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Dan Gutman is the author of many books for children, including the My Weird School series, the Flashback Four series, and the New York Times bestselling Genius Files series. Dan has received nineteen state book awards and ninety-two nominations. Dan lives in New York with his wife, Nina. You can visit him online at www.dangutman.com.

Jim Paillot lives in Arizona (another weird place) with his weird wife and two weird children. Isn't that weird?

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Something weird is going on!

Miss Holly, the Spanish teacher, is hanging mistletoe everywhere! That means boys will have to kiss girls. And girls will have to kiss boys. Ugh! Miss Holly is taking the holidays way too far!

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My Weird School #14: Miss Holly Is Too Jolly!

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Chapter One

Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa

"Me llamo A.J. y odio la escuela."

That's "My name is A.J. and I hate school" in Spanish.

Miss Holly translated it for me. She's the Spanish teacher at Ella Mentry School.

"It's not fair," I said as our class walked down the hall to the language lab. "Why do we have to learn a whole nother language?"

"'Nother' isn't a word, Arlo," said Andrea Young. "You can't even speak English correctly."

Andrea is this girl in my class with curly brown hair who thinks she knows everything. She calls me by my real name because she knows I hate it.

"'Nother' is too a word," I told her.

"Is not."

"Is too."

We went back and forth like that for a while. Andrea said she looked up "nother" in the dictionary once, and it wasn't there. She's probably the only kid in the world who keeps a dictionary on her desk so she can look up words and show everybody how smart she is.

"'Another' is a word," Andrea said, "but not 'nother.'"

"Oh yeah?" I said. "If 'nother' isn't a word, then why did you just say it?"

Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on her.

Andrea was wearing this dumb hat that she made all by herself in her knitting class. Andrea takes classes in everything. She probably even takes a class in how to be annoying, because that's the one thing she's good at.

After walking a million hundred miles, we finally got to the language lab. What a dumb name. Labs are supposed to have test tubes and mad scientists and hunchbacked guys named Igor who limp. Our language lab is just a plain old room where we learn Spanish. What's up with that?

"Isn't learning Spanish fun?" Andrea said to her crybaby friend Emily. "I hope Miss Holly teaches us—"

She didn't get the chance to finish her sentence because at that very second Miss Holly danced in the door.

Miss Holly was playing a guitar and she had a big basket of fruit on her head. She was singing some crazy song and spinning around and stamping her feet. Her red dress had pictures of reindeer on the back. On the front were blinking lights and the words "Happy Holidays!"

When she finished the song, Miss Holly yelled, "Olay!" which is the name of the stuff my mom smears on her face at night.

"¡Feliz Navidad!" Miss Holly said. "Happy Hanukkah! Kwanzaa Yenu Iwe Na Heri!"

"What the heck does that mean?" I asked.

"That means Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Kwanzaa!" Miss Holly replied.

"Which holiday do you celebrate?" asked Emily.

"Me?" said Miss Holly. "I celebrate all of them!"

If you ask me, it was a little early to be talking about the holidays. I mean, we just came back to school from Thanksgiving break a few days ago. Miss Holly is too jolly.

"I love all the holidays!" Miss Holly said. "I can't wait for December!"

"My favorite holiday is Halloween," said Neil, who everybody calls the nude kid, even though he wears clothes.

"My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving," said my friend Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that is not food.

"My favorite holiday is my birthday," said my other friend Michael, who never ties his shoes.

Everybody started shouting out their favorite holiday.

"What's your favorite holiday, A.J.?" Miss Holly asked me.

"My favorite holiday is Take Our Daughters to Work Day," I said.

"That's for girls," Andrea said. "Why is that your favorite holiday, Arlo?"

"Because you're not here," I replied.

"That's mean!" Andrea said. She crossed her arms and wrinkled up her face.

She was right. It was mean. That's why I said it!

I hate her.

Excerpted from My Weird School #14: Miss Holly Is Too Jolly!by Dan Gutman Copyright ©2006 by Dan Gutman. Excerpted by permission.
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