Whatever magic was in that eggnog soup, it was some pretty powerful stuff.
The Life Miser handed the bowl to Prodigal, who carried it to the back room where Spider was resting. Prodigal balanced the bowl with both hands as he walked, slowly and carefully, so he wouldn’t spill any. Like it was liquid gold.
“Here, Spider,” Prodigal said. “I’ve got a Christmas treat for you.”
Spider sniffed at the bowl, then wheezed out a breath. “Soup? I hate…soup.”
“You’ll like this. I promise. Give it a try, okay?”
Blue Sky helped lift Spider’s head, and Prodigal pressed the bowl to Spider’s mouth. With a soft slurp, Spider took a sip, then paused. Smacked his lips. Scrunched up his face.
“Eggnog soup?” he asked.
“You like it?”
Spider grinned. “Maybe another sip.”
After that, a third sip. By the fourth sip, Spider didn’t need Blue Sky’s help supporting him anymore. He could sit up on his own. And for the fifth sip, he took the bowl from Prodigal’s hands and lifted it to his own lips. Soon, he wasn’t just sipping it—he was gulping it down. And when the soup was gone, he licked the insides of the bowl.
“Yum,” he said.
Everyone laughed. Even the Life Miser.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
Spider’s face had turned a healthy color again, and his wheezing had ceased. When I touched his forehead with my palm, his skin felt cool. Definitely, the fever had broken.
“Like skateboarding,” he said. “Or opening presents. Or both—at the same time!”
Yup. He was fine.
“How about we just get you out of bed first,” Prodigal said.
Spider was even well enough to walk on his own, so Prodigal didn’t have to carry him. We returned to the main room, and when Spider saw the Christmas tumbleweed, he did a fist pump in the air.
“Presents! Yes!”
“Which present first?” Prodigal asked.
There weren’t very many gifts under the tree. Not nearly as many as there had been at the Poshes. But Spider didn’t hesitate. He picked up the bundle of toilet paper and brought it to the Life Miser.
“Here. You first, Life Miser.”
Uh-oh. Santa’s lucky tie. Sure, the Life Miser had been in good spirits so far, but how long would he stay that way?
With a shaking hand, the Life Miser accepted Spider’s gift.
“A g-gift for me?” He swallowed a few times. “Really, I don’t know…I mean, I usually don’t….”
Spider rolled his eyes. “You’re not supposed to talk so much. You’re just supposed to open it.”
The Life Miser inhaled deeply through his nose while the rest of the Wheelers leaned in for a better view. After that, with one quick rip, he tore apart the toilet paper.
“You g-got me a g-gold tie!” he said. “I would never have g-guessed!”
Seemed like maybe he’d listened to Deeter’s advice, after all. Because even though he’d known perfectly well what the gift would be, his eyes widened and the corners of his lips turned up. Like he was genuinely surprised.
“You like it?” Spider asked.
“It’s the best tie in the world. I promise I’ll keep it forever. It will be my…my lucky tie!”
At first, I thought the Life Miser was only saying things to make Spider happy. But then I noticed the look in his eyes, the shine in them as he clutched the gold tie. So maybe he truly meant it.
“We have one more present for you,” Prodigal said.
“From all of us,” Blue Sky added.
“Two g-gifts for me?” the Life Miser asked. “In a single night?”
Primo brought out from under the tree a long, slim package wrapped in newspaper, which he handed to the Life Miser. For a moment, the Life Miser weighed the package in his arms and commented on how heavy it was. The Wheelers winked at each other and nudged elbows as he ripped off the newspaper.
“Oh, heavens!” the Life Miser said. “It has wheels!”
They’d given him a skateboard.
“Now you’re one of us,” Prodigal said. “Now you’re a Wheeler.”
“Officially,” Spider added.
The Life Miser opened and shut his mouth a few times like the words were having trouble making it to his tongue.
“This is the best Christmas,” he said at last. “The best Christmas.”
Spider pointed at the skateboard. “You should try it out.”
“Oh, I don’t know….”
“We’ll help you,” Nosebleed said.
So the Life Miser set the skateboard down onto the ground while the Wheelers gathered around him—Prodigal and Nosebleed stood on each side, and Primo stood behind him with Spider. The girls stood in front to guide him and keep him steady. Surrounded on all sides. That way, if he fell, someone would be there to catch him.
