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Sarah Sues Santa – P.J. Leonard

“You are very good at ending up in places where you’re not supposed to be, Miss Pebbleton.”
Sarah nearly leapt out of her skin. She spun around so fast she nearly fell over. Mr. Vekil stood over
her, his perfect suit looking very out of place in these dusty corridors, although his stare was just as
cold.
“I – I was just…” Sarah scrambled for words, but Mr. Vekil held up a hand.
“Don’t make excuses,” he snapped, “I don’t want to hear them. Just get out of here and never, ever
come back here. Do you I make myself clear?”
“Yes!”
“What should you never do?”
“Come back here!”
“Good. Now go. GO!”
Sarah ran as fast as she could, not daring to look back.

Sarah sat in the playroom, flicking through an old picture book without really looking at it. Try as
she may, she couldn’t take her mind off of that room. What was Mr. Vekil hiding?
Sarah looked glumly around the room. Not many kids were here: most had gone back to their
rooms. Sarah didn’t blame them; there wasn’t much to play with in the playroom. They didn’t even
have a pen and some sticky notes to play that game she’d learned from her poor family. They
weren’t allowed outside either, and Sarah didn’t dare wander around the orphanage again in case
she met Mr. Vekil.
Sarah was so bored that by the time the bell rang for the evening meal, she was almost glad to have
something to do, even if she already knew that the food would be terrible. And sure enough, it was:
vegetables so boiled that they had no flavor left in them and cold, dry slices of chicken that had no
gravy.
“It kind of looks like a Christmas dinner,” said Anna, “I mean, if you think really, really hard.”
Becky snorted. “Thinking doesn’t make it taste better, though.”
“You okay, Sarah?” said Anna, “You look like you’re thinking a little bit too hard.”
Sarah had been pushing the last few peas around her plate, deep in thought. At Anna’s words, she
snapped her head up. “Oh! Yeah, I’m great!”
What if I tell them about the secret room? Maybe they will go with me? It won’t be so scary if we
go in a group…
Sarah looked up to ask them a question, but the girls were staring wide-eyed over her shoulder.
Before she could turn around, she felt something pull on her pocket, and a hand snatched her last
two tickets away. Sarah looked up to see the older kids from before, sneering down at her.
“Well, well! What’s this?” he said, The tallest one looked over the tickets.
It was the big kids from before, the ones she met in the queue at breakfast.
"Give them back!" Said Sarah, reaching up to grab it. The big kid just held it higher.
"That's not yours, Michael," said Anna, her face stern, "You're stealing Sarah's stuff."
The boy called Michael shrugged. "Hey, I just want to look!"
"If you wanted to look at it, you could've just asked," said Sarah hotly, "Now give it here!"
But Michael just pushed Sarah in the forehead with a single finger, and she stumbled backwards
into her chair. The other big kids laughed, and Sarah felt her face flush a deep red.
Michael unfolded the tickets and looked over it.
"Tickets?" He frowned, "Tickets to where?"
"None of your business."
"Now now, no need to be rude," said Michael, waving the ticket in front of Sarah's face, "I'm just
helping Mr. Vekil to make sure all the kids here follow the rules."
"That's rich coming from you!" Anna snapped, but Michael ignored her. He kept staring at Sarah, as

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