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The gym was decked out for Christmas, complete with red and white streamers hanging from the rafters and a pretty Christmas tree right in the middle of the room. To the left there were tables covered in red and white paper tablecloths and covered with snacks. There was a gigantic punch bowl right in the middle, as well, filled with a red concoction that had a ton of raspberry sherbert floating on top of it.

Cheesy tinned Christmas music played over the loudspeaker. It was playing "Here Comes Santa Clause" but would change over to "Gramma Got Ran Over" soon enough. Kids, dressed in their best mulled around trying not to spill the punch on their white shirts or dresses.

The more "cool" or "unpopular" kids each had their own bleachers on the right side of the gym. They seemed to be intent on ignoring each other. Heaven help them if one of the other group actually had their name in the SS event.

Antony and Chris, for one rare moment, were side by side, watching for people to walk through the door. They had gotten out of morning classes to help their fathers set up the gym. Antony looked quite comfortable in a princely outfit of dress slacks and shirt. Whereas Chris was wearing a T-shirt that had a Reindeer mooning people. His mother would have killed him if she had found out he had gotten rid of his suit coat and tie the moment he could. He had a plate full of food in his hands.

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Kaimi clutched a brightly wrapped package to her chest as she entered the gymnasium. Naomi had set out a cream colored turtleneck and a dark cranberry colored velvet skirt this morning. She hated the way the turtleneck clung to her throat, it felt way too stifling. But at least it was warm. Warm was the order of the day.

Peering around, she searched for someone she knew. Spotting Maddy in the bleachers, Kaimi immediately made a beeline for the girl, noting that her Secret Santa was also sitting nearby. She had been leaving little treats of cookies and fudge and various other fattening-but-delicious goodies in his locker and other places he was sure to find them. But now didn't quite seem the time... not yet. Not everyone was here, after all.

"Maddy!" Kaimi plunked down beside the girl without invitation. "Man, I'm glad to spot somebody I know. It's a madhouse in here!" She grinned at her friend all the while eyeing Chris surreptitiously.

"I know! There's way more people than I thought there'd be." She smiled, quite relieved to have found someone she knew.

She was wearing a pale dress made of a cotton-like fabric (Maddy wasn't quite sure if it actually was cotton or just a cheap imitation) with red lace. It was quite nice, as a dress, but on Maddy it just made the pale pink of her hair and skin even more pronounced, making the first thing to jump to mind on sight be 'pig-pink'.

She lowered her voice significantly. "Is your Secret Santa one of those two boys?" She was looking at Chris and Antony.

Both Darnell girls -- Irelia had fobbed off doing the Secret Santa party thing, and was currently embroiled deep within Beatrix's office as they drank hot chocolate and discussed Egyptology, thinking they'd gotten the better part of the deal -- were at the party. Jacoba Darnell, now teenaged and rangy, apparently had her own ideas about what 'formalwear' was: which was why she was wearing black shorts and a t-shirt that was made to look like a tuxedo top, with the sleeves ripped off. There was a man's tie knotted around her throat, and she had ambled over to lean against Antony, elbow up on his much taller shoulder. Obviously she had joined the greeter group as part of some teacher-as-parent quota.

Wisp, on the other hand, had repaired to the bleachers -- she was wearing a demure (for once) knee-length dress in raspberry, though she was also wearing hi-top sneakers that she had painstakingly painted herself with Christmassy berry trees. Same with her 'jewellry' -- she'd painted it on herself, gold filigree at her neck and wrists and (having gotten distracted) another berry tree on the inside of her right wrist. She had a present tucked under her arm, immediately considering the crowd, though when she caught sight of Maddy she raised one hand and waved to the younger girl in the bleachers.

Casca Naborn, on the other hand, was sitting in the uncool bleachers: white shirt, dress slacks, tragic, alone. Worst party ever.

"That little creep Polly who just walked in," said Antony's friend meditatively, "lamb to the slaughter, pumpkin. God, I guess I better go fling her present in her face and hope the police don't catch me for it later. You know you're gonna provide me with an alibi."

She swatted Antony on the butt, and then slugged Chris on the shoulder just for being there: and then Jace swaggered off after Polly, picking up a cardboard box wrapped in newspaper, legs clanking on the gym floor.

A little startled at the company -- Ophelia Prosper was not someone he expected to sit down beside him -- Casca figured that they were, after all, maths compatriots or something, and that she had had no other option than to sit beside him. His wings rustled as he sat back, hair loose, running his claws through it irritably every so often as the curls fell in his face.

"Hola, Ophelia," he said, and the gargoyle seemed to be equally glum. His recipient -- who was a dainty little blonde girl -- was nowhere in sight, as far as he could tell. "Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, joyeux Noel, and all that." He seemed to try to shore himself up with his usual (attempt at) charm: "I like your dress, ma petit. Very, uh. Cinderella."

Casca was always speaking french, and Ophelia wondered whether this was something he did naturally, or an acquired talent. She sat down on the bench beside him, smoothing her dress across her lap, and surveyed the party. Hm. Nothing to see here.

"Pre-fairy godmother," she grumbled, picking at the lacy hemline around her thighs. It was another hand-me-down from the cousins she had never met, and they were both girly and boring, to hear her father tell it. The clothing they sent her seemed to support the statement well enough.

"Do you know who Grayson is?"