Then, with what looked like a quick prayer, he stepped on the board. Wobbled. Steadied himself. Pushed forward with his foot. Just a little.
“That’s it!” Spider said. “You’re doing it!”
“I…I am!” The Life Miser actually giggled. “I’m doing it!”
“Now on the ramp!”
“Oh, I think this is g-good enough for now.” The Life Miser wobbled again.
They all laughed.
And that was just the beginning of the Wheelers’ Christmas.
They brought out the Wicker Picnic Basket to see if it could produce a Christmas picnic, and the basket did pretty well. Normally, it gave them fried chicken, but this time it was roasted turkey. Instead of potato salad, it made mashed potatoes with gravy, and instead of corn on the cob, it made red and green popcorn.
Everyone ate as much as they wanted. Even Spider. He ate so much, no one would’ve been able to guess he’d already downed a whole bowl of soup.
“You know what we need?” he asked, rubbing his belly. “Snow. Then it’d be perfect.”
In my pocket, I still had the Wintry Snow Globe. When I showed it to the Life Miser, he nodded.
“Not too much,” he said. “Just a jiggle.”
So I wound the music box key, then gave the globe a single tiny shake. From above, white feathery flakes drifted down around us. The Wheelers stood and held out their hands. Gazed up in wonder.
“Snow inside the warehouse?” Spider asked. “Cool!”
“Perfect,” Prodigal whispered.
Yeah, it was.
I didn’t stick around for too much longer after that. It wasn’t that I was unwelcome—I knew I could stay as long as I wanted. But this was their Christmas. I had my own to get to, so I stayed just long enough to see the gift from the Poshes arrive. There was a knock on the door, and when the Wheelers went to answer it, that big gold-wrapped box was sitting on the doorstep.
“What’s this?” Prodigal asked.
“To the Wheelers, from the Poshes,” Blue Sky read the gift tag. “With Christmas wishes that Spider feels better soon.”
“Let’s open it!” Spider shouted.
They dragged the box inside to place it near the Christmas tumbleweed. With a quick count to three, the Wheelers all tore at the package. For a moment, there was ribbon and gold wrapping paper everywhere. And then….
“Yes!” Spider pounded on the box. “It’s a karaoke machine!”
Huh. Those Poshes always did have unusual tastes.
The Wheelers loaded a bunch of Christmas songs and took turns singing. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with a partner. All kinds of songs, too. “Jingle Bells.” “Frosty the Snowman.” “We Three Kings.” “Joy to the World.” In the end, they even persuaded the Life Miser to take a turn. The song he picked? “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”
And he sang it with a lot of heart, too.
That was about the time I slipped away. The Wheelers were so busy singing, they didn’t notice, and I used my house key on the far door, out of sight. But as I turned the key and opened the door, I heard Spider ask for me.
“Where’s Rook?”
“He must’ve left,” Prodigal said. “You know how he is. He comes and goes when he wants.”
“But I never got to wish him a merry Christmas.” Spider paused, then shouted. “Merry Christmas, Rook! Wherever you are!”
I smiled.
Merry Christmas to you too, Spider.
Then I stepped through the door and closed it behind me.
The Packrat House was super quiet. Probably everyone had gone to bed, but there was a soft glow coming from the living room, which seemed kind of suspicious. So I went to investigate the light’s source.
Christmas—everywhere.
The whole living room was decked with holly, silver bells and paper garland, hanging in swags from each corner of the ceiling. On the table stood a three-story gingerbread house covered with every type of candy imaginable. Best of all, this house wasn’t soggy like Deeter’s. And on the floor, a toy train chugged along a winding track that led this way and that way, up and down, even onto crates and under shelves. Every few seconds, the toy train would hoot its tiny horn.
Was I in the right house?
But that wasn’t the end of it. There, in the very center of the room, stood a massive Christmas tree. It was completely lit up with colored lights—red, green, blue, orange, yellow—that illuminated the room with a steady warmth. Each branch was weighed down with ornaments—colorful glass balls and brass doves and candy canes. Popcorn garland looped from branch to branch, and at the top, a gold star shone above it all.
For a minute, I could only stand there, staring.
Then the tree shook slightly, followed by a grunt, so I crept closer, my footsteps silent. On the other side of the tree, a man crouched on his hands and knees in an awkward position, pawing at something under the tree. He was dressed in bright red robes, with a white beard on his face.
