Underneath was a box with the word "Florsheim" printed on the lid.

"What is it?"

"I think it's just shoes," Karen said.

The disappointment in her own voice surprised her. What had she been hoping to find? A Malibu Barbie? A pony?

It was Christmas, and Rick had bought new shoes . . . for himself. Of course.

Karen lifted off the lid.

"Hey!" Ronnie said, leaning in to peek around her. "He did get us something for Christmas!"

There were no shoes in the box. Instead, it held a loafy-looking package the size and shape of a large fruitcake.

Ronnie poked it with a single finger.

"Kinda squishy," he said. "Cruddy wrapping."

Rather than the usual festive red, green, silver or gold, the package was swaddled in course brown paper that looked suspiciously like a cut-up grocery bag. The jagged edges and clumsily folded flaps were fastened down with long strips of masking tape.

Karen didn't know what was in the package. But she knew enough to be scared.

This was what Rick didn't want them messing with. A squishy secret wrapped in plain brown paper. A grown-up thing, forbidden and frightening.

It was time to go.

Ronnie started picking at the tape on the package.

"Stop it!" Karen snapped. "It's not for us!"

Her brother kept working at one corner with a fingernail. A sliver of tape began to peel off.

"Hey! I said stop it!"

"I'm just gonna peek. Rick'll never notice."

"Yes, he will!"

"No, he won't."

Karen grabbed the package and jerked it out of the box. She meant to shove Ronnie away, fix the tape. Put things back together again.

But her brother had already worked enough tape loose to pinch it firmly, and when Karen s.n.a.t.c.hed up the package, he held tight.

A long strip ripped off. The package opened.

And then it was snowing.

Fine, white powder filled the air. It seemed to hang there a moment, so thick Karen and Ronnie couldn't even see each other. It drifted down slowly, covering the carpet, the dirty clothes, Karen, Ronnie, everything.

By the time the blizzard was over, Ronnie was crying.

"We're in trouble, aren't we?" he said, tears gumming up in the white dust covering his cheeks. "We're in so much trouble."

Karen knew the truth of it. She wasn't sure what the white stuff was-c.o.ke Cane? Heroine? Mary Wanda?-but she'd seen enough Rockford Files and Starsky and Hutch to know it was something bad people fought over. Killed over.

She and her brother weren't just in trouble. They were in danger.

Karen felt her lower lip start to tremble. Moisture pooled in her eyes.

And then someone said, "Don't worry. Everything'll be alright." And Karen was shocked and relieved to realize it had been her.

Her knees trembled as she pushed herself to her feet, but she willed them to stop.

She and Ronnie had been looking after themselves for a while now. Washing their own clothes, getting themselves up for school, packing their own lunches. How was this any different? It just made their To Do list a little longer.

Clean up drugs Fix package Stay alive "Don't move," she said, heading for the door. "And don't get any of that white junk in your nose or mouth."

"Where are you going?" Ronnie wailed. "Don't leave me!"

"Geez, don't freak out," Karen said with all the cool, big-sister condescension she could muster. "I know what to do."

Less than a minute later, she was back. With the vacuum cleaner.

After hooking up the long, tube-like sucky thingy, Karen used it on her brother. He whimpered and wriggled as the vacuum snorked the powder from his clothes and hair, but soon he was clean enough to go out to the front window and act as a lookout. The second he saw Cousin Rick's dented-up Dodge Dart pull into the parking lot, he was to run and tell her. At which point, she would . . . .

She had no idea. She just had to hope she wouldn't need one.

It took her ten minutes to suck up all the powder. She meant to scoop it out and stuff it back in the package, but one look inside the vacuum bag told her that wouldn't work. The whatever-it-was, once pure white, was now mixed together with gray dust bunnies and strands of long black hair.

So Karen went to the kitchen and got out the Bisquick.

As she was pressing down the last strip of tape, Ronnie called out, "He's home! He's home!"

Cousin Rick came through the front door two minutes later. He found Karen and Ronnie on the couch watching The Brady Bunch. On the screen, Mrs. Brady was singing "O Come, All Ye Faithful."

Her laryngitis was gone. It was a Christmas miracle.

Rick shrugged off his parka and let it drop to the floor. Then he walked to the TV and changed the channel to Bowling for Dollars.

"Go outside and play," he said, plopping down between the kids. "The Big Call might come tonight, and I don't want you two hangin' around gettin' me all jittery."

