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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people,
or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters,
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and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2009 by Dan Gutman
Illustrations copyright © 2009 by Dan Santat
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Manufactured in the United States of America
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gutman, Dan.
The Christmas genie / Dan Gutman ; illustrated by Dan Santat.â1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When a meteorite crashes into a fifth-grade classroom at
Lincoln School in Oak Park, Illinois, the genie inside agrees to grant
the class a Christmas wishâif they can agree on one within an hour.
ISBN 978-1-4169-9001-7
ISBN 978-1-4391-5826-5 (eBook)
[1. GeniesâFiction. 2. WishesâFiction. 3. SchoolsâFiction.
4. ChristmasâFiction. 5. MeteoritesâFiction.]
I. Santat, Dan, ill. II.
Title.
PZ7.G9846Chr 2009
[Fic]âdc22
2009017765
To my editor, Emily Meehan,
who always pushes me to be better
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Liza Voges, Nathan Katz, Deb Licorish,
Laurie Bushey, Nina Wallace, Janet Goodman,
Theresa Wolfe, Jane Babcock, and all the kids
who shared their deepest, darkest wishes.
The CHRISTMAS GENIE
PART ONE Before
That Thing
That Happened
Youâre probably not going to believe this story. Fine. Thatâs okay. Itâs a free country. You can believe what you want to believe. Or not. But I know what happened. Because I was
there
.
Where is âthereâ? Lincoln School in Oak Park, Illinois. Fifth grade. This is what my class looks like.
Well, thatâs what my class would look like if you were hanging from the ceiling like Michelangelo and drawing a picture of it. But I have no idea why you would want to do a crazy thing like that.
Thatâs me, in the second row on the left side, by the window. My name is Chase. My best friend is Alex. Heâs on my basketball team, but weâre not allowed to sit next to each other because heâs always cracking jokes and distracting me. So we had to be âseparated.â
Itâs a pretty good group of kids, I guess. Well, except for Abigail, who thinks sheâs so great just because sheâs got a cool cell phone; Mia, the wet blanket; Logan, who threw my umbrella up on the roof of the school last year; and Christopher, who is just plain dumb as a box of rocks. Everybody else is relatively normal. Our teacher, Mrs. Walters, always says weâre the âchattiestâ group she ever had. I donât think that means weâre brilliant conversationalists. It just means we talk too much.
Thatâs her, in the front of the room. One time I saw Mrs. Walters at the supermarket and I kind of freaked out because it was like,
What is my teacher doing in a supermarket?
Okay, enough setup. None of that stuff is important, anyway. The important