7 Ch7-Is Santa Claus Real？

Chapter 7 Is Santa Claus Real? That afternoon me and Michael and Ryan were in the vomitorium eating lunch. Andrea and Emily and their girly friends were at the next table, so they couldn't bother us. It's noisy in the vomitorium! Everyone was hooting and hollering. The lunch

lady, Ms. LaGrange, was wearing these antler earmuff thingies on her head to block out the sound. Ms. LaGrange is strange. I had a peanut butter and jelly sand- wich. Michael had a tuna sandwich. Ryan had two slices of bread and some slices of ham. Instead of putting the ham between the bread slices, he put it on the outside of the bread. Then he started eating. "Why did you put the ham on the out- side of your sandwich?" I asked him. "It's not a sandwich!" Ryan replied. "It's a wichsand." Ryan is weird. "I'll bet Santa isn't going to read those

letters we wrote," Michael said as he bit into his sandwich. "Santa doesn't even exist," Ryan said. "One time I saw this Santa guy on the street ringing a bell, and then on the next block, there was another Santa guy who looked just like him!" "Maybe the second one was a clone," I said. "My friend Billy who

lives around the corner told me that they can take a cell from a sheep and clone it into a whole nother sheep." "'Nother' isn't a word, A.J.," Michael said. "Neither is your face," I told him. "Look, it's just impossible for one guy to visit every single house in the world in one night," Ryan said. "Besides, our house doesn't even have a chimney. How would he get in?" "If you don't have a chimney," Michael

said, "Santa comes in through the toilet bowl. Everybody has one of them." "That's disgusting," I said. "And he couldn't fit through the toilet anyway." "It's just impossible," Ryan insisted. "There's no way Santa could make toys for every kid in the world."

"He has Elvis to help him," I said. Michael and Ryan looked at me. "Not Elvis, dumbhead!" Michael yelled, slapping his forehead. "Elves! He has elves to help him!" "I knew that!" At the table beside us, Andrea and her annoying friends were giggling. They must have been listening in on our private conversation. "You better watch out, Arlo," Andrea said. "Santa has a list, and he's checking it twice." "He knows if you've been bad or good," said Emily, "so be good for goodness' sake." "Who asked you two?" I said.