A White Christmas

   This is a story I wrote for my Drama class and I to perform. I'm also going to make it into a script, but you'll have to wait for that one!

A White Christmas

Every morning, before Sarah went to school, she laid in her bed. In her plaid skirt with pale leggings and plain blue, button up t-shirt, she waited for her mom to call her down for breakfast. Today was the last day of school, and then they would be on Christmas break! She glanced up at her calendar, a bunch of little, red checkmarks were over the majority of the boxes.

“Today’s the last day of school,” she whispered to herself. “I can’t wait to ask my parents!”

“Sarah! Come down for breakfast!” Her mom called to her.

Sarah responded “Coming!”

There was chatter all around the table when she walked into the room. Her younger twin sisters, Isabelle and Annabelle were laughing at each other’s bad Christmas jokes. Sarah’s older brother, Jonathon was visiting them from college, and was talking to their Dad about politics. Sarah’s Mom was still serving the delicious bacon and scrambled eggs when she came into the room. In the middle of the table, there was a pretty blue, purple and white striped vase that her sisters had made for Mom for Christmas last year, and it was filled to the brim with poinsettias.

As Sarah passed she patted each of the twins on their head calling them by her pet name.

“Morning, Belles!”

“Morning!” they responded together.

She sat down at her place, and waited to ask the question that had been on her mind all night.

“Um… can I ask you and Dad something?”

“Of course.” Her Mom replied with a smile. Everyone went silent when there was a question that required both Mom and Dad to listen.

“Jessica and her family are going away on Christmas, she’s allowed to take one friend, and she wants me to come! Can I?”

There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation after she had finished.

“No!” Her parents answered in unison.

“Why? I’m thirteen! You can’t just lock me up here!”

“Because, Christmas is about spending time with your family, you can’t just go off without us!” Dad explained.

“And plus, you’ll miss the Candlelight service at church!” Mom added.

“But it’s snowing in Colorado!”

“Colorado!” Mom exclaimed

“No! Definitely not! That’s too far!” Dad replied in his I-won’t-change-my-mind voice.

“I’ve never seen snow! It never snows on this… this rock!” Sarah angrily retorted, hitting the table.

“Sarah, that’s enough. Family is more important than snow!”

 There was silence after that as Sarah got up, cleared her plate, and ran out to the bus that was waiting for Sarah and her little sisters.

She slumped in the bus, refusing to cry. The twins didn’t even notice.

“Sarah! Sarah!” Jessica yelled from across the parking lot, running towards Sarah.

“Hey,” Sarah responded sadly after Jessica had reached her, but she wasn’t playing attention.

“What did your parents say? Will they let you come?”

“No!” Sarah grunted.

“What? Why not?” She sounded hurt.

“They say family is more important!

“Oh. Well who am I going to ask then?”

“Don’t know, but it won’t be me!”

Sarah sat down to have lunch; today the cafeteria was serving lasagna and salad. Jessica plopped herself right down next to her. They sat in silence for he entire of lunch. When they went to get water together they walked past the backpacks, Jessica’s looked larger than usual.

“Stop for a second.” Jessica said.

 “Why?”

“Just close your eyes.”

“OK…” Sarah responded doubtfully, closing her eyes.

Sarah heard the sound of a zipper unzipping, and the sound of tugging on fabric.

“Can I open?”

“Not yet!”

 Sarah sighed, “When?”

“Hold on!”

“Fine!”

There was a moment of silence before Jessica had finished what she was doing.

“OK! You can open your eyes now!”

As Sarah opened her eyes she saw a flash of her favorite color, teal!  Hanging, by the shoulders, from her best friends hands, was a beautiful, padded ski jacket!

“I got it for you. Now that your not coming it won’t be of any use to you, but I still wanted you to have it!”

            “Teal’s my favorite color! You know me so much better than my parents!”

            Jessica dropped the jacket to embrace her friend.

            Sarah had an idea, “I’ll hang it up on my wall!”

            “That’s a good place for it!” Jessica said, smiling.

           

            “See you after Christmas break!” Jessica called as she got into her mom’s car.

            “Bye! Have a fun trip!” Sarah replied. Jessica only smiled weakly.

           

            Sarah held the door open for her sisters, and hung the coat over her arm, and waited for her parents to notice.

            “What do you have there?” Jonathon asked.

            “A ski jacket,” Sarah responded.

            “Why would you…”

“It was supposed to be for Colorado!” She interrupted, before he could say another word she was off. “Tell Mom and Dad I’m home!”

            Sarah sat down on her bed, in her beautiful scarlet dress with silver lining, and stared at the wall with her calendar on it.

            “Christmas eve…” Sarah sighed to herself. Thinking of how Jessica was probably in Colorado by now! She blinked once to try to keep herself awake, but decided it wasn’t worth it and quickly laid down and tucked herself in.

            Sarah suddenly heard the awful sound of her creaky window, being pulled open from the outside! She let out a sigh of relief when Jessica and her Mom’s faces came into view!

