When Elves Attack Read Online Free Page B

rocked back and forth in her chair. “I didn’t hear that! I didn’t hear that! Jesus in heaven, the child—she doesn’t mean it! . . .”
    â€œNicole!” shouted Martha. “Tell your grandmother right now you don’t mean that!”
    The teenager stifled laughs. “Sorry, Grandma. I was only kidding.”
    â€œWhat kind of a joke is that?” Then to Martha: “You approve of this behavior?”
    Jim’s arms flew out, practically lunging halfway across the table. “Mom, Martha didn’t say anything. I’ll talk to Nicole later.”
    Rita turned back to the teen. “Please don’t do that again to your sweet grandmother. So, you really do believe in God?”
    â€œYes.” Nicole shot her mom a glance, then back to her grandmother. “But I choose to follow Satan.”
    â€œAhhhhh!” Hands over Rita’s ears again.
    Martha shrieked.
    Jim slowly covered his face with his hands.
    Nicole was still cracking up as she rose from the table and headed for the door.
    â€œWhere do you think you’re going?” yelled Martha.
    â€œTo the mall.”
    â€œNo, you’re coming back to this table and sitting down right this minute!”
    The door slammed behind the teen.
    Rita’s hands fell from her ears. “I’ll be dead soon.”
    MEANWHILE  . . .
    South Dale Mabry Highway.
    A ’72 Chevelle jumped the curb in front of a sub-budget motel.
    â€œSerge,” said Coleman, glancing over his shoulder into the backseat. “That’s a pretty big turkey.”
    â€œThe biggest they had.”
    â€œBut there’s no way we’ll be able to eat it all.”
    â€œThat’s the whole point of Thanksgiving!” The Chevelle skidded up to their room. “Cooking way too much friggin’ food, cramming the fridge with mountains of leftovers, and then the race is on against salmonella. The most exciting holidays are the ones where not everybody is going to make it.”
    Coleman opened his door. “You sure we’ll go unnoticed at this motel.”
    â€œWe loaded all that copper, didn’t we?”
    â€œYeah, but then we dragged that tied-up guy from your trunk and into the room.”
    â€œDid anyone complain?”
    â€œThe guy.”
    â€œBesides him?”
    â€œNo, but I feel pretty exposed right next to this busy highway.”
    â€œLook, if Cuban spies can go unnoticed, we’ll blend in like ninjas.”
    â€œSpies?”
    Serge reached in the backseat and grunted to lift the turkey. “See the military checkpoint down at the end of this road? That’s MacDill Air Force Base, home of Central Command. Most people don’t realize it, but everything important in the world is coordinated on that tiny tip of land at the south end of the Tampa peninsula. Iraq, Afghanistan, you name it.”
    â€œWhat does that have to do with Cubans?”
    Serge waddled toward their door with the giant frozen bird in his arms. “Back in the nineties, Castro sent spies here to monitor the base. Total farce. Against an installation sealed that tight, what are a few of Fidel’s boys going to do? It was all just window dressing so Castro could tell the other Latin leaders, ‘Shit yeah, I have people in Tampa.’ . . . Coleman, get the door for me?”
    Coleman inserted the key and turned the knob. “They didn’t spy?”
    â€œNo, they starved.” Serge entered the room and hit the light switch with his shoulder. “Castro so totally destroyed his island’s economy that he couldn’t pay them anymore. They ended up pawning their binoculars and taking jobs as dishwashers. And because they were so broke, they lived in motels right along this strip, maybe even this one.”
    Serge tossed the turkey on the bed and it bounced two feet.
    â€œWe’re just going to eat the turkey straight?” asked Coleman.
    â€œOf course