A Katie Kazoo Christmas (14 page)

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Authors: Nancy Krulik

BOOK: A Katie Kazoo Christmas
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“Okay, gang, let’s get rolling,” Mr. Guthrie said as he walked over to the board. “It’s time to start learning.”
“Oh,” the kids all seemed to groan at once. It was obvious they wanted to get their Secret Santa gifts right away!
“Here’s your WFT,” Mr. G. said as he wrote on the board. WFT meant “Word for Today.” Each day, Mr. G. wrote a new, really hard vocabulary word on the board for the kids to learn.
“Today’s word is
impetuous
,” Mr. G. continued. “Can anyone tell me what that means?”
He looked around the room. Nobody raised a hand.
“George, why don’t you look up the WFT in the dictionary for us?” Mr. G. suggested.
George walked over to the big red dictionary and opened to the
I
words. “Impetuous,” he read out loud. “Acting on the spur of the moment.”
“Now, someone use it in a sentence,” Mr. G. said.
Andrew raised his hand. “I wish Mr. G. would be
impetuous
and let us do Secret Santa now.”
Mr. G. chuckled. “That’s right.”
“No, I mean it,” Andrew continued. “I really want you to!”
“Me too,” Mandy added. “I’m dying to know what I got.”
“Please, Mr. G.,” Kevin pleaded.
Mr. G. rolled his eyes. But Katie could tell he wasn’t really annoyed. He still had a big smile on his face.
“Okay, I surrender,” he said finally. “We’ll do Secret Santa now. But don’t think you’re off the hook. After you open your presents, it’s back to work.”
One by one, Mr. G. began handing out the gifts. “Don’t be
impetuous
,” he told them. “Please wait until everyone has a present before you open yours.”
The kids waited until all the gifts were handed out. “Go for it!” Mr. G. shouted.
“Oh, cool!” Mandy squealed as she held up a small pin with two bells hanging from it. She pinned it to her shirt right away.
“I love this!” Emma W. said as she unwrapped a package of Bayside Boys trading cards. She smiled at Katie. “Only a good friend would know the perfect present to buy for me.”
Katie shrugged, but didn’t say anything. Obviously someone else knew Emma W. pretty well, too.
“What did you get?” Emma W. asked Katie.
Katie opened her present and found a round piece of red rubber. “What is this?” she asked.
“Whoa, check it out!” George cried out from across the room. “Katie Kazoo got a whoopee cushion!”
Everyone laughed.
Katie looked at the whoopee cushion and sighed. She wasn’t the kind of kid to put that on someone’s seat. The noise that came out of that thing would only embarrass the person who sat on it. Katie didn’t like embarrassing people.
Obviously her Secret Santa wasn’t someone who knew her very well. It was probably one of the boys—maybe George or Kevin or Kadeem. They liked practical jokes.
“Sweet!” Kevin exclaimed, holding up a packet of tomato seeds. “I can grow my own tomatoes! Awesome!”
“Check out my gift,” Kadeem called to everyone. “It comes with a joke.” He looked at the riddle on top of his gift. “What kind of beans don’t grow in a garden?” he asked everyone.
“What kind?” Andrew asked.
“Jelly beans!” he shouted out as he held up his present for everyone to see. He opened the bag and popped a bright blue one into his mouth. “Yum, blue raspberry!”
Katie smiled. Kadeem had really liked his gift. Boys weren’t so hard to buy presents for after all.
Chapter 4
“So what did your Secret Santa get for you?” Suzanne asked as she, Katie, and Emma W. walked home from school together later than afternoon. They were going to play at Katie’s house.
Katie frowned. “A whoopee cushion. How dumb is that?”
“I think it’s kind of neat,” Emma W. said. “You could really do some funny things with that.”
“Oh, yeah,” Suzanne agreed. “You know what you should do? You should invite Mrs. Derkman over to your house, and then make sure she sits on it.”
The girls all laughed at that. Mrs. Derkman was the strictest teacher in the entire school. Katie and Suzanne had suffered through an entire year with her when she was their third-grade teacher last year. Mrs. Derkman was also Katie’s next-door neighbor. Katie just couldn’t get rid of her.
“That would be funny,” Katie agreed. “Imagine Mrs. Derkman letting out a noise like that!”
The girls giggled again.
“Hey, check out those motorcycles,” Suzanne said. She pointed toward Katie’s house.
“Yeah!” Katie exclaimed. “My Grandma is here!”
“Your grandmother rides a motorcycle?” Emma W. asked, amazed.
“Uh-huh.” Katie nodded proudly. “That red one is hers. Isn’t it beautiful?” Her grandmother had e-mailed her a picture of the motorcycle. But it was even cooler-looking in real-life!
“Do you think she’d take you for a ride on it?” Emma asked.