"But it's cold out," said Karen.

"And dark," said Ronnie.

"So?" Rick threw a glance toward Karen's end of the couch. "Build a bonfire or something, I don't c- . . .hey. What's that?"

"What's what?"

"That. Under your eye."

Karen brought her fingers up to her face. There was something dry and chalky caked high on her left cheek.

"Oh. That must be flour. We made Christmas cookies at school today."

"Yeah?"

And then Cousin Rick did something he almost never did. He actually looked her in the eye.

"You bring any home?"

Karen shook her head.

"Sorry. We ate 'em all."

Rick turned back to the TV. One of the contestants had just thrown a gutter ball.

"Well, go on, then," he grumbled, pulling out his BIC and a pack of cigarettes. "Get outta here. I got business to take care of."

Karen and Ronnie hopped down from the couch and went to get their coats. They didn't complain this time.

"Karen?" Ronnie said as they roamed aimlessly around the parking lot. "What's gonna happen?"

Karen shrugged. "I don't know."

"You think he'll ever find out what we did?"

Probably. Yes. Sooner or later. That's what Karen a.s.sumed.

She looked up. It was a perfectly clear night, and the stars were bright and still. None of them shimmered or twinkled. They just hung there like holes in the big, black blanket smothering the sky.

Once upon a time, when she was a little kid like Ronnie, she used to wish on stars. She believed in Santa Claus, too. Same thing, really. Useless.

But it couldn't hurt, could it?

She picked a star.

"He won't notice," she said. "Everything's going to be O.K."

A door creaked open and slammed shut, and the kids turned to see Rick coming toward them with quick, purposeful strides.

He stopped beside his car.

"Finally got the call. The big one," he said, sounding nervous but excited, eager. "I'll be gone for a while. Tell your mom to wait up for me. She and I are gonna go out and celebrate when I get back."

As he ducked into the Dart, Karen noticed something tucked under his left arm.

The s...o...b..x.

"Bye, Cousin Rick!" Karen called out. "Bye bye!"

She and Ronnie walked out to the sidewalk to watch him drive away, waving until the taillights shrank to pinp.r.i.c.ks in the distance then faded to nothingness altogether.

Poor Mom had a terrible Christmas. Fretting. Pacing. Going downtown to fill out the missing person report. But Karen knew that she'd feel better soon. Be better soon. They all would be-Mom and Ronnie and her.

For the first time in a long time, Karen wasn't just hoping for that.

She believed.

RED CHRISTMAS.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN AN ENCHANTED LAND FAR AWAY....

(OR, TO BE A BIT MORE PRECISE, ON DECEMBER 24, 1980, AT ELEVEN TWENTY SEVEN P.M., AT THE NORTH POLE....).

Jingle the elf noticed a peculiar package under the workshop's ma.s.sive Christmas tree. There were dozens of boxes nestled around it: gifts to and from Santa, Mrs. Claus, the elves, the reindeer and Rumpity-Tump the Icicle Man, who worked for the Clauses chasing away National Geographic photographers and cleaning out the deer stables.

But this particular present stood out from the rest for a very special reason.

"Jeez," Jingle said. "That's gotta be the c.r.a.ppiest-looking thing I've ever seen under Santa's tree."

And indeed it was. The wrapping paper was crinkled and smudged, and the bow-work was shockingly shoddy, the beautiful red ribbon mangled and smeared with inky black fingerprints.

Jingle shook his head in disgust. "Looks like the guys down in Wrapping started pounding the glogg before the Old Man even took off."

"Dishgushting," said Jingle's brother Jangle, who'd had a few snorts of glogg himself. "We oughta shay shomething to the foreman. Ish there a name on the tag?"

Jingle moved closer to the package. It was big-almost as big as Jingle himself. He found the tag buried under a long loop of loosely tied ribbon.

"'To Santa,'" he read aloud. "'From R. with love.'"

"'R.,' huh? Maybe it'sh from Rudolph."

"Doesn't look like it's been in a deer stall," Jingle said, peering at the wrapping paper. "I mean, it's got stains on it, but not . . . you know . . . ."

"Yeah, I shee what you mean," Jangle said.

(Despite Rumpity-Tump's best efforts, the deer stables were far from pristine.) "Well, whoever 'R.' is, he's not one of the guys in Cards, Tags & Notes," Jingle said. "The handwriting's terrible."