Paula Reece watched the evening news with interest born of relief and fresh hope. She had no sooner arrived back home than she heard the phone ring. Harborview needed her to start orientation immediately. She was to work on the psych ward, something she'd never done before, and because the work was specialized, she'd get in-service training and be paid a little extra.
She had gone right over and started at once, just doing little things. Little things were what most needed doing. The patients weren't physically sick usually, and they had a TV and stereo, craft classes, exercise machines, all kinds of things to keep them busy besides actual therapy. But they still needed vital signs sometimes, and the nurses and therapists needed help putting the paperwork together.
The patients needed help organizing themselves too, filling their time with games or activities, and there were a lot of special ways you could talk with them, not like a shrink, just trying to help them know where they were and who they were and maintain their dignity.
For some of them it wasn't easy. One of the new admissions seemed to think he was a hoppy-toad and kept hopping and belching and trying to catch flies. Kinda like that Renfield guy in the Dracula movie. Nice-looking man too. Nice haircut, good clear skin, had come in wearing jeans and a pricey-looking sweatshirt and a leather jacket that any boy on her block would die for. He had cut himself on a knife they'd taken away from him in emergency, though, and so his clothes were blood-soaked. They weren't damaged otherwise. It took Paula quite a while to persuade him to let her have the old clothes and get him new ones from the rummage closet.
The nice jacket had a big bloodstain, but she thought she could get it out, and he had blood under his nails, and while Paula was trying to clean the jacket, he soiled himself. Hoppy-toads didn't know much about toilet training, apparently. Even thirty-something hoppy-toads.
Finally she got him changed into old clothes that didn't fit too badly and would be easy to change and took his own down to the washer and dryer. They smelled awful, and not just because of the urine. Dried blood smelled nasty after it set.
She plopped the jeans and the sweatshirt and socks and his dirty undershorts into the machine with plenty of soap and bleach and started in on the jacket. The stain wasn't all that big and seemed centered around one pocket. There was a big lump in that pocket. She investigated. Something soft and something else, crinkly, like paper.
It was some kinda letter and a red-and-black-checked scarf, wool, thoroughly soaked with blood. Now that was funny, since the cut wasn't anywhere near his neck. Maybe he'd used it to stop his own bleeding, though she didn't think he'd have had the sense to. Still, apparently he'd got taken crazy real suddenly. That didn't seem right. Most people she knew who'd gone crazy had it come on for a long time, sometimes years, sometimes more, sometimes less. Strange. The letter was from some kind of record company and addressed to a school. She didn't read it. That was that poor man's business. Maybe she'd ask the nurse about it later. Maybe he was some kinda musician who burned himself out on drugs. That might explain how he got crazy so quickly. She already had the other clothes in the washer, and one of the patients was washing up dishes in the utility room and she didn't want to disturb him, so she stuck the scarf along with the piece of paper and the other things she took from the pockets into a brown paper bag and set them back in his closet.
It had only taken maybe half an hour altogether out of her day, but as she watched the news and the bulletin came on about Raydir Quantrill's missing daughter, last seen wearing a red school uniform, red parka, and black-and-red-checked scarf, it all clicked. There was a reward offered too, and she sure could use it.
But you were supposed to keep anything you found out about patients confidential, weren't you? She should report this to the hospital. On the other hand, what if whoever she reported it to took credit for her discovery and collected the reward? Then she'd never be able to pay her bills and clear her reputation. But on the other hand, if she violated the patient's rights by talking about him, the hospital might fire her and she'd have a much harder time finding another job.
She was caught between a rock and a hard place. She copied down the number on the TV, and, after debating long and hard about what to do, went to the phone.
* * *
Gigi had given the matter a great deal of thought and had decided she didn't like Mama anymore. Mama had made Daddy go away, and ever since she had been mad at Gigi and Hank. And Gigi did still like Hank, even if he was kinda bossy just because he was a boy and older.
She had heard him say she should stay there while he went chasing after Mama again when Mama plainly didn't love them anymore. But she thought that they might as well find the policeman who would give them another bear and buy them cookies and take them home right away instead of waiting around like they had before.
So she was looking around for him—not moving, mind you, just looking around—when she saw the wonderful house. It was behind a velvet rope in the middle of the aisle a little way up from where she stood. It looked like a Christmas house. Christmas hadn't come for them this year yet, to Gigi's mind, though everyone else had already celebrated it almost a month before.
Gigi had seen little houses like it before, made out of candy and cookies, but nobody had ever let her eat a piece of one. This one had candy canes and Oreos and gingerbread people and candy kisses and licorice sticks all over it. There was a sign by it, but Gigi couldn't read. She ducked under the rope and walked up the peanut brittle path for a closer look. She wasn't exactly hungry after the Big Mac, but a cookie would sure taste good. They had only had cookies when Mama left them in the mall before and Gigi took some and then the policemen bought some for them for dessert after McDonald's. Probably if a policeman came, he'd let her have part of this house. Probably. What good was it to make a house out of cookies if you didn't let little kids eat some?
She looked around. The mall still had lots of people, but nobody was paying any attention to the little house. She prodded an Oreo out of its frosting mortar and ate it.
Just then Hank came running up, panting and crying. "She did it again, Gi. She left us. She ran off with that man."
"Umm-hmm," Gigi said, and reached for a chocolate kiss.
"Stop that. You can't just take that. It's for display."
"No it's not," she said with a mouth full of chocolate. "It's for eating. It's good too."
Just then a head peeked out of the doorway and a man said, "Well, well, it wasn't a mouse at the door at all. It's a couple of cookie monsters nibbling my house."
