Calling Birds
Wednesday Addams hated the festive season. It was bright, obnoxious, capitalist and in short, a dreadfully protracted affair. Her only saving grace was her family who made it all but bearable. And the gifts, she enjoyed the gifts. She stared at the poster in front of her. An amateur work of art, printed in the school reprographics room, to encourage the need of the student body to celebrate this season with the dreaded adolescent torture; the school dance. She felt her soul rot a little as she thought of the horror of the school dance. Her parent's always held their annual Christmas eve ball and that was terribly social enough without this being added to her mournful seasonal experience.
"Ohhh but Brittanny, it's going to be so awesome."
Wednesday cringed inwardly. Awesome. She wasn't sure where her loathing for this word had begun but she was positive that it must have been around her junior year. It appeared to her that you had to use this word to have a chance of being remotely tolerated in high school. You also had to have blonde hair and father's who drove Mercedes. All of these she could live, and survive, without.
She turned her pigtailed head to look at the bunch of over-perfumed, over-zealous girls at her side. All four of them were breathtakingly stupid as they called out to each other about what outfits they might choose to wear or what boy they might go with. It was not lost on Wednesday how detached she was from these four girls, squawking loudly and to each other like demented pigeons. But oddly, unlike any other reject, it did not make her feel sad. In fact she felt an upsurge of true happiness as she thought of the party her parents would hold and how herself and her brother would intentionally poison a relative and take a wager on who went into anaphylactic shock first. And Lucas would be there. Perhaps that was her saving grace; she need not worry about what she would wear. He didn't care anyway; he loved her because she didn't worry about things like that. And she may even permit him to dance with her. She looked more forward to that moment when she could stare out into the ballroom and see her parent's dancing, her uncle chewing on a light bulb, her grandma drinking from a bottle of sherry and think that it was the festive season that she most enjoyed; if only for a moment. The school dance could have their calling birds; she had the most woeful festive season and Addams could wish for.