            “What are you doing here? Its like… 2:00 in the morning!” Sarah whispered in a harsh tone, pausing to look at her watch.

            “We’re her to get you so you can come to Colorado! Come quick, hop in the car!” Jessica’s mom, Mrs. Miller replied.

            “Really! Here let me pack my stuff!”

            “It’s OK, we bought you some things! Just get in,” Jessica added, “Oh, and bring you ski jacket!”

            By the time they were on the plane Jessica had explained that her dad and little sister were already there, at a log cabin that they were renting. As well as the whole agenda of what they were going to do for the next week. Sarah was so excited, and so was Jessica!

“You got her! You got her!” screamed Jessica’s little sister, Catherine, who was running out the door and into Sarah’s outstretched arms. She picked her up and twirled her around in a circle until they got dizzy and fell into the snow, “Hi Catherine!”

“How’d you escape?”

“Through my window,”

“Wow! I wish I was there to help,” Catherine said, crossing her arms and pouting.

“Come everyone, let’s get inside and warm up by the fire.” Mrs. Miller called.

That night, when everyone was asleep, Sarah tossed and turned and thought. Why can’t I sleep? It just doesn’t make sense; I’m really tired because I didn’t really sleep last night.

“Hey girls did you sleep well last night?” Mrs. Miller asked.

“Yes,” Sarah lied, and her face showed it, but everyone was doing something else and couldn’t see her face.

“Good, because today, we’re going skiing!” Mr. Miller replied excitedly!

“Aren’t we going to open presents first? It’s Christmas!” Catherine wined.

“They’re back home because we couldn’t bring them. We’ll open them when we get back,” Mrs. Miller explained.

“I’ll be back, I need to use the bathroom,” Sarah said.

“OK, the bacon’s almost ready though,”

“No presents either! Mom and Dad are going to be too upset to give me my gifts, and they’ll give them to the Bells!” Sarah whispered to herself, wiping her tears away. “But maybe they deserve it, because I certainly don’t!”

“Standing at the top of this mountain feels like we’re standing on the top of the world!” Sarah yelled over the wind to Jessica, who was standing next to her.

“I know right? Ready to ski?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be!”

“Let’s go!”

With a big surge of courage, Sarah pushed off with the ski poles and instantly it felt like she was flying! She rushed around the bends on the path and dodged the mini mounds of snow that were scattered all the way down the path. Jessica overtook her in one swift movement and the race had started, but as Sarah began to go faster, she lost control of the situation and swerved of the side of the path and into the bush! She landed badly on her right leg and heard a loud snap!

“Ow! Jessica! Jessica!” Sarah screamed and screamed, sobbing into her beautiful, teal ski jacket. “Jessica help! I’m hurt! I can’t move! Please help!”

Sarah waited another twenty minutes before she heard Jessica running up the mountain! Sarah’s voice was weak after yelling for those twenty minutes!

“I’m here!”

“Sarah?” Jessica panted.

“Yes! Jessica! I’m here!”

Jessica jumped off of the path and landed next to Sarah.

“Oh no! Your leg!” Jessica’s eyes stretched open as she gazed at Sarah’s leg. It was bent at an unnatural angle and obviously painful!

“Here, let me help you onto the path.” It was a hard task, but eventually Sarah was on the side of the ski route.

“Stay here, I’ll get Mom and Dad!”

“OK,” Sarah watched as Jessica rushed down the hill to where her skis were, put them on, and continued on her way down the mountain.

“Mom!” Sarah called as loudly as she could, “Dad!” She began to sob. “I need you!”

Sarah then bolted upright and looked around her, she was in her bed, in her room! The teal ski jacket was on the wall, next to her calendar. Which told her that today was the 24^th of December, but it was wrong because today was Christmas day! Sarah sighed and then laughed, “It was just a dream!” She humed the tune of ‘Jingle bells’ as she went and ‘X’ed out the 25^th on her calender.

She rushed into the living room, where a giant Christmas tree sat, surrounded by presents, was covered in candy canes with red and white ornaments as well as tinsel and a beautiful golden angel at the top of tree! Her Mom and Dad were sitting on the couch waiting for the Isabelle, Annabelle, and Jonathon to wake up. There was a pot of water, boiling, for hot chocolate, and the smell of cinnamon filled the air!

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

“For what?” Questioned Dad, even though he knew why.

“For being so rude lately! Your right, Christmas is about spending time with your family, and I was wrong to yell at you.”

“What a relief! I was worried that we were going to have to leave you here with your grandmother!” Mom laughed.

“What do you mean?”

“Well we were going to wait till everyone was awake, but you can get a sneak peak!” Dad said, winking at Mom.

Dad handed Sarah a little, brown envelope and waited for Sarah to respond.

Sarah doubtfully looked at the envelope in her hands, turning it over she opened it. Sarah gasped in shock when she realized that the little slip of paper in her hand with the letters Denver, Colorado on it was a plane ticket! She fanned out the tickets and counted them: six! Six tickets to go to Denver, Colorado!

“You got tickets for us all to go skiing!”

Welcome to my life!