Waking up early in the morning… It sucked in general, especially when living in Hawaii for almost 9 whole years. I cuddled in blankets, trying to feel the same warmth and coldness that I once had back in Nuremberg, but nothing ever seemed to work. Honestly, the only good part about Hawaii was that I made a friend. An entire friend group, at the very least. Ever since I moved, I always felt like the stupid German outcast, especially when it came to being the new kid who existed in Germany before moving here to Hawaii. But that all changed in 2015 when it was time for me to start High School.

Henry J. Kaiser High is one of the “superior” high schools in Hawaii. Of course, my parents chose for me to enter this school because of those random ratings on Google. They want what’s best for me; they even tried convincing me to join one of those Marine Biology classes. I wasn’t really too interested in Marine Biology; I was most interested in the animation industry or by its other terms: Visual Arts, Graphic Arts & Being a Cartoonist. During the classes that I had during my time there, I’d usually do some drawings of my past. What I mean by that is most of the time, there would be moments where I’d remember the Christmastime of when I was 9 years old; sitting comfortably on my couch, resting peacefully with Pavlova, my little kitten.

“Marie, I hope you’ve been paying attention.” the teacher snaps softly. I stood up in my seat, like a regal person, as the teacher asked: “Let’s say I were to figure out the slope-intercept formula given the slope is 3 and the y-intercept is -6. What would be the equation?”

I sank in my seat as I wasn’t paying attention really well during my daydreams, but soon the answer got to me. “It would be y = 3x – 6.” The teacher nodded as she wrote the equation on the board. I groaned in disbelief because anxiety threw me off. I felt a hand touch me as a red-headed girl with pale peach skin smiled at me, “You must be a genius if you were to figure that out.”

“Oh no,” I denied, “I usually just read the math books that I’d borrow from the Nuremberg City Library.” The girl smiled as she patted my back, I felt a bit confused about why she was acting really nice to me. “Annabella, Annabella Levoy.” she said, holding out her hand. I glance at her hand before shaking it, “Marie, Marie Stahlbaum.”

Annabella and I walked around the hallways as she introduced me to some areas of the school, especially the giant football field that they had. It looked impressive. Annabella chuckled, “This is where most of the games are; we love to cheer for our cougars and heck! We even won the last game!” I nodded, taking in all the information. When we were walking to the cafeteria, another person walked up to Annabella. This person was using their hands, making gestures or shadow puppets; Annabella did it too. I didn’t fully understand what was going on, but then she said, “Oh, this is Eloise. She’s deaf. We communicate via ASL, commonly known as American Sign Language.”

I just waved hi, and Eloise waved back; she then signed a sentence that I didn’t even know what it meant. I was about to say something until Annabella translated the sentence, “She’s asking if you want to join our friendly group. You’d be a nice addition to the team.”

I pondered for a moment, thinking of the incomes and outcomes of being in a friend group. Of course, one of the incomes would be that I’d have people who’d accept me for being who I wanted to be in the future, but at the same time, I’d have people who may or may not include me in after-school activities. It was a hard choice indeed, but after moments of thinking, I said, “Alright, where do we meet?”

We sat out by the benches outside the school, meeting up with two other girls; feeling weirded out at the fact that I was basically a new member of the group. The girl with short black hair sat next to me and smiled, “Hi, I’m Aurora, I’m one of the members of the Gender Sexuality Alliance. I’m also basically a transgender girl. Nice to meet you!”

“Hi! I’m Marie! A transfer and a future cartoonist.” I shook her hand, happily. Being friends with a transgender girl is pretty interesting; of course, I respect the fact that she’s transgender, but it also allows me to feel like an important ally to the LGBTQIA+ community as I remember that most of my family is part of the community. “So, you’re a transfer?” Aurora asked. I nodded as I smiled, “Yes, I am also an ally of the LGBTQIA+ community. I’m Bisexual.” Seeing Aurora’s face lit up sorta made me happy as I wanted to let her know that no matter what, I’d support her no matter what.

