Holly's Jolly Christmas (2 page)

“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.

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.

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

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
.

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!

The trouble was Katie never stayed herself for long. The magic wind came back again and again. Once it turned her into Lucille, the lunch lady. Katie started a food fight with gooey egg salad and almost got the real Lucille fired.

Another time, the magic wind turned Katie into Mike Reed, the shortstop for the Cherrydale Porcupines. Mike was an amazing baseball player. Unfortunately, Katie wasn’t. She struck out, and dropped an important fly ball. Then she started to cry—and everyone in the stadium saw her on the jumbotron screen. Only they thought it was Mike who was sobbing. The poor guy!