On Christmas Eve, Kit-Kat were sledding, and Nicki was skiing.
Emily and Hope were talking about what they thought the new girl, Cate Flannery, would be like.
“Like... how am I going to get down from here?” Piper asked after completing a climb to the top of the skiing mountain.
Nicki had just completed the hill and was stepping out of her skates. Solitaire was pulling Kit-Kat's sled.
Jess was serving hot cocoa.
Nellie seemed to be falling asleep while reading a Christmas book.
Sam and Harper were having a snowball fight.
Ivy and Julie were making snow angels.
“Follow the Yellow Brick Road!” Baby-Ruthie sang. “Follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road... hey, what are we looking for anyway?” Baby asked.
“A wizard! Like this tree!” Ruthie exclaimed. “HELLO,” said the wizard-tree.
Baby-Ruthie looked down. “Wow, good thing we're excellent followers and didn't step on the nativity!”
“Can you grant our wishes?”
“Let's ask for clothes!” Ruthie suggested.
“No... I have a better idea,” said Baby. “We wish for Mini-Baby-Ruthie dolls from Santa!!”
On Christmas Day, everyone was back to the same activities... and two suspicious boxes had appeared under the tree-wizard.
“MINI-DOLLS FROM SANTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Baby-Ruthie screamed.
“Wow, it comes with a poster of me!” Baby screamed.
“Wow, they look just like us!” said Ruthie. “Let's play dolls.”
“I'm beautiful,” Baby made Mini-Baby say to Mini-Ruthie.
“HEY!” Kit-Kat looked over. “THAT'S NOT FAIR THAT YOU GUYS GOT PRESENTS FROM SANTA! Especially when our Mini-Dolls have been kidnapped again!”
“Haha,” said Baby-Ruthie.
“We'll never let our Mini-Dolls get kidnapped.”
Meanwhile, Harper had been struck by Sam's snowball.
“Yeah!” Sam celebrated.
“Hey Sam,” Marie came over. “Do you still want to sing that duet during the tree-lighting ceremony?”
“Oh, well, yeah, but... I assumed when you talked to me about singing a duet, you meant I could pick who to sing it with... I've been practicing with Hope. Is that okay?” Sam asked.
Marie began to protest about how it was her winter vacation home and she should get to sing, but she didn't notice the fact that a snowball had just left Harper's hand.
She knocked quite a few ornaments off the tree as she fell...
“Good one, Harper!” Sam yelled.
“I'll talk to you later,” Marie whispered harshly as she headed off to get more hot cocoa.
Sierra said hello to Harper as she too went to grab some hot cocoa.
Someone had waddled over to the pond on skate guards. “Perfect,” she muttered.
The girl sat down to take off her skate guards.
“Hi!” said Kat. Cate looked a little startled by her sudden appearance.
(As Kat sat down, she looked up to notice that Piper was no longer balancing precariously on top of the mountain. Hmm.)
“Hi!” said Kit. Cate jumped a little, but she quickly landed back down because the twins' arms were on top of her.
“We saw that you are going skating. We're the bestest skaters ever! Go us!”
“Well, actually,” said the girl as she got up to go on the pond, “I've never seen you on the national track, so you're obviously not.”
“But we're great at everything! And we're famous!” Kit-Kat protested.
“I don't think so. Who are you, anyway? I'm Cate Flannery, the new student in OWT... maybe you could tell me why we aren't in Paris?”
“We're at a winter resort. And we are Kit-Kat Kittredge, the bestest people ever and the queens of the world!”
“Oh,” said Cate. “Hello. I'm going to go practice now.”
Cate stepped onto the pond and balanced perfectly.
“KAT!” Kit yelled. “You can see her skates reflected on the ice!”
“A MIRROR!” Kat screamed.
Cate started skating backwards.
She tried to decide if she was going to have enough room to practice her entire routine. She hoped so, because she needed to do well at Nationals.
Kat stared at herself in the ice.
Kit saw herself too.
“Um...” Cate couldn't help laughing a bit.
“I need to practice, Kit-Kat. Seriously.”
“Hmmph,” the twins said as they sat back down, “let's go get our own skates!”
Cate began to practice, imagining her music playing in the background.
She twirled high above the treetops.
... and landed gracefully back on the ice.
Cate practiced her footwork.
She slowed to a stop at the end of her routine and just skated around for a bit.
“Did you hear something?” Emily asked Hope. “I bet Cate's here!”
“Cate!” Kit-Kat waved from a supply shack. “We're going skating too! GO US!”
“PUT SOME GUARDS ON!” Cate yelled back. “YOU'LL RUIN YOUR BLADES!”
“OK!”
“Wow, she looks really graceful,” Emily muttered as she and Hope snuck around the mountain to check out the person they'd heard talking to Kit-Kat.
“Excuse me. I'm Emily Bennet,” Said Emily politely. “And I'm Hope Salonga! Are you Ingrid Michaelson?”
“Hi, I'm Cate Flannery. You like Ingrid too?”
“Our teacher went to the concert,” Hope said a little dejectedly...
