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“You’ll see when it’s done.”

“You want my necklace? You show me now,” she says.

“Extortion is not very Christmassy, now is it, kids?” I ask the children at her table.

“What’s extortion?” a curly-haired girl around five years old asks.

“It’s being mean to me,” I reply, and I stick my bottom lip out.

“Don’t be mean, Miss Hannah. Santa is watching,” she whisper-shouts.

“Yeah, Miss Hannah. You don’t want to find yourself on the Naughty List,” I say.

She rolls her eyes at my grin and reaches into one of the bins to find a mini strand of battery-operated lights.

“Whose extorting who now?” she asks as she hands them to me.

“I’ll make it up to you later,” I promise before returning to my table.

I curl the string of colorful lights around my cat carcass and glue it in place.

“What is that?” one of the boys asks.

“It’s Aunt Bethany’s cat fromChristmas Vacation,” I say.

“Whose cat?” another one asks.

“Aunt Bethany’s cat that she wrapped in a box, which later electrocutes itself.”

They stare at me in confusion.

“Aunt Bethany and Uncle Lewis. Cousin Eddie? Clark Griswold? None of that rings a bell?” I ask.

They shake their heads.

“National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacationis a classic. How have you guys not seen it?”

I turn to Keller. “We can’t let this stand. Movie night here on Sunday.”

I look back to the boys. “You guys in?”

“Yeah!”

“You’d better clear that with Willa,” Keller mutters.

“I’ll take care of it. You guys just meet us down here after dinner. I’ll bring the snacks.”

I narrowly lost the contest to Mr. Patterson, who presented a truly gnarly sweater, consisting of a fruitcake constructed from fuzzy tinsel garland and the wordsFruitcake Suckswritten in glitter.

“I was robbed. His might have technically been more difficult, but come on. Mine was cleverer,” I mutter so only Hannah can hear me.

She turns to me. “Cleverer?”

I shrug.

“Where’s your sweater? I didn’t see it when Hal was judging,” I ask.

“I didn’t make one. I made something for you instead,” she says.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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