Free Jingle Boy by Kieran Scott Page A

his patrons with a bloody Christmas massacre.
    “And that lip gloss she wears,
man
!” He inhaled slowly and closed his eyes in bliss as if he were smelling that strawberry goodness right then and there. “It tastes
so
good. . . .”
    My hands clenched into big red fists on the armrests of the throne. I was going to overheat. I was going to melt out of my skin. My back stuck to the T-shirt I wore under my costume and every inch of my body was bathed in sweat. My eyes stung as I glared down at the screaming little boy and all the other kids grasping their mothers’ hands, jabbering on about what they wanted, what they
had
to have. Overhead, “White Christmas” poured from the crackling speakers for the fifth time that hour, raising all the hairs on the back of my neck with its unabashed optimism. What was Bing Crosby crooning about? This holiday was a joke. The decorations were garish and offensive, the kids were all greedy little monkeys, the guys in the Santa suits were pathetic teenagers who were trying to sell CDs to an unsuspecting public and fighting over girls!
    “. . . and I don’t think it’s gonna be long before she gives it
all
up, if ya know what I mean—”
    That was it. I snapped. I started to push myself away from the Santa throne and was about to turn and grab Scooby right by that Adam’s apple when—
    “Okay, Paul, your shift’s over.”
    I blinked. There, standing in front of me, was Eve Elias, the elf who had been working the line, her golden blond hair tied into two long braids. I cooled off the instant I saw her. Little did she know she’d just saved us all from appearing on the six o’clock news.
    “I already put up the sign, so you can go in the shack and change,” she said, gesturing behind her at the red ropes and the little wooden sign that read, Santa Will Be Back in Fifteen Minutes. The screaming kid had calmed down now that his impending doom had been postponed.
    “Thanks,” I said, shakily pushing myself out of the chair and trudging over to the Santa Shack. The second the door was closed, I yanked off the beard and hat and felt the cool mall air chill my wet scalp. I peeled off the suit and sure enough, my T-shirt and boxers clung to me. When I pulled the fabric away, the air rushed over my skin, chilling out my temper as well as my body.
    Okay. Everything was going to be okay.
    The door banged open and Scooby came in. He looked me up and down and let out a cackle.
    “Been swimming?” he asked, popping open his locker and grabbing his Santa suit. I turned my back to him and hustled into my jeans and sneakers, then grabbed my sweater and bailed. The last thing I needed to see was a half-naked Scooby.
    Holly was supposed to be picking me up in fifteen minutes, but I couldn’t wait. I went to grab my cell phone to see if she was on her way and stopped. Tipping back my head, I let out a strangled moan. My jacket. I’d left my jacket in the Santa Shack.
    I stalked back to the North Pole and up to the shack, where I yanked open the back door. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw inside—Scooby, in all his scrawny paleness, flexing nonexistent muscles in front of the mirror, wearing a pair of black boxers with the words
Love Machine
printed across the butt in red glitter.
    Much to my surprise, Scooby didn’t even flinch when he saw me standing there. He didn’t blush. He didn’t grab his clothing. He simply turned, did a bodybuilder tricep flex (again, nothing to flex), and looked up at me.
    “You all right, loser?” he asked. “Now that you know what your girl is gettin’?”
    I reached over to the chair in the corner, picked up my jacket, and left without a word. Scooby was, without a doubt, the biggest dork I’d ever come across in all my seventeen years. And somehow, for some reason, Sarah had chosen this sorry excuse for a human over me. Part of me knew I should just write them off right then and there. Scooby was obviously pathetic and Sarah must be