Happy Howlidays Read online

  Copyright

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2019 by James Patterson

  Cover art © 2019 Ellie O’Shea

  Cover stock art © Shutterstock

  Cover design by Stephanie Yang

  Cover © 2019 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First ebook edition: October 2019

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  ISBN 978-0-316-45620-3

  E3-20190906-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Begin Reading

  About the Authors

  JIMMY Patterson Books for Young Readers

  News Letter

  For Wilson, Lyra and Louis

  —S.B.

  HELLO, MY FURLESS FRIEND!!

  Oh boy, oh boy, OH BOY… you opened my new book!

  I tell ya, I couldn’t be more excited to know you’re holding HAPPY HOWLIDAYS! in your five fingery digits, and we’re about to go on a festive adventure together. Humans are my favorite… you’re THE GREATEST, and I can feel a yip-yappy Happy Dance coming on. This is a bark-tastic moment! It’s WAGGY-TAIL-ICIOUS!! WHOA… hang on a second… I’m getting way ahead of myself.

  What if you haven’t read any of my PAW-SOME stories before?

  Could that be possible?

  Well, if you haven’t, I’d say you’re in desperate need of some serious poochification.

  Now, I know what you’re probably thinking. You’ll be sitting there right now, scratching your head in that way that humans do even when they don’t have fleas, wondering to yourself… Poochification? What’s that?

  Don’t you worry, my person-pal, I’ll explain all of it. Y’see, my book is practically a manual of muttness. It’s a canine crash course! SLOBBER SCHOOL!

  If you read this dog diary, you’ll be living a happier, bouncier, barking-at-raccoons-in-the-backyard-ier life in no time. I PROMISE!

  But there are definitely a few things you should know before we dive in, snout-first.

  First of all, I’M JUNIOR… HELLO!

  Ha! I love saying that!

  Dogs don’t usually bother with hellos. We normally just take a quick sniff of each other’s butts, but I learned early on that humans aren’t so into that… HA HA!

  The other thing I need to tell you about is… well… ummm… I didn’t want to start things off like this, my furless friend, but there’s no way around it. For me to begin this story properly… like PROPERLY-PROPERLY… you need to hear about what I’ve been up to, and it includes one of the ugliest words in the Doglish language… it’s a HORRIBLE word… DISGUSTING!! Even the bravest of hounds have run howling for the hills at the sound of it!

  Brace yourself, before you turn the page.

  Steady those nerves.

  Breathe in… breathe out… then hide yourself in the laundry pile or under your bed.

  Are you ready? Okay…

  UGH! It’s one of the worst words ever, and I heard it WAY TOO MANY TIMES this summer.

  Yep… if you’ve not read Book One in my totally lick-a-rific series, you missed out on hearing all about how I had to endure the nightmarish… the no-tummy-rubs-or-treats-ish… PERFECT POOCH OBEDIENCE SCHOOL FOR DOGS.

  It was awful, my person-pal! There were moments back in those classes at the Hills Village dog park when I felt sure I was a goner. I thought my brain was going to melt into a big blob of Meaty-Giblet-Jumble-Chum and ooze out of my ears, IT WAS SOOOOOO BORING!!

  Imagine it! A poor pooch like me being stuck with Iona Stricker and her pampered poodle, having to roll over, sit down, and play dead, when I should have been chasing raccoons and sniffing around the jungle gym with my bestest mutt-mates.

  “WHAT A WAY TO SPEND YOUR SUMMER, JUNIOR!” I hear you say.…

  But don’t you fret, my furless friend. You didn’t think I gave in to old Stricty-Pants Stricker, did you?

  NEVER!!

  I sure showed her. I don’t want to give too much away, but it was me who walked away from the annual DEBONAIR DANDY-DOG SHOW with a year’s supply of dog food and not Stricker’s prim and proper princess-poodle Duchess. But I’m not gonna tell you how…

  Ha ha! I wish you could have been there, my friend, it was TERRIFIC! But I couldn’t have done any of it without the help of my best-best-BESTEST pet human, Ruff Catch-A-Doggy-Bone.

  Just look at that face. I swear, I adore all you BRILLIANT humans, but there’s nobody in the whole world that makes me wag my tail and perform a Happy Dance like Ruff. He’s the greatest pet a dog like me could wish for.

  Anyway… where was I? Ah yes, I’d say that’s about enough snuffling down memory lane for now. We’re already on page twelve and there’s SO much more I need to tell you about.

  You see, crazy things have been happening around Hills Village. REALLY WEIRD THINGS!!

  I mean it, my person-pal. You won’t believe your ears when I tell you what’s been going on.

  Are you now ready to dive in, snout-first?

  Okay… don’t forget to bring some treats and maybe a chew toy in case you need a few breaks along the way. I promise to tell you all the good bits and I won’t leave any of it out.

  Here we go!!

  Tuesday

  Now, I don’t know what you and your human families like to get up to in your home towns, but here in Hills Village things get real strange toward the end of the year when everything gets colder.

