Kick Me Read Online Free Page A

Christmas Town, obscenely big feet are a no-go for the upwardly mobile female elf.
    When the girls spotted me, they stared in disbelief. I saw a few of them stifle laughter. Amanda, despite her Coke bottle glasses, blinked at me and said, “You look weird.”
    “I’m an elf who doesn’t know the meaning of Christmas. I’m
sup-posed
to look this way,” I said in a haughty tone.
    “You look like a booger that doesn’t know the meaning of Christmas,” piped in Michelle. It got a huge laugh from both the girls and the guys, even though Mike had already gotten a laugh with the same lowbrow reference earlier. One thing’s for certain in grade school—a booger joke will
always
land well with your audience.
    We all headed down the hall to the gym, where the pageant would be taking place. I straggled at the back of the group, trying to avoid my classmates’ stares and comments. “You look like an elf who lives in a garbage dump” and “They should call you Stinky the Retarded Elf” were just a few of the zingers my fellow North Pole inhabitants got off at my expense. In addition to the slings and arrows my peers were hurling my way, I was having a lot of trouble walking, since my socks had no soles to provide traction and had thus reduced every step I took to that of walking across an ice skating rink in new leather-soled shoes. The effect was more of an elf with a drinking problem than a kid whose parents had sent him off to school with improper footwear. After a few minutes, however, I discovered that slippery socks could be fun and started skidding back and forth down the hall like a big-footed hockey player, well in my own world.
    Just then, Miss Connor stopped. “Oh, shoot. I was supposed to tell Mr. Kavich’s class to come down to the gym in five minutes.” With this comment, she looked back at us and noticed that I was at the rear of the group. “Oh, Paul, run down to their room and tell them, would you?”
    My heart sank. It was the last thing I wanted to do. Mr. Kavich’s class was sixth grade. Even though I knew they were soon to see me in the pageant festooned in my government-surplus elf gear, there was something about their seeing me out of context that I knew spelled trouble.
    “But . . .”
    “Hurry up. If we forget, we won’t have any upperclassmen in the audience. Now go on,” Miss Connor said, giving me a smile that to her said “Be a good boy and make me proud” but that to me said “I’m in love with you, Paul Feig. Do this for me and I’ll dedicate the rest of my life to you.”
    Having crushes on teachers is the surest way of relinquishing any and all power over your dignity when you’re a kid.
    I smiled at her and ran off to deliver my message. I glanced back and watched the rest of my class head off to the other end of the hallway and disappear around the corner. As they marched away from me, I was struck by how authentic they all looked in their elf costumes. It made our hallway look like one of those cheesy movies about Hollywood studios, where the street outside the movie sound stage is always filled with extras dressed like centurions and astronauts and Vegas showgirls. Seeing my classmates looking so elfinly accurate and not being in front of a mirror to see myself made my own costume start to morph into something magical inside my head. The noncommittal olive drab that dominated my army/navy outfit started to turn a Santa-approved kelly green as I ran and skidded down the hallway. My boxer shorts suddenly sprouted fur trim and my night watchman’s cap with the cotton ball on top became much more like a hat that Robin Hood would be proud to wear, complete with a razor-sharp pheasant’s feather as a plume. On top of that, there was no greater pleasure than to be out of class and in an empty hallway when you knew that behind all those closed doors you were passing were students wishing they were in your shoes. Or foam-filled socks, as the case may be. No, I was one light