Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 47287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
"Oh, do you want to come to the movies with us on Saturday?" Adam asked. "We’re taking Gus to see the animated Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for the first time."
"Yes, come!" Gus said, looping her arm through theirs.
"Wish I could, Bug, but it’s Craftmas this weekend and Rye and I got a booth for the shelter."
"Right, I forgot that was this weekend," Adam said. "Maybe we should come visit you."
"What’s Craftmas?" Wes asked.
"It’s like a farmer’s market, but for Christmassy crafts, food, gifts, and stuff," Adam said. "I used to go with my mom as a little kid."
"You’re going to Craftmas?" Gus asked River. She looked horrified.
"Yeah. What?"
"Um, you hate talking to people, you hate being looked at, you hate Christmas," she said, ticking the reasons off on her fingers. "And you really hate when large groups of people are excited together."
"What? No I don’t!"
The fingers came out again. "When we watched that football game and everyone cheered, you were like, ‘Sheep’"
River couldn’t argue with her on that one.
"You left trick-or-treating early because you said it was too many people being excited all at once."
"I said it was too many people who might puke being excited too close to me," they clarified.
"And last Valentine’s Day when I asked you what kind of cards I should make for my class, you told me that Valentine’s Day capitalizes on the patriarchal dread of woman who might choose to be alone to make people exchange recyclables and hydrogenated vegetable oil."
River really couldn’t argue with that either.
"Fine, but I don’t hate Christmas."
Gus shrugged a world-weary, silent film shrug—a shrug far too old for her nine years—and said, "I guess we’ll see."
Adam gawked at Gus. "Your memory terrifies me."
Gus grinned.
CHAPTER 3
River
River: Oingo Boingo and Tillie will be good to bring, I think. They’ll stay pretty calm even if kids poke at them.
Rye: And we have to bring the kittens, right? Ppl shit themselves for kittens
River: Well by all means let’s make them shit themselves.
River: I think Boo should come too. And Peach Melba won’t let him out of her sight so she’ll invite herself.
Rye: Yeah, make sure they get adopted together.
River: Def. And then we can plan day two based on who gets adopted tomorrow.
Rye: Yup. See you there. I’ll bring coffee.
River: I’ll bring my own coffee, thanks though!
Rye: Dude, why does everyone hate my coffee?? There’s nothing wrong with it!
River: No comment.
River: My babieeees :(
Rye: I know :(
River didn’t hate Christmas.
Christmas songs were awful. Red and green looked straight-up hideous together. Eggnog was revolting. But that didn’t mean they hated Christmas.
They just didn’t like it very much.
The people who attended Craftmas? Yeah, they loved Christmas. And every year they descended upon the Whitstable Convention Center, ten miles west of Garnet Run, with enough cheer to light up a Christmas tree.
They came from far and wide, so this year, as the only no-kill shelter in a fifty-mile radius, Rye and River had decided to staff an adoption booth, hoping to place a large number of the shelter’s cats in loving homes.
It was only this that had—or could have—convinced River to vend at Craftmas.
Yeah, Gus had been irritatingly right about that too. They did hate talking to strangers. They did hate being looked at. And both at the same time while also navigating whatever bananas shit was almost guaranteed to happen around Christmas superfans? A fucking nightmare.
A long, high mew from the seat next to them announced the parking lot, already half full even though the doors didn’t open for three hours.
"That’s right," they told the cats, stroking Tillie’s soft orange fur through a small opening in her cat carrier. "I wouldn’t do this for anyone but you. So just look cute, be sweet, and don’t do anything weird."
Rye’s head and torso were sticking out a propped open door and he gestured River over as soon as they drove in.
"Hurry, hurry."
"Is this where we load in?"
"Not officially, but our table is right through here and the official entrance is way the hell over there."
He was already pulling open the van door. What it would be like to have the confidence to flout rules the way Rye did?
They cooed at the cats as they carried Millie and Oingo inside. When they’d emptied the van inside the doors, they tossed River the keys and hurried inside to see to the cats.
The huge room was bursting at the seams with the sights, smells, sounds, and emotional lability of the holidays. Tables and booths were arranged into five aisles, Christmas music piped from speakers all around, overloud and echoey in the mostly empty space. A huge Christmas tree, hung with tinsel, fairy lights, and elaborate glass ornaments sat on a platform in the center of the room, looming high above the crowd like an evergreen panopticon.
The Dirt Road Cat Shelter’s table was draped with a green tablecloth, and a folded card that said RESERVED rested on top. The table next to theirs sported a red tablecloth. On each, a single candy cane sat in front of the card.