Christmas Chaos Read online

  For Alexandra, Alicia, Annie, Aristea, Claire, Esther, Gen, Kitty, Lucy, Miette, Robert and Zac from Gold St PS Reading Club. Jingle all the way!–MC

  For Jade and Zoe, Jordan and Lauren, Jack, Katelyn and Alex.–DM

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Saturday Afternoon

  Saturday Night, Just Before Lights Out

  Sunday Night

  Sunday Night, Really, Really, Really Late

  Monday Morning, Really, Really Early, So Early Everyone Else in the Whole World is Still Asleep (Unless They Live in Countries on the Other Side of it, Where Things Like Time are Upside Down)

  Monday Night, Just Before Lights Out

  Tuesday Night

  Wednesday Night

  Thursday Night

  Friday, After Dinner

  Friday Night, a Bit Later

  Saturday Morning

  Saturday, Before Lunch

  Saturday, After Lunch

  Monday Night

  Tuesday Evening

  Wednesday Night, Very, Very Late

  Wednesday Morning, Very, Very Early, So Early Even Santa Hasn’t Been Yet

  Wednesday, a Bit Later

  PS (One Day Later)

  PPS (Two Days Later)

  Copyright

  Saturday afternoon

  Dear Diary,

  We’ve finally arrived at Moonlight Gardens, our home for the next two weeks. Yay! It is going to be fanTABulously fabulous.

  Moonlight Gardens is a caravan park in Moonlight Bay, which is the best beach in the whole wild world. My family comes here every year for Christmas.

  There are Good Things and Bad Things about staying in a caravan park.

  ** Arachnophobes are people who start screaming and running around like maniacs if they see or even THINK about a spider or even a part of it, like one of its hairy, scary legs or giganterous fangs or googly eyes.

  This year is extra-special because my BFF Zoe is going to be staying at Moonlight Gardens too! Her family is coming tomorrow and they are renting a caravan in the same row as ours. Yay!

  We can go to the beach and the carnival

  and the Christmas market

  and eat crazy-flavour gelato.

  And I can introduce her to Jessie and Ana, who are my SBFFs***, and we can do all kinds of magnificently marvellous holiday stuff together.

  It is going to be excellent.

  Bye for now. It’s time to hit the beach!

  Love, Ella

  XOXO

  *** SBFFs = Summer Best Friends Forever

  Saturday night, just before lights out

  Dearest Diary,

  I kept looking out for Jessie and Ana the whole time we were at the beach, but they didn’t show up. They probably haven’t arrived yet.

  Jessie is horse mad, just like Zoe. She wants to be a bareback-riding circus star when she grows up.

  Ana loves drawing and painting.

  Their families always come to Moonlight Gardens at Christmas time too and we do everything together, like cartwheels on the beach, and rock-pooling, and making mermaids out of sand.

  And every year we do this special thing called the

  The rules go like this:

  We have our first swim of the summer together, then make a wish.

  If we do it exactly like that, our wish will absolutely, positively 100% for sure come true. But if we don’t do our swim together, we will have bad luck to the power of 100 for the next year.

  So I didn’t go for a swim today, even though I really wanted to. I’m sure I’ll see them tomorrow!

  Good night!

  Ella

  Sunday night

  Dear Diary,

  Zoe is here! We had the best time today. I showed her ALL my favourite places.

  First we went to the rock pools and pretended to be internationally famous marine scientists doing important research projects on the local sea creatures.

  I love the rock pools. They’re really special, because you can only go there when the tide is out. And there’s this big cliff with little private caves, so I sometimes go there when I feel like being alone.

  But it was fun to share my special place with Zoe. Here’s what we saw:

  After all that important research we needed to recooparate recorperate cool down so we went for a nice refreshing swim in the sea. I wanted to wait for Jessie and Ana of course, so we could make our wish. But I STILL couldn’t find them, so I went in anyway. I hope they’ll understand.

  Plus I have new bathers that I designed myself and I couldn’t wait any longer to try them out. EVERYONE was looking at them, because they are SO SUPER STYLISH.

  Zoe and I jumped around in the wavy waves, shrieking like seagulls. The tide was coming in and we got dumped THREE TIMES.

  Next stop, the Gelato Shop! YUM!

  Everything was magnificently marvellous. The sun shone shinily and the breeze breezed gently. It was the most perfectly perfect day in the entire history of perfect days.

  And then something horrendous and horrifically horrible happened.

  Well, we THINK it happened. We’re still not 100% sure.

  It was like this.

  Mum and Dad took us all to the carnival. There were happy, smiling people everywhere, eating fairy floss and lining up for the rides. Of course, we all wanted to go on EVERYthing, but Dad said we could only choose one ride each.

  Olivia was desperate to go on the Vomitrex but Mum said no way was she letting her go on something with a name that had the word VOMIT in it.

