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On the first of December, seven-year-old Vicky Austin’s favorite time of year begins. She and her family do one special thing every day of the month to prepare for Christmas—from baking cookies to setting up the crèche to making a special Christmas mobile. But this year, they’re also preparing for the birth of a new brother or sister, due at the beginning of January. Vicky is worried that the baby will come early and that Mother will be in the hospital for Christmas. What kind of Christmas Eve will it be without Mother to help them hang up stockings and sing everyone to sleep with carols?

The love between the members of the Austin family shines as bright as a Christmas star in this story, which features twenty-four days of holiday traditions merrily illustrated by Jill Weber.

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DECEMBER is probably my favorite month.

And on the first day of December we were out of bed before Mother came to call us.

I ran to the window to see if maybe it had snowed during the night. But the ground was still bare, the grass tawny, with a few last leaves fluttering over it. The trees were shaking dark branches against a grey sky.

“Any snow?” Suzy asked. Suzy’s my little sister. She’s only four, and I’ve just turned seven. I can read. Of course, so can John. He’s ten. I answered, “Not a smidgin. And the sky isn’t white enough for snow today. But it doesn’t matter—it’s the first day of December!”

One of the reasons we love December so is Christmas, not only that Christmas is coming, but that we do something special every single day of the month to prepare for the twenty-fifth day.

John was up and out of the house before Suzy and I were dressed. He has a paper route, every morning before breakfast, and he’s allowed to ride all over the village on his bike. I’m the middle Austin and the ugly duckling. If I had more time to remember and think about it, I’d be very sad. I’m skinny and as tall as the eight-year-olds and my legs are so long I keep falling. And I was awake early because this was a specially special December for me. I was to be the angel in the Pageant at church on Christmas Eve—the biggest and most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me. I was to wear a golden halo and a flowing white costume and wings, the loveliest wings anyone could imagine. Mother made them.

Suzy is four and she’s the baby and all cuddly and beautiful and her hair is curly and the color of sunshine. She has great shining eyes that are the purple-blue of the sky just after sunset. She has a rosebud for a mouth, and she isn’t skinny; she’s just right.

We dressed quickly, because even if there wasn’t any snow it was cold, and we ran downstairs just as John came in from delivering his papers, his cheeks shiny-red as apples from the cold. The dogs came running in after him, barking: Mr. Rochester, our big brindle Great Dane, and Colette, our little silver poodle. They’re very good friends.

Our kitchen is a big wandery room that turns corners and has unexpected nooks and crannies. In the dining room section in the winter the fire crackles merrily, and this morning the smell of applewood mingled with the smell of pancakes and maple syrup and hot chocolate. One of the cats was sleeping, curled up on a cushion in front of the fire. Our father had already had his breakfast and gone out; he’s a doctor and Mother said he’d gone out several hours ago to deliver a baby.

At that we looked at Mother, and the lovely bulge in her dress, and Mother smiled and said, “Daddy thinks the baby should come along sometime the first week in January.”

“And then I won’t be the baby anymore!” Suzy said. “And I’ll help you with the new baby.”

Suzy’s mind flits from thought to thought, just as she herself does, like a butterfly. Now she asked, “What’s the surprise for the first day of December?”

It wasn’t completely a surprise, because each year it’s an Advent calendar, but it’s partly a surprise, because it’s always a new one. Advent means coming, and it’s the four weeks that lead up to Christmas. Mother and Daddy read serious things in the evening, and talk about them, a book called The Four Last Things, for instance.

This year the calendar was a beautiful one, and had come all the way across the ocean, from Denmark. We take turns every day opening one of the windows to see what surprise picture is waiting behind. The twenty-fourth day, when the windows open, they reveal the stable, and Mary and Joseph and the baby.

Today Suzy opened, because she’s the youngest and goes first. Inside was a baby angel, who looked just like Suzy.

The next day, the second day of December, we all, even John, even Daddy when he got home from the office, made Christmas cookies. “We’d better make them early this year, just in case.”

Just in case the baby comes earlier than expected.

Mother added, “Babies have a way of keeping mothers too busy for Christmas cookies.”