“Do you ALWAYS have to mistake new girls for celebrities?” Julie asked Hope jokingly.
“Yes, Julia,” Hope joked back.
Julie rolled her eyes at Ivy.
“Could any of you tell me why we're not in Paris like it said in all the documents?” Cate asked.
“Well, it's something about Princess Marie not getting along with her parents, and having a place to do winter sports,” Emily explained.
“Oh, well, thanks,” said Cate. “At least I have somewhere to practice.”
“I still can't believe we're in France...” Emily mused.
“Emily, I told you, World War Two ended like sixty years ago!” Hope explained, exasperated.
“Wait, WHAT?!”
“I'm a chronoexchange student from World War Two London,” said Emily simply.
“Do you want to go get some hot cocoa?” she suggested.
“Sure!” Cate quickly put her guards on and ran ahead of the other girls. “Come on!”
The three quickly processed towards Jess's stand.
“GUYS! I FOUND THE NEW GIRL!” Hope yelled, while Emily politely tried to make sure she wasn't hit by Hope's arm.
“Can I have three hot chocolates?” Cate asked at the stand.
“Oh, are you Cate?” asked Harper as she moved over so Cate could get the drinks.
“Yes, who are you, chronoexchange Sara Crewe?” Cate asked, and it came out a little meanly.
“No, I'm... Harper Simmons.”
“Oh, well, nice costume,” Cate said as she patted Harper's back and then got her drinks.
“Emily and Hope... I have your drinks!”
“Hope, you're going to spill,” Emily warned her.
Cate looked over towards the ice and spotted the twins skating.
They seemed more concerned with trying to see their reflections in the laminated background...
“I wish they would get off my ice,” Cate muttered.
“Anyway, cheers!”
But perhaps she had muttered a little too loudly, because Marie stormed over. “That's MY ice. Or rather, my parents'...”
“Oh, are you PRINCESS Marie? Could you maybe tell me why we aren't in Paris like I was promised?”
“Yes, I thought it would be cool to bring everyone to our winter home in the Alps to you know, ski and stuff.”
“Well, I would've appreciated more advanced notice than being whisked away from the airport by some security guard.”
“And you'd better let me keep practicing on that ice because I NEED to place at Nationals!” Marie turned to go back. “Whatever.”
“So where do you live?” Hope asked.
“I live in Kennebunk, Maine. I'm homeschooled, I have three older brothers, and I spent most of last year sailing around the world with my Venturing Crew.”
“COOL!” said Hope. “Hi,” said Sam. Hope laughed. “JINX!”
“Hi, I'm Samantha! Are you Cate?”
“Yes, I am! Could you maybe tell me why we're not in Paris? I was really looking forward to it!”
“Well, we kind-of wanted a change in scenery, and Marie has issues with her parents so we thought it would be better just to come here, and Miss B. can supervise, so it's okay...”
“Who's we? And what do you mean, change of scenery? Do you go to Paris all the time?”
“Well, yeah, I'm the Princess of Monaco, and Marie is the Crown Princess of France, so we've known each other since we were born, and our class has been going to Paris for all but the last two years. So, you know... I'm sorry, I probably sound like I'm bragging.”
“Oh, and I was sitting on your hat, sorry.”
“Thanks. Well, this could be fun, you know, we have a skating pond...” Cate sighed. “But seriously, how did you decide, are you like Class President or something? Oh, and if you're so buddy-buddy with Marie, can you tell her that I need the ice?”
“Marie's not always that mean. She must be in a mood. She's usually only mean to Lindsay.”
“Oh, please, like you're nice to Lindsay either, Hope. You should stick up for her. She didn't do anything wrong.” Hope glared at Sam. “She tries to steal my parts in all the class plays! And she usually succeeds!”
“Who's Lindsay?”
But nobody answered her question. “Um, so really, Sam, are you Class President?”
“Yes, she is, and Lindsay's another student,” said Emily, but she saw that they needed to change the subject. “So are you a competitive skater?”
“Yes, I'm going to Nationals in January. In CLEVELAND. It sounds kind-of boring.”
“And I just got back from the Grand Prix, in South Korea. I placed fourth. I'm hoping to go to the Olympics, and I started a blog to talk about it.”
“GUESS WHO!” “Harper!” Sam said.
“How did you know?” Harper asked. “Because you're the only one who ever does that!” Sam laughed.
Harper walked around to where Emily was sitting. “Sorry, I don't think we introduced ourselves properly,” she said, hoping to get back on Cate's good side. “I'm Harper Simmons.”
“I'm from Morocco, not 1914,” Harper explained. Emily sighed. “You should be! Come sit by me, Harper.”
“Oh. Cool. I'm Cate Flannery. We actually docked there last year, I think. So do you guys just wear historical clothes all the time?”
“Yes, we have access to a large wardrobe of historical outfits. But this one was specially made for me.”
“Nice.”
Harper sat down next to Emily. She couldn't decide quite yet if she liked Cate or not. “Sara,” said Emily. “Didn't your dad get deployed to France in the Great War?”
