A Katie Kazoo Christmas (10 page)

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Authors: Nancy Krulik

BOOK: A Katie Kazoo Christmas
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The mall was quiet when Katie and her mom arrived. It was still a few minutes before the shops opened. The store owners were the only ones there.
“Hey there, Katie,” Louie said as he saw her walking toward the Book Nook. “Are you coming by for a special Christmas slice today?”
“Definitely!” Katie assured him.
“I’ve got Christmas plates,” Louie told her. He held up a dish that had a picture of Santa on it. “I’m going to use these every year at Christmastime.”
“I’ll be back in time for lunch!” Katie promised him. Then she wandered off into the mall.
Katie walked around for a while. As the stores began to open, more and more people entered the mall. By the time Katie reached Thimbles Department Store—which was pretty far from the Book Nook and Louie’s Pizza Shop—the mall was getting crowded.
Thimbles Department Store had a whole display of hats in the window. Katie knew she should go buy presents for her parents, but she couldn’t help herself. Katie loved trying on hats.
She walked into the store and headed straight for the hat department. On the way, she passed the gift-wrapping counter. There was a long line of customers, all waiting for Lauren to work her magic on their presents.
Katie laughed when she saw Lauren. The gift wrapper looked like a Christmas present! She was dressed in all green and red. There were little reindeer knitted into the back of her sweater. And on top of her head was a hair clip with a red bow on it.
Katie stopped for a minute to watch Lauren wrap a present. She was incredible. Her fingers flew across the green-and-red paper as she folded the edges down and neatly placed a piece of tape on each edge. Then she took a piece of shimmery silver paper and expertly folded it into a little star, which she glued to the center of the gift.
“That’s gorgeous!” the woman who had bought the gift exclaimed.
Katie thought about the presents sitting under her tree at home. The ones from Thimbles looked beautiful because Lauren had wrapped them.
But Katie had wrapped Pepper’s gift all by herself.
It
didn’t look so beautiful. It was more like a lumpy blob of paper held together with too much tape. And having it sitting there next to all the beautifully wrapped gifts just made it look worse.
Katie sighed. She wished she could unwrap all the presents under her tree. That way there wouldn’t be any competition to see which gift was wrapped the nicest.
And come to think of it, if there was no gift wrapping, the Earth would get a pretty nice gift, too.
“What a waste,” Katie said out loud.
“Excuse me?” a woman standing in the gift-wrap line asked her.
“I mean all that paper,” Katie explained. “Why do we even bother wrapping presents? We just rip the paper off, anyway. And think of all the trees that had to die just so our presents can look good. Wrapping presents is ruining our environment. What kind of Christmas spirit is that?”
The woman looked at Katie curiously. She thought for a moment. “You know, you have a point,” she said suddenly. “I can mail these without all that wrapping paper.”
Katie smiled. “Exactly. And then you don’t have to wait in this long line, either.”
“Come on, Sally,” the woman said to her friend. “This little girl is right. Wrapping paper is a waste.”
“Save our trees,” Katie said excitedly. She smiled proudly as the women walked away. She felt like she had done something really wonderful.
But Lauren didn’t feel that way. She had watched the women leave, too. And there was no smile on
her
face.
Katie felt kind of bad. She hadn’t meant to upset Lauren. She’d just been trying to save the trees.
Or was she?
Deep down, Katie knew that wasn’t exactly true. Actually, she had been kind of jealous of the way Lauren wrapped gifts. That was really why she had said what she did. The trees had just been an excuse.
Katie sighed. She sure had been feeling jealous a lot lately. And not just of Lauren. She’d also been pretty jealous of Jeremy and his eight Hanukkah gifts. And she’d been kind of jealous of the way Kadeem’s family celebrated
two
holidays—Christmas and Kwanzaa.
Jealousy wasn’t a very good feeling. In fact, she felt kind of miserable.
Katie turned and walked away. She didn’t want to look at Lauren’s sad face anymore.
Chapter 7
As Katie walked through Thimbles Department Store, she was surrounded by last-minute shoppers. It was making her crazy. She didn’t want to see any more gifts or any more people. She just wanted to be alone.
But that was hard to do on a crowded day in the mall.
In fact, there was only one place Katie could think of where she could be totally and completely alone . . . the dressing rooms at Thimbles!
