The Holly Joliday (4 page)

Judy smiled and pushed the hair out of her eyes.

“Mary had a lit-tle lamb!”
sang Cookie. The audience cracked up.

“Quiet, Cookie,” Frank warned, shaking his finger at her.

“Mary had a lit-tle lamb!”
sang Cookie, bobbing her head. The audience laughed even harder. For eleven whole verses, as soon as Class 3T sang
“parrot in a palm tree,”
Cookie squawked,
“Mary had a little lamb.”

Class 3T sang its heart out on the last verse. Just as the audience prepared to clap, Cookie sang out,
“Maria tenía un pequeño cordero!”—
“Mary had a little lamb” in Spanish! The audience went wild. They roared. They stood up and clapped. They yelled
encore
!

“Mele Kalikimaka!”
shouted Class 3T, and they all took a bow before the curtains closed.

“Cookie! Bad girl!” said Frank behind the curtain. “Get down here. Right now!” He held out his arm.

“Lit-tle lamb!”
sang Cookie, ruffling her feathers. But she would not come down out of the palm tree.

“All that practicing and she ruined the show!” said Frank.

“No way!” said Judy. “Everybody loved it. Cookie was the star of the show.”

“They think we planned it that way!” said Rocky.

“How does Cookie know ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb,’ anyway?” asked Judy.

“She listens to Dog Cat Radio on the Internet,” said Frank. “My mom leaves it on to keep our pets company when we’re not home, and they play animal songs all day. They have a Spanish hour, too.”

Mr. Todd stepped into the spotlight once more. “Thank you, Cookie the parrot, for celebrating diversity with us tonight!” Cookie bobbed her head up and down, like she was taking a bow.

“And now, for our grand finale, the second-graders will perform ‘The Night Before Christmas.’”

“That’s Stink’s class,” said Judy to Rocky and Frank. “Let’s go sit in the audience so we can watch. Mrs. Dempster is reading the poem, and the kids are acting it out. Stink’s the mouse. And his part’s right near the beginning.”

The lights went down. The audience got quiet. The curtain opened.

“’Twas the night before Christmas,”
read Mrs. D. in a hushed voice. She was sitting in a big armchair at the front of the stage. A second-grader walked onstage, holding up a cardboard moon attached to a stick.

“When all through the house . . .”
Mrs. D. continued. Three more second-graders dragged a cardboard house onstage.

“Not a creature was stirring . . .”
read Mrs. D.
“Not even a mouse.”

The whole audience got super still. Not a cell phone was sounding, not even a cough.

“Where’s Stink?” Judy whispered. “That’s his line.”

“Not even a
mouse,
” Mrs. D. read again, a little louder.

“Oh, no!” Judy whispered. “Stink missed his cue!”

The audience fidgeted. Chairs squeaked. Feet shuffled.

“MOUSE!” Mrs. D. said again, practically shouting this time.

“Where is he?” asked Judy. Before Mrs. D. could say
mouse
again, someone — or something — burst onstage in a flash of white.

Frank Pearl leaned forward, trying to see. “Is that Stink?”

“I thought you said he was a mouse,” Rocky whispered.

“He is,” said Judy. “A bright, white
science
mouse!”

But when the spotlight found Stink, he was not a science mouse. He was not a mouse at all.

He was a snowflake! A bright, shiny snowflake. Stink was dressed all in white, and strapped to his back was a giant, six-pointed sparkly snowflake. On his T-shirt, in black letters, he’d written
STELLAR DENDRITE
.

“I can’t look,” said Judy, covering her face.

“Not a creature was stirring!” yelled Stink, whirling and twirling in the spotlight. “Not even a snowflake!”

It was clear from the look on her face that Mrs. Dempster had not expected a blizzard. But after Stink floated around for a moment or two, she kept right on reading the poem, as if nothing strange had happened.

Judy had known Stink to be a mouse plenty of times. She had known him to be a human flag. She had known him to be James Madison, Shortest President Ever. But never in a million years had she dreamed that Stink would one day dance onstage as a stellar dendrite.

“What a flake,” said Judy. “As in
snow
flake. Or should I say, snow
freak
?” Judy and Stink would be laughing like a bowl full of jelly over this one for many Christmases to come.

It
was
the night before Christmas, and all through the house, the Moodys were stirring, even Mouse. Dad was ordering Hawaiian pizza (with pineapple!), and Mom was wrapping presents. Stink was shaking presents as fast as Mom could wrap them, then tucking them under the tree in the front room. Mouse chased a jingle bell all over the house.

She, Judy Moody, sang,

and

Dad poked his head into the playroom off the kitchen. “Pizza will be here any minute,” he said.

“Does Judy have to sing Hawaiian songs? She knows I want snow.”

“Why don’t you sing your own carols, Stink? Like . . .
Hark! The herald angels sing!
” Dad belted out.

“Who’s this Harold guy everybody’s always singing about, anyway?”

“Never mind,” said Dad, shaking his head. Stink put on his snowflake costume and sang,
“Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!”

Just then the doorbell rang. “Pizza!” yelled Stink.

The Moodys sat down to dinner. Judy was the first to grab the pizza table, for her collection. Stink ate all the pineapples off his pizza.

“What a great holiday show you kids had this year,” said Dad.

“And I didn’t have to be a mouse, for once,” said Stink.