  I’d heard about all this weird stuff before, but with all the chaos and business of obedience classes (YUCK!!) over the summer, it had completely slipped my mutt-mind.

  It wasn’t until a few days ago when I was minding my own business, chewing a Twisty-Chum-Chomper-Stick that I’d hidden in the Picture Box Room, that I heard Mom-Lady talking to Grandmoo on the chatty-ear-stick…

  The Howliday Season!

  It couldn’t be true, could it? The fabled human howlidays of myth and legend?!

  Oooh, I should probably explain myself…

  A quick history…

  Let’s go back to my days at the Hills Village Dog Shelter, or, as us mutts like to call it, “POOCH PRISON”: Me and my four-legged friends were stuck in a cage right next to Old Mama Mange. She was very, very, very, very, very old and had been behind bars for as long as anyone could remember—practically a squillion centuries when you think about it in dog yea
rs.

  Anyway… late at night, when the warden had nodded off in front of the picture box in his office, Old Mama Mange would hobble up to the bars and tell us the most amazing stories from her life before she ended up in the slobbering slammer… the canine clink!

  All her stories were most excellent, but there was one she’d jabber on about more than any other…

  None of us ever really believed her, but now there I was, overhearing my own Catch-A-Doggy-Bone pack talking about THE HOWLIDAY SEASON!

  Have you ever heard of anything as exciting as a whole season for howling?!?! Well, I hadn’t!

  I could barely stop myself from leaping into a Happy Dance right there on the Picture Box Room rug!

  If everything Old Mama Mange had said was completely true, the Howliday Season was the biggest and best of all the human howlidays, and that’s saying something. The people of Hills Village LOVE ’EM! They have so many, it’s hard to count on all four paws.

  I’m not even joking, my furless friend! I got a good look at Mom-Lady’s calendar on the Food Room wall once and it was practically stuffed with howlidays of all sorts.

  Don’t believe me? I’ll tell you…

  The year starts with NEW EARS DAY.

  Then there’s MARTIN LUTHER KING CHARLES CAVALIER’S BIRTHDAY. I’m not sure who he was, but he seems like one important spaniel.

  There’s GEORGE WASHY-TONGUE’S BIRTHDAY… the lickiest President there ever was.

  In the summer there’s INKY-PEN-DANCE DAY! This is a real big party. It’s a special howliday for scribbling all over the walls, then celebrating with enormous flashy sky-bangers! Us pooches are terrified of them, but the humans of Hills Village can’t get enough.

  AND THEN…

  TA-DAA! We get to the best of them all! THE HOWLIDAY SEASON!!

  The biggest and most bark-tastic part of the year…

  Old Mama Mange told us so many stories about Fangsgiving and Critter-Mess Day and it all sounds SO much fun. A howliday where you get brand-new teeth, followed by one filled with nothing but making a giant mess stuffing your face with delicious snacks like CANINE CRISPY CRACKERS?!?!

  BLISS!!!

  Wednesday

  I can barely contain my excitement, my person-pal. It’s all coming true!

  Ever since I heard Mom-Lady mention the Howliday Season on the chatty-ear-stick, I’ve been keeping my pooch-peepers on high alert for clues.

  And guess what? THERE ARE CLUES EVERYWHERE! Just look at the backyard! It’s all changing and I can definitely tell that my first-ever winter outside of the Hills Village Dog Shelter is on its way.

  Come on, I’ll show you…

  This all HAS to be something to do with the Howliday Season, I’m sure of it!

  It’s all very paw-some! I have no idea why the trees have gone bald and left their leaves on the ground. Go figure! Maybe they’re getting real old? Maybe they’ve just been careless, or maybe they left them as a gift to all the people and pooches out there?

  I mean it!! I can’t think of anything nicer!

  If you’ve never kicked about through a pile of crisp leaves before, you are definitely in need of a little more poochification, my furless friend. It’s one of my favorite poochish pastimes!

  So far it’s definitely been the best part of the howlidays…

  Ooooooh, speaking of the best part of the howlidays… the next special event of the season is happening tomorrow, and I’m feeling giddy about this one!

  With the backyard all crunch-ified and whispers of excitement in the air, I’ve been listening to every conversation that happens at mealtime and I’m taking note of anything that sounds remotely howliday-ish. I’m learning SO MUCH about all the strange things people like to celebrate at this time of year, and most of it is completely BONKERS!

  This next special day is the first BIG ONE of the season.

  YOU GUESSED IT…

  FANGSGIVING!!

  Everyone in the Catch-A-Doggy-Bone pack seems to be super excited about it… including me!

  Imagine a special day all about giving other people a new set of chompers. I couldn’t invent a more poochish celebration if I tried!

