Yep. That’s actually the twins, Allie and Andie, as they originally were before splitting into the dear friends I know today. But the maniacal Alaxandra isn’t gone for good. Whenever Allie and Andie are holding hands, there’s still the risk of their… merging again, God forbid! Because if that happens, there might not be a way of separating them again and I’m NOT looking forward to meeting this thing again!

She isn’t nearly as scary as that in real life. At least not to her friends…

In other news, I’m hoping for a nice dinner, a quiet evening with Freddy and not looking forward to seeing Iggy’s name in the paper tomorrow… but I’m not going to set the bar too high just yet. Good or bad, I’ll be sure to tell you all about it soon enough! Until then, have a safe and happy Valentine’s Day!

‘I beg your pardon,’ Mrs. Jamberry said to Uncle Bobert.

‘There you go again with the pardons,’ he replied, rolling his eyes. ‘I can’t just give ‘em away. This is America, isn’t it? This is a free market. Then I think I’m entitled to get something in return for my pardons!’ Mrs. Jamberry was flabbergasted as always. ‘Listen, I’ll let you have one of my pardons for, say, 35¢ and a box of paperclips.’

‘Mr. Bobert, are you out of your mind?’

‘No. I’m out of paperclips.’ He looked smugly at the camera with a burst of canned laughter. ‘On second thought, you’d better make it 45¢. I promised my mother I’d call her…’ Laughter. ‘…and the head psychiatrist turns off the phones at 5:00.’ More laughter.

“Not really,” I finally answered, casually. Then I thought about it. “Well actually, Cemetery Chef, Turkey Lurkey and the Krampus did show up and try to kill us, but the day was really over by that point anyway.”

“See?” he said, turning his gaze away from the screen. “This is why I want to start going to school with you again! You guys get to have a whole bunch of fun while all I do all day is sit here and watch Uncle Bobert.”

“You love Uncle Bobert!”

A waiter spilled a tray of soup all over Uncle Bobert. ‘Why you clumsy buffoon! I’ll have your job for this!’

‘Terribly sorry, sir,’ the waiter apologized, dabbing him with a napkin.

‘On second thought,’ Uncle Bobert said, rising. ‘I don’t want your job. It’s lousy. You can keep it!’ Then he flicked the napkin in the waiter’s face. ‘Let that be a lesson to you…’

“Yeah, I guess so,” Iggy replied dryly.

“Besides, it wasn’t exactly fun. See, the Krampus had come after Sophie for 12 crimes, but he mistook the twelve of us for having done each of them. It was a big mess.”

“So the usual for you. Which one did I get?”

“I don’t know. Probably being a smart-alec loud mouth who always takes my markers without asking, never returns them and then I find them, like, two days later lying under the couch with the caps off.”

He was silent for a while and finally turned to me and said, “He didn’t say that. What was it really?”

“Probably stealing.” I mused on it for a while. “Stealing markers… grand theft markers.”

“What did you get?”

I started laughing under my breath. “Apparently I put a cherry bomb in the toilet…” After that I fell into a fit of giggles.

“Oh! I want that one!”

“A cherry bomb. In the toilet.” I could barely get the words out. “It was a toilet bomb…” We both started cracking up.

When the fit had run its course, Iggy let out a loud sigh. “Good times.”

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ an employee warned as Uncle Bobert approached the restroom. ‘The toilets are out of order.’

‘Ah,’ Uncle Bobert said, raising a finger in the air. ‘That’s what happens when the plumber reads the floorplan upside-down.’ There was a burst of laughter as the man did a double-take. ‘Don’t worry,’ Uncle Bobert continued. ‘I’ll just flush before I go.’

“You know something?” Iggy said. “I do love Uncle Bobert.”

We finished watching Uncle Bobert’s House and there was a knock at the door. I opened it and Freddie stepped in, giving me a peck on the cheek and handing me a little tube.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s lip balm.”

“Not cherry lip balm…”

“Yep,” he said with a smile. “Cherry balm.” He struggled to keep a straight face. “You can put it in your toilet.”

I started to crack again and said, “I’m just disappointed that I didn’t put the cherry bomb in the toilet. Next time Sophie decides to blow up part of the bathroom, she’ll have to let me watch. I think I have to see it at least once.”

“And then you would turn her in to the principal, of course.”

“Oh yeah. Of course.” We sat down at the kitchen table and I made some hot cocoa. “You know something,” I said to him. “Things have been kind of weird for a while.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I feel like I’ve just kind of been floating; like I haven’t been accomplishing much of anything.”

“You’ve got a lot on you plate, balancing school and a family… and fighting evil! Anybody who’s seen the Boogieman in person knows that that’s a full-time job.”

I laughed. “That’s true.”

“Well I heard you were at least writing some of this stuff down. That’s good therapy, I hear.” He handed me a notebook. “It’s not much but I made this for you.”

“You made it?” There was a drawing of me on the cover and, as I opened it, I found the pages were littered with photographs and sketches of us and the things we went through together. I giggled when I saw a doodle of Doctor Nefarious and his mechanical toys and a cartoon of Freddie trying to convince the Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat to join the army of Enderland. Toward the back there were even drawings of all the mishaps we had gone through in the past week, from our hectic Christmas, to our impromptu confrontation with the Krampus. “This is beautiful,” I said, putting my arms around him.

“Now you have a place to write everything down when you feel like you need to do something.”

