Miss Holly Is Too Jolly! (2 page)

“Line up in ABC order,” said our teacher, Miss Daisy, after we finished pledging the allegiance the next morning. “We're having an assembly!”

“Yay!” said the girls.

“Boo!” said the boys.

Assemblies are when the whole school
goes to the all-purpose room and we have to listen to somebody talk for a million hundred hours. The last time we had an assembly, some children's book author told us about his books. What a bore! The reading specialist, Mr. Macky, is always trying to get us to read.

I hate reading.

But this assembly looked like it was going to be different. The all-purpose room was decorated with big candy canes, snowmen, and fake snow. “Jingle Bells” was playing on the loudspeaker.

After we sat down, the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. Something started coming down from the ceiling above the stage!

At first we couldn't tell what it was. Then we saw it was a sleigh! As it got lower, we could see Santa Claus sitting in the sleigh. Some kids were pulling long ropes that lowered the sleigh down until it reached the stage.

“Ho ho ho!”

“It's Santa Claus!” everybody shouted.

“I'm not Santa Claus,” the guy said. He took off his Santa hat so we could see his shiny bald head. “I'm Santa KLUTZ!”

It was Mr. Klutz, the principal! Everyone started hooting and hollering. Miss Daisy shushed us. Mr. Klutz waited until everybody was quiet. He picked up a microphone so we could hear him better.

“I always gets santamental around the holidays,” Mr. Klutz said. “Get it?
Santa
mental?”

“Hahahahahahahahahaha!”

We all laughed even though Mr. Klutz didn't say anything funny. When the principal makes a joke, you should always laugh. That's the first rule of being a kid. If you don't laugh at the principal's jokes, he'll get mad and lock you in the dungeon down in the basement.

“But seriously,” Mr. Klutz said, “what do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?”

“What?” we all yelled.

“Frostbite!” he said. “Get it? Frost? Bite?”

“Hahahahahahahaha!”

Mr. Klutz is always cracking jokes. He thinks he is a real comedian. But his jokes are terrible. It should be against the law for principals to tell jokes.

“Do you know why Santa's little helper was depressed?” Mr. Klutz asked.

“Why?” we all yelled.

“Because he had low elf-esteem. Get it? Elf? Esteem?”

“Hahahahahaha!”

Maybe if we stopped laughing at his jokes, Mr. Klutz would stop telling them.

“What do you call people who are afraid of Santa?” Mr. Klutz asked.

“What?” we all yelled.

“Claustrophobic!” he said. “Get it? Claus? Trophobic?”

“Hahahaha!”

It was horrible. It was like watching one of those movies that never ends. I looked over at Ryan and Michael. They rolled their eyes.

“What do snowmen eat for breakfast?” Mr. Klutz asked.

“What?” we all yelled.

“Snowflakes!” he said. “Get it? Snow? Flakes?”

“Haha!”

Finally Mr. Klutz ran out of jokes. What a relief! He told us he was dressed up like Santa because he had big news. This year Ella Mentry School would be putting on its first ever holiday pageant. That's a show all about the holidays.

“Our art teacher, Ms. Hannah, will help paint the scenery. Our music teacher, Mr. Loring, will help with the songs. Our librarian, Mrs. Roopy, will help with the research. And the director of the pageant,” Mr. Klutz announced, “will be our own…Miss Holly!”

Everybody clapped, and Miss Holly danced up onto the stage with her guitar. She played “Winter Wonderland,” and
we all joined in.

“I'm so excited!” Miss Holly said. “We're going to sing songs, perform skits, and have lots of fun. It's going to be the best holiday pageant ever!”

It sounded horrible.

After the assembly we walked a million hundred miles back to our class. Andrea was all excited about the holiday pageant. She loves to be in plays because she's a big show-off.

“Last year I was in
The Nutcracker
,” she bragged.

“They made a play about nuts?” I asked. “No wonder
you
were in it.”

Andrea got all mad. “Why do you have to be so mean, Arlo?”

“Why do you have to be so annoying?” I asked.

“Enough chitchatting,” Miss Daisy said when we were all sitting in our seats. “I have some important news. This year we're going to have a Secret Santa in our class.”

Secret Santa? Who's that? None of us had ever heard of Secret Santa. But Santa is cool, and anything that involves secrets is cool. So Secret Santa must be cool.

Miss Daisy told us that she wrote everyone's name on slips of paper and
put them all into a fishbowl. Each of us would take a slip of paper out of the fishbowl, and then we'd have to get a present for that kid. But we couldn't tell the kid we were getting them a present. That's what made it a
secret
. Miss Daisy said we would exchange our Secret Santa presents in a few weeks, just before the big holiday pageant. If anyone forgot to bring in a present, they wouldn't be allowed to
get
a present either.

Everybody was all excited. We lined up to pick slips of paper out of the fishbowl. I hoped I wouldn't pick some lame girl like Andrea or Emily. I'd rather get a present for Ryan or Michael or one of the other boys.

We lined up in ZYX order, which is the opposite of ABC order. Everybody picked a slip of paper out of the fishbowl and giggled a little when they saw the name on it. Finally it was my turn. There were only a couple of slips of paper left.

“No peeking, A.J.,” Miss Daisy told me
as I reached my hand into the fishbowl.

I picked out a slip of paper.

I looked at the paper.

The paper said…

I'm not going to tell you.

Okay, okay, I'll tell you.

The paper said, “Emily.”

Nooooooooooooooooooooo!

Not Emily! What could I possibly get for Emily? She is a real girly-girl. I will have to go to some girly-girl store and buy some girly-girl present like smelly perfume. It will be horrible.

