A Katie Kazoo Christmas (13 page)

“Okay, Katie, it’s your turn,” Mr. Guthrie said. “Whose Secret Santa will you be?”

Katie looked at the red-and-white Santa Claus hat her teacher was holding. Inside were lots of folded pieces of paper. Each paper had a name written on it. The person whose name she picked would be the person she would have to buy gifts for. That was how Secret Santa worked.

“I hope you get my name,” Emma Weber whispered as Katie stuck her hand into the hat. “You’d be a great Secret Santa.”

Katie hoped she picked Emma’s name from the hat, too. Emma was one of her closest friends. It would be easy to buy presents for her.

Katie reached all the way down to the bottom of the hat and pulled out one of the slips of paper. Then she slowly opened it and read the name:

Oh, well. She was just going to have to think a little harder to come up with good gifts.

“Okay, now that everyone has picked a name, I’ll tell you the rules,” Mr. G. said. “You will have to buy the person whose name you drew three gifts. The first two gifts should cost no more than one dollar each. The third present is the big gift. You may spend up to five dollars on that one.”

Katie did the math in her head. Seven dollars. That was three more than she had in her bank at home. It would be Sunday until she would get her allowance. She sure hoped Mr. G. would give them some time before the first Secret Santa day.

“We’ll start our Secret Santa gift exchanges next Tuesday. That’s one week from today,” Mr. G. told the class.

“When you come to school, drop your gift in the big red bag outside the classroom door,” Mr. G. continued. “You should wrap your presents in plain brown paper. And make sure you write the name of the person you are giving the gift to on your package. The first two days, I’ll hand the gifts out for you. That way you Santas can stay secret until Thursday, when you reveal your identity to the person whose name is on your slip of paper.”

“This is going to be so cool!” George exclaimed.

“I can’t wait to go shopping,” Mandy Banks said. “I know exactly what to buy for my person.”

“Me, too,” Emma Stavros agreed. “This is easy.”

Katie wished she had it easy.
Kadeem
. That was a tough one. It was hard knowing what to buy for a boy. And it was even harder because this was the first year she and Kadeem had been in the same class. She didn’t know him nearly as well as some of the other kids.

“Okay, gang, let’s get this day rockin’ and rollin’,” Mr. G. said. Katie knew she would have to think about her Secret Santa gifts later. Now she had to concentrate on her school work. “We’ll start with social studies,” he told the class. “Who can tell me about some of the animals that actually live at the Arctic Circle?”

George Brennan raised his hand high. “Ooh. Ooh. Ooh!” he shouted. “Mr. G., I know this one,” he said excitedly.

Katie looked over at George and smiled. He was practically bouncing out of his beanbag chair. George really liked geography a lot. He was so excited, he knocked his backpack over. All his books and papers spilled out onto the floor.

“Check it out. George is Santa Klutz!” Kadeem joked.

Everyone laughed. Everyone except George, that is.

“What does Santa like to put into his cookies?” George asked the class.

“What?” Kevin Camilleri wondered.

“His teeth!” George exclaimed. Then he laughed. “Ho ho ho!”

Almost everyone else in the class laughed, too. But not Kadeem.

“What do Santa’s elves learn in first grade?” Kadeem asked.

“What?” Andrew Epstein called out.

“The elf-abet!” Kadeem shouted.

“Hey, good one, dude!” Andrew said.

“Did you hear the one about Santa and—” George began.

“Whoa, hold on to that joke, dude,” Mr. G. interrupted. “We can have a holiday joke-off this afternoon. But right now, we’ve got to stick to social studies.”

Katie grinned. A joke-off! Now that was something to look forward to.

It also gave her a great idea. She knew exactly what Secret Santa presents she was going to get for Kadeem!

“Mom, I’m going over to Cinnamon’s Candy Shop,” Katie called up to her mom.

It was the Monday before the Secret Santa gift exchange was going to start. Katie finally had all the money she needed for Kadeem’s gifts. She was buying the first two smaller gifts today.

