The Holly Joliday (6 page)

“What do you call somebody who only wants snow for Christmas?”

“Freak of nature. Hey, wait, that’s me!”

“Exactly,” said Judy.

9:44 p.m.

“Still no snow,” said Stink, reporting from his lookout by the window. He pointed to the thermometer outside. “Hey, good news. It’s thirty-eight degrees. The temperature’s dropping. It was thirty-
nine
a few minutes ago.”

“Well, my temperature’s going up every time you check that thing!”

9:52 p.m.

“Kids!” said Dad, poking his head into the playroom. “It’s way past your bedtime!”

Mom had ribbon around her neck and a tag stuck to her sweater. “It’s past mine, too,” she said, yawning.

“But it’s Christmas Eve!” said Stink.

“We’re trying to stay up till midnight,” said Judy. “To see if it snows. Can’t we just sleep down here in our sleeping bags tonight?”

Mom and Dad gave each other a look. “Okay,” said Dad. “Mom and I are off to bed. No pillow fights.”

“And no more hula dancing. Time to start tucking in,” said Mom.

“Bah, humbug,” said Judy.

She put on her monkey PJs. Stink climbed inside his snowflake sleeping bag. Mom and Dad kissed them good night and turned out the lights. Stink couldn’t help closing his eyes.

“Stink, don’t punk out on me now,” Judy said, plugging the flamingo lights back in. The palm tree twinkled with all the colors of a sunset in Hawaii.

“I’m just resting my eyes,” said Stink, yawning.

10:12 p.m.

Judy went to brush her teeth. By the time she came back, Stink was fast asleep. Even Mouse was curled up on a cozy Santa hat. “Hey, Snoozer,” Judy called, but Stink did not wake up. She tried making goofy faces and noises. She tried lifting up his eyelids. She tried tickling him awake with the fuzzy tip of the Santa hat.

Finally, she gave up. Stink was going to be so bummed out that he fell asleep. But he was going to be double disappointed when he woke up and there was no snow.

10:27 p.m.

Judy hummed all Twelve Days of Christmas . . . inside her head.

10:28 p.m.

Judy counted reindeer . . . inside her head.

10:37 p.m.

Suddenly, in the not-so-silent night, Judy heard something . . . tapping on the roof.
Reindeer?
She heard something else . . . tapping at the window.
Jack Frost?
She looked out, when what to her wondering eyes did appear, but . . .

Rain!

There was only one thing worse than
not
getting snow for Christmas. Getting
rain.
Judy looked over at the sleeping Stink. He was going to be double triple quadruple bummed-out disappointed.

What happened then? Well, in Moodyville they say that Judy Moody’s heart grew three sizes that day.

Judy ran to get scissors. Paper. Glitter. Glue.
Snip, snip, snip.
While Stink was asleep all snug on the couch, Judy made millions of paper snowflakes and stuck them all over the walls, windows, and doors.

She sprinkled the teeny-tiny scraps along the windowsill and all across the floor. She even sprinkled Stink while he was sleeping. In the moonlight, the confetti looked like new-fallen snow.

Perfect!
Brain
storms were better than
rain
storms any old day. Now Stink could have a ho-ho, not ho-hum, Christmas. Judy could not wait to see Stink’s face when he woke up to snow everywhere, even if it was fake. It would be a million times better than watching him eat fruitcake any day.

Judy felt like Old Man Winter. She felt like Santa at the North Pole. She felt like Snow Freak Bentley.

She, Judy Moody, felt like the genuine-and-for-real Jack not-the-mailman Frost.

11:57 p.m.

Just before the big hand and the little hand hit twelve, the rain stopped tap, tap, tapping. Judy snuggled down into her cozy sleeping bag. At last, she was ready for some long winter’s nap, nap, napping.

When Stink woke up bright and early Christmas morning, he thought he was dreaming.

“Judy! Wake up! Wake up! Snow! It really is a white Christmas!”

Judy rolled over. “I know, Stink. It’s just pretend snow. I didn’t want you to have a very muddy Christmas. Or a very moody one.”

“No, Jack Frost was here. For real and absolute positive. No lie.”

“Um-hmmm. He brought us mittens,” said Judy, hunkering down into her sleeping bag. “It’s cold!”

“C’mon, Bed Head.” Stink tugged at her sleeping bag. “Just get up and look out the window.”

Still wrapped in her sleeping bag, Judy stood up and kangaroo-hopped over to the window. Stink had rubbed a small circle in the frost on the windowpane. Judy and Stink smushed their noses to the glass and peered out. Mouse dashed over to the window, too, jingling all the way.

Snow. Real-live, not-fake snow. On houses, trees, rocks, hills, and leaves. Everywhere they looked, a blanket of white. A marvelous marshmallow world. A whipped-cream winter wonderland.

The earth was covered in clean, bright, stellar-dendrite snow. Heaven and nature seemed to sparkle and sing. Joy to the world!

“Snow,” Stink breathed. Now he could see why, in Alaska, they had a dozen different words for snow. One word just wasn’t good enough.

“A genuine-and-for-real freak of nature!” said Judy.

“It’s like being inside a snow globe — from Vermont!” said Stink. “I wished. I hoped. I dreamed of a white Christmas, and my wish came true. Just like Jack Frost said.”

“The world is your snowball, Stink!” said Judy.