A Katie Kazoo Christmas (4 page)

Katie grinned. “Hi, Mr. Brigandi.”

“Hi, girls,” Mr. Brigandi replied.

“Your house looks really pretty this year,” Suzanne told him. “You have a lot of extra lights and new decorations.”

“I thought it was time to make some changes,” Mr. Brigandi replied. “
Especially
with the new competition on the block.”

“The Derkmans’ house is pretty incredible,” Suzanne agreed. “They’ll be tough to beat.”

“Oh, I’ll win the contest,” Mr. Brigandi assured her. “I always do.”

“Mrs. Derkman thinks
she’s
going to win,” Katie told him. “She’s working hard on her decorations. I just saw her buying a whole bunch of Christmas lights at the hardware store.”

“The Derkmans are buying
more
lights?” Mr. Brigandi asked curiously. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark blue jacket.

“Oh yeah,” Suzanne said. “And little plastic elves, too. We saw them.”

Mr. Brigandi’s face turned beet red. He frowned. “Elves, huh?” he harrumphed. “They think they can beat
me
with a bunch of elves? Ha! They’ve got another thing coming!”

“I didn’t say they were going to beat you,” Katie assured him. “I just meant that they want to win, too.”

Mr. Brigandi handed Katie the candy cane he was holding. “I’ve got to run,” he said as he dashed out of the store.

“I wonder where
he’s
going in such a hurry,” Suzanne said as she went over to look at some Christmas-tree-shaped chocolates.

“Probably to get more decorations for his house,” Katie replied. “Did you see how angry he got when he heard the Derkmans had bought those elves?”

“I bet when the Derkmans see what Mr.

Brigandi does at his house, they’ll go out and buy more decorations, too,” Suzanne said.

“And then Mr. Brigandi will buy more, just so his house can have more decorations than the Derkmans’ house,” Katie added.

“And then the Derkmans will buy more . . .” Suzanne began.

“Grown-ups can be such babies sometimes!” Katie declared.

“This traffic is terrible!” Katie’s mom groaned as she drove home from the mall that evening. “We haven’t moved in fifteen minutes.”

Katie looked out the window. There were cars for as far as she could see. That was very strange. Usually the trip from the mall took only ten minutes. But they’d already been in the car for almost half an hour.

Katie felt bad for her mom, who had been working so hard all day. She just wanted to go home and put up her feet. But she was stuck in traffic instead.

“I know how to cheer you up,” Katie told her. She began to sing. “Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la la la la la.”

Mrs. Carew loved Christmas carols. She couldn’t resist singing along. “’Tis the season to be jolly,” she chimed in. “Fa la la la la la la la la.”

Katie and her mom kept singing their favorite carols. It was a good thing they knew a lot of them. They sang “The Twelve Days of Christmas” as well as “Jingle Bells,” “Deck the Halls,” and “The Little Drummer Boy” before they finally turned the corner onto their own street.

“Oh my goodness! Look at this,” Mrs.

Carew exclaimed. “All this traffic was coming from our block!”

It was true. There were a lot of cars driving down their street. Crowds of people were walking on the sidewalks. Many of those people had cameras. They were taking pictures of Mr. Brigandi’s house and the Derkmans’ house.

“We have
tourists
on our block,” Katie said, amazed. She remembered what it was like to be a tourist. After all, she’d been one during her European vacation. But she’d taken pictures of palaces, churches, and art museums. She hadn’t taken photos of people’s homes. “This is so weird,” she added.

There were so many people standing outside the Derkmans’ house that Mrs. Carew had to honk her horn several times to get them to move away from the driveway so she could pull her car in.

Mrs. Carew scrambled out of the car. “Let’s just get inside,” she said, hurrying into the house. Katie followed close behind her mother.

“Arooo. Arooo.” Katie heard Pepper’s cries the minute her mother opened the door.

“Pepper, what’s wrong?” Katie asked. She bent down and petted his little head.

“Ruff ! Ruff !” the chocolate-and-white cocker spaniel barked.

“He’s been barking ever since the Christmas lights went on next door,” Katie’s father said. “He’s not happy about all the strangers in the neighborhood.”

“I think he’s trying to protect the house,” Katie told her father. “That’s his job.” She smiled at Pepper. “You’re a good boy,” she told him.

Pepper rubbed up against Katie and wagged his brown, stubby tail.

“These crowds are really loud,” Mrs. Carew said. “This whole Christmas decorating thing is getting out of hand.”