No way.
Then again, after everything I’d been through, I could just believe it.
“Santa?” I asked.
The Ragman squeaked and gave a jolt. When he stood and spun around, he held a present in his hands.
“What! Ah, oh!” He shoved the present behind his back. “Rook! You’ve returned! Glad to see it! We were worried about you! Sweet Pea, especially! Did everything go all right?”
“It worked. The Life Miser gave Spider the eggnog soup.”
The Ragman had to sit down on the shabby sofa—he was that shocked.
“So people can change,” he said. “But I’ve always believed in the magic of Christmas.”
“Is that what all this stuff is about?” I gestured at the living room’s decorations, and the Ragman adjusted the white beard on his chin. Probably he thought it’d hide how much he was blushing.
It didn’t.
“I wanted to keep this a secret for Christmas morning,” he said. “A surprise, you know. It’s what I’ve been doing all this time in my study. Amassing a bunch of presents and decorations and whatnot. A secret Christmas. To make Christmas day more cheery for you all. You won’t tell the others, will you?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. You have no idea the trouble I went through to keep Deeter from peeking at his presents before Christmas!”
I could imagine. But if anyone was sly enough to pull that off, it’d be the Ragman. After all, he’d fooled me. The Ragman’s secret Christmas stash. I sat down next to him on the shabby sofa, and for a moment we both gazed at the Christmas tree.
“I’ve got some bad news,” I said. “The Christmas Chronicler is destroyed.”
The Ragman shrugged. “If it helped to change the Life Miser’s heart, then its last work was its best. Speaking of Collectibles….”
He let the words hang in the air, and I sighed.
“I wasn’t able to find the Matryoshka Doll. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll keep looking.”
“Yes, of course.”
Then he looked down at his hands.
“The Matryoshka Doll means more to you than any regular Collectible, doesn’t it?” I asked. “I mean, I’ve seen you obsess over Collectibles before, but never like this. Why?”
“The secret is in the doll itself. Literally. Whatever you place inside the doll’s center will be safe forever. Anyone who tries to steal the contents, well, they just keep revealing a new layer of the doll. But they never reach the center. An uncrackable safe! Brilliant magic, really.”
“So, it’s not the doll you want. There’s something inside it. And that’s what you want.”
“Exactly. I owned the doll once before. Then it was sold by mistake. By the time I realized what had happened, I couldn’t get it back.”
“But that must’ve been a while ago. Why are you trying to get it back now?”
Didn’t seem like he was going to tell me at first. He only stroked his fake beard while considering the Christmas tree. Maybe it wasn’t my business.
“When I was very young,” he said at last, “I drew a portrait of my mother. It wasn’t a very good drawing, of course, merely a child’s scribble. But now it’s the only picture of her in existence, and this Christmas, well, I thought I’d like to see her face again. Even if it’s only a poor drawing. But, no matter. It’s pure sentimentalism.”
Yeah, right.
The Ragman stood, stretched his back. “I’m off to bed. You staying down here by the tree a bit longer?”
“I’ve got a few things to finish up.”
“Happy Christmas, then. See you in the morning.”
Once the Ragman had left, I knelt down by the tree to place Sweet Pea’s gift underneath. There were a lot of presents, but one in particular stood out—a green-wrapped box that Sweet Pea probably got for Deeter. I checked the tag.
To Peter. From the Ragman. Happy Christmas.
Wait, the Ragman gave me a gift, after all?
Oh, man.
I sat back on my heels and stared at the box. This whole time, I’d been thinking he didn’t care. But there it was, with a big red bow on top. He did care. And I hadn’t gotten him a single thing. I’d been so busy thinking about Sweet Pea and Deeter and the Wheelers and the Life Miser. But about the Ragman? I hadn’t cared at all.
And I should have.
I left the Christmas tree and walked into the hallway. Already I was so tired, but I grasped the doorknob anyway and concentrated on the Matryoshka Doll. When I opened the door, it led to a long backstreet alley ridged with moonlight and frost. Who knew why the Packrat House had brought me here or where the alley led?
Yet somewhere out there in the distance, beyond the trash dumpsters and abandoned parked cars, maybe in the next street or even the next town, was hidden a funny nesting doll more important than any other. To the Ragman, at least. I sighed, then stepped through the doorway.
There was one more last-minute gift to find.