  I personally couldn’t be prouder that Ruff, Jawjaw, Mom-Lady, and even Grandmoo are finally going to get their properly proper canine teeth and become more poochish than ever! They’ll be chomping their way through all sorts of things in no time! If they’re lucky, I might even show them the best chair leg to chew on in the Food Room, or what kind of tasty stinky socks are easiest to shred, ha ha!

  9 a.m.

  Oh boy, oh boy, OH BOY! I can tell that Fangsgiving is going to be just TERRIFIC! How could it not be?

  Mom-Lady says we’re going to feast on TURKEY tomorrow, and she needs to go and pick it up, ready for the family feast!

  I definitely know what turkey is! There’s no mystery there… no sirree. I know EXACTLY what it is. After all, I’ve tried it lots of times!

  Turkeys are lumpy, squidgy, smooshy blob-creatures who are kinda pinky/grayish in color and they live in little metal Meaty-Giblet-Jumble-Chum cans.

  Ha! Told you I knew!!

  It’s the strangest of animals to look at, all gloopy dollops. It doesn’t do much, but it really, really loves sitting in food bowls and being eaten, which is very lucky because it’s also DEEEEEEEEELICIOUS!!

  9:28 a.m.

  And we’re off, my person-pal. Mom-Lady and I are in the moving people-box on wheels and we’re heading to the turkey farm to pick up our very own EXTRA-LARGE turkey!

  Whoever heard of a turkey farm?!? I’ve never seen one before, but I’m willing to bet it looks a lot like this…

  11:33 a.m.

  Errrm…

  We’ve just arrived back at the kennel and Mom-Lady carried something huge out of the back of the moving people-box on wheels. I sat in the front seat the whole time but didn’t see our extra-large turkey when she collected it at the farm store and put it in the trunk. Only, just now, I caught a glimpse of it as Mom-Lady went into the Food Room… and it’s MASSIVE!!

  Extra-large cans of food aren’t usually that much bigger than the regular kind—this thing was the size of all Ruff’s Sleep Room pillows piled together! It was inside a huge shopping bag, so I didn’t get a good look, but OH BOY are we going to be feasting tomorrow!

  12 p.m.

  Aaaagh! This is so frustrating, my person-pal! All I want to do is get a peek at the enormous can of turkey, but Mom-Lady has banned me, Ruff, and Jawjaw from going into the Food Room. She says…

  1 p.m.

  Ruff and Jawjaw have been tasked with decorating the Picture Box Room, so I’ve tagged along to watch.

  It’s so funny to us dogs how humans hang stuff up on walls to celebrate an occasion. You can be super strange sometimes, HA HA! I just don’t get what it’s for…

  I remember feeling SO confused back in the springtime when we had a party for Grandmoo—because she’d turned another year older, I think. I just couldn’t understand why Mom-Lady was so worried about hanging up long ropes of little flaggy things and blowing up colorful blobs filled with her breath, when there were far more important things to pay attention to… like the table FILLED with food or barking through the front door every time another guest arrived.

  Anyway… Ruff is now hanging twisty loops of yellowy/leafy twigs on the wall, and Jawjaw has been arranging little round orange things on the window ledge. At first I thought they were balls for playing fetch with and snatched one when Jawjaw wasn’t looking, but the whole thing turned out to be some sort of vegetable and went crunch in my mouth when I least expected it. Loads of stringy seeds and bits of squidgy goop exploded everywhere!

  Why would humans want to decorate their kennels with exploding VEGETABLES???

  NOTE TO SELF:

  Keep away from the little orange decorations—they taste like poop and healthy stuff. BLEEEUUUGH!!!!

  2:17 p.m.

  There are wonderful, nose-tickling smells wafting down the hallway from the Food
Room and I’m trying to do anything I can to not think about the giant can of dog food we’re all going to be enjoying for Fangsgiving tomorrow. Be still, my houndy heart!!

  3:21 p.m.

  This is unbearable! Whatever Mom-Lady is cooking up on the other side of the Food Room door smells so delicious I’ve lost control of my paws. My feet keep hopping and twitching about with pure excitement!!

  4:45 p.m.

  I’m not going to make it to Fangsgiving at this rate, my furless friend. All the whiff-tastic smells are making my stomach growl louder than a bear with a bellyache!

  4:57 p.m.

  I… I… I can’t concentrate… I can’t relax… I can’t stop myself from drooling at the thought of all that turkey…

  Mom-Lady put my regular food bowl in the hall while she’s cooking, but I can’t even look at my normal food anymore. It’s just so UN-TURKEY-ISH! I’m going to drool myself to death…

  5:04 p.m.

  Any minute now… I… I… I can feel my life slipping away… cough… GOODBYE, CRUEL WORLD! I can’t go on a minute longer without that turkey tastiness… splutter… just need a… whimper… turkey treat… or… seven…

  5:12 p.m.

  DEAD!

  5:36 p.m.

  STILL DEAD!

  5:46 p.m.

  EVEN MORE DEAD!

  5:51 p.m.

  SO DEAD, I COULDN’T GET ANY DEADER!!