I was born at the end of November, so Mother didn’t make any Christmas cookies that year. I always seem to spoil things. I looked out the long kitchen windows at the mountains, thinking: Please, don’t let me spoil anything this year. Don’t let me spoil the Christmas Pageant. Help me to be a good angel. Please.

On the third day of December, after the school bus had let John and me off at the foot of the hill and we’d trudged up the road to our house, Mother got wire and empty tin cans and a few Christmas tree balls. She took strong scissors and cut the tops and bottoms of the cans so that they made stars and curlicues.

Then we took thread and hung the Christmas balls and the tin designs on the wire, and Mother and John balanced it, and we had made the most beautiful Christmas mobile you could possibly imagine. John got on the ladder and hung the mobile in the middle of the kitchen ceiling, and it turned and twirled and tinkled and twinkled.

The next day we looked for snow again, but the ground stayed brown, and the trees were dark against the sky. When we went out through the garage to walk down to the school bus, we looked at the big sled, at Daddy’s snowshoes, at our ice skates hanging on the wall, at the skis. But though the wind was damp and we had on our warm Norwegian anoraks, we knew it wasn’t cold enough for snow. The pond had a thin skin of ice, but not nearly enough for skating, and all that came down from the heavy grey skies was an occasional drizzle that John said might turn into sleet, but not snow.

And the days sped into December, On the fourth day Daddy put a big glimmering golden star over the mantelpiece in the living room. On the fifth day we taped a cardboard Santa Claus with his reindeer up the banisters of the front stairs; it came from England and is very bright and colorful.

On the sixth day we strung the merry Norwegian elves across the whole length of the kitchen windows, and Mother said that our Christmas decorations were a real United Nations. On the seventh day we put a tall golden angel above the kitchen mantelpiece. Unlike the Advent calendar angel, this one was much too stately and dignified to look like Suzy, and I sighed because I knew that even with a costume and wings, I could never hope to look as graceful and beautiful as the golden angel.

On the eighth day of December I was late getting home because the rehearsal of the Pageant lasted much longer than usual. And it lasted longer because the director couldn’t get me in a position that satisfied her. The most awful moment was when I heard her whisper to the assistant director, “I’ve never seen a seven-year-old be so awkward or ungraceful, but I suppose we really can’t recast the angel now.”

I clamped my teeth tight shut to try to keep from crying, and the director said, “Don’t look so sullen, Vicky. An angel should be joyful, you know.”

I nodded, but I didn’t dare unclench my teeth. One tear slipped out and trickled down my cheek, but I didn’t think anybody saw.

When the rehearsal was over, Mr. Quinn, the minister, drove me home. He hadn’t seen the rehearsal and he kept talking about how the Pageant was going to be the best ever, and that I was going to be a beautiful angel. If he’d been at the rehearsal he wouldn’t have said that.

The Advent surprise for that day was to have the Christmas mugs at dinner, the mugs that look like Santa Claus. But I still felt like crying, and the cheerful Santa Claus face didn’t cheer me up at all. After we had baths and were in our warm pajamas and ready for bed, we stood around the piano singing Advent carols, but I had such a big lump in my throat that I couldn’t sing.

Daddy put his arm around me. “What’s the matter with my girl?”

Two tears slipped out of my eyes, and I told him about the rehearsal and what the director had said. He told me that he and Mother would help me to look and move more like an angel. “You can be a lovely angel, Vicky, but you’ll have to work at it.”

“I’ll work. I promise.”

On the ninth day of Advent we hung the Christmas bells from the beams in the living room, and then Mother worked with me on being an angel. She had me walk all over the house with a volume of the encyclopedia on my head. When I was finally able to walk all around without the encyclopedia falling, Mother showed me how to stand with my feet in ballet position, and how to hold my arms so they didn’t look all elbows.

On the tenth day of December Mother got the cuddly Santa Claus doll out of the attic, and told Suzy and me we could take turns taking it to bed at night. I thought of the Pageant, and said, “Suzy can have it. May I take the Shu to Sub volume of the encyclopedia to bed with me?”

Mother understood. “Yes. And now put it on your head and try walking up the front stairs and down the back stairs.”

Each time I did it I managed more steps without having to catch the encyclopedia. Suzy went to bed with the cuddly Santa Claus doll. I put the Shu to Sub volume under my pillow.

