“Awesome. They’l go great with your winter hat.”

My winter head-warming accessory of choice is a vintage red knit hat with pom-poms dangling down from the ears. It’s “vintage” in the sense of

being a hat I made for my fourth-grade school Christmas pageant production of A Christmas Carol(ing) A-go-go, the Dickens-inspired disco musical

being a hat I made for my fourth-grade school Christmas pageant production of A Christmas Carol(ing) A-go-go, the Dickens-inspired disco musical

I had to heavily lobby our school principal to al ow to be staged. Some people are so rigidly secular.

My out t complete, I walked outside toward the subway. I almost returned inside to change my shoes from the majoret e boots to my old

familiar Chucks, but the tapping noises from my feet hit ing the pavement were comfortingly festive, so I didn’t, even though the boots were too

big and my feet kept almost walking right out of them. (These boots were made for … slipping out of … la la la … ha ha ha.)

I had to acknowledge that despite my excitement to fol ow the trail of mystery snarl, any boy who left me a ticket to see Gramma Got Run Over

by a Reindeer would unlikely turn out to be a keeper. The title, quite simply, o ended me. Langston says I should have a bet er sense of humor

about these things, but I don’t see what’s so funny about the idea of a reindeer going after one of our senior friends. It is a known fact that reindeers are herbivores who subsist on plant life and shun meat, so I hardly think they’d be gunning for someone’s gramma. It upset me to think

about a reindeer harming Gramma, because we al know that if that happened in the real world and not in the movies, then the Wildlife Service

would go hunting for that reindeer and do away with the poor antlered guy when it was probably Gramma’s fault get ing in his way like that! She

always forgets to wear her glasses and osteoporosis hunches her walk and slows her down. She’s like a walking bul ’s-eye for dear ol’ Bambi!

I gured the whole point of bothering going to the movie at al would be to possibly get a look at mystery boy. But the dares he’d left inside my

stocking with the Moleskine notebook, on a Post-it note placed onto the movie ticket, had said:

DON’T read what I wrote in the notebook until you’re at the theater.

DO write down your worst Christmas memory in the notebook.

DON’T leave out the most horri c details.

DO leave the notebook behind for me, behind Mama’s behind.

Thank you.

I believe in honor. I didn’t read the notebook ahead of time, which would be like peeking in your parents’ closet to see your Christmas present

stash, and I vowed to hold o reading it until after the movie.

As prepared as I’d been to dislike Gramma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, I was completely unprepared for what I’d nd at the cinema. Outside

the theater showing this particular movie, there were rows of strol ers in uniform formation against the wal . Inside was complete pandemonium.

The 10 a.m. show, apparently, was the Mommy and Me viewing, where moms could bring their babies and toddlers to watch real y inappropriate

movies while the lit le ones babbled and burped and cried to their hearts’ content. The theater was a cacophony of “Wah wah” and “Mommy, I

want …” and “No!” and “Mine!” I barely had a chance to pay at ention to the movie, what with having Gold sh crackers and Cheerios thrown in

my hair from the aisles behind me, watching Legos hurl through the air, and unsticking Great-aunt Ida’s taps from the sippy cup liquid spil age on

the oor.

Children frighten me. I mean, I appreciate them on a cute aesthetic level, but they’re very demanding and unreasonable creatures and often smel

funny. I can’t believe I ever was one. Hard to believe, but I was more put o by the movie theater than the movie. I only made it through twenty

minutes of watching the black comedian man playing a fat mama on the screen while rows of mommies tried to negotiate with their toddlers in

the seats before I couldn’t take it any longer.

I got up from my seat and went outside the movie theater to get some peace and quiet in the lobby so I could nal y read the notebook. But two

mommies returning from taking their toddlers to the pot y accosted me before I could dig in.

“I just love your boots. They’re adorable!”

“Where did you get that hat? Adorable!”

“I AM NOT ADORABLE!” I shrieked. “I’M JUST A LILY!”

The mommies stepped back. One of them said, “Lily, please tel your mommy to get you an Adderal prescription,” as the other tsk-tsk’d. They

quickly hustled their tykes back into the cinema and away from the Shrieking Lily.

I found a hiding place behind a huge, standing cardboard cutout advertisement for Gramma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. I sat down cross-legged

behind the cutout and opened the notebook. Final y.

His words made me so sad.

But they made me especial y glad I’d got en up at four that morning to make him cookies. Mom and I had been making the dough al month and

storing it in the freezer, so al I’d had to do was thaw out the various avors, place them in the cookie press, and bake. Voilà! I made a cornucopia

tin of spritz cookies in al the available avors (a strong a rmation of faith that Snarl would be worthy of such e orts): chocolate snow ake,

eggnog, gingerbread, lebkuchen spice, mint kiss, and pumpkin. I’d decorated the spritz cookies with appropriate sprinkles and candies according to

each one’s avor and wrapped a bow around the cookie tin.

I took out my headphones and tuned my iPod to Handel’s Messiah so I could concentrate on writing. I resisted the urge to mock-conduct with the

pen in my hand. Instead, I answered Mystery Boy’s question.

My only bad Christmas was the year I was six.

That was the year that my pet gerbil died in a horrible incident at show-and-tel at school about a week before Christmas break.

I know, I know, it sounds funny. It wasn’t. It was actual y a gruesome massacre.

I’m sorry, but despite your DON’T request, I must leave out the horri c details. The memory is stil that vivid and upset ing to me.

The part that real y scarred me—separate from the guilt and loss of my pet, of course—was that I earned a nickname after the incident. I had

screamed like heck when it happened, but my rage, and grief, were so big, and real, even to such a lit le person, that I couldn’t make myself STOP

screaming. Anyone at school who tried to touch or talk to me, I just screamed. It was like basic instinct. I couldn’t help myself.

That was the week I became known at school as Shril y. That name would stay with me through elementary and middle school, until my parents

nal y moved me to a private school for high school.

But that particular Christmas was my rst week as Shril y. That holiday, I mourned not only the loss of my gerbil but also that bizarre kind of

innocence that kids have, believing they can always t in.

That was the Christmas I nal y understood what I’d heard family members whisper in worry about me: that I was too sensitive, too delicate.

Di erent.

It was the Christmas I realized Shril y was the reason I didn’t get invited to birthday parties, or why I always got picked last for teams.

It was the Christmas I realized I was the weird girl.

When I nished writing my answer, I stood up. I realized I had no idea what Mystery Boy had meant by tel ing me to leave the notebook behind

Mama’s behind. Was I supposed to leave it on the stage in front of the screen showing the movie?

I looked over to the concession stand, wondering if I should ask for help. The popcorn looked especial y yummy, so I went to get some, nearly

knocking over the cardboard cutout in my hungry stomach’s sudden urgency. That’s when I saw it: Mama’s behind. I was already behind it. The