  Even when Olivia said, ‘Please, please, please, I am seriously desperate, I promise to keep my room tidy and help with the dishes forever and ever cross my heart hope to die!’ (which she learned from me and usually works), Mum still wouldn’t let her.

  So then Olivia started having a little tanty, stamping her foot and blubbing like a big baby. EVERYONE was staring at her. It was soooo EMBARRASSING.

  And then Mum said if she was going to act like a baby she had to go on a baby’s ride.

  So Olivia had to go with Max on the boring old Chair-O-Plane. It wasn’t even a real one. Max didn’t mind though. He likes everything.

  But that wasn’t the Horrendously Horrible Thing. The Horrendously Horrible Thing is so horrible I can’t write about it right now.

  I’ll try and tell you tomorrow.

  Good night, Diary.

  Sweet dreams.

  E x

  Sunday night, really, really, really late

  Dear Diary,

  I’ve been lying here on my bunk FOR HOURS in desperating despair, trying to go to sleep.

  REASONS I CAN’T GO TO SLEEP

  There are scary animal noises coming from the scary trees outside our caravan.

  My entire family (including Bob) is snoring like a bunch of wallowing walruses in a snoring competition.

  I can’t stop thinking about the Horrendously Horrible Thing.

  So after about 900 hours of tossing and turning like a tiny boat being knocked about by giganterous towering waves, I gave up trying to get to sleep and climbed down TWO whole ladders so I could get Dad’s keychain out of his coat pocket. It has this cool little pen light on it, which is why I can now see to write all this!

  Uh-oh. I think someone just woke up.

  Guess who?

  Here’s what we said to each other:

  Olivia (in that whingey, whiny voice she always uses when she wants her own way): Ell-aaaa, turn the light out.

  Me (whispering): Ssshhhh. You’ll wake everyone up.

  Olivia: You already did.

  Me (still whispering): No I didn’t. Go back to sleep.

  Olivia: Make me.

  Me (sighi
ng): You are such a BABY, Olivia.

  Olivia: I know where you got that light from. I am soooo telling on you.

  And then Mum called out to tell us to stop arguing and go back to sleep or there would be Big Trouble.

  So I waited for a bit, doing some fake snores so Mum would think I was asleep, and then I snuggled down really deep into my sleeping bag so no-one else could see the pen light and kept on writing.

  Here’s the Horrendously Horrible Thing that happened at the carnival today.

  It was Zoe’s and my turn to choose our rides. And of course we had to choose the same thing, because we are BFFs, and BFFs always do EVERYTHING together.*

  * Sometimes Zoe and I even have the same thoughts or dreams at exactly the same time, which is REALLY SPOOKY. I am thinking of writing to one of those TV shows to tell them about it, in case they want to come to my house and make a dock documentary about me us.

  Choosing our rides was taking forever because Zoe kept choosing things I didn’t like (like the Wobbly Walk) and I kept choosing things she didn’t like (like the Tip-O-Rama). And then Dad said everyone was getting bored of standing around waiting and if we didn’t make our minds up in the next ten seconds he’d make both of us go on the Chair-O-Plane too.

  NO WAY were we going on a BABY ride. What if someone saw us!

  Eww.

  So we quickly chose the Ferris wheel. It wasn’t as exciting as the Vomitrex but at least we could talk to each other without our brains exploding from watching everyone around us screaming and throwing up.

  WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT ON THE FERRIS WHEEL

  School

  The people at school

  How fanTABulously fabulous it is to be in a place for two whole weeks WITHOUT irritating and annoying people like Perfect Princess Peach Parker (the most exasperatering person in our class as well as the ENTIRE UNIVERSE) being annoying and irritating all the time and ruining our lives.

  And then just as we were saying this last bit, WE SAW HER!!! Peach. In Moonlight Bay. NO!!!

  Well, we think we saw her. We were VERY high up. And it might have just been someone who LOOKS like Peach.

  And then I remembered our excellent teacher, Ms Weiss, who is exceptionally stylish (like me) and who knows a LOT of interesting facts (also like me) telling our class that:

  7.29 billion is A VERY BIG NUMBER. So big it is EXTREMELY possible that two people out of all those millions and bill ions might look a bit like each other.

  Yes. That must be it. That girl we saw at the carnival was just someone who LOOKS like Peach.

  There is absolutely, positively, definitely nothing to worry about at all.

  Phew. I can go to sleep now. For real.

  Good night, dearest Diary.

  Monday morning, really, really early, so early everyone else in the whole world is still asleep (unless they live in countries on the other side of it, where things like time are upside down)

  Dear Diary,

  I was in the middle of this amazing dream where I was being awarded the No Bell Fashion Prize for Excellence in Fashion Design when something tapped on my window.

