He crawled under the tree and felt around, careful not to dislodge a single snow-covered ball, though the needles scratched his hands. The tracks went up. But no tracks came back down.
Of course, there could be a turntable for the train at the top of the tree, just as there was one in the train yards near the village. Or possibly the track simply looped around on itself there. Roland had just straightened up and was about to go to the kitchen to get a chair so he could look when he heard a tiny train whistle behind him. A twenty-five-car freight train shot out of the tunnel and between his legs and, with an I-think-I-can chug-chug-chug-chug, began to climb the tree. He stuck his head deep into the resinous branches and watched, open-mouthed, as it wound up the trunk. The train lights quickly dwindled and winked out, leaving behind only the diminishing sound of the train’s tiny steam engine.
What fun, thought Roland. He wondered where it was going.
A hand closed on his shoulder. “Would you like to get on?” asked Aunt Adelaide. “Would you like to ride to the top of the winter tree?”
Something was wrong. Sasha woke up knowing that for a fact.
It was a dreadful sensation to have first thing on Christmas Day. But Sasha couldn’t shake it. Zoë shrieked and Benjamin whooped as they tore open package after package, and Mother looked on with that foolish-sentimental smile she got at times like these, and Father puffed on his pipe, and Grandmother rattled about in the kitchen, preparing an elaborate breakfast while Great-Aunt Adelaide pleaded with her to just this one think of herself, May, and for pity’s sake watch the children open their presents, it only happens once a year. Then Benjamin pushed Zoë away from the train set so he could play with it himself, and Zoë started to cry of course, and Mr. Chesterton, newly let in the back door after a night spent outside, ran in frantic circles and then lost a fight with a tangle of ribbons that Zoë, her tears forgotten already, had draped about him. “What a madhouse!” Father grumped, and stomped angrily away. Young though she was, all this was an old and familiar tradition to Sasha.
Nevertheless, something was not quite right.
In part it was the presents. They were truly surprising presents, unlike anything the children had asked for.
There was a giant rubber ball for Benjamin, patterned in harlequin diamonds of hundreds of different colors so bright they hurt the eyes. It was bigger than a Saint Bernard, and so heavy that you’d think there was a lead weight at its core. Nor could Benjamin or his sisters figure out how so large and heavy a thing was meant to be played with. When he kicked it, Benjamin howled with pain and grabbed his toe. “It’s not broken,” Mama said with a gentle smile. “I know that next time you’ll be more careful, dear.”
Benjamin placed his hands flat against the ball and gave it a shove. Then he leaped back in surprise. “It’s very cold!” he said. “My palms hurt.”
Papa chuckled, and his eyes twinkled just a bit. He gave the ball a quick kick with his foot, and it flew across the room and hit Mr. Chesterton, who yelped. “Goal!” said Papa, and he laughed.
Zoë got a paper sculpture kit with a rainbow sheaf of sheets and a set of X-Acto knives. Mama guided the toddler’s chubby fingers around a knife and showed her how to cut. “She’s such a smart girl, my little Zoë,” Mama said, and went to heat up some hot chocolate. Sasha hovered over her baby sister and, the instant that her attention wavered, snatched the knives away and hid them.
And Sasha got a baby doll that cried real tears when you pinched its arm. It was wondrous. Sasha had never even known there was such a thing. She pinched it over and over, and it cried and cried.
But after all the packages were opened, Sasha, sitting with a new pair of flannel pajamas neatly folded in her lap and the baby-doll lying beside her, could not feel the holiday spirit. It was as if everything were happening on the other side of a sheet of glass.
A terrible emptiness gnawed at her. Something important was missing, she thought. Something was horribly wrong.
But what?
Christmas Day seemed to last forever. After the presents, there was a heavy breakfast of neeps and tatties and blood sausage and haggis and toast, with bread pudding and black coffee for dessert. Sasha had been hoping that Aunt Adelaide would make her favorite hoe cakes, with syrup and round spicy pork sausage and fried green tomatoes, and shoofly pie and a cherry pie too, because it was Christmas, and clabber with brown sugar, and maybe a surprise dish that Sasha had never even seen before. But Grandmother ruled the kitchen that morning, and Sasha left the table feeling leaden, and strangely empty for someone so full.
Then there were lively outdoor games of battledore bashing and leap-the-creek with Papa, who never seemed to know when enough was enough. Dinner went on for far too long, and it came far too soon after breakfast.
But eventually the light faded from the chilly sky and it was time for everyone to come inside for sardines and porridge. That evening, after Sasha had dried the dishes, she told her parents she thought that maybe she had a headache and she was going to her room to lie down.
She went upstairs, and Mr. Chesterton pattered along after her. The pervasive sense of wrongness she had felt all day had grown stronger, but it receded a little when she opened the door to her bedroom and went inside. Her toys and clothes looked just the same as always. She had left her new doll downstairs; she wasn’t sure she wanted to be alone with it.
When she lay down on the bed, Mr. Chesterton climbed up after her. He didn’t curl up on the counterpane as usual. Instead, he rested his chin on his front paws and watched her steadily, through apprehensive eyes.
She pulled his head onto her lap and petted him. He was warm and furry and drooled a little and smelled comfortingly doggish. For the first time today, the pane of glass between her and the rest of the world was gone.
Sasha hugged the dog to her and tears came into her eyes. “Oh, Mr. Chesterton,” she whispered into the soft ruff of his neck, “something’s wrong, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Stop strangling me,” Mr. Chesterton said irritably, “and I’ll tell you.”
Sasha made an eep noise and let go of his neck. Animals talked all the time in her storybooks. But all the storybooks in the world couldn’t prepare somebody to accept it when it happened to her. “You talked!” she said. “How can you be talking?”
The dog looked disgusted. “There’s really no time for all this. We’ve got to save your brother.”
“Benjamin is in trouble?”
“Not him. The other one, the little guy with the funny haircut. Smells like denim and peanut butter all the time — Roland.”
“I’ve got two brothers?” Nobody in any of her storybooks ever discovered that she had an extra brother. But all the silence in all the storybooks in the world was no more preparation for it happening to her than the talking animals had been. Nevertheless, she was pretty sure that Mr. Chesterton was really thinking of Benjamin. Maybe he smelled like a different person when he ate peanut butter. Mr. Chesterton was only a dog after all.
“I may be a dog, but I can tell the difference between a kid who smells like peanut butter and one who smells like Duco cement.” Benjamin had taken a recent interest in Renwal kits of aircraft carriers.