[Source: Adapted from Italian Food Forever (website)]

Chapter Thirteen

Charlie woke up first, just as it was getting light outside. He lay quietly in his bunk and took stock of his roommates. There were André and Angelica, spending Christmas here because their mom was away. Then there were his girl cousins, Bernie and Nan, in a bunk they’d already decorated with sparkly beads and a few ornaments.

Fisher and Goose, the twins, were in the double lower bunk under Charlie. Peering over the edge of his bed, Charlie saw that they lay in a tangled heap, as if they’d fought each other and both lost.

It was fun to wake up in a roomful of kids, like being back at camp. At the base in Oklahoma, Charlie had his own room. His mom said he’d have his own room in Japan, too, but she warned that it was going to be kind of small—everything in Japan was smaller—with barely enough space for one kid, let alone seven.

He knew both his mom and his dad would say how lucky he was to have the chance to live in two such different places. Most kids had the same house, same room, same neighborhood all the time. So living in two completely different places was lucky.

Of course, deep down inside, Charlie knew that was something parents said to their kids to help them get over Divorce.

And even deeper down inside, Charlie knew that lucky really meant he didn’t get any choice in the matter, so he might as well get used to it.

It meant waking up in the morning and missing his mom, and even his little sister, and knowing they were a zillion miles away. And it meant feeling the same way about his dad when he was with his mom. And it meant knowing things were never going to change, because this was his life whether he liked it or not.

But he felt even more sorry for André and Angelica. Their mom was away, and they had no family at all for Christmas. It must feel awful.

This morning, though, it was not so hard to feel a bubble of happiness about pretty much everything. He could look out the window and see nothing but deep snow and deep woods, the perfect picture for Christmas. And he could look across the room and see his best friend, André, just waking up and blinking in the snow-bright light.

“Psst,” whispered Charlie. “Hey.”

“Hey,” said André, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. His hair looked like a curly mop. André called it nappy hair and said it was on account of him being mixed race. Not biracial like Charlie’s aunt Sonnet, but really mixed. He had a grandmother from French Haiti and a grandfather from Mexico, and his other grandma was black. He said he didn’t know anything about his other grandpa.

All André had ever said about his dad was that he was white. And mean.

“What’s that smell?” André inhaled, his eyes no longer sleepy.

Charlie inhaled, too. Coffee and bacon and something sweet. “That,” he said, “is the smell of good news for us. It’s the smell of epic breakfast.”

“Yeah? What’s an epic breakfast?”

“Every kind of good food in the whole world. My dad likes to make epic breakfast before a ski day. Let’s go down and I’ll show you.”

They were both wearing their ninja pajamas, so they fell into their roles as easily as donning their cloaks of invisibility. They sneaked out of their bunks, moving as stealthily as ninja warriors on a mission. The other kids didn’t stir, for André and Charlie were as silent as the wind itself. Out the door and down the hall they went, passing the closed doors of the other guestrooms.

Charlie was still getting used to his dad’s new place on the mountain. It was definitely the biggest house they had ever lived in, even bigger than his grandparents’ place in Florida or their house in Montauk on Long Island. This house, his dad had explained, had been built as the resort’s first guest lodge, but it was converted into a house when the bigger hotel had been built.

André motioned for Charlie to crouch down to maintain their stealthy approach. Christmas carols were playing on the radio, and Dad was singing along. Peeking around the corner, Charlie spotted Aunt India and her friend Darcy. Although judging by last night, Darcy was turning into Dad’s friend. As in his girlfriend.

His dad had had lots of girlfriends since the divorce. There was Daphne, who had been cool, with pink hair and tattoos, but she and Dad didn’t work out because she declared that she was Never Having Kids. Then there was Karma, who taught yoga and was a vegan and had to leave the house whenever Dad cooked bacon. Charlie had liked Tina, who was fun and goofy but she had two bratty daughters who were mean to Charlie behind their mom’s back.

After that, Dad got busy with other stuff, like moving up to the mountain and taking over the ski area, and there was no more dating. That was probably about to change. Charlie wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but like everything else in the grown-up world, his opinion didn’t count.

He and André slithered closer. The smell of bacon lured them down the hallway. “Deck the Halls” came on the radio and all three of them—his dad, India and Darcy—sang along.