  I woke up and instantly went into ninja attack mode in case one of the scary animals had moved out of the scary trees and decided to set up a scary home in our caravan, and I needed to protect my weak and defenceless family from them.

  But it wasn’t a scary animal.

  It was Zoe. In bunny rabbit PJs.

  I stared out at her through the tiny window next to my bunk. ‘What?’ I mouthed.* Then I made a series of complicated hand signals to let Zoe know to be quiet because everyone else in my family was still asleep.

  Zoe did some complicated hand signals of her own. Then she mouthed back, ‘I need to talk to you urgently.’

  * ‘Mouthing’ means opening and shutting your mouth so it looks like you’re speaking when you are actually not. It is the kind of thing Top-secret secret detectives (and probably also ninjas) do all the time when they are on Top-secret secret missions and don’t want anyone to hear the Top-secret secret things they are saying to each other.

  I cunningly switched from ninja attack mode into ninja stealth mode and stealthily climbed down the bunk ladders, being extra careful not to wake any of the wallowing walruses (especially the large furry one).

  ‘Why?’ I said, when I was safely outside.

  Zoe said she had been awake ALL NIGHT worrying that Peach had followed us all the way to Moonlight Bay so she could ruin our holiday and it was coming true already and we needed to have an Emergency Meeting** about it.

  ** Zoe and I always have Emergency Meetings when we have big problems to solve. Which is most of the time.

  And I said don’t be such a Panic Pants, we don’t even know for sure the girl we saw was Peach. And then I told her my fanTABulously fabulous theory about the 7.29 billion people and she said: ‘Stop it, Ella, it is too early in the morning for sums. You are making my head explode!’

  Zoe’s face looked like she’d been on the Vomitrex six times in a row without stopping, which made me feel really bad about calling her a Panic Pants. So I said: ‘Oh, all right then, meet me at the shower block at Oh 900 hours.’ (Which is the way Top-secret secret detectives speak when they are arranging their own Emergency Meeting times.) And then we both went back to our caravans and instantly fell into a deep, calming, relaxful sleep.***

  *** The kind of sleep Sleeping Beauty had except ours only lasted for 15 minutes instead of 100 years, because a spider accidentally crawled across Dad’s face and he shreeked shreaked screamed so loudly it woke up everyone in the whole caravan park. Including me and Zoe.

  Have to go now, Diary.

  CU soon!

  E

  xoxo

  Monday night, just before lights out

  Hey Diary,

  Something really weird happened today. I was on my way to the shower block to meet Zoe at Oh 900 hours just like we arranged. And guess what?!

  You never will because it is too weird so I’ll just tell you.

  I bumped into Jessie and Ana.

  Our conversation went like this:

  Me (excitered to see them): Hi, Jessie! Hi, Ana! When did you get here?

  Jessie (not quite so excitered): Oh. Hi, Ella. Um, on Friday.

  Me (puzzled and a bit hurt): Really?

  Ana: Yeah. Sorry we haven’t caught up yet but we’ve been kind of busy.

  Jessie: Yeah.

  Me: I looked for you at the beach yesterday.

  Ana: Oh. Um. Well, actually, we didn’t go to the beach. We went to the pool at that big new resort. (Big new resort? What big new resort? And why didn’t they ask me?)

  Jessie: Yeah. We met this girl—she’s really nice, isn’t she, Ana?

  Ana (nodding): And funny! She’s so funny! You’d love her. And she has REALLY nice clothes. So anyway, she invited us to swim in her pool. You know, at the resort.

  Jessie: You should see the pool! It’s got all these beautiful gardens around it, with flowers and everything.

  Ana: And palm trees.

  Jessie: And water flowing out of a LION’S HEAD!

  Ana: And you can lie around on special long chairs and a man brings you drinks with little umbrellas in them.

  Jessie: It was just like being movie stars in a movie!

  Ana: And guess what else?! I didn’t get a chance to guess what else because the time on my watch clicked over to Oh 900 hours and I suddenly remembered my Emergency Meeting with Zoe. So I said goodbye to Jessie and Ana and quickly jogged to the shower block where Zoe was waiting for me.

  When I got there I told Zoe about my friends and the Mysterious Girl and missing out on our special swimming wish. And how I was now going to have bad luck for the whole of next year. Maybe for the whole of the rest of my life!

  And Zoe said: ‘It sounds like they don’t want to be your friends anymore.’

  And I said: ‘So what, who cares? Who needs them anyway?’

  And Zoe said: ‘Never mind, Ella, we can do
our own special swimming wish. Just you and me.’

  And so we forgot all about our Emergency Meeting and went for a swim instead.

  Good night

  Sleep tight

  Don’t let

  The spiders bite!

  E x

  Tuesday night

  Hello Diary,

  Zoe’s mum took us to the Christmas market. It was aMAZing. Here’s some of the Christmassy stuff we saw:

  And then we saw this poster: