Jingle

by Gordon Korman

  Miss Grier threw her property open to provide parking for so many extra visitors. It was a stunning change of heart for an unfriendly neighbor who had spent so many holidays on the phone with the police, demanding that illegally parked cars be towed away. Even more amazing, she brought her grandnephews and grandniece to reopening night. It was the first time she’d set foot inside the Colchester home after living next door to it for more than sixty years.

  “I guess the holiday spirit just got to me this season,” she told everybody.

  The Star of Prague was once again in its rightful place atop the towering Christmas tree in the teeming Great Hall. It had been examined by a museum curator, a glass expert, and Mrs. Boucle. All three declared it undamaged and 100 percent good as new despite its trials and tribulations inside Fruit Armor.

  Another piece of good news: Mrs. Vader decided that the events of Christmas Eve were all the testing the new invention would need. Mr. Bing was on the fast track to another patent.

  “Quit scratching, Ferret Face!” Ben complained. “I know the shirt’s tight. I don’t like it any more than you do!”

  Now that the Holiday Spectacular was on again, Santa’s Elves were back on the job—and back in costume, complete with tunics, tights, vests, jingling slippers, and pointed ears. She stormed off, ear points held high.

  “Yeah, thanks a lot, Griffin,” Pitch growled. “It didn’t say anywhere in Operation Starchaser that when it was all over, we’d have to be elves again. Some Man With The Plan you are.”

  “At least we’re not grounded anymore,” Melissa put in optimistically.

  “I was never grounded in the first place,” grumbled Ben, reaching inside his tunic in an attempt to shift Ferret Face into a more comfortable position.

  “All right, you guys,” Griffin told them. “It stinks to be elves again. I get that. But you have to admit it could be a lot worse. Is Detective Sergeant Vizzini still bugging us? No. Does the entire town hate us because we ruined Christmas? No again. I’d say this plan was a pretty big success.”

  “It worked out for me,” Logan agreed. “If all this hadn’t happened, I never would have gotten into the North Shore Players. Mrs. Boucle hated my guts.”

  “Smart lady,” Darren approved. “You have very hateable guts. I hate them, too.”

  Tiffany turned on him. “You shut your big mouth, Darren Vader! Logan is ten times the person you’ll ever be! You’re lucky you’re not in jail right now! You and Russell Colchester—who’s the only reason you’re the second-worst person in the world, instead of number one! I’m glad they sent him away to California. If I had my way, they would have sent him to the moon, and you with him!”

  Since Mr. Colchester never pressed charges against his grandson for stealing the Star, Darren was off the hook, too. It was impossible to be an accomplice to a crime that had never been committed. Now his only problems were angry parents and an even angrier Tiffany Boucle. He didn’t much care that she no longer had a crush on him, but it annoyed him to no end that she had transferred her affections to Logan. Wherever the young actor went in the Great Hall, Tiffany followed with the same wide-eyed worshipful look she had once reserved for Darren.

  “You’ve got the plan to thank for that, too,” Griffin reminded Logan. “Tiffany ditched Vader and now she’s totally into you.”

  “I’m going to have to find a way to let her down easy,” reflected Logan with a world-weary smile. “I don’t have time for a girlfriend. My most important relationship is with my acting. Although,” he mused, “shooting music videos with Tiffany got me thinking. Acting’s okay, but what I’d really like to do is direct.”

  A resounding “Ho, ho, ho!” boomed through the Great Hall.

  Santa Claus made his way through the crush, handing out candy canes, his loyal reindeer at his side—Luthor, with the papier-mâché antlers tied to his massive head.

  Dirk Crenshaw was back, as ever the perfect Santa. Savannah beamed, watching her dog reunited with his friend. “I’m so happy for Luthor!”

  “Why Luthor?” asked Ben. “You should be happy for Crenshaw. He’s the one getting all that money.”

  It was true. Mr. Colchester had offered a reward for information leading to the recovery of his Star. Griffin and the team had decided to pass on their prize to Dirk Crenshaw to help pay off his gambling debts and to get his life back on track.

  Part of their decision came from a group feeling of guilt over how they’d falsely suspected this man and trailed his footsteps around town. In their minds, they had tried and convicted him, when all the while he was innocent. Yet when Vizzini had offered him the chance to press charges against them, he’d said no.

  His exact words had been: I know what it’s like to get jammed up over a couple of bad decisions. Crenshaw had let the team off the hook for their bad decision to spy on him. Now it was their turn to return the favor. Too well Griffin remembered Gustave, the bodybuilder debt collector from that night in the old tennis racket factory. Crenshaw might have been a none-too-friendly cigar-smoking slob with stomach gas to spare, but nobody deserved Gustave.