The other girl approached me and said, “Hi, I’m Leonie. I’m part of Model United Nations, representing Germany.” I beamed happily, knowing that most of the people that I’ve grown accustomed to having joined significant sections of the school that show fascinating and mandatory pieces of government and communities. Of course, that made me wonder what I should do here after hearing all this amazing stuff.

We chatted for a while until Annabella told me, “Hey, Marie. There’s a cartoon animation club, which is for people who love cartoons as much as you do! You should join it!” I smiled happily as I accepted gratefully, except I didn’t know what day it was; luckily, Annabella texted me the day in advance. Maybe high school wouldn’t be that bad. I have a friend group and can actually contribute to society, which is giving people “entertainment”.

Now it’s 2018, and we’re still going strong. Senior year took a massive toll on us. Of course, we were going into our classes, our clubs, and other random shit that we do after school; sometimes we’d even take a 29-minute drive to McDonald's after school just to chow down on some McNuggets and French Fries. Christmas was coming up soon, so we were able to get the Maltese Reindeer McFlurry since that was part of their Christmas menu. It’s like a tradition sporadically to get holiday-flavored Flurries every Christmas. 

“Welcome to McDonald's, what would you like?” The cashier in the drive-thru spoke.

“20 Mint n Chip McFlurries, Medium 10 Piece McNuggets Combo with 5 cokes and a Big Mac!” Annabella exclaimed.

It took us a while due to the overcoming traffic that was in the drive-through; we were sitting there like mindless ducks; but at last, we arrived at the front of the drive-through where we got our McFlurries, My McNuggets with my cokes (yes, I drink a lot of caffeine to keep me up when studying for exams) and Aurora’s Big Mac. We drove to the far side of Sunset Beach where we watched the sunset over another boring yet interesting day.

As the sunset dawned down, we blasted a record of music from The Nutcracker; mostly Trepak and the March Of The Soldiers. We jammed hard to those two because those were the epic portions of the Nutcracker Suite.

Annabella laughs as she finishes her 10th McFlurry that she’s gotten this week; exclaiming out to us, “Well lads, we’re going to have the best Christmas in Hawaii EVER!”

The girls cheered happily as we kept drinking the McFlurries. After a while, we arrived at my home, where my entire outfit was covered in Mint n Chip McFlurry pieces. Of course, I lost my balance a couple of times, but it was alright. I felt woozy as I entered the house, waving goodbye to my friends. They drove away into the horizon, where I assumed that everyone else got dropped off at home. I entered the house completely, only to see Louise staring directly at my face, then down to my clothes where there was Mint n Chip McFlurry.

“You went out for McFlurries again, didn’t you?” she sneered at my face. I just stare at her with a blank expression. I passed by her, not even giving her a second glance or anything, but she then pulled me back, dragging me to the living room. I squirmed my way out of her grasp, not until father and mother were there. Their faces were stern and intimidating, meaning that something had gone wrong. I gulped, sitting down on the couch, and staring face-to-face at my parents. I was worried that maybe something bad happened at school like I got a bad grade, I made too much of a ruckus in AP Stats, or I was a major distraction in English. Who knew what my parents were about to say?

“Do you know why you're here, Marie?” Father said, sternly.

“Did I do badly in school…?” I asked silently, which my parents still heard.

He shook his head as he gave me a letter. It had the following address:

24700 McBean Pkwy, Santa Clarita, CA 91355

I slowly opened the letter to see the following:

Dear Marie:

CONGRATULATIONS! After careful consideration, and review of the strength of your overall admissions application, I am pleased to inform you that the California Institute of the Arts is awarding you with the following merit scholarship: Roy E Disney Scholarship.

