Somebody asked if it could be a famous person instead, and somebody else asked if it could be a dead famous person, like George Washington.
Miss Kemp said no. “This is a classroom project, so it has to be people in this class. We know all about George Washington’s good points, but . . .” She looked around and picked on Boomer. “We don’t know all Boomer’s good points. More important, Boomer probably doesn’t know all his good points.”
“How many compliments?” Junior Jacobs wanted to know.
“Up to you,” Miss Kemp said.
Alice Wendleken raised her hand. “Would beautiful hair and shiny hair count as one compliment?”
This sounded to me as if Alice planned to compliment herself, which would save someone else the trouble, but Miss Kemp said, “I’m not talking about beautiful hair and nice teeth, Alice. I mean characteristics, personal qualities, something special.”
This could be hard, I thought. Take Albert Pelfrey. When you think of Albert Pelfrey, you think fat. Even Albert thinks fat. It’s hard to think anything else, so I would really have to study Albert to find some special personal quality that wasn’t just about being fat. And besides Albert there were twenty-eight other people, including Imogene Herdman.
“What’s a compliment?” Imogene asked me.
“It’s something nice you tell someone, like if someone is especially helpful or especially friendly.”
Alice looked Imogene up and down. “Or especially clean,” she said.
“Okay.” Imogene frowned. “But mice would still be better.”
Copyright
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Copyright © 1972 by Barbara Robinson
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Robinson, Barbara
The best Christmas pageant ever / Barbara Robinson
p. cm.
Summary: The six mean Herdman kids lie, steal, smoke cigars (even the girls) and then become involved in the community Christmas pageant.
ISBN 0-06-025043-7 — ISBN 0-06-025044-5 (lib. bdg.) ISBN 0-06-440275-4 (pbk.)
EPub Edition © 2010 ISBN: 9780062076939
[1. Christmas — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.R5628Be3 1972
72076501
[Fic] lcac
CIP
AC
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