  Savannah saw it differently. In her opinion, the reward should have gone to Luthor, since he’d been the one who’d leaped on the snowmobile and stopped the fleeing Darren. And there was no question that Luthor would have wanted to give his money to the front man of Fingers and the Flytraps.

  An added bonus of donating their prize to Crenshaw—it drove Darren absolutely crazy.

  “You guys are such morons!” he lamented. “It’s like flushing cold, hard cash down the toilet! Why didn’t you just give it to me?”

  Pitch laughed in his face. “You really dream in Technicolor, Vader. Not only did you do nothing to earn this reward. You were part of the reason they had to offer one in the first place!”

  “Hey, I didn’t steal anything,” Darren defended himself. “I just helped out a friend. Sue me for doing exactly what we used to sing songs about in kindergarten!”

  “We can’t sue you,” Griffin informed him. “Mr. Colchester can. And he might still try if we tell him about this conversation.”

  “Okay, fine,” Darren sulked. “I don’t deserve any money. But why Crenshaw, huh? Why a random hobo in a Santa suit?”

  “That shows what you know,” Savannah retorted. “Dirk has to be a wonderful person, or Luthor wouldn’t love him.”

  That evening, just before the mansion had opened its doors, Santa had gathered all the elves together in the Workshop for a heartfelt thank-you. Everyone got a hug, even Darren. It smelled of motor oil, tobacco, and five-alarm chili. Ferret Face found it appetizing, and Ben had to hold the little creature in place inside the elf costume.

  “I can’t believe you kids did this for me,” Crenshaw said earnestly. “You barely know me.”

  The team members flushed. Because of listening devices, webcams, GPS trackers, e-mail hacking, and a whole lot of personal surveillance, they knew Dirk Crenshaw better than his own mother did.

  “This is the nicest thing that’s ever happened to me. I swear I’ll pay you back if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Savannah tried to explain about animals being excellent judges of character, but Crenshaw cut her off with another one of his thunderous belches.

  “Five minutes ago,” he went on, “Mrs. Boucle hired me as the musical director for the North Shore Players. It was the faith you kids showed in me that gave me the confidence to apply for that job. It made all the difference.” And the hugging started over again.

  So when the great doors opened to admit the crowd, Santa and his elves were in tears.

  Charles Colchester interpreted this to be an emotional reaction to the reopening of the Holiday Spectacular. “I cherish this town!” he exclaimed hoarsely.

  Priddle put an arm around Crenshaw’s shoulder and faced the elves. “It’s probably well known that I don’t much like children. But I could make an exception for you lot. You’re very kind young people—and you’re even more resourceful than you
are kind.” He scowled at Darren. “Except for you.”

  It was the best Holiday Spectacular anyone—even Mr. Colchester himself—could remember. It lasted until nearly midnight, and Griffin and Ben stayed after that to help clean up and prepare to do it all again tomorrow.

  Priddle sent the chauffeur to drive them home in the Colchester limo.

  They approached Ben’s house first, where a Dumpster sat on the driveway, piled high with debris from the dueling holiday displays.

  “Wow.” Griffin whistled. “That’s a lot of junk. You don’t think your folks will go nuts and do it all again next year, do you?”

  Ben shook his head. “No way. It used to drive my dad bananas that Hanukkah always took a backseat to Christmas. But did you hear where the drei-dirigible ended up when it finally came down? It landed right on top of the big Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.”

  Griffin was wide-eyed. “No way!”

  “So for about an hour, until the sanitation department could bring in the cherry picker to take it down, it said ‘Happy Hanukkah’ on top of the most famous Christmas tree on the planet. Yeah, I think Dad got it out of his system. Trust me.”

  The Man With The Plan was speechless … which might have been the biggest holiday miracle of all.

  Gordon Korman’s first Swindle mysteries were Swindle, Zoobreak, Framed, Showoff, Hideout, Jackpot, and Unleashed. His other books include Slacker, This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall! (published when he was fourteen); The Toilet Paper Tigers; Radio Fifth Grade; the trilogies Island, Everest, Dive, Kidnapped, Titanic, and The Hypnotists; and the series On the Run. He lives in New York with his family and can be found on the Web at www.gordonkorman.com.

  Copyright © 2016 by Gordon Korman

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

  First edition, October 2016

  Cover art © 2016 by Jennifer Taylor

  Cover design by Elizabeth B. Parisi

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-86145-8

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