Holly's Jolly Christmas Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Chapter I

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Have a Very Crafty Christmas!

  George’s Joke Book

  About the Author

  About the Illustrators

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Text copyright © 2009 by Nancy Krulik. Illustrations copyright © 2009 by John and Wendy. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. S.A.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2008050380

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15088-7

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Connie, Glenn, Mally, and Tess. Thanks

  for all the holly, jolly Christmases.—NK

  For those elves from the Great White North:

  Eric and Kelly—J&W

  Chapter I

  Sally, Cathy, Luis, and Chuck each have their own Christmas tree. Each tree has a different number of candy canes, and a different number of decorations. Use the clues to figure out . . .

  Katie Carew tried really hard to focus on her math worksheet. But it was so difficult. Not the math—actually, Katie was pretty good at doing these kinds of puzzles. It was just really, really hard to think about schoolwork when Christmas was so near!

  Growl. Grumble.

  Just then, Katie heard a really strange noise coming from the beanbag next to her.

  “Sorry,” George Brennan apologized. “That was my stomach. Reading about candy canes is making me hungry.”

  Katie giggled. It didn’t take much to make George hungry.

  “I know what you mean,” George’s best friend, Kevin Camilleri, agreed. “I can’t stop thinking about the tomato and mozzarella salad my grandmother makes every Christmas Eve.”

  “It seems like you dudes are already on your holiday break,” Mr. Guthrie told the class. But he didn’t seem angry. Mr. G. never got angry.

  “It’s just that Christmas is only a week away,” Katie explained to her teacher.

  “I’m so excited, I can’t sit still,” George added.

  “You never sit still,” Kadeem Carter told George.

  George laughed. “That’s true.”

  “Well, George,” Mr. G. said. “If you can’t sit still, stand up.”

  “What?” George asked.

  The kids watched as Mr. G. went to the closet in the back of the room. He pulled out a huge bag of blown-up balloons. He was also holding a pair of red long underwear.

  “Here, George,” Mr. G. said, handing him the long underwear. “Put this on over your clothes.”

  George looked at their teacher strangely. Katie knew why. Putting on long underwear was a really strange request—even from Mr. G. And Mr. G. made a lot of strange requests.

  But George did what he was told.

  “Now, while George is putting on the long underwear, I’m going to divide the rest of you into teams,” Mr. G. said. “Katie, Emma W., and Andy, you’ll be Team One.”

  Katie grinned. Emma Weber was her closest friend in class 4A. And Andy Epstein was the best athlete. So she was on a great team—no matter what weird game they were going to play. And considering the game included balloons and underwear, it was sure to be weird.

  Once Mr. G. had put the kids into groups, he explained the game. “For this game, George is Santa.”

  “George doesn’t look anything like Santa,” Mandy Banks said. “He doesn’t have whiskers or a big belly.”

  Mr. G. smiled. “Not yet!” Then he pulled a white, cotton beard out of his desk drawer. “Here, George.”

  George put on the beard. Katie giggled. George looked really silly.

  “I gave Santa his whiskers,” Mr. G. told the kids. “Now you are going to give him his belly.”

  Huh? The kids all stared at Mr. G. Now they were very confused.

  “Each team will have twenty seconds to fill Santa’s long underwear with balloons,” Mr. G. explained. “The team who puts the most balloons into Santa’s underwear will win. Team One, you’re up first.”

  Katie, Andy, and Emma W. were given a bunch of green balloons.

  “Okay, Team One,” Mr. G. said. “On your marks. Get set. Go!”

  Katie worked as fast as she could, picking up balloons and shoving them into George’s long red underwear. It was hard. Especially because George kept squirming around.

  “Hey! That tickles, Katie Kazoo!” George shouted as Katie shoved in a green balloon.

  Katie grinned. She loved when George called her by the way-cool nickname he had given her back in third grade.

  Bam! Hisssss!

  Suddenly, a funny sound started coming from George’s behind.

  “What was that?” Kevin asked.

  “One of the balloons popped,” George said.

  In the end, Team Three won. They managed to stuff five balloons into George’s long underwear, although three popped.

  “That game was hilarious,” Santa George said, laughing.

  Katie giggled, too. The game was hilarious! But that was no surprise. There was always something funny, or exciting, or interesting going on in Mr. G.’s classroom.

  The way Katie figured, being in class 4A was like getting a Christmas present every day. You never knew what you were going to find inside. But whatever it was, you were sure to like it!

