The Twelve Dates of Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page B

girlfriend turned out to be a lot harder than I’d expected. In fact, for the first few weeks I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull it off after all.
    For one thing, none of the girls at school seemed quite right for him. When I’d first concocted the plan, Claus Lake High School had seemed to be bursting with vaguely appropriate potential girlfriends for Cam. But once I got specific, it seemed every girl I considered had some fatal flaw. Carla Myers talked too much—if he ended up with her, poor Cam would never get a word in edgewise. Amalia Rozin was too quiet and passive. Cam wasn’t the type of person who wanted to do
all
the talking and planning in a relationship. Patti Amundson was rumored to have cheated on her last boyfriend, and there was no way I was going to risk fixing Cam up with someone who might betray him. No, if this was going to work, I was going to have to find just the right girl. The perfect girl. The girl Cam deserved.
    â€œWhat about Talia Lund?” Allie asked one day at lunch. She was still dragging her heels on this whole breaking-up-with-Cam thing. But at least she seemed to be trying to help.
    I glanced across the school cafeteria at a pretty blond girl talking and laughing with her friends and shook my head. “You mean little miss peppy-peppy cheerleader?” I picked up my sandwich. “Ugh. I don’t think so. Cam doesn’t go for that type.”
    â€œRight.” Allie rolled her eyes. “Funny how none of the girls we know seem to be good enough for Cam. Maybe this is the Maybe Not Theory in action? You know, you don’t
really
want to go through with this, so you’re sabotaging your own efforts?”
    â€œSorry, guess again.” I paused to take a bite of my sandwich. “I’m just trying to bescientific about this,” I added after I’d chewed and swallowed, “to give my plan the best chance to work. That means narrowing it down to the absolute best candidate before proceeding.”
    â€œRight.” Allie pursed her lips and sort of smirked.
    â€œCheck it out,” I said to Cam. “There’s Margie Mendenhall. She looks really pretty in that outfit, doesn’t she?”
    He barely looked up from the pine garland he was attaching to a lamppost outside the fireman’s hall. “Huh?” he said, glancing briefly at a girl walking her dog farther down the block. “Oh. I guess. But listen, that reminds me—we should start thinking about our costumes for the Ball soon. You know the good ones always go fast. What do you say we go as reindeer this year?”
    â€œMaybe,” I said. “But listen, did you know Margie’s a really good cook? I heard she won some kind of recipe contest in some magazine last year. Maybe we should go ask her about it.”
    â€œNot right now, okay, sweetie?” Cam’s tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth as he bent lower, totally focused on what hewas doing. “Your aunt will kill us if we don’t get these garlands up today.”
    Glancing down the street, I saw Margie round the corner and disappear. Maybe it was just as well Cam hadn’t taken that particular bait. Sure, the two of them had that cooking interest in common. But while Margie was really sweet, I wasn’t sure her sense of humor would mesh with Cam’s that well.
    I leaned back against a parking meter and shoved my hands in the pockets of my parka as I watched Cam finish hanging the garland. There was a definite nip in the air these days—October was almost half over, which meant the town’s holiday preparations were in full swing. In Claus Lake, the arrival of October didn’t mean it was time to put up the Halloween decorations, the way it probably did in most places. Nope, the only nod to All Hallow’s Eve was maybe a witch’s hat on the giant Santa outside the used car lot and some pumpkins mixed in with the mistletoe. It was pretty