“I think I’ll break it in right now,” I said, grabbing a pen from the counter. I wrote thirteen little entries, telling all about the things I had learned this season. Forgiveness, Patience, Thankfulness, Faith, Accommodation, Foresight, Perseverance, Temperance, Organization, Acceptance, Empathy, Honesty and, today, Love. Eva, Brittany, Freddie, Iggy, Roxy, Tina, Coppelia, Allie, Andie, Ember, Jinni, and Linda. They weren’t just my friends. They were my family and I was so lucky to have them. And now this book was a reminder of that.

And so that’s how, “On the thirteenth day of Christmas, Freddie gave to me, thirteen reasons 2012 is going to be the best year ever…”

Happy Epiphany, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

“You have all been dreadfully naughty and I shall see to it that you feel the whip for it!” One of the Krampus’ thick hoofs dug into the cafeteria floor with a sizzle as he flung the whip at us. The thong just barely hit Jinni and snapped in front of her face with a spark of flame. I decided that the only thing I could do to protect my friends would be to put myself in harm’s way. I charged forward, intending to tackle the beast by the legs, but he saw me coming and let a length of chain fly from his hand. It coiled itself around me like a snake and, gripping the other end, the Krampus flung me aside. “That was for setting off that cherry bomb in the girl’s bathroom,” he said with a sneer.

I’ll admit, I was a little distracted at the moment, what with the whip and the chains and everything, but even at that moment I remember thinking, ‘What?‘

While I wrestled with my bonds, and the vaguely familiar bathroom cherry bomb scenario, I watched my other friends attempt to take down the horned fiend. Jinni tried wishing him away but found, to her dismay, that none of them worked. A perplexed expression came over her as all three of her daily wishes were ineffective against the demon. A malevolent grin spread across his face devilish face. “You cannot wish away judgment, little djinn…” Then he set a burning chain around her waist and threw her aside. “That was for trying to cheat me!”

Freddie, although without any kind of power, had spunk to say the least. He appeared right beside the monster and starting punching him in the small of his back. The Krampus allowed this amusing display of bravado for a few moments before wrapping his pointed tail around my boyfriend’s leg, leaning close and whispering, “This is for stealing cigarettes…” Then he, too, was thrown across the room landing beside me. I managed the get my arm free from the chains and smacked Freddie in the head.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“You’re smoking now?”

“No!” he shouted, holding his arms in front of his face to ward me off. “I have no idea what he’s talking about!”

I thought about it for a while. “Something’s very wrong here, and I mean besides the Christmas demon trying to kill us.”

“This is for cheating on your homework!” the Krampus moaned as he whipped the thong around Coppelia’s neck and sent her spinning like a top. Ember tried to conjure a wall of fire to consume him, but he drank it in and swallowed it without a thought. “And you,” he threatened, drawing near and blasting soot from his nostrils. “You, who dared to copy your classmates’ work… it’s coal for you!” Passing his clawed, red hands over her, he muttered some evil incantation under his breath and I watched as Ember was transformed into a pile of charcoal. The Krampus belted out a hideous laugh of victory but stopped when he spied his two cohorts retreating on the other side of the cafeteria.

“You miserable worms!” he wailed as they fled. “I’ll set the stinging gnats upon you for this!” Then he turned his attention toward the other group of girls who had emerged victorious from their own battle and arrived to find the rest of us in less than stellar shape. Immediately they began to feel the wrath of the Krampus, one by one, bound and chained. “Liar! Thief! Coward! Deceiver!” One by one he delivered a judgment on them and each was just as confusing as the last. “Lying to the police! Cutting class! Altering test scores! Manipulating your peers! Failing to separate bottles and cans from paper!” Before long, they had all fallen just like we had and the Krampus faced Tina with a demoniacal smile. “And you…”

“Pardonnez moi,” she begged, dropping to her knees. “Meester Krampus! Ah was se one who left out sat jar of mayonnaise over nahght! Ah deedn’t come forward because Ah was afraid se wouldn’t let me cook anymore! Especially after se beeg fuss everyone made about eet!”

“Silence!” he roared. “Never mind the jar of mayonnaise! What about public vandalism?“

“Publique valdaleesm?” she repeated, confounded.

“Have you no respect at all for public property?” he scolded with fire bursting from his mouth.

“What about you?” she asked, twisting the corner of her mouth. “Makeeng as sese fahr holes een se floor, weeth se fahr burneeng all over se place and se burn marks you’re leaving on se tables…”

“I said SILENCE!” He threw a chain around her and dragged her across the floor as he endeavored to gather the rest of us. “And now, my naughty little ones… it’s the furnace with you. All of you misbehaving little mongrels will be spending the new year in my fiery lair!” He had just about gathered us all, when he spotted Sophie across the hall, tagging a wall of lockers with a can of spray paint. “Public vandalism!” he raged as he thrust the cafeteria doors open and sent a tentacle of chains after Sophie, grasping her around the waist and pulling her into his clutches. “And you, Sophie Ernhart, have been the naughtiest of all!” He gripped her by the shirt and pulled the black-haired little punk up to his eye level, battering her with her own misdeeds. “Lying to the police! cheating on your homework! Cutting class! Altering test scores…” His voice trailed off as he seemed to be at a loss for misdeeds.

“Stealing cigarettes?” I suggested.