  Chapter 2

  Katie smiled happily as she unpacked her lunch in the school cafeteria later t
hat day. Her lettuce, tomato, and cheese sandwich had been cut in the shape of a Christmas tree. And she had a red and white candy cane for dessert. Her mom was so nice.

  “This is almost too pretty to eat,” Katie said, staring at the sandwich.

  “I’ve lost my appetite,” Katie’s best friend, Suzanne Lock, said. She pointed across the table at George’s food tray. “Why do you do that?” she asked him.

  George had mixed his mashed potatoes, green beans, and milk into a big, gray-green, mushy soup. “It’s fun,” George answered.

  “It’s fun to smush your food together?”

  “It’s fun to bug you,” George explained to Suzanne. He shot her a huge smile.

  Suzanne rolled her eyes. “You don’t bug me, George. I have much bigger problems than your lunch.”

  “What’s wrong, Suzanne?” Katie asked.

  Katie’s other best friend, Jeremy Fox, rolled his eyes. “Oh no,” he moaned. “Here we go.”

  Katie sighed. It made her crazy that her friends didn’t like each other.

  But if Suzanne had heard Jeremy’s comment, she didn’t act like it. Instead, she frowned and said, “My sister is what’s wrong.”

  Katie looked at Suzanne strangely. “Heather’s not even two years old. What did she do?”

  “It’s what my mother did with Heather,” Suzanne explained. “She thought it would be fun for Heather to be in the holiday show down at the Community Center. It’s a play about these broken toys who want to be given to children for Christmas. Heather’s going to be the baby doll.”

  “Aww. That sounds so cute,” Katie said.

  Suzanne shot Katie an angry look. “Whose side are you on?” she demanded.

  “Yours,” Katie assured her. “I just think Heather kind of looks like a baby doll.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s a baby, anyway,” Suzanne said. “All she has to do is sit in the sleigh and say ‘Mama, Mama’ over and over again.”

  “I still don’t understand what your problem is,” Jeremy said.

  “You don’t understand anything,” Suzanne groaned. “Everyone is making such a big fuss over Heather. I don’t know why it’s such a big deal. She’s not even acting. ‘Mama’ is one of the only words she can say. And she’s only on stage for a minute.”

  Now Katie understood why Suzanne was so upset. She hated it when anyone else was the center of attention.

  “My contribution to the show is much more important,” Suzanne continued.

  “You’re in the show, too?” George asked her.

  “Not in it,” Suzanne said. “I’m in charge of it. I’m the stage manager. Well, actually I’m the student stage manager. There’s a grown-up stage manager, too. But it’s the same thing.”

  “What exactly does a stage manager do?” Jeremy asked her.

  “I can’t believe you don’t know,” Suzanne told him.

  “I don’t, either,” Katie admitted.

  “Oh,” Suzanne said, sounding a lot nicer than she did when she was talking to Jeremy. “A stage manager is the person who makes sure all the scenery is in the right place, and that all the actors are in their costumes and ready to go onstage when they’re supposed to. A stage manager runs things.”

  “So basically you just boss people around,” Jeremy said. “That’s the perfect job for you.”

  George began to laugh.

  Suzanne shot the boys a dirty look. Then she turned to Katie. “We need someone to help paint scenery,” she told her. “You did a really great job for our school play. Could you do it for the Community Center play, too?”

  “I don’t know, Suzanne,” Katie started. “I have a lot of things . . .”

  “Oh, come on, Katie,” Suzanne urged. “Where’s your Christmas spirit?”

  Katie sighed. She knew Suzanne wasn’t going to give up until she got what she wanted. She never did. So she figured she might as well spare them both the time and energy.

  “Okay, I’ll help,” she said.

  “Great!” Suzanne high-fived Katie. “The story takes place in a magical Christmas forest. So you have to paint lots of Christmas trees. You’ll love it.”

  “It does sort of sound like fun,” Katie admitted.

  Suzanne smiled at her. “It will be fun. I’m going to be a great stage manager. The best ever. By the time I get finished with this show, everyone will be talking about me.”

  Katie rolled her eyes. That was exactly what she was afraid of. Whenever Suzanne became the center of attention, trouble was sure to follow.

  Chapter 3

  Katie wasn’t thinking about Suzanne or the Community Center show as she walked home that afternoon. She was thinking about Christmas again. It was hard not to. Even before she turned the corner onto her block, she could hear Christmas carols.

  “We wish you a merry Christmas. We wish you a merry Christmas. We wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year.”

  The music wasn’t coming from real live singers. It was blasting from the huge speakers on the roof of Mr. Brigandi’s house.

  By now, Katie was used to hearing the song. It had been playing over and over for a week now—ever since Mr. Brigandi had put up his Christmas decorations. The song was the background music for the twirling Sugar Plum Fairy and marching Nutcracker on her neighbor’s front lawn.

  “Ho, ho, ho!”

  As Katie walked further down the block, she heard Santa’s loud, jolly laughter coming from Mrs. Derkman’s house. Mrs. Derkman and her husband loved decorating their house for Christmas every bit as much as Mr. Brigandi did.

  This year, the Derkmans had placed a huge, rubbery Santa Claus on their front lawn. The Santa sat in a sleigh that moved back and forth on a track. As the sleigh moved, the Santa shouted “Ho, ho, ho” over and over.

  Katie’s house was decorated for Christmas, too. It looked pretty with its colorful flashing lights and electric candles in the windows. But it was nothing compared to what her neighbors had done.

  “Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!”

  Just then, Katie’s chocolate and white cocker spaniel, Pepper, came bounding out of the house to greet her.

  “Arf! Arf! Arf!”

  Pepper’s best friend, Snowball, was right behind him.

  Katie giggled as the two dogs jumped up and down, rubbing their fuzzy bodies against her legs. They looked so cute.

  “I love your new coat,” Katie told Pepper. Her dog was wearing a green and red plaid doggie jacket.

  Pepper wagged his stubby, little tail happily. He didn’t know exactly what Katie had said, but he could tell it was something nice.

  “And your hat is really cute, Snowball,” Katie added. “I love the antlers.”

  Snowball barked and wagged her tail at the sound of her name.

  As Katie bent down to pet Pepper and Snowball, she noticed two motorcycles parked in the driveway. She broke out into a huge smile.

  “Grandma and Nick are here!” Katie exclaimed. She jumped up and ran toward the door.

  “Well, hello there!” Katie’s grandmother said, as Katie raced into the living room.

  “Hi, Grandma!” Katie exclaimed. She gave her grandmother a big hug.

  “What? No hugs for me?” Nick asked.

  Katie reached over and wrapped her arms around Nick. It wasn’t easy. Nick had kind of a big belly.

  “Wow, your beard got so long,” Katie told Nick.

  “I combed it out really nice just for you,” Nick said, stroking his long, white beard.

  “It seems like you grew a foot since I last saw you,” Katie’s grandmother told her.

  Katie stood up straight so she would look even taller. Then she sniffed at the air. “Mmmm, it smells so Christmas-y in here.”

  “We’ve been baking gingerbread,” Nick told her. “I know it’s your favorite.”

  “It was your mother’s favorite, too, when she was your age,” Katie’s grandmother told her.

  Katie looked around. “Where is mom?”

  “At work,” Nick said. “Things
are really busy now.”

  Katie knew that was true. Her mom was the manager of the Book Nook bookstore in the Cherrydale Mall. At Christmastime, she was also the store’s chief gift wrapper.

  Thinking about that gave Katie a great idea. “If Mom and Dad aren’t home, then this is the perfect time to wrap their gifts.”

  “It sure is,” Nick told her.

  “I’m going to put lots of ribbons and stickers on the packages, so they look really pretty under the tree,” Katie said. Then she sighed. “If we ever get a tree. Mom and Dad have been too busy to buy one.”

  “I did notice something was missing around here,” Nick said.

  As far as Katie was concerned, Christmas just wasn’t Christmas without a big tree in the living room.

  “I wi . . .” Katie began. Then she stopped herself.

  Phew. That had been close. She’d almost wished for a tree. But Katie never made wishes. Ever.

  Chapter 4

  It had all started back in third grade on one terrible, horrible, miserable day. First, Katie had missed the football and lost the game for her team. Then she’d fallen in the mud and ruined her brand-new, favorite jeans. And then she’d stood up in front of the whole class, and let out the biggest, loudest burp in the history of Cherrydale Elementary School. Talk about embarrassing.

  That night, Katie had wished that she could be anyone but herself. There must have been a shooting star overhead or something, because the next day the magic wind arrived.

  The magic wind was a wild, powerful tornado that blew only around Katie. The magic wind was so strong that it was able to blow her right out of her own body into someone else’s. One . . . two . . . switcheroo!

  The first time the magic wind came, it turned her into Speedy the class hamster. Katie had spent the whole morning stuck in a cage, going around and around on a hamster wheel and eating wooden chew sticks. When she finally escaped from the cage, she wound up in George’s stinky gym sneaker! Boy was Katie happy when the magic wind returned and blew her back into herself again!