CHAPTER 10: IF GORDO COULD WISH…

Upstairs, Gordo was aware of nothing but his own troubled thoughts. He sat on the edge of Lizzie's bed, staring at the long line of Barbies and Kens atop the dresser. The sight depressed him. He liked Lizzie, he really did, but sometimes he fervently wished she was a boy. If he was doomed to have only one good friend, why couldn't it be a guy, like he was? Why did he have to get stuck playing Barbies all the time? He felt sure he was bound to end up with a manifestation of gender issues. At least that's what he had heard his parents secretly murmuring on more than one occasion.

Gordo would have liked a friend of the same gender. At least a part of him wanted that, if only to please his parents. Deep down, though, he knew that, in general, he found boys much too competitive and confrontational. What he really imagined would suit him best would be another friend who was a girl, but not quite as frilly and emotional as Lizzie. A girl who was, maybe, a little rough around the edges. A girl with some spunk, who liked her Mary Kate and Ashley handbag in a leopard print, rather than bubblegum pink. Yeah. Even a girl like that would be nice as a friend.

These were Gordo's thoughts, which were almost a hope, almost a wish, as he let his eyes drift from the line of Barbies to the view of the night sky from Lizzie's open window. He saw the full moon, and he saw a star. If Lizzie were here, she would sing "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight…" and make a wish. Gordo sighed. He was too practical to wish upon a star. Yet even as he sighed, somewhere deep inside him, he almost dared to wish he could make that wish.

Sitting in Lizzie's room at the far end of the house, absorbed in his melancholy thoughts, Gordo did not hear what was going on in the rooms below. But Lizzie did. She heard the grownups continue to whisper in the foyer, and she sensed that something was wrong. Her dad soon joined the group, and in a voice that was not a whisper, said, "Hey! What's going on here?"

The others shushed him, casting glances at Lizzie and Matt in the living room.Okay,Lizzie thought.Something weird is definitely going on here.She was starting to feel paranoid.

But that feeling did not last long, for as soon as her father spoke and the others shushed him, there was a bold knock on the door, and her mother threw up her hands, wondering, "Now who could THAT be?" as she reached for the doorknob.

In the next instant, Lizzie heard her mom dramatically cry out, "Oh my God! I don't believe it! I just don't believe it!"

"Don't believe what?" Roberta and Howard and Sam asked in unison.

"I don't believe who's at the door! Would you like to guess? Could any of you ever in a million years guess who is at the door?" And here, she threw the door wide open and announced in a loud, astonished voice, "Well, bless my soul! It's Santa Claus!"