Charlie spotted the target—a tray of bacon just off the grill, sitting on a platter lined with paper towels—and they belly-crawled toward it.

“‘Don we now our gay apparel,’” sang the radio.

“I love that line,” said Darcy.

“But what’s gay apparel, anyway?” asked Aunt India.

“I think,” said Dad, “it looks like something like this.” And without warning, a large hand swooped down, grabbing Charlie around the waist and hoisting him to his feet.

Charlie yelled and started laughing. “We were trying to sneak up on you,” he said.

“Because we’re starving,” added André.

“Then we’d better feed you warriors,” said Dad.

They climbed up on a pair of bar stools at the counter and regarded the feast. “See what I mean?” Charlie murmured to André. “Epic.”

In addition to the bacon, there was a big dish of berries and a tray of eggnog pancakes, which Dad only made at Christmastime. The maple syrup was warm and served in a pitcher, and there were big glasses of cold milk to drink. There was cereal, fruit, eggs and potatoes, a tray of pastries and bright red berry juice. Charlie was in heaven.

“He said your breakfast is epic,” said Darcy.

“He’s right,” said Dad. “Try this.” He fed her a bite of eggnog pancake, dipped in syrup.

She made a funny face, eyes crossed, hand over heart. “It’s like I’ve seen the face of God,” she said.

Darcy was funny. She seemed nice. If she was going to end up being Dad’s girlfriend, Charlie figured he was okay with that. Of course if they stayed together, she would become the stepmonster. His friends who had stepmoms called them stepmonsters. It was a risk.

At the moment, he wasn’t going to worry about it because the breakfast was delicious and the day was shaping up to be a total blast.

“First,” Dad said, “we are going to hit the slopes.”

“Hit them with what?” asked André.

“Ha-ha,” Charlie said. “He means skiing or snowboarding.”

“I only had a couple of lessons,” said André. “I’m not very good at it.”

“I’ve got you all set up for Powder Hounds. They’ll help you out,” said Dad.

Finally a sport André didn’t dominate. In all other sports, he was the best.

“Later, we’re going to town for a little shopping, to watch the tree lighting and the Christmas parade. You’re all going to see Santa, too,” said Aunt India.

“Do you guys believe in Santa?” Bernie demanded.

The song on the radio switched to “Jingle Bell Rock.”

And there it was. The horrible question Charlie did not want to think about. Yet it was the one that pressed like a big invisible weight on his mind.

Here was the thing. There were some kids in his grade who claimed there was no such thing as Santa Claus. And they were always the cool kids, so if you said you did believe, then you were toast because they totally made fun of you and made you feel like a complete idiot.

But Charlie couldn’t not believe. He knew, deep down in the most secret part of himself, that Santa Claus was real.

Now he and André looked at each other. It was a stare-down. Who would blink first? If Charlie said what he really believed, he risked looking like a fool in front of his friend.

But if he said he didn’t believe in Santa, and then it turned out André was a believer, then he would be messing with a kid’s true belief, and that just wasn’t cool.

They were waiting for an answer. “Well,” he said, “um...”

“Are you kidding me?” Darcy burst in. “Why do you even have to ask? Anyone with half a brain believes in Santa. These guys look like between them they have half a brain. Together they probably have a whole one. Hey—‘Good King Wenceslas,’ my favorite carol. Turn up the radio, would you?”

Whew, thought Charlie. He didn’t have to answer. He glanced at André, who looked equally relieved, though Charlie wasn’t sure why.

“Have you been really good all year?” asked Aunt India.

Charlie stared at the floor.

“What is it, buddy?” asked his dad.

“I got in trouble at school.” He’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to confess, but his dad had a way of finding stuff out.

Dad frowned. “You’ve never been a troublemaker at school.”

“I brought something for show-and-tell I wasn’t supposed to have. This kid Isaiah said they were called Ben Wa eggs. The teacher told me to put them away This Very Instant.”

Darcy and Aunt India had a fit. They tried to stay quiet, but he could tell they were dying. Charlie still wasn’t a hundred percent sure why the little boxed set of balls was such a problem. His mom had said she’d explain when he was bigger.