

"For what?"

"This," Curtis waved his hand around the air in front of him as he said this, "human thing."

"What makes you think I'll believe you?" Bernard asked skeptically.

"I don't want you to go."

Bernard dropped his suitcase. It was true that he thought Curtis had nominated him, but Curtis seemed genuine in what he was saying. Bernard didn't know what it was that made him seem truthful this time, and not all the other times. Maybe it was his partly scared, partly worried, and partly confused look on his face. Maybe it was that Curtis had stayed to talk to him after he had delivered Santa's message.

"I'm…well…kinda scared. I don't think I'm up to it." Curtis said, shifting his feet as he was staring at them. "The Pole is always running so smoothly with this Santa, but a lot of it is you. And most of the stuff you do isn't anywhere in the 'Santa Handbook'." He looked up to see Bernard fighting back a smile.

"Curtis," he laughed, "if you ever tell anyone that I said this, I will kill you, but you're really good at leading." Curtis' arms dropped from their fold. "And it's not as if you're going to deliver the baby yourself. Everything's going to be fine." Bernard finished, wearing a smile, and patting Curtis on the shoulder. Curtis cracked a smile himself.

"Bye, Bernard."

"Bye, Curtis." And he was gone. Curtis stood there for a second, then whispered, "Thank you."

Expecting to see a suburb, or at least a city surrounding when he finished his split second transporting, the number of trees and the sudden dirt road on his right startled him enough to almost make him fall over.

"I must be at the wrong…oh." Looking down the dirt road, he saw, hidden behind some trees, a white, two-story house. "This must have been what Santa was talking about. Thank goodness that he did. If I had landed even a block away, I would have gotten lost." He looked down the driveway, as he realized that it was now, and saw that it was quite a walk. Making sure that his telltale ears were hidden either under his hair or beneath his hat, he started walking.

Katie loved having visitors, even if they were people she didn't particularly like or were being forced upon her. Bernard's visit was even more enjoyable than most, because her dad didn't make her clean the house, as he usually did. But, considering if her father had told her to clean up everything, she still would be sitting in the window seat of the game room on the top story, waiting to see him walk down the driveway, so she could go out and greet him.

"And even though I may not want him here, that doesn't give me an excuse to make his stay miserable. Might as well make the most of it. Oh! He's here!"

She jumped up suddenly, and sprinting down the hallway, charging down the stairs, and bursting the front door open, she ran out to the tall boy that was walking halfway down the driveway. He was holding a dark brown suitcase, and he had a tan leather bag over his right shoulder. He had dark, dark and extraordinarily curly hair, most of which was covered by a…was it black, or green…hat. Once he caught sight of her, he stopped walking in the blankest looking part of the driveway, making him look very small from the slight distance that Katie was at. His shirt was a very dark, deep red with shiny gold embroidery, the thread being the same color as her golden cheek sparkles.

"Hi," she said, breathlessly. She wasn't very athletic, and just a very little running made her quite out of breath. Bernard seemed stunned at her odd greeting patterns. "Nice shirt. Love the color." she added, seeing that he wasn't saying anything. They both stood there in the chilly air, when Katie suddenly put her hand out, making Bernard jump back a bit from surprise. "Catherine Michieles, but you can call me Katie. You must be Bernard."

"Yes," he answered, warily, taking her hand and shaking it. Seeing Bernard's uneasiness, Katie's smile faded, not completely, but very rapidly, to a much lower level of happiness.

"You don't seem too happy to be here." she pointed out.

"Nope. I didn't choose to come here." he said, a smile spreading across his face. It wasn't that the situation was particularly funny, but Katie's constant smiling, even after disappointment, made his mouth want to twitch up.

"Good. We're on the same page."

"Excuse me?" Bernard was confused. He was expecting her to be really disappointed that he wasn't as eager as she seemed to be. But this was the complete opposite.

At his confused expression, the smile grew larger than it was before. "I was forced to have you by a letter. But, just because neither of us don't want to do this, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to enjoy our predicament."

The smile came onto Bernard's face of his own accord now. "I agree with you there-"

"Good!" Katie interrupted, grabbing his left hand, which was still holding the slip of paper that held her address, added "Now, let me show you where you're going to sleep," then began pulling him to the house.

"This is getting weirder and weirder every minute! Not only is he named 'Bernard', he LOOKS like him from the movies!" she thought, sitting on her bed, watching Bernard unpack his suitcase. The only bit of anything she did that was remotely like cleaning up, was that she cleared out the extra dresser she had in her unusually large room. Her dad had set up the cot for her the day before, being about as big as a normal full-sized bed.

Bernard wasn't paying much attention to what he was unpacking, as he was looking around at Katie's huge room.

"Why's your room so big? You're an only child aren't you?" he asked, accidentally picking up Katie's favorite pink sweater and placing it in the dresser.

Katie bit her lip and answered, with a very strained laugh, "My mom was going to have another baby, but it miscarried, and we had already built a new house. The baby and me were going to share this room, but my parents agreed that we should each have some privacy, so they put in the divider." At this point, she got up and half-pulled the divider out to show him. "And when it's closed, you can still get to the bathroom through that door," she pointed to the door closest to him. Then she walked past him to the dresser. Bernard's face, all the while, had quickly changed from confoundment, to impressed, then back to confounded again. But the best expression Katie ever saw on his face before or since, was when she pulled out her sweater and a green sundress from the dresser, and he turned bright pink, matching the sweater in her hand, for making such a silly mistake. Katie just laughed, then started putting Bernard's clothes into the dresser. He quickly began unpacking with her, thankful for her help. "Why did I react like that? I don't react like that, even when Curtis is present!" Looking up, he was able to see Katie's small sparkles on her cheeks. His eyes flittered up to her ears, but they were covered by her long, shoulder length hair.

"Are you wearing make-up?" he asked, before he could stop himself. Katie looked up at him, wearing an odd, neutral face. "No," she answered, her right eyebrow going up. "Why?"

"Just curious." Bernard said, trying to dismiss his second mistake.

"Do I look like I'm wearing make-up?" she asked, a mischievous smile spreading across her face. Bernard didn't see it, though. He was blushing again, looking down and quickly shoving clothes into the dresser.

Katie thought it would be best to leave that conversation at that, and picked up the red shirt he was wearing earlier. Once he got here, her dad had insisted that he should get freshened up after such a long journey, so he sent him upstairs. He took a very quick shower, and changed into similar black pants, and a long-sleeved emerald green shirt that matched his hat (which Katie found out was actually green, not black).

"Hmm. This shirt is uncannily like the one Bernard was wearing in the second movie."

Bernard looked up, seeing her staring intently at his shirt. "Anything wrong with it?" he asked, making Katie jump slightly. Laughing and putting a hand to her chest, she answered, "No, it's just a nice shirt. I like the red color."

"It's maroon."

"No, it's red."

"Well, I think it's maroon."

"Well, you think wrong. It's red."

"Maro-"

"Dinner time!" Katie's dad called from the bottom of the stairs, making both of them jump, and then end their argument there.

"At least for now." they both thought, wearing smiles as they went downstairs.