4 Ch4-Secret Santa

Chapter 4 Secret Santa After the assembly we walked a million hundred miles back to our class. Andrea was all excited about the holiday pageant. She loves to be in plays because she's a big show-off. "Last year I was in The Nutcracker," she bragged.

"They made a play about nuts?" I asked. "No wonder you were in it!" Andrea got all mad. "Why do you have to be so mean, Arlo?" "Why do you have to be so annoying?" I asked. "Enough chitchatting," Miss Daisy said when we were all sitting in our seats. "I have some important news. This year we're going to have a Secret Santa in our class." Secret Santa? Who's that? None of us had ever heard of Secret Santa. But Santa is cool, and anything that involves secrets is cool. So Secret Santa must be cool. Miss Daisy told us that she wrote everyone's name on slips of paper and

put them all into a fishbowl. Each of us would take a slip of paper out of the fish- bowl, and then we'd have to get a present for that kid. But we couldn't tell the kid we were getting them a present. That's what made it a secret. Miss Daisy said we would exchange our Secret Santa pres- ents in a few weeks, just before the big holiday pageant. If anyone forgot to bring in a present, they wouldn't be allowed to get a present either. Everybody was all excited. We lined up to pick slips of paper out of the fishbowl. I hoped I wouldn't pick some lame girl like Andrea or Emily. I'd rather get a present for Ryan or Michael or one of the other boys.

We lined up in ZYX order, which is the opposite of ABC order. Everybody picked a slip of paper out of the fishbowl and gig- gled a little when they saw the name on it. Finally it was my turn. There were only a couple of slips of paper left. "No peeking, A.J.," Miss Daisy told me

as I reached my hand into the fishbowl. I picked out a slip of paper. I looked at the paper. The paper said... I'm not going to tell you. Okay, okay, I'll tell you. The paper said, "Emily." Nooooooooooooooooooooo! Not Emily! What could I possibly get for Emily? She is a real girly-girl. I will have to go to some girly-girl store and buy some girly-girl present like smelly perfume. It will be horrible. Secret Santa is stupid.