Hey, sleepyhead!" Dad said. "Don't you want to see what Santa's brought?"

Mom's voice came from die next room. "Stephen, it's hardly light out!"

"Tessie couldn't sleep," Dad called back. He winked at me. "Could you?"

"Did Santa come?" I asked. I scrambled up and tried to slip past the bathrobe he held out.

"Not so fast, squirt," he said. "We have to wait for your mom, anyway. Put this on and then we'll see what kind of day we've got."

He opened the curtains, and cold air blew in. A deer bounded away from a bird feeder and I wanted it to be a reindeer even though I knew it wasn't.

"Is Santa back at the North Pole?" I asked.

"I imagine so," Dad answered. Then we heard Mom coming down the hall. "It's time!"

In the living room, Mom and Dad watched me while I hugged dolls, linked plastic building blocks, and twisted die dials on a toy stove that had tiny, real pans in its oven.

Then I remembered the toy drum I'd asked Santa fon I'd told him I wanted one just like my friend Lenny had that you could beat and match with. "Santa forgot my drum," I said.

"Maybe he brought you something better" Mom told me. "Look here."

"What is it?" I asked.

"A violin."

"What does it do?"

"It makes music."

I looked for a way to turn it on. "How?"

"Someone has to play it, of course. Pluck one of the strings."

The violin didn't make music at all. It made a tiny sound like a little plicck that stopped almost as soon as it started.

Wondering why she thought that was better than a drum, I went back to my toy stove.

Dad said, "I told you so."

"Tessie, wait," Mom said. "You don't understand." Pulling me to her, she put the violin against my neck. "Rest your chin here and hold it like this..."

I didn't like how it felt. "I don't want to. It's pinching me."

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Mom said, but she tucked up my bathrobe collar so it was between the violin and me. "There! Now don't let go." She reached around me and steadied my grip. "I'm going to pull the bow across the strings."

That gave a better sound!

Mom pushed the bow back.

"I want to try," I said. "Just me."

"All right." Mom set the bow in place. "Go ahead."

I pulled the bow fast and made a scraping, growling noise like Dad's voice when he was sick. That was really better!

"Listen!" I said, and I put the bow at the starting place and made almost the same sound again. I did it over and over pulling the bow faster and faster until it skidded away with a squeal like a yowling cat. "Lenny can't do that!"

Dad laughed, but Mom said, "Stop, Tessie. A violin is not a toy." She changed how I was holding the bow. "This time see how gentle you can be."

I tried my best, pulling the bow as lightly as I could. And for an instant, between a scratchy start and a scritchy end, the violin made a pretty sound.

"Oh!" I said, staring down the length of it. "Ooooh."

DAD GOT HIS camera and took pictures before we even ate breakfast. And a few days later Mom showed me one of me. She got a pen and wrote something across the bottom.

"What are you writing?" I asked.

Mom answered, "'Tessie, three years old, with her first violin.'"

"Three-and-a-half" I said.

"Almost," she said, but she didn't change what she wrote.

"Can I have the picture?"

"Let's put it on the refrigerator," she said, and that's where it went.