I blew up two houses with one explosion last night. (Not really. It’s just an expression.)
See, I managed to talk my mom into buying apples AND talk my sister into making me a Santa suit. All in one conversation.
I started out by telling Mom how much I loved dinner. That part was true, because she’d made pork chops and roasted potatoes—my FAVORITE. I might have gone kind of overboard, because my Evil Twin pretended to be throwing up behind Mom’s back. But I ignored her and kept talking.
I told Mom how the only thing that would make dinner even BETTER would be one of her famous burnt apple crisps. And then I told her all kinds of interesting facts about apples that I’d researched at school on Thursday night:
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Apples used to be really rare in the Overworld. You could only find them in dungeon chests. So we should be GRATEFUL to be able to buy them in the supermarket. And we should show our gratitude by buying MORE.
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Villagers like to trade for apples—sometimes even for emeralds! So having apples is ALMOST like having emeralds. It’s like a savings account.
Right after you eat an apple, you can walk through fire. Willow told me that one. It’s true—honest! But only if the apple is golden. And enchanted. Mom doesn’t have to know ALL those details, though.
Mom was nodding and smiling and going right along with my plan. Then she launched a surprise attack. She said, “Maybe we should eat fewer pork chops and potatoes around here and eat more apples!”
UH-OH. Leave it to Mom to take things WAY too far.
I had to squash that idea like a silverfish—FAST.
I started babbling something about how apples taste best when they come AFTER pork chops. I said that pork chops and apples go together like chickens and eggs. Mooshrooms and milk. Rotten flesh and—
WHAT? Where did THAT come from? I blame Ziggy Zombie for putting those two words in my head and almost ruining my plan.
Dad must have seen me struggling, because he cleared his throat and said the perfect thing. He said that maybe we should ALL make apple crisp together, as a family. Mom could teach us!
Well, I could have kissed Gerald Creeper Senior—if creeper sons did that kind of thing, I mean. I guess Dad has more experience with Mom and knows how to put the kibosh on her big ideas (at least the ones that have to do with pork chops). He saved MY creeper butt, that’s for sure.
Mom ate Dad’s idea right up. She said she’d buy a bag of apples at the store right away. TWO bags of apples. Maybe even three!
So that meant I could check “apples” off my list and move on to the NEXT part of my plan.
I mentioned kind of cool and casual-like that apple-red was my new favorite color.
That’s not true AT ALL. Everybody knows my favorite color is green. And my Evil Twin was the first one to call me out on it—which was exactly what I wanted her to do.
She said, “You don’t like red. Show me one red thing in your room.”
Then I said, “Actually, I was thinking about wearing more red. In fact, I think it’d be cool to wear a whole SUIT out of red, like that Santa guy the villager kids talk about. If only I knew someone who had a bunch of extra wigs and skins . . .”
Well, Cate just about fell out of her chair offering to help.
She said she’d check her closet for me right now, before school. In fact, she invited me to go WITH her to her closet.
I had to think about that for a second. Cate’s closet is kind of like the Nether. You can get into it, but you probably won’t find your way out. A creeper could get lost and starve to death in there, for sure.
So I almost said I’d wait in the kitchen and let Cate go on ahead. But Mom was close to exploding with happiness, seeing me bond with one of my sisters. So I decided to take one for the team and go with Cate.
Boy, was I glad I did. I went in looking like plain old Gerald Creeper Jr., and I came out looking like a jolly green Santa. All it took was:
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A long red velvet bathrobe. (Do NOT tell anyone I’m wearing a girl’s robe.)
A red purse that we turned upside down to make a hat. (I prefer to call it a “pouch,” not a purse. But whatever.)
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Fluffy white stuff from one of Cate’s wigs. She cut strips of it and glued them around my hat and my Santa suit.
A black belt with a shiny buckle. (It’s kind of tight, but I’m sure it’ll fit better after I’ve digested my pork chops.)
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Black boots. The heels are kind of high, but by the time we got down to the boots, I was ready to be done with the whole closet dress-up thing.
When Cate said she still had to put white makeup on my face, I made a run for it—which was NOT easy in those high-heeled boots.
But now the Santa suit is safely hidden under my bed, where the sled used to be. And I’m going to borrow Cate’s glue to put my piggy bank back together, because pretty soon, it’s going to be chock FULL of emeralds.