"I'm not Cookie Monster," Gigi said. "He's on Sesame Street."
"She's sorry, mister," Hank said, pulling at her hand. "She's too little to understand. Our mama just ran off and left us. Can you go get the policeman to take us home?"
"Oh, sure, I can do that," the man said, coming out of the house. "But there's no hurry, is there? You say your mama just left you?"
"Yes, she left us in the mall again while she ran away with a man."
"Did she now?" he sounded very interested. "Well, gee, why did she do that?"
"She doesn't like us anymore," Gigi said through another mouthful of cookie.
"Now, honey, I'm sure that's not true," the man said. "Why, anybody would love a pretty little girl like you and a cool dude like your brother."
"Naw," Hank said. "Gigi's right. Mama doesn't really want us anymore—at least not till Daddy comes home from Alaska. I guess she'll like us again when he comes home."
"Oh. Well, then, I don't see that there's any hurry finding the policeman, do you? Truth is, kids, I put this house together to display here for Christmas and I was going to take it down tonight. I was feeling sad that not one kid had had a bite of any of this candy yet."
Gigi wiped the chocolate from her mouth—to her nose and both eyes and down along her chin. "We'll help you, mister."
He looked like a nice man. He was old like Daddy with mostly white hair and a little white beard and blue eyes—like a skinny Santa Claus.
"Is Christmas over, then?" Hank asked. "We went on vacation for it from school but we never did a tree or presents this year."
The man put his arm around Hank's shoulders. "You poor little kids. Yes, it was over three and a half weeks ago. Here, try a piece of window. It's sugar candy. I made all of this myself. I'm sorry if it's stale. I almost sprayed it with varnish to make it last and now I'm so glad that I didn't."
"Are you Santa Claus?" Gigi asked the question that had been second on her mind only to the chocolate ever since he saw him. "You got hair like him and a beard like him, but you dress like a regular person."
"No, honey, I'm not the real Santa, but I'll be yours if you want me to be. You see, I made this house to do something for boys and girls because I love to bake and I haven't got any children of my own."
"Cool," Hank said. "Can you help us find the guard to call the policeman to take us home?"
"What guard?"
"You know, the security man. He comes and takes you to an office and pretty soon a cop comes and gives us cookies and toys and takes us home."
"I've got a better idea," the man said. "I've got cookies and toys too. Why not just leave the cop out of it and I'll take you home?"
"No, that's okay," Hank said. "It's kind of complicated. I mean, I couldn't give you directions." He did, however, now know Aunt Bambi's address.
"Oh, I've lived in these parts a long time. I probably won't need directions if you can just tell me an address. Now then, why don't you kids help me break this down? Eat as much as you want. I'm going to start making the dough for a new one for next Christmas as soon as I get home."
"You're going to bake cookies?" Gigi asked. It had been so long since Mama had baked cookies or anything else.
"Oh, yeah," he said. "I bake every day. In fact, I'll tell you what. Why don't you break off a piece of something here to see you through and we can stop off at my place and I'll put some chocolate chip cookies in the oven. It'll only take a few minutes and then you'll have some to take home."
He seemed like a nice man. As country children, Hank and Gigi had never been cautioned about strangers all that much. And nobody else seemed to want them. Maybe he would take them in and Mama wouldn't know where to find them and be real sorry. Then when they were ready to go home, they'd take her cookies and she'd cry and Daddy would come back and they'd move back into their own house and everything would be good again. The nice man could come and visit. And bring cookies.
Carrying handfuls of stale Oreos, they climbed into his car and he drove in toward the city, then turned into a place with a lot of houses that all looked alike. His still had Christmas decorations up. Reindeer on the lawn, lights glittering in the windows, a Santa waving from the front, candy-cane fenceposts with big red bows around them lining the walk to the front door and another gingerbread house, smaller than the one in the mall, on his lawn.
"I made the reindeer and the Santa and all the decorations myself in my shop," he told them as they got out of the car. He let them into the house ahead of him and locked the door behind him. "Come into the kitchen while I preheat the oven and get the first batch of dough out of the fridge, then I'll take you out to the shop to play with my toys until the cookies are done."
The inside of the house was funny and not nearly as pretty or inviting as the outside. See-through plastic covered the couch and chairs and even the lampshades.It didn't smell as good as Gigi thought it would, either. She thought it would smell like cookies. Instead it smelled kind of—nasty.
Hank said, "Maybe we should just try to call the cops to let them know where we are so they can tell Mom we're on our way."
The man gave him a short, sharp, hard look, but then smiled and said, "Oh, I don't think the police will want to be annoyed by calls from a couple of kids. They're awfully busy. Besides, you might get your mother in trouble and they'd put her in jail and you in juvenile detention. You wouldn't like that, would you?"
"They wouldn't do that," Hank said. "They were nice."
"Fred let Hank play with his handcuffs," Gigi volunteered. "But I'd rather have cookies." She had been looking around for something and noticed all at once what was missing, what with the lights and the candy canes and reindeer and all. "Where's your Christmas tree?" she asked.
The man turned on his oven and took a bowlful of dough out of the refrigerator. He looked surprised at the question and Hank said hurriedly, "Shut up, Gigi. She doesn't mean to be nosy, mister. We didn't have Christmas this year at home, though."
"That's right, you said you didn't. How sad. Christmas is for children. Children deserve Christmas." He opened the door to what ought to be the garage and ushered them in, without turning the light on. "Well, don't worry, kids. I like to see to it that children get what they deserve." He chuckled, giving Hank a little shove. "I'll even let you play with my handcuffs."