Secret Santa is stupid.

A few days later, we were in the language lab and Miss Holly was telling us all about Spain. It's a country in Europe, and it's the whole way across the Atlantic Ocean.

Miss Holly played her guitar, sang, tap-danced, and told us all kinds of useless information about Spain. Did you know
that Spain is twice the size of Oregon? I didn't know that.

Do you care?

Me neither.

“In Spain,” Miss Holly told us, “boys and girls only have to go to school until they are sixteen years old.”

“All right!” I said. “I'm moving to Spain!”

“Then you'll have to learn to speak Spanish, A.J.,” said Miss Holly.

I told her I already know how to speak Spanish because I saw this movie called
Terminator II
where Arnold Schwarzenegger kills a bunch of guys, and before he leaves he says, “
Hasta la vista
, baby!” My mom told me that means “until we meet again.” It was a
cool movie.

“That's good, A.J., but you'll have to learn a lot more than that,” Miss Holly said. “Let's work on our Spanish vocabulary for the pageant.”

“Yay!” said the girls.

“Boo!” said the boys.

“The first word we're going to learn
today is ‘nose,'” said Miss Holly. “The Spanish word for ‘nose' is
la nariz
,” said Miss Holly.

“La nariz,”
we all repeated.

“Good,” said Miss Holly. “The next word is ‘think.' The Spanish word for ‘think' is
pensar
.”

“Pensar,”
we all repeated.

“Good,” said Miss Holly. “The next word is ‘Christmas tree.' The Spanish word for ‘Christmas tree' is
el árbol de Navidad
.”

“El árbol de Navidad,”
we all repeated.

“Good,” said Miss Holly. “The next word is ‘stuck.' The Spanish word for ‘stuck' is
pegado
.”

“Pegado,”
we all repeated.

Miss Holly sure picks weird words.

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

“Well,” Miss Holly said, “what if you're in Spain and you need to say, ‘I think I have a Christmas tree stuck to my nose'?”

Miss Holly is weird.

During the first week in December, Miss Daisy told us all about the holidays so we'd be ready for the pageant. I already knew the story of Christmas. But I didn't know much about Hanukkah.

Now, I don't remember
everything
Miss Daisy told us. But basically, Hanukkah has something to do with a war. I know
all about war. I have some plastic army guys down in my basement, and me and Michael and Ryan line them up and shoot them with rubber bands.

Anyway, a million hundred years ago, the Jewish people were fighting a war. They were way outnumbered by another army, but they kicked their butts anyway. So after the war was over, the Jewish people went back to their temple to hang out and play video games and stuff. It was dark out. They didn't have lightbulbs in those days, so they had to light oil lamps or they would bump into the walls when they walked into the kitchen to get more pizza.

The problem was that they could only find one jar of oil. That would last one
night, but they wanted to hang out all week playing video games and eating pizza. I guess they sent somebody to the gas station to get more oil, but he never came back. So they put the one jar of oil they had into the lamp and lit it.

The cool thing is that the oil didn't just last one night. It didn't just last two nights. It didn't just last three nights. It lasted eight whole nights! It was a miracle!

“Wow!” we all said after Miss Daisy finished telling us the story of Hanukkah.

“I saw a miracle like that once,” I said.

“Tell us about it, A.J.,” said Miss Daisy.

“We were driving to my grandmother's house,” I said. “Suddenly our car stopped right in the middle of the highway. My
dad said he thought he had a full tank of gas, but it turned out the gas gauge was broken, and the tank was empty.”

“That doesn't have anything to do with Hanukkah,” Andrea said.

“Sure it does,” I said. “The Jewish people thought they only had a little oil, but it turned out they had a lot. We thought we had a lot of gas, but we only had a little. It was the opposite of Hanukkah.”

“You're a dumbhead,” Andrea said.

“So is your face,” I told her. Anytime somebody says something mean to you, all you have to do is say, “So is your face.” That's the first rule of being a kid.

Miss Daisy told me and Andrea to
knock it off. She said that Hanukkah lasts for eight nights, and each night they light a candle in the menorah.

“They stick the candles in manure?” I asked. “That's disgusting!”

“Menor
ah
,” Miss Daisy said. “It's like a candleholder.”

“Oh,” I said. “I knew that.”

To celebrate Hanukkah, Jewish kids play this game with a four-sided top called a dreidel that spins around, and they eat potato pancakes called latkes, and they hunt for chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil. The kids get presents every night, too, of course. Hanukkah is cool.

Miss Daisy showed us how to spin a
dreidel and gave us each a piece of chocolate money. We had a bathroom break after that, and then she said it was time to work on our writing skills. We were learning to write friendly letters, so Miss Daisy asked us if we'd like to write letters to Santa Claus.

“Yeah!” everybody shouted.

She told us to write whatever we wanted. This is what I wrote:

Miss Daisy looked at what I was writing and said I had to write something besides a list of stuff I want. So I added this:

Miss Daisy asked if anyone wanted to read their letter in front of the class. Andrea was the only one who raised her hand (of course), so she stood up and started reading.

What a brownnoser! I know for a fact that Andrea only said that stuff so Miss Daisy would like her. Once I went to Andrea's house for her birthday party, and the place was
filled
with toys. She has every American Girl doll ever made. The only reason Andrea doesn't want Santa to bring her any more toys is because she has no place to put them.

After Andrea finished reading her
dumb letter, the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. Miss Daisy started crying!

“That's the most beautiful letter I've ever heard, Andrea,” said Miss Daisy.

Andrea smiled her Little-Miss-Perfect smile.

Why doesn't a sack filled with letters fall on her head?