Read EllRay Jakes Rocks the Holidays! for Free Online

like
anything
until you do my challenges,” Kevin announces. “Youmust successfully complete them,” he adds, as if he has just been given magical wizard powers.
    And did you notice? Now, it’s definitely more than one challenge!
    “Whatever, dog,” I tell him, a hopeless feeling settling over me like a pile of too-heavy blankets on a hot night. “Just tell me what I have to do.”
    “I’m not done thinking them up yet,” he says, chin still high in the air. “But I’ll let you know when I do. Now, let’s go, before Ms. Sanchez starts looking for us.”
    And even though I’m the one holding the envelope, Kevin leads the way down the empty hall to Principal James’s office. And here’s me trotting along behind him, deeper down the rabbit hole.
    Man, I think, struggling to keep my legs going.
    This is going to be
one bad week
.

8
PRINCIPAL HAIRY JAMES
    “Well, well, well. If it isn’t EllRay Jakes and the Kevinator,” Principal James says as we slink into his holiday-decorated office. “I’ve been wondering where you two were. I was about to send out a search party,” he adds, glancing at his watch.
    Yes, he still wears a watch instead of just looking at his cell. So does my dad.
    I think Principal James is joking about the search party. But if there was one, I can imagine what the flyers he would hand out might say.
    LOST!
    THE ONLY TWO BOYS WITH BROWN SKIN IN MS. SANCHEZ’S THIRD GRADE CLASS!
    “I’m sorry we’re late,” I tell him. “It was—the hall.”
    “Yeah. Sorry. The hall,” Kevin—the Kevinator?—echoes.
    “The other class representatives have come and gone,” Principal James says, ignoring our lame excuse. “May I have the envelope, please?”
    I hand it over, knowing what’s inside.
    Principal James reads the two pieces of paper that were inside the envelope as Kevin and I edge toward the door, hoping to make our getaway. But no such luck.
    “Have a seat, boys,” he tells us, still reading. “Hmm. I like both these ideas. I’ll give Ms. Sanchez a jingle so she doesn’t worry, because I’d like you to stick around for a moment,” he adds, reaching for the phone on his desk.
    Cool!
Maybe
.
    Principal Harry James—which I secretly spell Principal
Hairy
James, because of the beard on his face—is okay for such a big, scary guy.
    Well, he’s only scary because you have to go to his office for a talking-to if you get in trouble.But most of the time, he’s nice. He stands on the school’s front steps every morning, greeting each of us by name. I think he must study flash cards at home. And he’s there when school lets out, too, to say good-bye. Alfie calls him the “hello and good-bye man.”
    She’ll learn how important he is soon enough. Next year, in fact.
    Watch out, Oak Glen Primary School!
    The principal murmurs into the phone for a few seconds, then perches his skinny rear end on his desk and faces Kevin and me.
    “Relax,” he says, smiling through his beard as he rearranges a couple of the snow globes on his desk. “You’re not in any trouble, guys. But you came all this way down that
hall
,” he says, fake-shuddering.
    Wait. Is he making fun of my lame excuse for being late to his office?
    “So, you might as well stay so we can talk about Friday’s assembly,” he continues. “Because planning it this year has been a real headache, let me tell you. But your class has saved the day. We’ll call it
An Oak Glen Winter Wonderland
, just tomake it our own. That has a real ring to it, don’t you think?”
    He isn’t worried by the fact that there isn’t anything very Winter Wonderland-y at all about Oak Glen in the winter. Sometimes the weather pours down rain and wrecks people’s outside decorations. Sometimes there’s a Santa Ana windstorm, and pitiful dried-up old Christmas trees roll around in the gutters, making Alfie want to adopt them and take them home, even though Christmas is over. Sometimes it gets strangely cold, and plants keel over and