Chapter 7

Chapter Seven So it's called Christmas. And it's my favorite thing ever Coming into town, it's clear that June has basically declared herself the mayor of Christmas. Which— let's be honest—is a pretty rad title. But it also means we can't mess up because if Christmas is

lousy, who's everyone gonna blame? The Mayor of Christmas, that's who. The monsters ask a few questions—and I realize, they are fair questions... OK, so they're confused by stockings and the trees. But we have an ace up our sleeve. A grand salami we can pull from our back

pocket. Something guaranteed to get everyone wet- your-pants excited. I race up to join June in the tree house. I stare at the monster crowd below, and I exclaim, "GIFTS! PRESENTS!" "Gurfts?" a monster asks. "Prezeezes?" another says. "Hold up," June says. "Do you guys not know what gifts are? Presents?" Apparently, the entire concept of gift giving is totally foreign to the monsters! It simply does not exist in their dimension. Just like they have stuff that doesn't exist in our dimension, that we think is weird. For example...

YOU'VE NEVER DINED ON YOUR MATE'S HAIR AS A SIGN OF COMPANIONSHIP. HOW STRANGE you HUMANS ARE, MONK, YOU ARE SUCH A FINE COMRADE, A cheerful monster named Murgy chirps up. "You give an item to another being? To make them feel good? Gifts sound simply joyous!" With that, the monsters are in. And now, we all must put together... THE ULTIMATE END-OF-THE-WORLD CHRISTMAS! First up: the TREE. We need a whopper. No dinky, half-dead Charlie Brown thing here. I want a

full-on Rockefeller Center deal! I mean, we can grab any tree we want from anywhere! No trekking out to the tree stand and lamely just pointing at one. No, we do it post-apocalyptic style.... Next: decorating this bad boy. The key to killer Christmas tree decorating is good ornaments. Sadly, we have zero ornaments. But our neighbors do! We raid nearby houses, digging through garages and basements. I find

ornaments and lights and tinsel—and also a few gnarly surprises.... This is terrifying, But I got good bulbs Problem: Our tree's height makes decorating difficult. But it's all good. Quint takes a break from studying Evie Snark's reading list to trick out an old leaf blower, turning it into the... BULB BLASTER! It can practically send ornaments into orbit!