Mrs. Carew was standing on a ladder, putting books on a high shelf in the fiction section of the Book Nook bookstore. She was the manager of the store. It was her job to make sure all the books were on the right shelves.

“Okay,” Mrs. Carew called down to Katie. “Just be back by five-thirty. I’ve got to get home and finish trimming the Christmas tree. Grandma is coming tomorrow, and I want everything to be just perfect.”

Katie smiled. She couldn’t wait to see her grandma. She was the most wonderful grandmother in the whole world.

Katie’s grandma was the only adult Katie knew who rode roller coasters. She even had her own website with pictures of roller coasters from all over the world that she had ridden.

Katie’s grandmother did other cool things, too, like swimming with dolphins in Mexico and skiing in the Swiss Alps!

Of course, she also did normal grandmother things, like baking cookies and knitting sweaters for people in her family.

Katie definitely couldn’t wait to see her!

The Cherrydale Mall was one of Katie’s favorite places. Since her mother worked in the mall, Katie spent a lot of time wandering in and out of the stores. Almost all of the shopkeepers knew her. And even though they were grown-ups, they were all friends of Katie’s.

The mall hardly ever changed. Sure, once in a while a new store or restaurant opened. But for the most part, everything stayed the same.

Except at Christmastime. Then the whole center of the mall was turned into a giant Winter Wonderland. It was complete with snow, reindeer, elves, and a little North Pole Express train that kids could actually ride!

And in the center of it all sat Santa Claus. Of course, this wasn’t a real Winter Wonderland. It was actually a photography studio in the center of the mall. Kids went there to sit on Santa’s lap and have their pictures taken.

Katie watched one little boy being dragged onto Santa’s lap by an elf. The kid definitely was not happy about it.

“I don’t wanna go!” he screamed loudly.

“Come on, Jeffrey,” his mother coaxed. “Just one picture.”

“No!” Jeffrey shouted. “No Santa.”

Katie was so busy watching Jeffrey’s temper tantrum, she didn’t even notice her best friend Suzanne Lock coming up behind her.

“What a brat!” Suzanne exclaimed, looking at Jeffrey.

Katie turned around. “I think he’s just scared,” she replied. “What are you doing here?”

“My mom’s taking Heather to have her picture taken with Santa,” Suzanne told Katie. She pointed toward the line of children and parents waiting to see Santa.

Katie spotted Mrs. Lock in the middle of the line. She was carrying Suzanne’s one-and-a-half-year-old sister, Heather.

Heather was wearing a red velvet dress.

She had a big green bow in her curly brown hair. “She looks so cute!” Katie told Suzanne.

“My mother bought her that dress just to have her picture taken with Santa Claus,” Suzanne explained. “She said I could have a new dress, too, if I would have my picture taken.”

Katie studied Suzanne’s outfit. She was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, brown suede boots, and a yellow sweater with glitter around the neck and sleeves.

“I guess you said no,” Katie said with a laugh.

“Of course,” Suzanne told her. “I’m not going to the Winter Wonderland. That’s totally for babies.”

“I don’t know, Suzanne,” Katie told her. “It could be kind of cool to sit on Santa’s lap. For old time’s sake, I mean.”

“It would not be cool,” Suzanne told her. “I mean, look at that guy. He doesn’t even look like the real Santa. His belly isn’t nearly fat enough.”

Katie shook her head. There was no point arguing with Suzanne when she got like this. “Well, I’ve got to get going,” Katie said finally. “I’m shopping for some of my Secret Santa presents.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard you guys in class 4A were doing that,” Suzanne replied. “Whose name did you pick?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Katie told her. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”

“Come on. I’m not even in your class,” Suzanne urged. “And I’m your best friend.”

“True,” Katie agreed. “But you can’t keep a secret. So I’m not telling.”

Suzanne frowned. “Fine,” she said. “But if I find out who got your name, I’m not telling you.”

“That’s okay,” Katie answered. “I want to be surprised.”

On Tuesday morning, Katie was the first one in the school building. She wanted to drop off her present before anyone could see her. By the time the other kids began placing their gifts in the big red bag, Katie was already seated on her beanbag chair.