“I know,” Katie’s dad agreed. “First the Derkmans put up those elves. Then Pete Brigandi came home and built a maze of giant plastic candy canes on his lawn. He’s letting kids walk through the maze. It’s brought people from all over the place to our block.”

Katie frowned. She felt kind of responsible for that. If she and Suzanne hadn’t told Mr. Brigandi about the Derkmans’ new decorations, he never would have built the candy-cane maze.

“If these people don’t go home soon, we won’t get any sleep,” Mrs. Carew said. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. The store is going to be very busy with last-minute shoppers. I need my rest.”

“Aroo!” Pepper barked in agreement. “Ruff !”

Katie sighed. Christmas was supposed to be a time for peace on Earth. But there wasn’t any peace on Katie’s block tonight!

The smell of Christmas cookies filled the air in Katie’s house on Christmas Eve. All the kids in Katie’s cooking club were gathered there, baking cookies and then wrapping them in pretty green or red cling wrap.

“George, stop eating all the cookies,” Miriam Chan said.

George shook his head. “You can get rich by eating snacks, you know,” he told her.

“How?” Miriam demanded.

“By eating fortune cookies!” George joked. He laughed. Everyone else laughed, too.

“Well, these aren’t fortune cookies,” Katie said. “And Miriam’s right. We need all the cookies we can get for the kids at the shelter.”

“All right, I’ll stop eating and start wrapping,” George agreed, wiping a crumb from his mouth.

“Okay, everyone, here comes another batch of cookies, fresh out of the oven,” Mr. Carew said. He placed the baking sheet on the counter.

Katie laughed. Her dad was wearing her mother’s apron. It was pink and green. On the front it said, “Kiss the Cook.”

“You look funny, Daddy,” Katie giggled.

“Yeah, that apron is definitely not your style, Mr. Carew,” Emma W. laughed.

“You don’t think so?” Mr. Carew teased. He spun around like a model on a runway. “I think I’m making a fashion statement.”

“It’s a good thing Suzanne isn’t here,” Kevin told him. “She’d definitely have a few statements to make about your fashion.”

Katie frowned when Kevin mentioned Suzanne. She missed having her at the cooking club meeting. It wasn’t as much fun without her.

“I can’t imagine what happened to your mother,” Mr. Carew wondered aloud. “I thought she’d be home to help by now.”

“She probably got stuck in traffic again,” Katie said.

“I hope she makes it home in time for the contest judging,” Mr. Carew said. “I think Pete Brigandi has some real competition this year.”

“I’ll say,” George agreed. “Who knew Mrs.
Jerk
man would be so into Christmas. When she was our teacher, she never let us do anything fun.”

Katie frowned. Even though Mrs. Derkman wasn’t their teacher anymore, it was obvious George still didn’t like her. Not that Katie blamed him. Mrs. Derkman
had
been kind of mean to George.

“Who judges this contest?” Jeremy asked.

“It’s always two people from our block association,” Katie explained.

“This year it’s Sam Hanson and Sonia Diaz,” Mr. Carew told the kids.

“What if they pick their own houses as the winners?” George asked suspiciously.

Mr. Carew shook his head. “The judges aren’t allowed to win the contest. We keep everything fair and square around here.”

“Except the cookies,” Katie giggled. “They’re round, not square.”

“And they’re tasty, too!” George said, reaching for another cookie.

“GEORGE!” the kids all shouted at once.

A few minutes later, Mrs. Carew came bursting through the front door. She had a big frown on her face. “I have had it!” she shouted angrily. “The traffic on this street is out of control!”

Pepper raced out of the kitchen to greet her. Mr. Carew followed close behind. At the sight of her husband, Mrs. Carew began to laugh. “Oh, you look so funny!” she giggled, pointing to the apron.

“Everyone’s a fashion critic,” Katie’s dad said. But he wasn’t angry. He was just glad he could make his wife smile.

Katie’s parents walked back toward the kitchen together. “
Mmm.
It smells yummy in here,” Mrs. Carew said, complimenting the kids.

“We’re almost finished wrapping the cookies,” Katie told her mom. “We’ll be ready to go over to the shelter right after the contest.”

“I can’t wait for that Christmas contest to be over,” Mrs. Carew said with a sigh.

“I thought you liked Christmas decorations,” Jeremy said.

“I do,” Mrs. Carew assured him. “But this year’s contest is too much. You won’t believe what’s going on out there. There are about a hundred people. There’s even a news van!”

Katie gasped. A news van! Everyone raced for the door, with Pepper barking at their heels.