Quickly, Katie grabbed a pretty pink-and-white striped sweater from a shelf and hurried toward the dressing room. Then she waited in the long line that led to the little closetlike dressing rooms.
It seemed to Katie that she was waiting an awfully long time for a dressing room to become free. But finally, she reached the front of the line.
Katie hurried into the little, private room. She locked the door and sat down on the bench.
Phew.
It was nice to be alone for a second. Katie was tired of the mall being so crowded with holiday shoppers. She didn’t like having to wait in line to buy things, get a snack, or just go to the bathroom.
She was sick of wrapping paper, presents, and her mom working late all the time.
In fact, Katie was just plain sick of Christmas! She couldn’t wait for it to be over!
Just then, Katie felt a cool breeze blowing on the back of her neck. She gulped. There were no windows in the dressing room. So there was no way that draft was coming from outside.
Which meant only one thing.
The magic wind was back! And there was nothing she could do to stop it.
The magic wind began to circle wildly around Katie. Her red hair whipped around her head. The tornado swirled faster and faster. Katie shut her eyes tight and tried not to cry.
It seemed like the wind was blowing for a very long time. But it was probably just a few seconds. And then it stopped.
Katie knew what that meant. Switcheroo!
Katie wasn’t Katie anymore. She was somebody else.
The question was, who was she?
As soon as Katie opened her eyes, she saw a long line of tired-looking people standing in front of her. They were each holding something in their arms—a sweater, a blender, or a necklace. One man was even holding a vacuum cleaner!
“Lauren, could you fold a little origami Christmas tree for the middle of this package?” a woman asked as she handed Katie a baby doll in a box. “It’s for my niece. And she’s such a special little girl.”
Lauren?
Katie turned around, hoping to see the talented gift wrapper standing behind her. But she wasn’t there.
Oh, no! The magic wind had switcherooed Katie into Lauren. And all of these people wanted her to wrap their gifts . . . now!
Katie couldn’t even wrap a toy for Pepper. What would she do with a vacuum cleaner? And she had
no
idea how to fold paper into the shape of a Christmas tree.
The customers in line were expecting to walk out of Thimbles with beautifully wrapped gifts. Katie was a
terrible
gift wrapper.
This was
so
not good!
Chapter 8
“Lauren, could you hurry, please?” the woman with the doll urged Katie. “I still have to buy at least five more gifts today.”
“Uh, well, I . . . I’m not sure . . .” Katie stammered.
“What’s not to be sure of?” the woman asked. “Just do the same thing you did for me yesterday. You know, Christmas wrapping paper with a little paper tree on top.”
Katie sighed. There was no way she could do that.
There was also no way she could get out of wrapping this woman’s gift. That was Lauren’s job. And Katie
was
Lauren. At least for now.
Katie was going to have to do her best. She walked over to the giant rollers and tore off a big sheet of red-and-green Christmas paper.
“I think that’s a bit too much paper,” the woman said. “It’s not that big of a box.”
“Hey, lady, let her do her job!” the man behind her in the line yelled. “She knows what she’s doing.”
“I was just . . .” the woman replied.
“The longer you stand there yapping, the longer we’ll be waiting in this line,” the man told her angrily.
“I beg your pardon?” the woman said, sounding just as angry as the man.
Katie gulped. These people certainly did not have the Christmas spirit. It sounded like they were about to start fighting. She had to wrap this gift quickly.
She laid the box down on top of the paper, just as she’d seen Lauren do. Then she tried to fold the corners up around the box.
But the woman had been right. There was far too much paper. When she folded it over, the box looked lumpy.
Katie grabbed a pair of scissors and snipped off some of the wrapping paper. Then she tried to fold the remaining paper over the box.
But she’d cut off too much paper. Now there wasn’t enough left to wrap the gift.
“I have to start over,” Katie told the woman.
“Apparently,” the woman said. She sounded really angry. Katie looked at the line. It seemed to be getting longer and longer by the second. And everyone seemed very impatient.
“What’s the problem?” the woman with the doll asked Katie.
“You’re making me n-nervous,” Katie stuttered. “I . . . I can’t think.”
“Don’t think.
Wrap
!” the angry man called out. “I gotta get home soon.”
Katie walked over to the large rolls of paper and pulled hard on the red-and-green Christmas wrap.
Whoosh! Bam!
Katie had pulled too hard. The paper flew off the roller and knocked Katie to the floor. Now she was covered in a big roll of wrapping paper. She looked like a giant Christmas present.

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