Chapter 9, The Christmas Concert and Snowballs
A lot had changed since the previous year when they made gifts for one another at the Advent workshop. While they did that this year too, everybody had transferred schools, starting middle school early, no longer being led by Principal Brown at Doodle Dale Elementary School, but now they were in Middle school, and were led by Vice Principal Pangborn, a redheaded large guy, with a tough attitude, who had a degree in Child Psychology, as well as being a pro wrestler.
Despite these changes, Zack and Kimi stuck together, even come the holidays, when they'd be playing two duets in the concert on their recorders. Oh Christmas Tree, and God Rescue Merry Gentlemen. On the night of the concert, they came dressed in holiday style. Kimi had her hair pulled back in one single ponytail, and she was wearing a long dark green dress and black high heals, while Zack wore a blue blazer, bage corderoys, and his blue tie with the red rocketships on it that Kimi had given him a few years prior. Ordinarily, he would have been embarrassed to wear such a juvenile tie in front of his other classmates, but he knew how much Kimi liked it, so he wore it, just for her.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to close this evening's concert, with two duets from two of our top recorder players in the fifth grade class. Kimi Finster, and Zack Wehrenberg." Announced Miss O'Keif, as she stepped aside, and Zack and Kimi walked out to center stage, as the audience was quieting down from applauding from the last group who performed, a string quartette who did their rendition of The Nutcracker Sweet, and the two young recorder players, got ready to play to close out the show.
This time, Zack was a little nervous, but Kimi assured him that it would all go ok, so he took a deep breath, and began. They performed their two pieces, and after they were done, as they took their bows, all of their friends, Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil and Dil, as well as Susie, all gave them standing ovations.
"Bravo Kimi, bravo!" Shouted Chuckie from the audience.
"Yeah Zack and Kimi, way to go." Shouted Tommy from the audience, who was also filming this with his camcorder.
Zack and Kimi exchanged glances, then smiled out at the audience, as everybody continued to applaud, and they turned to walk off stage.
Little did everyone know what had taken place while they were inside attending the Christmas concert. It would be one of the rare times, that these kids would get a white Christmas in Yucaipa, California, as they walked outside to find snow on the ground. Nobody wasted any time.
"Snhowball fight, come on guys." Said Phil, as he picked up a clump of snow, got it into a snowball, and threw it in his sister's face.
"Hey!" Said Lil playfully, as her cheeks turned red, throwing a snowball back at her brother.
Soon, Tommy, Dil, Chuckie, Zack and Kimi were also picking up snow and throwing snowballs at one another. Before everyone knew it, they were all throwing snowballs at one another, giggling, and having a good time.
"Got ya!" Said Kimi playfully, as a snowball landed on Zack's head.
"Well, here you go then." Said Zack, as he threw another snowball, as it landed in Kimi's face.
She brushed the snow out of her face and smiled at Zack, and he brushed the snow out of his hair and smiled back at Kimi. Soon, they noticed that the only sound was the wind and their giggles of laughter, as they looked around to find they were the only two still in the school yard, throwing snowballs at one another.
"Hey, where did everybody go?" Zack asked.
"I think they all left." Kimi replied, just as they heard a horn honking in the distance.
"Uh oh, that's the sound of my aunt's van. We'd better be going, I don't wish to keep her waiting." Said Zack, as he and Kimi made a mad dash for her van and piled in.
"Did you two have fun out in the snow?" Celeste asked, as the driverless van pulled out of the school parking lot, and they headed for Kimi's house.
"We sure did." Kimi replied.
"Yeah, I think other than the year we went to Wheeling, this had to be, my first white Christmas." Said Zack with a smile.
Kimi nodded and smiled in agreement, as if she had any other white Christmases, they were when she lived in Paris, and was too little to remember them.
"You guys did a beautiful job tonight on your duets to close out the concert." Said Celeste, as she pulled into Kimi's driveway.
"Thank you Celeste." Said Kimi, as she got out of the van.
"And thanks for driving me home." Added Kimi.
"It's no problem. You two were having so much fun in the snow together, that I offered to bring you home, and your parents were ok with that, as long as we got back here before eleven, and it's five minutes til, so I'd hurry inside if I were you." Said Celeste.
"Merry Christmas." Said Kimi, as she headed for the front door.
"Merry Christmas Kimi." Zack called after her, as he saw Kimi head inside, and he and his aunt headed for home.
Once they were home, and about to head in their separate directions to get ready for bed, Zack turned to his aunt.
"Aunty Celeste, this had to be by far, the best Christmas ever. Thanks for arranging it so Kimi and I could have a little bit of time together." Said Zack.
"It's no problem sweetie. I understand that you and Kimi are well, best friends, and I also understand that we've been so busy lately, that you two haven't had as much time to hang out. I didn't want Christmas to slip away without you two getting a few moments together, especially since I hear we're suppose to be getting more snow tomorrow, and depending on how much we get, it could cancel the Christmas party if we all end up snowed in." Said Celeste, as she turned to head towards her bedroom.
"I hope it doesn't." Zack replied, as he too, saw to heading towards his bedroom.
"Me too. Well, goodnight Zachary." Said Celeste, as she came over to her nephew and gave him a kiss on the forehead.
"Night aunty." Zack replied, as he headed to his room, where he looked out the window, and noticed it had started snowing again, as the street lights outside his window illuminated the snowflakes.
He then sat on his bed and pulled out pictures of him and Kimi from previous Christmases. There was their kiss under the mitheltoe, them curled up together on the couch at Kimi's house with Chicken Pox, along with pictures taken of them at the Christmas parties they attended together since, and the picture of Kimi all by herself at the one Zack had to miss when he and his aunt went to Wheeling, along with a picture Vicky took of him in Wheeling to send to Kimi. She made two copies, so they could both have one. Then he looked at a picture of them making gingerbread cookies together at the advent workshop, and finally, he pulled out his turtle dove, and studied it for a few minutes, before putting these momentoes back up in his top dresser drawer, and getting ready for bed.
"Every Christmas with Kimi is like magic. I wonder what next Christmas will bring?" Zack thought to himself, as he climbed into bed, and pulled the covers up over his head.
Little did he know though, what would happen to him and Kimi the following year.
And this, ends chapter 9. For people who have been following my OC Zack, you can probably guess as to what time period of Zack's life we're getting ready to approach, but I'll leave you readers to speculate, and come tomorrow, you can find out if you're right.