On the eleventh day the director beamed at me and said, “That was much better, Vicky. I think you’re going to be all right after all. Now let’s try it again. Good, Vicky, GOOD.”

I was happy when I got home and Mother gave me a hug, and John said, “I don’t know why anybody ever thought you couldn’t do it. I knew you could.”

Suzy jumped up and down and said, “What’re we going to do for Advent today?”

Mother suggested, “Let’s make a Christmas chandelier.” We took the wire mesh lettuce basket and filled it with the Christmas decorations that were just a tiny bit broken but not shattered. We hung one of the prettiest, shiniest decorations on the bottom of the lettuce basket, and then Mother and John fitted the basket over the front hall light so that it glittered and sparkled with the color of all the Christmas baubles.

And I walked up and down the front hall with the encyclopedia, Shu to Sub, balanced on my head; I tried to look at the Christmas chandelier out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked up, the encyclopedia slipped and I caught it just before it landed on the floor.

On the twelfth day of December not only did it not snow, it rained. Rain poured in great torrents from the sodden skies and the gutters spouted like fountains. After school Mother discovered that we’d eaten up all the first batch of Christmas cookies, so we made more.

On the thirteenth the skies were all washed clean and the sun was out and we had a Pageant rehearsal. The director surprised me by saying, “Vicky, dear, you’re doing so well that we’ve decided to give you some lines for the scene where you appear with the shepherds. Do you think you can memorize them?”

I nodded happily. It may be hard for me to walk without tripping up, and to stand still without being all sharp corners and angles, but memorizing things is easy for me.

The director explained, “These are the angel lines from an old play in the Chester Cycle. The Chester Cycle is a group of plays written in the Middle Ages in England, to be performed in the Cathedral in Chester, so we think it’s very appropriate for the Pageant. By the way, we miss your mother in the choir.”

I explained, “It’s because of the new baby, you know.”

“Isn’t that nice! I wonder if she’ll be in the hospital for Christmas? Now here are your lines, dear. Read them slowly and clearly.”

I read. Slowly and clearly. But I hardly heard myself. Mother in the hospital for Christmas? I knew Mother would go to the hospital to have the baby, just as she did for John and me and Suzy. But not for Christmas Eve! Not for Christmas day!

“Good, dear,” the director was saying. “Read it once more.

I read.

Shepherds, of this sight

Be ye not afright,

For this is God’s might.

To Bethlehem now right;

There shall ye see in sight

That Christ is born tonight

To save all mankind.

If Mother was in the hospital it wouldn’t be Christmas. Christmas is the whole family hanging up stockings, and Daddy reading The Night Before Christmas and Saint Luke, and Mother singing everybody to sleep with her guitar and carols. What about the stocking presents Christmas morning in Mother and Daddy’s big bed? What about running downstairs all together to see the presents under the tree? What about—what about—everything?

Who would cook Christmas dinner? Make the stuffing? Roast the turkey? Fix the cranberry sauce? What about putting out cocoa and cookies for Santa Claus the very last thing on Christmas Eve? What about—what about—everything?

“That’s very good, dear,” the director approved. “You speak beautifully. Now read it again, just a little bit more slowly this time. Do you think you can memorize it for tomorrow?”

I nodded numbly. Somehow or other I managed to do everything the director told me, but all I could think was—Mother has to be home for Christmas!

Daddy picked me up after rehearsal that afternoon. As soon as he had the car started, I asked, “Daddy, Mother isn’t going to be in the hospital for Christmas, is she?”

He answered quietly, “It’s a distinct possibility.”

I shouted, “But she can’t be!”

Daddy said calmly, “According to our calculations, the baby’s due about the first of January, but babies don’t always arrive exactly on schedule. John, for instance, was three weeks late, and you were exactly on time. Suzy was a few days early.”

“But—”

“Who knows, the baby may decide to come early enough so that Mother’ll be home for Christmas. Or it mightn’t be till the new year. But we have to accept the fact that there’s a chance that Mother’ll be in the hospital over Christmas.”

“Let’s not have the baby!” I cried. “If Mother has to be in the hospital on Christmas I don’t want the baby!”

“Here, here,” Daddy said, “that’s no way to talk.”

“There are enough of us already.” I choked over a sob. “Do we have to have the baby, Daddy?”

