Stuff I Wrote For School

The Sinister Secret Santa

This was written early this year (Grade Ten) for a mystery writing assignment. We also had to make a twist ending with a red herring. So this story was born.

Monday

Piper grinned and adjusted her Santa hat as she walked down the hallway. It was the last week of school before Christmas break, and she could not be more excited. She felt a playful tug at her blue pigtail and turned around to face her best friend, Ethan. Sure he had a massive and obvious crush on her, but she tried to ignore that fact as best she could. After all, he was a good friend, despite being an extreme weirdo sometimes.

"Hey, are you excited for the Secret Santa thing today?" He asked, green eyes sparkling with joy.

He was wearing his usual outfit of jeans and a T-shirt from some crime show.

"Oh yeah! I forgot Mrs. Becker was starting that today! Hey, wouldn't it be funny if we got each other?" Piper asked jokingly.

"Yeah!" Ethan smiled shyly.

"Aw look, it's the loser couple of the century, Piper and Ethan." A girl named Kelly said snidely, followed by the rest of her "popular squad."

Kelly always pretended to be better than Piper because she was jealous. Piper had a clear complexion, with full lips, and she was 5'6. Kelly on the other hand, was the complete opposite. Small lips, freckles, acne, and only 5'4 in height. Not to mention Piper had brightly colored hair, something Kelly had always wanted, but was not allowed to have.

Piper rolled her eyes, ignoring Kelly's comments like usual. The bell rang and the populars split up, Kelly pushing ahead of Ethan and Piper to get into the classroom first.

"Okay Grade Elevens, time to settle down! I know it's the last week before Christmas and you're all excited for the break, but keep in mind we still need to work this week!" Mrs Becker announced as everyone sat down. She began to take attendance.

"Hmm, Kira and Thomas are the only ones missing today. Does anyone know why?"

The whole class shook their heads.

Kira and Thomas are the mysterious and quiet twins who have a bad reputation for skipping class, even though they're both very smart. They have black hair and piercing blue eyes, and are usually mean to everyone other than each other, but for some reason they had the most beef with Piper, though she didn't know why, she had never even talked to either one of them.

"Okay. Maybe they've just got the bug that's been going around." She closes the attendance book and sets it down on her desk.

"Well then, let's move on to the next task, drawing names for Secret Santa!"

Mrs Becker began walking around the room with a Santa hat filled with names on little slips of paper.

"And no, you may not grab one, look at it, and put it back. The person you draw is the person you have to buy the gift for." She clarified as one boy was about to put a name back into the hat. Finally, it was Piper's turn to draw a name. To her surprise, it was Ethan!

That's strange, we were just talking about that. She thought as she stared at the paper.

Tuesday

That morning, the twins were still missing, leading everyone to assume they were either on some family vacation, or sick. Mrs Becker told everyone it was time to open their first Secret Santa gift.

When Piper opened hers, it came with a card stating, "Sweet chocolates for the sweetest girl I know! -Your secret admirer"

Piper rolled her eyes at the cheesy message, guessing it was Ethan. That boy is just not good at being subtle. She looked across the room at Ethan, smiling as he opened his present. Piper couldn't decide what to get him, so she got him some Skittles and a police car keychain. From what she could tell, he loved the gifts. Ethan looked up at Piper and smiled happily, showing her the keychain. Piper smiled back, giving him the thumbs up and showing him her gift. He seemed to smile wider for a moment before turning back to his work sheet.