Megan Stine_Jeffery & the Third-Grade Ghost 03 by Christmas Visitors Page A

turned around. “Who threw that?” Gary asked. But there was no one there—no one he could
see
.
    Only Jeffrey could see the boy standing behind Gary. The boy was wearing an old-fashioned red-plaid wool coat and a brown leather hat with ear flaps that were pulled down. The boy’s name was Max. Max was a ghost.
    “Great shot!” Jeffrey said. He gave Max the thumbs-up sign.
    “Hey, Daddy-o, like, there’s a fungus among us,” Max said to Jeffrey. He was holding his nose and pointing at Gary. “Why don’t you tell this cat to make like the snow and flake off?”

    Jeffrey just smiled at his ghost friend. No one else could see or hear Max, so Jeffrey didn’t say anything else. He knew his friends would think he was talking to himself. But it was great to know that Max was there. Max always made funny things happen.
    “You’ll be sorry you threw that snowball, slime-ball,” Gary said to Jeffrey. He raised his arm to throw another snowball.
    “Big mistake, Gar,” Jeffrey said, shaking his head. “Haven’t you heard? This is a rare ‘echo’ snowfall. It only happens once every twenty-two years.”
    “So what?” Gary said. He threw another snowball at Jeffrey, but Jeffrey ducked. Meanwhile, Max had sneaked up right behind Gary. He zapped Gary with a snowball that knocked his cap off again.
    “See what I mean about the echo?” Jeffrey said. “You throw one at me—the echo throws it back!”
    Instantly, Gary and his friends started to throw snowballs as fast as they could. So did Jeffrey, Ben, Kenny, Melissa, and Ricky. Jeffrey’s friends ducked behind the wall of their fort where Gary’s snowballs couldn’t hit them.
    The battle raged on for several minutes. But Gary and his friends finally had to give up. Theycouldn’t figure out who was dumping snow down their necks and putting icicles in their boots. Of course it was Max—Jeffrey’s invisible friend. Finally, Gary and his friends took off.
    “Run, chickens, run!” Ricky Reyes yelled.
    “We won!” Kenny shouted. “This is excellent! We really won!”
    Thanks to Max, Jeffrey thought happily to himself. But he didn’t say it out loud. He had practically given up trying to convince his friends that he knew a ghost. And Max was no help, either. Every time Jeffrey wanted to introduce them, Max would completely disappear—just like now.
    Still, it didn’t matter if no one knew about Max. Max was a great friend. And this was a great snowstorm. With Max around, it was going to be the best Christmas ever.
    Melissa found Gary’s ugly yellow and green striped cap on the ground. She put it on a stick, and they planted the stick like a victory flag in the wall of the fort. Then they all went into Jeffrey’s house to thaw out and celebrate. Inside, it smelled of hot chocolate and warm cookies.
    “Who’s interested in an art project?” Mrs. Becker asked when everyone was out of their wet snow clothes.
    “Uh-oh,” Jeffrey told his friends. “The last ‘art’ project Mom thought of was painting the basement steps.”
    “This is different,” Jeffrey’s mother said with a smile. “I made some cutout gingerbread cookies. I wondered if your friends wanted to decorate them?”
    “Great idea, Mrs. Becker,” said Ben.
    In the kitchen, Jeffrey’s mother put one cookie for each kid on a piece of waxed paper. There were three kinds to choose from: gingerbread men, gingerbread women, and, for some reason, gingerbread crocodiles. Next, Mrs. Becker brought out a large bowl of icing. Then she handed out little bottles of food coloring and jars of sprinkles. Finally, she put aprons on each of the kids and then got out of the way.
    “I’m going to turn this guy into one cool robot,” Ricky Reyes said. He put gold candy eyes on his cookie.
    “You already have about two hundred toy robots, don’t you?” asked Jeffrey.
    “Yeah, but I haven’t
eaten
one since I was a baby,” Ricky said with a laugh.
    When they were done with all of the icing and the