Miss Holly Is Too Jolly!

1
   Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa

2
   Weird Words

3
   Santa Klutz Is Coming to Town

4
   Secret Santa

5
   Learning How to Speak Spanish

6
   The Opposite of Hanukkah

7
   Is Santa Claus Real?

8
   Getting Ready for the Holiday Pageant

9
   The Most Horrible Thing in the History of the World

10
   My Genius Idea

11
   The Arrival of Secret Santa

12
   The Big Holiday Pageant

About the Author and the Illustrator

Copyright

About the Publisher

“Me llamo A.J. y odio la escuela.”

That's “My name is A.J. and I hate school” in Spanish.

Miss Holly translated it for me. She's the Spanish teacher at Ella Mentry School.

“It's not fair,” I said as our class walked down the hall to the language lab. “Why
do we have to learn a whole nother language?”

“‘Nother' isn't a word, Arlo,” said Andrea Young. “You can't even speak
English
correctly.”

Andrea is this girl in my class with curly brown hair who thinks she knows everything. She calls me by my real name because she knows I hate it.

“‘Nother' is
too
a word,” I told her.

“Is not.”

“Is too.”

We went back and forth like that for a while. Andrea said she looked up “nother” in the dictionary once, and it wasn't there. She's probably the only kid
in the world who keeps a dictionary on her desk so she can look up words and show everybody how smart she is.

“‘
Another
' is a word,” Andrea said, “but not ‘nother.'”

“Oh yeah?” I said. “If ‘nother' isn't a word, then why did you just say it?”

Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on her.

Andrea was wearing this dumb hat that she made all by herself in her knitting class. Andrea takes classes in everything. She probably even takes a class in how to be annoying, because that's the one thing she's good at.

After walking a million hundred miles, we finally got to the language lab. What a
dumb name. Labs are supposed to have test tubes and mad scientists and hunch-backed guys named Igor who limp. Our language lab is just a plain old room where we learn Spanish. What's up with that?

“Isn't learning Spanish fun?” Andrea said to her crybaby friend Emily. “I hope Miss Holly teaches us—”

She didn't get the chance to finish her sentence because at that very second Miss Holly danced in the door.

Miss Holly was playing a guitar and she had a big basket of fruit on her head. She was singing some crazy song and spinning around and stamping her feet. Her
red dress had pictures of reindeer on the back. On the front were blinking lights and the words “Happy Holidays!”

When she finished the song, Miss Holly yelled, “Olay!” which is the name of the stuff my mom smears on her face at night.

“¡Feliz Navidad!”
Miss Holly said. “Happy Hanukkah!
Kwanzaa Yenu Iwe Na Heri!
”

“What the heck does that mean?” I asked.

“That means Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Kwanzaa!” Miss Holly replied.

“Which holiday do
you
celebrate?” asked Emily.

“Me?” said Miss Holly. “I celebrate
all
of them!”

If you ask me, it was a little early to be talking about the holidays. I mean, we just came back to school from Thanksgiving break a few days ago. Miss Holly is
too
jolly.

“I love all the holidays!” Miss Holly said. “I can't wait for December!”

“My favorite holiday is Halloween,” said Neil, who everybody calls the nude kid, even though he wears clothes.

“My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving,” said my friend Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that is not food.

“My favorite holiday is my birthday,” said my other friend Michael, who never ties his shoes.

Everybody started shouting out their favorite holiday.

“What's
your
favorite holiday, A.J.?” Miss Holly asked me.

“My favorite holiday is Take Our Daughters to Work Day,” I said.

“That's for
girls
,” Andrea said. “Why is that
your
favorite holiday, Arlo?”

“Because
you're
not here,” I replied.

“That's mean!” Andrea said. She crossed her arms and wrinkled up her face.

She was right. It
was
mean. That's why I said it!

I hate her.

“¡Hola!”
Miss Holly said. “Today we're going to learn Spanish vocabulary words.”

“Yay!” said the girls.

“Boo!” said the boys.

