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Sarah Sues Santa – P.J. Leonard

Chapter Eleven: Christmas Jokes

Sarah and Lisa grabbed a knife and fork and started filling their plate. At first, she went straight for
the sweets, but with a look from Mum she added a couple of spoonfuls of vegetables to her plate as
well.
If Sarah was completely honest, the food wasn’t that great. Of course, she didn’t say that: Mum had
a small kitchen with a cooker that always kept breaking, and she knew that everyone had really tried
their best to make Christmas dinner look good. In fact, as she chewed on chicken and drank a
mouthful of orange squash from one of the really fancy cups that they only used for special
occasions, Sarah actually appreciated it even more than the Christmas dinner from the rich house.
And anyway, the food didn’t really matter that much: there was lots of talking and joking, and after
a couple of glasses of whatever it was Uncle Foster was drinking, his face was as red as the
tablecloth, and he started telling some of his best jokes.
“There’s a reason why we don’t have a turkey this year, do you why?” he said. “Well, the turkey is
in a band. He has the drumsticks.”
Sarah and Lisa laughed so much that their stomachs hurt, and Sarah was nearly begging him to stop.
Dad kept rolling his eyes, and Aunt Tilly playfully hit Uncle Foster on the arm.
“Stop telling those stupid jokes, you’re embarrassing me,” she said.
“Oh, don’t be so rude,” said Uncle Foster, taking another sip of his drink, “You’re like that reindeer.
What’s his name? Oh yeah…Rude-oph.”
When all of their plates were clear and Sarah had stuffed her pockets with the leftover sweets, they
all worked together to clear the table and tidy up the kitchen. Sarah took the job of drying up all of
the washed plates and cutlery, while Lisa grabbed the broom and swept the floor of all of the
crumbs before Tinder started eating them.
When everything was nice and tidy, Mum turned to the fridge, and from it pulled out a huge
Christmas cake. Sarah stared at it as Mum carried it carefully to the table and Dad laid out clean
plates and spoons.
“We should thank Sarah for this,” said Mum, smiling at her.
“Me?” said Sarah, “What did I do?”
“You you remember Mrs. Fennick, the old lady on the corner of Brindle Lane? You cleaned her
front garden last month.”
Sarah nodded slowly. She really had done that in the real world, as part of her mission to be as good
as possible this year. So that happened here, in this world too? Funny, my parents in the rich house
didn’t mention it at all.
“Well, she used to own a bakery. And she was so grateful for your help that she made this
Christmas cake, just for you.”
“I can’t eat all of that!” Sarah pointed at the cake, “It’s bigger than my head!”
Everyone laughed.
“Well, in that case we’ll help you eat it,” said Lisa, grabbing a spoon.
Dad sliced up the cake and passed the slices around. It was extremely fruity and very tasty.
“This is fantastic,” said Uncle Foster, “Sarah, are you planning on cleaning up any more gardens?
Because Mr. Cobbs is a car mechanic and I could really do with someone checking my car…”
“You are ridiculous, Foster!” said Aunt Tilly, even though it looked like she was avoiding the urge
to laugh as well.
With the clock coming up to 4pm, everyone piled into the living room to watch the Christmas
special of that soap opera that Mum and Aunt Tilly seemed to really like. Dad and Uncle Foster
talked about more grown-up stuff that Sarah couldn’t quite understand – something to do with

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