“Stealing cigarettes!” he repeated with a malicious grin. It was then that I realized why he was recycling charges and why, in particular, that toilet cherry bomb sounded so familiar.

“Sophie!” I shouted. The Krampus halted his condemnations and both he and Sophie looked down at me. “I think you owe us all an apology.”

“Excuse me?” she responded with sneer.

“Well it’s clear to me now that we’re all getting punished for your misdeeds!”

“That’s bloody ridiculous! You’re all gettin’ just what you deserve for-”

“Cherry bomb in the toilet, Sophie. Cherry bomb in the toilet. Ring a bell?”

Her mouth hung open for a minute while the Krampus looked us both over. “Well,” she started. “that was nothing, really, I just-”

“So you are the one I came for!” the Krampus growled, tightening the chains around her. I felt the chains around me loosen as the monster withdrew them from us and gathered them all in his hand, preparing to mete out the ultimate punishment on poor Sophie. “You are just the kind of kid that I wait centuries for; ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, disrespectful, selfish, destructive, a complete lack of discipline…”

“That’s all part of my charm,” she said, musingly.

“Charlotte and her friends I can come back for any time but yooooou… you are coming with me.” He hoisted her over his back and prepared to blast himself an exit in the wall, when I stepped in front of him.

“Not so fast, you goatfaced yuletide impostor! Sophie may have done a lot of bad things… many of them against me… but that doesn’t give you the right to judge her. Besides, I’m sure she’s very sorry.”

“No I ain’t,” she hissed.

“Well, you still don’t have the right to judge her. After all, Saint Nicholas has an awful long list of your own misdeeds and he isn’t happy.”

“Him? What about me?” the demon roared, clenching his black-clawed fist. “I have dedicated my life to punishing the naughty, yet I’ve been on the naughty list for over 1,400 years!”

I grabbed him by his grizzly black beard and pulled him close. “Drop her, Kris Krampus, or you’ll be jingling all the way to the fiery pits of Hades.” He recoiled with a roar and I punched him square in the face, sending him to the ground. He dropped Sophie and scrambled to his hooves, casting his flaming whip at me. But I caught the end of the whip and yanked him forward, delivering a swift kick to his horned head. As he rose again, he realized that he was outnumbered and his energy had been spent. Even Ember, who was just a pile of coal, began to burn until she had returned to her original form. And, as you might expect, she wasn’t too happy.

“Very well,” the Krampus growled. “Take her if you will. But, know this…” he drew close to me and snorted a blast of soot in my face. “I will return next Christmas, and you will all be mine.” He closed his fist slowly as he said this and gathered his dirty cloak around him. With a cruel Ha ha ha, he vanished in a flash of fire and ash. Before we knew it, the chains had all vanished and all evidence that the demonic truant officer had ever been there vanished with them. Sophie shot me a glance that was half admiration and half contempt and then, saying nothing, turned and left us.

“Can we go home now?” Roxy asked, looking down. “I have some homework and I want to make sure I do it. Now.”

“Yeah, us too,” Allie said, putting her arm on Andie’s shoulder.

“Oui,” Tina added. “Ah want to make sure Ah deedn’t leave anysing else out of se refreegerator.” So we all went home and did our homework and cleaned our rooms and brushed our teeth and avoided anything else that self-rightous sinner the Krampus might find fault with, just so I could make him eat his words (not to mention the end of my 9-iron) the next time I saw him.

The lesson I learned today… Don’t put a cherry bomb in the toilet no matter how hilarious it may sound. And, to be honest, it does sound hilarious.

Oh yeah, and the next day nothing really important happened.

“On the eleventh day of Christmas, Allie gave to me, eleven fighting toys…”

The day began much like any other day. I opened my eyes to the white light of a January morning pouring through my skylight. Much like on other mornings, I felt a little chill. So I rolled over, pulling the covers more tightly around me and tried to fall asleep again. Then it hit me. “Oh crap! I’ve got to get to school!” Yes, the dreaded first day of school after Christmas vacation. I hate it, you hate it. Everybody hates it. Between the holidays and the killer onions and Coppelia getting drunk, I completely forgot about today. I jumped out of bed and threw my clothes on. When I stepped out of the bedroom it seemed that everyone else was already set to go. “Was I the only one who forgot about this?”

Everybody looked up at me in amazement. “Yes,” they said in unison.

“Can I take my new toys to school?” Allie begged her sister.

“No,” Andie replied flatly. “You are not a child anymore, Allie.”

“But I’ll keep them in my locker, I promise I won’t take them out!”

“No. You will have enough to keep you amused for the day without a bag of plastic playthings.” Allie zippered up her backpack with a huff and marched toward the door.

Despite my selective memory we were able to get to school on time and met Brittany and Freddie there. It wasn’t so bad, really. I don’t even think most of the teachers wanted to be back, so they didn’t pile a lot of work on us that day. At lunch, we sat down at our usual table and I started smelling something odd.

“What’s wrong?” Freddie asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “There’s a funny smell in the air. It’s familiar.”

“I don’t smell anything.” I shook it off for a while, figuring it might just be my imagination. Then I heard Andie bang her fist against the table.

“Allie, what did I tell you?”

Allie was frozen, with a Bambi doll in her one hand and a pink motorcycle in the other. “Not to bring my toys to school?”

“And what is that in your hands?”

She paused again. “My toys to school?”