Katie shook her head. “My mother says I have to wait until I’m older. A lot older. She doesn’t really like motorcycles.”
“Katie’s mom isn’t nearly as cool as her grandmother is,” Suzanne told Emma. “I’ve known Katie’s family a long time.”
Katie sighed. Suzanne loved to remind Emma that she had been Katie’s friend much longer than Emma had.
“Who does the other motorcycle belong to?” Emma wondered.
“I don’t know,” Katie admitted. “Grandma must have brought a friend. Come on, let’s go inside.”
The girls all raced up to the front porch.
“Grandma!” Katie shouted as she entered the house.
A small woman with bright red hair and freckles just like Katie’s came running to greet her. Katie leaped into her grandmother’s arms.
“It is so great to see you, Kit Kat,” Katie’s grandmother said.
“Wow, you guys really look alike,” Emma blurted out. “Your hair’s the same color and everything.”
“Except my color comes out of a hair-dye bottle,” Katie’s grandma admitted. She smiled at Katie’s friends. “Suzanne, it’s so good to see you again. You’ve gotten so tall. Just like a model.”
Suzanne struck a pose. She tilted her head and smiled brightly as though there were a camera in the room. “I have been doing some modeling,” she said.
“You’ve been taking modeling
classes
,” Katie corrected her.
“Same thing,” Suzanne insisted.
It really wasn’t the same thing. But Katie didn’t feel like wasting her time talking about that now. She wanted to spend time talking to her grandmother.
“This is Emma Weber,” Katie said. “We’re in the same class at school.”
“Nice to meet you, Emma,” Katie’s grandmother said. “Come on in. I have a friend here, too. I want to introduce you.”
The girls followed Katie’s grandma into the living room. Katie saw her mom sitting on the couch near the Christmas tree. And next to her was a white-haired man with a chubby belly and a long white beard. He was wearing small round glasses, a thick black motorcycle jacket, jeans, and big black boots.
“Girls, this is my friend Nick,” Katie’s grandmother said.
Nick stood up and walked over to Katie. “You have to be Katie. You look just like your grandmother!”
“You’re right,” Katie told him. “And these are my friends Suzanne and Emma.”
“Hi, girls,” Nick said.
Suzanne and Emma didn’t answer. They just stood there, staring at Nick.
Katie looked at them strangely. She couldn’t believe they were being so rude.
“Um, are there any Christmas cookies?” Katie asked, trying to break the silence in the room.
“Of course,” Katie’s mom said. “Grandma brought them.”
“Great!” Katie said. “Did you make any of the Rudolph-shaped ones? You know, the ones with the little red candies on their noses?”
“Of course, Kit Kat,” Katie’s grandmother assured her. “I know how you love your reindeer cookies.”
“Your grandmother and I met some reindeer,” Nick told Katie. “Last summer, when we were on vacation in Finland.”
“Real reindeer?” Katie asked, amazed.
“Yep,” Nick told her. “They actually have reindeer farms there.”
“The reindeer are so adorable,” Katie’s grandmother added. “And gentle. They walked right up to Nick and ate out of his hand.”
Nick threw back his head and laughed loudly. “Reindeer love sugar cubes,” he told them.
“The reindeer probably recognized him,” Suzanne blurted out.
Katie looked at her curiously. “Huh?” she asked.
“Um, nothing,” Suzanne mumbled. “Can we go get those cookies?”
“They’re in the kitchen,” Mrs. Carew told Suzanne.
Suzanne grabbed Katie’s and Emma’s hands and pulled them out of the room as fast as she could.
Chapter 5
“What’s the matter with you guys?” Katie asked as soon as the girls were in the kitchen.
“What’s the matter with
us
?” Suzanne replied. “How about
you
? You acted like you didn’t even notice.”
“Notice what?” Katie asked.
“You know,” Emma said. “Nick.”
“What about Nick?” Katie asked.
“Didn’t you think there was something kind of . . . well . . . weird about Nick?” Emma suggested.
“Come on, guys. What’s going on?” Katie was starting to lose her patience.
“He doesn’t remind you of anyone?”
Emma continued.
Katie thought for a moment. “No,” she said finally.
“Think about it, Katie,” Suzanne said. “He’s got that big belly and the white beard . . .”
“And how about those glasses?” Emma continued.
“And his laugh,” Suzanne said. She threw back her head, stuck out her stomach, and laughed the way Nick did. “Ho ho ho!”
Katie stared at her friends. Now she got it. “You mean you guys think Nick looks like Santa Claus?”
“Don’t you?” Suzanne asked. “Come on. You have to admit it was a little weird that the reindeer would just walk up to him and make friends.”
“You heard him,” Katie insisted. “It was because of the sugar cubes.”

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