Bringing The Home Across the Hall

The tree had fallen halfway out the open window, where a human porcupine made of red hair, wool, pine needles, and tinsel was frantically waving the smoke off the sheet of gingerbread cookies before they set off the fire alarm again. All in all, Christmas Eve was going a lot better than last year.

Sara Lin maneuvered herself away from the window. She carefully backed out from the maze of branches, but her sweater's sleeve got stuck on a spiky glass ornament from her grandmother. As she stumbled, the charred cookies slid off the baking sheet, punching into the snow floors below.

"Ooh," Sara Lin winced. "Poor guys. No way they made it." She threw herself onto the couch, shedding tinsel.

"Da-ad! I-uh-another batch got burned. No idea what could have possibly happened. Come help me fix this!" She glanced out the apartment's open door. The wind blowing in through the open window hadn't yet snaked its cold reach into the hallway, across which...no. Sara refused to think about him. She sized up the felled fir. She pushed it upright with all the strength in her thin arms, then hit it with her elevator-button-hip-check moves. The chastised tree stood upright. Sara Lin could swear that the ornaments were tinkling at her in spiteful laughter. She stuck her tongue out, closed the window, and turned to the oven.

As Sara was putting in her third batch of gingerbread men, her dad appeared. Where the heck had he been the last chaotic ten minutes?

"Dad. Have you been listening to Maria Carrie in your room again? You know my feelings about her."

"Well, Sara, we all have to face our fears someday. For you, that might be Ms. Carrie's lovely, glass-breaking soprano. Or maybe it's those boys across the hall."

Sara slammed the oven door shut with vindictive force.

"What do I care about them? It's not my fault they live so close."

"Hmm, is that the only problem?"

"Well, it's not my fault Joe asked me out again the last day before break! Honestly, I don't know what he was thinking. He probably wasn't. Or maybe his mind was on Vicky. They've been all lovey-dovey since Lulu hosted that creepy party. Ugh. I don't care if he likes me anymore! He should just give up and go for her."

Sara Lin suddenly stopped her rant. Blushing, from the warmth of the oven, of course, not embarrassment, she glanced around to see if her dad had heard all of that. He was nowhere to be seen, and there were small, suspiciously high-pitched, Christmas-carollish noises coming from his bedroom. She relaxed, leaning on the counter. She looked down. Spelled out in snakes of gingerbread: TALK TO HIM. She hammered the letters into a solid sheet, sliced it into different shapes, and pushed it in the oven with its humanoid cookie-brethren.

She retreated to her room, sprawling on her bed.

"I just wanted to not...fail...math. And look what happened. I have to deal with stupid subwayboy and his stupid brother and his obsession with my cousin! And I can't even talk to Patrick, now that Tammy's all over him." She gazed at the scribble-covered pages on her walls.

"I thought it would help to write everything out. For a while, everything felt so...clear. It was like I could see everything from outside myself. I could move freely." She turned over, a pillow muffling her voice. "And now I'm stuck again! Someone, give me a sign!" An image appeared in her mind of gingerbread letters sloppily laid on the counter.

"No way that counts. It was just my dad."

From the coffee table in her floor, she heard her text tone. She flopped over to check it. She didn't recognize the number. Apprehensive, she opened to the message.