“How can a grown girl bring toys to school with her? What would the other girls on the cheerleading squad say if they saw you now?”

Allie was silent for a while as she thought. “Can I play with your toys?” she guessed.

“No. They would call you a little baby and kick you off the squad,” Andie assured her.

“Andie,” I pleaded from across the table. “Just let her play, will you? She’s not going to get kicked off the cheerleading squad. Besides, she’s got more spirit than any other cheerleader in this school. They need her.”

Andie looked blankly at me (like she always did) and turned away briskly. “I wash my hands of this. If you want to make a fool of yourself in front of your peers, that is your prerogative.”

Hearing this, Allie became sullen and stashed the toys back in her bag. But a few moments later, she perked her head up again and started sniffing. She turned to her sister and asked, “What are you eating?”

“Nothing,” Andie replied. “Why?”

“I smell something kinda funny.” She wrinkled her nose and recoiled. “I don’t like it, whatever it is.”

“Maybe some of the food went bad,” Brittany suggested. I wanted to believe it, but it seemed a bit too logical an explanation for me. And the smell was too familiar.

As the day went on, I eventually forgot about the odd smell and, by the time the final bell rang, it had left my mind altogether. We were preparing to leave when Allie gave a terrible shout. “Oh no! I can’t find my Malibu Bambi motorcycle helmet!” Andie’s face twisted unpleasantly at this, but she said nothing at first. “I know I had it in here! Where is it?”

“Relax, honey,” I said. “Let’s just retrace your steps. We’ll find it eventually.” Once she calmed down we all scoured the halls in the reverse order we had gone down them, period by period, searching for the Malibu Bambi motorcycle helmet.

“This would not have happened if you had taken my advice,” Andie finally blurted out. Allie sneered at her, but not for long as she must have realized her sister was right. We searched for some time until we had backtracked all the way to lunch.

We had scarcely stepped though the doors of the lunchroom when Allie’s face lit up and she scrambled over to our table, plucking a little pink helmet off the ground. “Found it!” It seemed our hunt had come to an end. But quickly Allie’s happy face became sour. “What is that smell?!” She hurried over to the rest of us and pointed toward the kitchen with one hand, holding her nose with the other. I figured, as long as we were in a line of work like this, we may as well investigate.

I led the way as we cautiously stepped toward the kitchen doors. None of us had any weapons with us in case of danger but I looked back and saw Ember click open a ball-point pen. At the very least we could write out a HELP sign. As I pushed the door open, that awful and familiar smell hit me again, harder than ever, and I almost fell backward onto everyone else. But we all steeled ourselves and pushed out way through.

The kitchen was hot and there were ovens going and a huge pot of water boiling on the stove. Steam and smoke were everywhere but, through the haze, I could see a large black figure standing in front of the stove, stirring the pot. I moved a little closer and the figure became somewhat clearer. I could see a ripped, dirty white apron and a drooping chef’s hat. Funny, I thought to myself. I don’t remember ever seeing a cook here like that. “Excuse me,” I called to him. “I think something is burning.” The figure ceased his stirring and slowly turned his face toward us. Even through the smoke I could clearly make out the pale blue skin, sunken eyes, twisted yellow grin, and crooked moustache… of Cemetery Chef!

He turned fully from the stove, gripping a meat cleaver in his hand and let out a throaty cackle. Before I could even react to my old enemy’s unexplained presence, we heard a dreadful gobbling noise and, bursting out of the pot with a splash of scalding water, was that foulest of fowl; Turkey Lurkey. The skeletal turkey crawled out of the pot, with bits of flesh and feathers still clinging to his bones, as he lurched toward us.

“What are you two doing here?” I hollered for lack of anything better.

“Surely,” the turkey cawed. “you didn’t think you could end the holiday season without us!” Close behind him the silently grinning Cemetery Chef stepped forward with his cleaver in the air. “Hold still,” the turkey said with evil delight. “while we make you dinner!”

I pushed my friends back through the doorway as we made our way back into the cafeteria, looking for a way to get out. But we found thick chains on all the lunchroom doors. Eva tried to push her way though but even she couldn’t get through the chains. They had been enchanted, somehow, and ghost-proofed. “Turkey Lurkey and Cemetery Chef can’t do that,” I mused.

“A fair observation,” came a horrible voice from behind us. I turned around and, standing on one of the tables in a soot-coated red robe and with a whip and a bundle of chains in his hands, was that demonic anti-Claus himself; The Krampus. His thick hooves burned black marks on the tabletop as he stooped his horned head low. “You and your friends have been very naughty,” the monster growled with the sound of blazing coals in his voice.

“We have not,” I retorted. “We’ve been very good. Just read my blog!” Apparently unconvinced, the Krampus whipped a length of chains at me and knocked me to the ground. Without my club I dreaded any kind of fight, but we were hardly defenseless. Lying on the ground, I concentrated on the table and overturned it, knocking the Krampus to the floor with it. With the demon distracted, I jumped to my feet and motioned for my friends to follow me to the other side of the cafeteria.

The horned fiend rose and pointed a clawed finger at us. “seize them,” he commanded to his decaying cohorts and Cemetery Chef and Turkey Lurkey gave chase. We broke into groups and, while Brittany, Freddie, Ember, Coppelia, Jinni, and I dealt with the Krampus, Allie, Andie, Linda, Eva, Roxy, and Tina faced the gruesome twosome.

Roxy let some bolts of lightning fly from her fingers, but the closeness of our surroundings prevented her from using her full power. As a matter of fact, most of us had been limited by the fact that we had left our weaponry behind. This was the last thing we expected to face on the first day of school. Andie grabbed a plastic knife from the utensil station and, holding it in the air, transformed it into a glowing scimitar. She lunged at the chef but the cadaverous cook’s enchanted cleaver protected him. Eva tried to phase through Turkey Lurkey and, doing so, steal some of his ectoplasm. But the rotten aura surrounding the decaying bird prevented her from even drawing near enough to touch him.

“Can’t you do anything, Tina?” Linda asked, searching for something to defend herself with.

“Non, Ah’m afraid,” Tina replied sadly. “Ah’ve left my oser heads at home!”

“Bambi and I will deal with these two,” Allie said with a very serious look falling over her. Stooping down, she unzipped her backpack, took her pom-poms in hand and began shaking them furiously. “We’ve got spirit, yes we do! We’ve got spirit, how ’bout you? A triple threat from Christmas past wants to make today our last! Tiny toys from Christmas day, make these baddies go away! Gooooooooo spirit!” With her cheer complete a pink light emanated from inside her bag and her toys crawled out with a bright pink aura around them. A Bambi doll, two toy soldiers, a car, a motorcycle, a teddy bear, a ragdoll, a jack-in-the-box, a jet plane, a stuffed swan, and a helicopter all burst out of her backpack and rushed toward the two monsters.

The swan dove right into Cemetery Chef’s face while he swung helplessly at it with his cleaver. meanwhile, the soldiers threw grappling hooks onto his apron and began scaling his bulging stomach with rifles strapped to their backs. The car ran over his feet over and over again. Little Malibu Bambi whipped out her tiny plastic microphone and started singing a dreadful rendition of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Allie had gotten the Malibu Bambi Karaoke Set but, unfortunately, the Malibu Bambi Singing Lessons were sold separately. Cemetery Chef dropped his cleaver and put his hands over his ears in a futile attempt to block out the doll’s screeching voice.

Turkey Lurkey found himself similarly occupied as he tried desperately to fight off his tiny attackers. The helicopter and jet plane worked together, firing little bullets at the monster turkey, while the ragdoll and teddy bear swiped at his legs and the jack-in-the-box continually sprung from his box and punched him in the beak. Eventually, the zombie bird realized that his flimsy feathers could do nothing to stop the onslaught and, with a wailing cry, turned tail and retreated. The ghoulish chef followed soon after and the two vanished from the scene.

Their work completed, the pink glow faded from the toys and they fell lifelessly to the ground. Allie gathered them back into her bag and looked smugly into her sister’s face. “Now, aren’t you glad I brought my toys to school?” Andie neither spoke nor smiled, but embraced her twin sister warmly.

The Krampus gritted his pointed teeth as he watched his minions flee. “You miserable worms! I’ll set the stinging gnats upon you for this!” It was clear that the horned menace had only just gotten warmed up.

The lesson I learned today… well, maybe we should save the lesson until I finish the fight…

There’s a little after-New Year’s party in my town, held at the elementary school, where parents and teachers and friends get together one last time before school starts again. They have music and refreshments and snacks, and most of the adults congregate in the gym to talk about how happy they are that their kids will be going back to school. And they seem to be in an awful hurry to get rid of them because there’s another room where they stash all the kids for the night, like a playroom, and they all bring their toys and their video games and basically run rampant.

Do parents just not care about their kids anymore? Is spending time with them passe or is it just too expensive? Well, that’s neither here nor there. The point is that I have always wanted to sit these kids down and read to them as should be done, especially during the holiday season. But every year they’re just too occupied with their games and their fighting and throwing things and yelling. It must be something in the apple juice.

Anyway, Jinni, Eva and I went to the party and had a few snacks and hung around for a while. Then Jinni tapped me on the shoulder.

“I brought something for you,” she said, holding a small stack of books. “I know how much you want to read to those kids and I think this could be your year.”

“Thanks, but I doubt it would do any good. It’s hard enough getting kids to sit and listen during class, let alone trying to do it when they’re not in school.”

“But they are in school,” she said looking around. “And, tonight, you are their teacher!” I shrugged my shoulders. “Trust me.”

“Okay.” I took the books and we headed into one of the classrooms where kids were jumping all over the place. Some were playing with dolls, others were immersed in their hand-held GameDudes. Others were climbing all over each other. I looked around the room. “Are you serious? They don’t have any adults in here at all?” Toys and paper were strewn all over the floor, like some war-torn landscape of a post-apocalyptic future. It was utter chaos.

“Guys,” I announced. “If you’ll all sit down I’d like to read to you…” My voice trailed off and was swallowed by the hooting and hollering of eight-year-olds. “Um, guys?” I didn’t know how to get kids’ attention except with food, and I didn’t have any.

Then Jinni stepped forward and, in a voice that was like a vivid, melodious dream, she said, “Once upon a time…” In that moment, all the noise stopped and all those little rugrats were staring at us in fascination. You could see in their eyes that their only concern now was the story; What would happen? How would it end? Was there a princess? Just those four words and they were hooked.

“How did you do that?” I asked, unable even to look at her because I was afraid, if I turned away from the kids, they would be jumping and throwing things again when I turned back.

“It is very easy for a genie to captivate human imaginations and storytelling is in my family. For my cousin, Scheherazade, it was a matter of life and death.”

“Then maybe it would be better for you to read to them,” I said, handing her the books.

“No, I think that would be cheating.” She smiled. “Besides, this is what you wanted. Now go over there and start reading. I have gotten their attention. The rest is up to you.”

So I sat down, opened a book and started reading, “Have you ever heard of the great Forest of Burzee? Nurse used to sing of it when I was a child. She sang of the big tree-trunks, standing close together, with their roots intertwining below the earth and their branches intertwining above it; of the bushy foliage that roofed the entire forest, save where the sunbeams found a path through which to touch the ground in little spots and to cast weird and curious shadows over the mosses, the lichens and the drifts of dried leaves…”

After a little while, many of the kids had shaken off the effects of Jinni’s four word foreward, and returned to their former forms of amusement. But there were ten little indians sitting at my feet, hanging on my every word.

“…Whenever Claus  set out to carry his toys to the little ones an Awgwa, who had been set to watch his movements, sprang upon him and snatched the toys from his grasp. And the children were no more disappointed than was Claus when he was obliged to return home disconsolate. Still he persevered, and made many toys for his little friends and started with them for the villages. And always the Awgwas robbed him as soon as he had left the Valley…”

I had always loved reading and, when I read to the kids, I had the opportunity to try all kinds of crazy voices. “Claus thanked the Master Woodsman most gratefully and returned to his Valley, while Ak, who never delayed carrying out his promises, at once traveled to the mountain of the Awgwas.” I lowered my voice forebodingly as I read the last part. “There,” I continued, holding out my hand. “standing on the bare rocks, he called upon the King and his people to appear. Instantly the place was filled with throngs of the scowling Awgwas, and their King, perching himself upon a point of rock, demanded fiercely: ‘Who dares call on us?’” I shouted in a deep, gravelly voice.

“‘It is I, the Master Woodsman of the World,’ responded Ak.

‘Here are no forests for you to claim,’ cried the King, angrily. ‘We owe no allegiance to you, nor to any immortal!’”

The kids leaned forward in anticipation.

I continued in a noble voice. “‘That is true,’ replied Ak, calmly. ‘Yet you have ventured to interfere with the actions of Claus, who dwells in the Laughing Valley, and is under our protection.’ Many of the Awgwas began muttering at this speech, and their King turned threateningly on the Master Woodsman…”

It was here that one of the teachers walked in and saw the state the room was in. “What did you kids do in here?” she shouted. “Clean this mess up this instant!” In that moment, while I was still reading, the kids up and scattered like frightened rabbits and set to work putting all the toys away. As much as I condone having children clean up after themselves, I would have liked it if I’d had the opportunity to finish reading first. Because they never came back. The spell had been broken and they returned to their own business. They no longer cared about Santa Claus. They no longer cared to find out what happened between Ak and the King of the Awgwas.

“Well,” I said to Jinni, walking over with the books. “It was nice while it lasted.” I put my arms around her. “Thanks. This meant a lot to me.”

“As you people say; Do not ever mention it.” Then she paused. “That is how the expression goes, is it not?”

“Yeah,” I responded, giggling. “Something like that.” I sighed. “I didn’t even get to the part with the reindeer.”

“Well,” Eva began as we walked out of the school. “I’d like to find out what happens.” She looked hopefully at me. “Can’t we finish the story at home?”

And so we were all gathered in the living room that night, with all my friends listening as I read, and Freddie sitting next to me on the couch. “…Although there are millions and millions more children in the world than there used to be, Santa Claus has never been known to complain of their increasing numbers. ‘The more the merrier!’ he cries, with his jolly laugh; and the only difference to him is the fact that his little workmen have to make their busy fingers fly faster every year to satisfy the demands of so many little ones. ‘In all this world there is nothing so beautiful as a happy child,’ says good old Santa Claus; and if he had his way the children would all be beautiful, for all would be happy.” I closed the book. “The end.”

The lesson I learned today was Acceptance; Things often don’t turn out the way we want them to and, when they do, it often doesn’t last long. We sometimes get discouraged that the rest of the world doesn’t care about the things that are important to us and, the truth is, nobody can see things the exact same way you do. But everyone has their chance to speak up and, when it’s over, those who had the privilege of listening will have been affected in ways you couldn’t even imagine.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

After the chaos and or merriment of the New Year’s Eve celebration comes New Year’s Day; the only holiday where we celebrate the day before it and then doing absolutely nothing. The traditions we follow on New Year’s Day include; Spending the whole day in your pajamas, not getting out of bed ever, eating only leftovers or things that have been disguised as leftovers, having a hangover because you partied so hard, pretending you had a hangover because you partied so hard, and watching marathons of your favorite TV shows from yester-years. Which brings me to the reason New Year’s Day A.K.A. National Do Nothing Day brought to me neither peace nor relaxation.

I woke up very reluctantly that morning. As I told you before, the New Year’s Eve debacle had taken a lot out of me and I wasn’t looking forward to rising before noon. But the sounds of Uncle Bobert’s stinging one-liners coming from the other side of the wall, followed closely by the roar of canned laughter made it hard for me to sleep. So, like all my problems, I figured I may as well take this one in the face. I opened the door and there was Iggy with his mouth clamped over the remote control and, attached to the other side, was Coppelia trying to wrench it from him. I watched the scene for a few moments, just to see how it played out and, when neither of them was gaining any ground, I made my presence heard.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” They both froze and turned toward me.

