Adam shook his head. “That kid’s tough as a Kevlar vest. He wouldn’t talk. You’ll have to figure it out another way.”
“Okay,” said Logan. “I’m on it.”
Adam clapped him on the shoulder. “See you around, buddy. And Darcy.”
After he’d gone, Darcy pondered about whether or not to disclose her suspicions. Not now, she decided. “Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.
“What’s that?”
“I still believe in Santa Claus.”
“You probably just like sitting in guys’ laps.”
“Depends on the guy. Depends on the lap. And how do you know what I like? You don’t even know me.”
“Then maybe we should work on that some more.” He lowered his voice and leaned down toward her. “I know you like kissing me.”
“You do, do you?” Kiss me now, she thought crazily. Kiss me now.
“Yeah, so—sorry, I need to...” He didn’t finish, but sprinted across the road toward a tall pile of packed snow. Charlie, André and some other kids were playing on a Bobcat snow mover, which looked like a toy version of a snowplow. The equipment was clearly marked “keep off,” but the kids were either blind to that or just ignoring it.
“Hey,” Logan called. “Get down off that Bobcat.”
“It’s cool, Dad,” said Charlie. “Check it out.”
André was working the levers and making motor sounds with his mouth.
“Damn it, Charlie. It’s a week before Christmas. Shouldn’t you be on your best behavior?”
“What if that is his best behavior?” asked Darcy, coming up behind them. She couldn’t decide whether she was grateful for the interruption of her moment with Logan or frustrated.
“Then I’ve got my work cut out for me,” he said.
“You didn’t tell anybody, did you?” Back on Saddle Mountain the next day, Charlie and André were making a snow fort.
“Only Santa Claus,” said André. “And only in the letter I wrote. A real letter, not an email. You?”
“Same.”
“Yeah, but I saw you talking to Santa today. You must have said something,” André accused.
“I did. The guy in the Santa hut is my dad’s friend Adam. They think I don’t know that, but I do. I had to say something because they expect it. So I said I wanted a snowboard, even though that’s not what I really want.”
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
They had a stare-down. “So, are we gonna tell each other?”
“Better not.”
“Okay.” The snow was perfect for packing, just sticky enough but not too heavy. “Hey, I think my dad’s going to have a girlfriend,” he said. “I think it’s gonna be Darcy.” He’d already gone over this in his mind. Now he wanted to tell somebody, and André was the perfect choice. A best friend.
“She’s cool.”
“Yeah. Does your mom have a boyfriend?”
André added another chunk of snow to the wall. “Nope. Sometimes my dad used to come around, but... He’s not very nice to her.”
“That blows.”
“Yeah.”
Charlie felt bad for André. Charlie himself had a dad and a stepdad and they were both awesome. He looked over at André and frowned. “Wait a second. We can tell each other our Santa wishes. We can take the best-friend oath, and then we can tell each other.”
André hesitated, staring down at the snow-covered ground. Then he said, “Okay, but the oath is unbreakable, right?”
Charlie thought about things that broke. Bicycle chains. Thin ice. Christmas bulbs. His parents’ marriage. Promises. Sometimes it seemed as if everything was breakable.
Not a friendship, though. Not when you were best friends.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s go inside the fort to make sure nobody hears.”
They crawled through the opening and settled into the icy darkness. Charlie pulled out his flashlight and stuck it in the middle with the beam shining up, lending an eerie bluish glow to the interior of the fort. It felt as if they were the only two kids in the world.
“Okay, do we solemnly swear to keep everything we say and hear a total secret? Forever?”
“I do.”
“Me, too.”
“A dog,” said Charlie. “That’s what I want for Christmas. A dog.”
André’s eyes lit up and a grin broke across his face. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh man. That is so rad.”
“I know. I used to have a dog named Blake. She died, and I thought I wanted to die, too. I miss her so much. I never believed I would ever be happy again. But then I saw this kid playing with a black Lab, and I started thinking it might be time to get another dog. See, there are other dogs that need me, other dogs that can be my dog. This is the biggest thing I’ve ever wished for.”
“It’s big,” André admitted. “Really big. What kind of dog?”
“Pretty much any kind, so long as it’s friendly and wants to play and likes to sleep with me at night. I don’t want to be too picky.”
Charlie’s heart sped up when he pictured himself with a dog. Playing and feeding, lying around, taking walks, games of fetch. With a dog of his own, he would never be lonely.
“I’ve been asking and asking,” he said. “My mom and stepdad said no after Blake died, on account of we’re moving overseas and we move a lot. And my dad said no because he’s always busy working and I’m not home enough. Yeah, right. I know deep down in my heart it would be awesome. It would be a dream come true.”
“That’s totally cool, Charlie. So you think Santa’ll actually bring you a dog?”
“If he’s real, he has to, right?”
“Yep.” They rolled snowball after snowball, and more walls went up. It was awesome, having a best friend, thought Charlie. You could talk, or just be quiet and work side by side. You could tell each other stuff. They finished the shelter, and it was like a dark cave inside, cold and small, a real fort to keep them safe in case of enemy attack.
“What about you?” Charlie asked. “What did you ask for?”
André’s smile sank into a line of seriousness. “Remember the promise.”
“I remember. I could never forget.”
“Good. Because the dog is the biggest thing you ever asked Santa for. My wish is the most serious thing I ever asked Santa for.”
Charlie tried to imagine what kind of serious thing André was talking about.
“You know how we had to come stay with your dad because my mom went away for work?”
“Yep. That’s tough. I miss my mom when I’m away from her.”
“Yeah, but you have your dad. It’s different. I don’t have my dad. And I wouldn’t want him. He’s mean and he does bad stuff. So it’s nice how your dad is letting us come here. But my wish is about my mom.”
“You can’t ask Santa to bring your mom for Christmas. It doesn’t work that way.”
“I know. That’s not what I asked.”
“Then what?”
André drew his knees up to his chest and stared at the flashlight beam. “My mom didn’t go away for work,” he said in a very quiet voice.
“Then where did she go?” Charlie felt clueless, but he could tell André was building up to something big. Like last summer at Camp Kioga, in the cabin when Leroy Stumpf admitted he was scared of the dark.
Only this was bigger. Charlie could tell.
“She’s in jail.”
Charlie frowned. “Nuh-uh. You’re lying.”
“I wish I was.”
“Why is she in jail?”
“She got in trouble. My dad was doing something bad, and they both got caught. The judge sent her to a place called Bedford Hills Women’s Correctional Facility.” André repeated the big words as though he’d memorized them. “She has to stay there until February. It’s a jail. Prison. I looked it up online at the library. Angelica doesn’t know. No one is supposed to know. But I snooped. I heard her crying at night and I heard her talking on the phone, and I figured it out.”