Splinters: Part One

Part One | 22

Chapter 22

Christmas

"Brady! Brady!"

The movement of my bed felt like an earthquake and the screaming in my head made it that much worse. My eyes squinted open as I flopped up and down on the mattress. Suddenly, arms were pushing against my back.

"Wake up, Brady! C'mon, wake up!"

I turned over to catch Net jumping on my bed, Eda just at my right, covering her mouth as she giggled.

"What?" I grunted.

"It's Christmas! C'mon!" Net sang, jumping off and leaving the room with Eda right behind her

"Christmas?"

But they'd already left from excitement. I propped myself up by my elbows and looked out the window. Even more snow had fallen overnight and I wanted to groan. I laid back down and tried to go back to sleep.

Wait.

Christmas.

I sat up. It's Christmas. It's Christmas Day. Each and every one of us at the orphanage would get two to three gifts that were donated from schools and stuff. They were never things a kid actually wanted, but it was nice to know that there were charities for us, that strangers cared about our existence when our own parents didn't.

But now... Now I had a family... So that meant...

I got up slowly and cautiously left my room. The loud voices of my sisters came from all the way down stairs. I made my way towards them, and just as I expected...

The Christmas tree the entire family had built two weeks ago stood with its glimmering ornaments and bright small lights, but unlike the time we built it, there were presents. Everywhere.

"Merry Christmas!" everyone shouted.

I jumped as Melissa came towards me, holding a recording camera in her right hand.

"Merry Christmas, Brayden."

"Merry Christmas," I shyly replied, looking around.

"C'mon, Brayden! Open one!" Beau handed me a wrapped box-like present and jumped excitedly when I took it from her.

"O-okay." I slowly unwrapped it to find a pair of dark blue head phones.

Beats. People couldn't stop talking about them at Constance. Zech especially, boasted all about his new pair a month ago.

"B-beats?" I asked.

Melissa frowned, pointing to another present. "You were supposed to open the one under it first."

Net got it for me. I did the same process opening the gift and couldn't hide my smile when I found an iPod.

And then after that, everyone else began opening their own gifts. Ursanne got some acrylic paint and brushes along with a few new canvases and some clothes. Odera got some movies and large vintage music records (how our parents got them, I have no idea). Beau got her first phone and some shoes along with a new bed set that had polka dots on it. Eda got a few board games that she's always wanted with some books and little Net got a whole set of dress-up princess costumes and an entirely new Aurora doll. I was glad; Net's old Aurora doll needed a magical brush to fix the nest she had as hair. She asked me if I could fix it, but I don't think an actual hair stylist could do anything to it.

Suddenly, our front doors opened.

"I hope we're not late!"

"Grandma!"