“Charlotte,” Iggy said, floating over to me with a sneer. “Will you please tell Coppelia that we’re going to watch the Uncle Bobert’s House marathon today?”

Coppelia twisted her china doll face at this and scurried over with her little pink slippers, pleading, “But there’s a Diagnosis: Marriage marathon on channel 4! I just have to find out what happens to married doctors Chad and Gloria Feelgood!”

“Oh you’ve seen every episode of that stupid show,” Iggy retorted.

“It’s not stupid,” she shouted. “Uncle Bobert is stupid!”

“Uncle Bobert is a comic genius!”

“Iggy,” I interjected. “Would you let Coppelia watch her show, please? You’re supposed to make sacrifices for your loved ones.”

“Uncle Bobert is not negotiable!”

“Please, Ig. She had a rough time of it last night.”

“Her?’ he asked with a laugh. “What about us? We’re the ones who had to yank her out of trouble.”

“Gee, that’s funny,” I said. “I don’t remember you helping. At all.”

“I was there for moral support.”

“Then continue that tradition, will you? We’ll watch Diagnosis: Marriage for a while and then we’ll watch Uncle Bobert’s House. How about that?”

“Well…” He and Coppelia looked silently at each other  for a while. “Oh… okay.” She gave the little skull a hug and they returned to the couch. With the problem solved, I was ready to return to my restful sleep. But as I got to the door, I heard a crash, a shout and then silence. I turned around and Iggy and Coppelia were now sitting, sorely, on opposite ends of the sofa and, between them, was Allie with the remote in her hand and a smile on her face.

“What is is now?” I asked incredulously.

“Allie wants to watch Bambi’s Fashion Adventures,” Iggy stated flatly. “Guess how long that’s on for?”

Eva came hopping over and plopped down in front of the TV. “Oh, this is a good one,” she said with a grin.

“Enough of this,” Andie announced, walking into the room. “The Dusk Domain is on and we’re watching that.”

“Hey, I forgot about that,” Iggy chimed in. “Remember the one where the guy had all those books and his glasses broke and then, in the end, it didn’t matter because it turned out he was a dog and couldn’t read anyway?”

“That was one of my favorites,” Andie replied with little change in her expression. “What about the episode where summer never ended because that traveling salesman trapped Old Man Winter in a closet?”

“What’s going on here?” Roxy asked, hopping over the back of the couch and taking the remote for herself. “The Alpha Force marathon is on Channel 8!” She hit the button and the sounds of explosions and machine gun fire rattled out of the television. At about this moment, Jinni emerged from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn in her hand and froze as she looked over the room.

“Let me guess,” I said to her. “There’s something you want to watch, too?”

She nodded silently. “Marvelous Tales is on all day.”

“Marvelous Tales?” Ember echoed in shock. “What about The Lovenesters? You know, ‘One of these days, Annie, Bing-Bow! We’re getting a divorce!’ It’s a New Year’s Day tradition!”

“I love Linda is on,” Linda chimed sheepishly. Everyone stared at her. “What? Doesn’t everyone love Linda?”

It was now that I noticed Tina standing by the kitchen door with her arms crossed. I asked her, “I don’t suppose there’s a 24 hour marathon you want to watch?”

“Moi? Non. Ah don’t care for watcheeng se Teevee.”

“There’s a Celebrity Atomic Wedding Meltdown marathon on the Fashion Channel,” Coppelia said, turning toward her cousin.

“What?’ Tina exclaimed, her eyes going wide. “Geeve me se remote!” What ensued was a mess of shouts and limbs flying at one another, littered here and there with quotes from classic TV shows.

“Now that’s enough,” I yelled over the din. “I am not going to spend my New Year’s Day watching everybody fight! Doesn’t anyone care what I want to watch?” They all fell silent and looked down at the floor.

“What do you want to watch,” Iggy finally asked.

I thought for a minute and said, “I want to watch Diagnosis: Marriage.” Everyone except Coppelia seemed to shrink in disappointment. “Then I want to watch Uncle Bobert’s House.” Iggy looked up. “Then I want to watch Bambi’s Fashion Adventures, then The Dusk Domain, then Alpha Force, then Marvelous Tales, then The Lovenesters, then I Love Linda, and then Celebrity Atomic Wedding Meltdown. We have all day and I want to get started now. So I plopped down on the couch and married doctors Chad and Gloria Feelgood filled the screen.

‘Darling, don’t you know me?’ Chad asked, looking into Gloria’s eyes.

‘How can I, my love?’ She replied, turning away. ‘Simon told me I have amnesia.’

‘Amnesia?! What’s that?’

‘Don’t you know?’ Gloria said, turning back to him.

‘I can’t remember. I have it too!’ Chad banged his fist against the door frame.

Gloria looked blankly into the air. ‘Have what?’

And so, I learned another valuable lesson; Organization. They say that having kids is like being pecked to death by chickens and trying to maintain some sense of order between ten roommates is very much the same. Without building some sort of organization, none of us would last very long.

Happy New Year and enjoy watching your favorite all day!

‘Here you go, kids,’ Uncle Bobert said, handing them some firecrackers. ‘Why don’t you go outside and blow yourselves up…’ The laugh track roared.

