Last Christmas (Book 1 in the Christmas Series)

Chapter Twelve

I wish I could say that nearly revealing our secret was worth the extra rehearsal time we had, but I would be lying. The extra rehearsal time didn't stay as rehearsal time for very long, as much as I wished it had. When we stopped for lunch, the conversation immediately turned to me and what it was like living in the barren wastelands of the Canadian mountains. Yeah, considering I had never lived in Canada, it was difficult to make up lies that fitted the situation. Luckily, the whole constant snow and lack of people thing helped feed the lie and make them more convincing, well, I thought they were convincing.

Joel kept watching me out of the corner of his eye, like he was waiting for me to slip or something. Whether he had clocked on to the lies, or he just felt the need to stare at me, I don't know. What I do know, however, was that it was remarkably unnerving and creepy. Imagine just having a normal conversation -full of lies- and having someone stare at you from across the room. Honestly, it took every snowflake within me not to tell him to stop watching me. But I didn't. I let him stare. After all, I am a fabulous person to look at.

By the time Granny and Grandpa returned home, we had only blocked out three new scenes and they weren't even half decent. We were all too hyped up on sugar to give a snowballs about our failed rehearsal attempt. Well, they might have been hyped up on sure, but I was distracted by the cut on my hand and the fact that the plaster refused to stay stuck. It was definitely going to pose a problem for the rest of the day, and perhaps the future, but I doubted that very much. Ya know, North Pole magic and so forth.

By the time Monday rolled around, I was fed up with constantly changing the plaster and was tempted to go rogue, only I couldn't. If it suddenly decided to heal itself, I was going to have to explain how a deep cut on my hand had vanished like it was never there to begin with. That would cause some serious issues and probably lead to a thousand questions from Joel, who was already acting odd around me. I don't know whether I was just being paranoid, but I had a feeling Joel might have caught on to our little secret, but until he said something, I was keeping my mouth shut.

Even in Monday's Drama lesson, he was acting strange, well, stranger than normal. He had been so into our Drama project that it was the only lesson I heard him speak more than three words, but on that Monday he didn't even say two. Not even when we prompted him half a dozen times for his line. He just stood there and stared. Well, sat there and stared is more accurate. Without him moving, it was impossible for us to get anything done since we needed the floor. He was really threatening our chance of winning.

"What's going on with you Joel? Get out on the wrong side of the bed this morning or something?" Leo asked, running a hand through his hair in frustration. We were all mad at Joel, but Leo was angry beyond belief. I didn't think he cared much about Drama, to be honest. More of a baker, but perhaps I misjudged him.

"Nothin'. I just don't see the point in all this, none of us really wanna be 'ere, right? You only 'ave to look at the little we did on Saturday," Joel replied, his accent growing stronger with every passing word.

"If you have a problem, Joel, talk to Jason and see if you can trade groups, you're just being a grump by sticking around somewhere you don't want to be," Leo said.

"I asked this mornin', wouldn't let me change groups, reckons it's too late."

"Right now, Joel, you're the one stopping us from doing anything. Yeah, we might not have done very much on Saturday, but it was early and we all had a little too much sugar to concentrate on anything. If you'd get yourself in gear and maybe take control, we might make some progress. Stop complaining and try to do something about it," I eventually said, getting frustrated with his comments.

"Wha' me? Direct?"

"Yeah, if you're that bothered by our lack of anything, take control."

I had never told anyone what to do beyond the constant call for Nick to keep his mouth shut so speaking out of turn towards Joel was as shocking to me as it was to anyone else. I don't know if it was because of Joel's attitude or because he kept watching my every movement, nothing could fully explain why I acted the way I did. To be honest, I wish it was due to his actions, but in retrospect, it was more like a combination of both. His attitude was one thing, of course it was, but his constant need to observe was another, put them together and it was like being back at home.