“The first word is ‘toupee,'” said Miss Holly.

I know what a toupee is. It's fake hair that guys wear so they won't look bald. Our principal, Mr. Klutz, should get one because he's as bald as a bowling ball.

“The Spanish word for ‘toupee' is
el peluquín
,” said Miss Holly.

“El peluquín,”
we all repeated.

“Good,” said Miss Holly. “The next word is ‘lifeguard.' The Spanish word for ‘lifeguard' is
el salvavidas
.”

“El salvavidas,”
we all repeated.

“Good,” said Miss Holly. “The next word is ‘toilet.' The Spanish word for ‘toilet' is
el inodoro
.”

“El inodoro,”
we all repeated.

This was getting weird. I figured Miss
Holly would teach us words we'd use every day, like “When do we eat?” or “Where is the skate park?” But she was teaching us weird words instead.

Neil the nude kid raised his hand. “Why do we need to learn
those
words?” he asked.

“Well,” said Miss Holly, “what if you're at the beach and you need to tell somebody that the lifeguard's toupee fell in the toilet?”

Miss Holly is weird.

“Okay, that's enough vocabulary for now,”

Miss Holly said.
“Let's learn how they celebrate the holidays in a Spanish-speaking country like Mexico!”

Miss Holly told us that eleven days after Christmas in Mexico, kids put their shoes out on the balcony before they go to sleep. If they've been good, their shoes will be filled with treats when they wake up the next morning.

“Eww, that's disgusting!” I said. “I wouldn't eat those smelly treats!”

Miss Holly said that was silly. Then she told us that for nine days before
Christmas in Mexico, people act out the journey of Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem. After a big feast, they play the piñata game.

“Repeat after me,” said Miss Holly. “Piñata!”

“Piñata,” we all repeated.

I knew what a piñata was because Ryan had one at his birthday party. It's this big, hollow, paper thing you hang from a tree, and kids take turns whacking it with a stick. When the piñata breaks open, candy falls out and everybody grabs it.

Piñatas are cool because you get to do two very cool things—eat candy and whack something with a stick.

Miss Holly went to the closet, and guess what she took out?

I'm not going to tell you.

Okay, okay, I'll tell you.

A piñata! It was in the shape of a star. We were going to play the piñata game! All right!

Miss Holly climbed up on her desk and tied the piñata to a bar on the ceiling.

“Can I go first?” we all yelled.

Miss Holly said we'd go in ABC order, which meant that Andrea (AN) got to go first. I lined up behind her because my real name, Arlo, begins with AR.

Miss Holly told us that in Mexico the kids are blindfolded when they play the
piñata game. She tied a blindfold over Andrea's eyes and put a stick in her hand.

“You can do it, Andrea!” the girls yelled.

“I bet she misses the whole thing,” I told Ryan.

Well, Andrea was totally pathetic. She hardly
ever
hit the piñata. Even when she did, she only tapped it a little and it just spun around. All the boys were cracking up.

Finally it was my turn. Miss Holly tied the blindfold over my eyes and put the stick in my hand.

“Kill it, A.J.!” the boys yelled.

No way was I going to let anybody laugh at
me
. I was going to whack that
piñata so hard, candy would fly all over the room. I reached back and swung the stick as hard as I could.

But I must have missed.

“Owwww!”
somebody screamed.

I took off the blindfold. Emily was lying on the floor with her hands over her head.

“A.J. hit me!” she yelled.

“It was an accident!” I said. I must admit I've always
wanted
to hit Emily with a stick, but I would never do it on purpose. It wasn't
my
fault that she got so close.

Miss Holly gasped. “Go to Mrs. Cooney's office,” she told Emily. Mrs. Cooney is the school nurse.

Emily went running out of the room, shrieking like an elephant fell on her. What a crybaby! She wasn't even bleeding or anything.

I thought Miss Holly was going to let
me have another turn, but she said the piñata game was too dangerous to play in school. Bummer in the summer!

It wasn't fair. We didn't even get any candy.