‘Uncle Bobert,’ Cindy said, with hands to her hips. ‘If you keep talking to the children like that, they won’t bother coming around at all anymore!’

‘Ooooh,’ Uncle Bobert began, looking smugly into the camera. ‘One can only hope.’ Another laugh track and, this time, harder. Much harder.

“On the eighth day of Christmas, Coppelia gave to me, eight (empty) bottles of champagne…”

Really nothing says Happy New Year like a criminal record, and I’m not talking about my brief, misguided stint as a supervillain. I’m talking about New Year’s Eve. We were all gathered together for a nice party to ring in 2012. We had Times Square on the tube, noisemakers at the ready and cocktail weenies like you wouldn’t believe. We were all ready for a great night.

Then Guillotina broke out the champagne and poured the glasses. Okay, let me be clear about something. Brittany, Freddie and myself are not quite of age yet. But we were just talking about a small glass of champagne to celebrate. We were all fully prepared to indulge in some sparkling cider after that. Well, I was. However, I was rooming with several girls who are considerably older than me so they were all past the legal drinking age, some of them by several hundred years. Then again, most of them are also legally dead, so does the drinking age really even matter for them? Tina doesn’t like me to talk about her age, but she always says she stopped counting at 100. Coppelia is at least as old as she is. Then there’s Ember who died in the 70′s, Eva who died in the 80′s, and Allie and Andie who died in the 90′s. Considering Linda was most likely the inspiration for the story of Little Red Riding Hood, she’s got to be at least as old as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, and Jinni’s got to be pushing 1,000 by now. Most varieties of alcohol didn’t even exist last time she was flesh and blood. Roxy won’t tell me how old she is but, again, she’s a ghost. She’s sort of past the age most people do anything. I suppose the being dead thing earns me the right to do a good many things most of my peers cannot, but I still plan on waiting until I reach 21 fair and square. Plus, alcohol is what got me this fashionable shade of pale and I can’t drink it without tasting a ton of metal slowly crushing my body.

Anywho, we were all gathered to watch the ball drop and had our glasses and noisemakers in hand as we counted down the seconds to the new year. With an explosion and a burst of fireworks, 2011 was pronounced DOA and 2012 was born! Horns and cranks and gongs sounded and we all took a sip of celebratory bliss.

“Who wants more of se bubbly?” Tina asked, proudly holding a bottle in her hand.

“None for me,” I replied in my best goody two-shoes voice. “Come to think of it, Tina. How did you manage to get that champagne anyway. I know you’re at least a hundred but even the oldest of us still look like teenagers.” To be fair, of all of us, Tina definitely looked the most mature. But it was still a fair concern.

“Oh sis ees my fameely’s label, from my faser’s own veeniards! Ah brought out eight bottles…” Then she paused and looked around the room. “Where are se rest of se bottles?” She began to panic. “Where ees Coppelia?”

“What’s the matter?”

“She can’t dreenk!”

“Why, isn’t she old enough?”

“Oui, she ees old enough but alcohol warps her spreengs!”

“Spreengs? What are spreengs?”

“Spreengs! Spreengs! Like een a clock!”

“Oh,” I said with a laugh. “Springs! Springs… uh oh.” Yeah. We went searching outside and finally found Coppelia about an hour later.

“Where was she?” Tina demanded with a huff, as I sat the tipsy mechanical girl on the sofa.

“She was in a police car,” I said, straightening her pigtails as she stared out into space.

Tina burst into tears. “You mean she had been arrested?”

“No, she was driving it.” I shrugged. “Then she crashed it into a lampost.”

“What were you theenking, you dreadful leetle geerl?” Tina shouted, shaking Coppelia. “You know how easily se dreenk affects you!”

“I didn’t crash because I was drunk,” she retorted rising, quickly but less than straight, up. “I crashed because I couldn’t see with my tutu around my eyes.”

“Well pourquoi was your tutu around your eyes?”

Coppelia paused for a few moments. “Maybe because I was drunk.” Apparently she had downed eight bottles of Tina’s champagne and began performing Act I, Scene 3 of Sylvia in the middle of the street, with her tutu up around her head. I’m not sure whether or not she was wearing anything where her tutu should have been but, judging by the reactions of the two cops who tried to stop the performance, she probably wasn’t. Coppelia thought they weren’t fans of ballet and that’s why they were so angry but I think the resisting arrest and grand theft auto may have had something to do with it. It took an awful lot to fix that whole mess but being the guardian of the veil between life and death does give me some pull when it comes to ushering water under the bridge. Even if this wasn’t exactly water we were dealing with.

“Coppelia,” I scolded. “You’re just lucky you’re an enchanted mechanical doll and a character from folklore or you’d be in a heap of trouble!”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, hazily, before suddenly falling asleep right where she sat. She would probably need to wind herself a few extra times in the morning but, other than that, she would be fine. But she demonstrated an important lesson for me; Temperance. Just because we can do something doesn’t give us the right to throw caution and common sense to the wind. There’s a reason there’s a drinking age and, just because you’re “of age,” doesn’t mean you can abuse the privilege. Now with my after-school special concluded (to be honest, it was better than an after-school special because it had monsters and ballet and a car crash in it) allow me to wish you a very happy and safe New Year and best of luck in 2012!

Hopefully, by this time next year, we’ll all still be around to throw another party. If we’re lucky. But that’s another story… and it’s called the Book of Revelation.