My jaw dropped to the floor. My eyes clenched up in tears as my hands shook violently. My parents' stern faces became soft as they smiled happily. I hugged my parents as I exclaimed, “Oh my goodness! I’ve been accepted into CalArts! This is amazing!”

“Yeah, you did say you wanted to be a cartoonist when you grew up, and we looked at colleges for your education in being an animator or cartoonist or whatever you wanted to be.” Mother said happily. Father added, “There was CSUN, Art Center, University of CA Irvine, and CalArts. When we looked into CalArts, it seemed like an amazing school for you! So, we applied there first.”

I was jumping with joy as I’ve heard a lot about amazing, talented cartoonists who went to this school and ended up working for Disney or any other animation studio. My parents embraced me; I beamed a wonderful smile as I finally felt my dreams were about to come true. The next day was the last day of school before the winter break. Finals were finished, I passed every single class based on the points I got on my report card, and I couldn’t wait to go and get ready to spend time with my friends. I skimmed through my books during the last couple of minutes of period 6, learning loads of techniques I can do when making an animation strip, then-

DING! DING! DING!

The students ran amok down the halls, screaming with joy to be let out of the campus. Some darted towards the exit and boy, was it already exciting to be let out for Christmas Break! I ran down the small staircase to go meet up with my friends, but when I got there, my parents were in the car, smiling. This felt like I was in a horror movie where the kid would get kidnapped by two weirdos in a car and taken to a forest to get murdered. But nope, as I got in the car, my mother handed me another letter. It was from Godfather Drosselmeier; that old rascal.

“Read it.” Mother demanded.

Groaning in disbelief, I opened the letter. In the letter, there were 5 plane tickets, all of them for a plane trip to Nuremberg, Germany. My eyes widened in horror and disbelief. This Christmas, I’m going back to my hometown in Nuremberg, Germany. Of course, I liked it! I was happy to go! But the day that we were going, December 23rd, me and my friends arranged for the 5 of us to go see The Nutcracker Ballet at Neal S Blaisdell Concert Hall. I had to ask my mother to cancel the trip, she’d understand that I wouldn’t really want to miss an opportunity like this. Before I spoke up those, Fritz had to open his mouth and start speaking,

“Mama, Papa, I can’t wait to go back to Germany! I’ll be able to see if Stefan is still by the ringed square.”

Mother laughed as she reassured Fritz that Stefan was still there for she still had contact with his mother. I hid my face in shame as I had to tell her to cancel the trip; I had to tell her! 

“Mama, can we please not go to Germany? My friends and I are going to a theatre in Honolulu to go see the Nutcracker.” I begged. Mother looked at me with a really solemn stare; glaring at me with what look like a stank eye and the very least. Knowing that glare, I knew something meant trouble to my mother.

“My child, we can’t cancel the trip if that’s what you are thinking. We are going under the courtesy of my boss. He has heard of Drosselmeier’s time and has graciously bought off our tickets to go see him for the week.” Welp, so much for trying to rearrange the tides of the trip. I just have to learn to accept the fact that we’ll be gone for the week.

We drove up to the Regal Dole Cannery to go see SpiderMan: Into The Spiderverse; Fritz has been begging to see the film due to the unfortunate instant that his friend from Washington Middle School had moved to Colorado before the movie was released; so to make it up, Mother bought tickets to go see the film to cheer him up. Walking into the theatre felt weird; awaiting the moment, Mother had given me my ticket and asked me to go find my seat. Nodding in agreement and starting to my feet, I approached the bask ends of the theatre; the winds blew mighty aggressively than what I thought were blightingly unnatural. My glasses began to fog up, which indeed was peculiar. Soon, I noticed something in the distance. After clearing my glasses with my Felix The Cat shirt, I put them back on; only to hear hisses and an abundance of red eyes pierce through the darkness, only to hear a hissing low voice:

THOUGH YEARS HAVE PASSED, MEMORIES NOT LONG FORGOT, 23RD OF DECEMBER BODIES WILL ROT.