“Of course we do. We all want the baby. This isn’t like you, Vicky Austin.”

“What about Christmas dinner?” I wailed.

“At the last count,” Daddy said, “we’d had seventeen invitations for dinner.”

It kept getting worse and worse. “But we can’t go out for Christmas dinner! I’d rather have cornflakes and have them at home!”

Daddy turned the car up the hill to the house. “I quite agree with you there, Vic. I’ve turned down all the invitations. If Mother’s in the hospital, I think you and John and Suzy and I can manage Christmas dinner, don’t you? And I’ll let you in on a secret: Mother made our dinner and put it in the freezer. All we have to do is thaw it and heat it up in the oven,”

I hiccuped tiredly. “Well. All right. But it won’t be Christmas if Mother isn’t with us.”

Daddy changed the subject. He’s very good about knowing when to do that. “I heard you saying your angel lines, Vicky. We’re going to be very proud of you on Christmas Eve.”

When we got home, Mother and John and Suzy were in the kitchen, stuffing dates. John shouted, “Vicky! There’s snow forecast for tomorrow!”

On the fourteenth day of December three snowflakes fell. Exactly three. I counted them.

They fell while we were out in the woods picking berries and ground pine for Christmas decorations,

On the fifteenth day of December Daddy and John got out the ladder, and Mother and Suzy and I untangled the long strings of outdoor lights and we trimmed the big Norway spruce.

“We’re going to do quite a few things early this year,” Daddy explained, “because of not knowing just when the baby is going to decide to be born.” I didn’t want to think about that.

At night the spruce shone so brightly that it could be seen all the way from the main road at the bottom of the hill.

And that afternoon Mother came to pick me up after rehearsal and the director said, just as though I couldn’t hear, “I must admit to you, Mrs. Austin, that I was a little unsure of Vicky for the first few rehearsals. She’s the youngest angel we’ve ever chosen and I had grave doubts as to whether or not she could do it. But now I think she’s going to be the very best we’ve ever had, and she knows her lines perfectly.”

One part of me blazed with happiness. Another part thought sadly—It won’t be Christmas if Mother isn’t home.

As we drove away from the church and turned down the main road, Mother pointed to the hilltop where our big white house perches, and I could see a little triangle of light that was the outdoor Christmas tree. And another awful thought struck me. “Mother! If you’re in the hospital, you won’t be able to see me being the angel!”

“That’s true.”

“But I want you to see me!”

“I want to see you, too.”

“In the olden days people didn’t have to go to hospitals to have babies. They had them at home.”

“So they did,” Mother agreed. “But even if I had the baby at home, I couldn’t come see you being the angel.

“Why not?”

“Brand-new babies need a lot of attention,” Mother said, “and they can’t be taken out in the cold. I was pretty tied down at Christmastime the year you were born.”

“But I was born!” I cried. “And you were home for Christmas. You didn’t go off and leave John and Suzy alone. Oh, I forgot. Suzy wasn’t born. Anyhow, Mother, please could you ask the baby to wait till after Christmas?”

“I can ask,” Mother said, “but I wouldn’t count on it. What shall we do today for our Special Thing?”

“Let’s make the wreath for the front door.”

“Good idea. We’ve got lots of ground pine and berries left over, and I saved all the pine cones we gilded and silvered last year. When we get home you can run up to the attic and get them.”

On the sixteenth day of December John listened to the weather forecast before breakfast, and snow was predicted again. The sky had the white look that means it is heavy with snow. John and I were so pleased we ran almost the whole of the mile down the hill to wait for the school bus. A cold raw wind was blowing and we huddled into our parkas.

After school I had rehearsal. So did John, because he’s singing in the choir, and this is the first time that the cast of the Pageant and the choir have worked together.

I tried hard to walk the way I did with the Shu to Sub encyclopedia on my head, and to move my arms as though they were the graceful arms of a tree in spring and not the bare brittle branches of a tree in December. I remembered all my lines in my heart as well as my mind, and Mother had worked with me to make each word ring out clear and pure as a bell. Everybody seemed pleased, and John pounded me on the back and told me I was a whiz. The choir director congratulated me, just as though I were a grown-up, and told me that everybody was going to miss Mother in the choir, and I was forced once again to remember that Mother might not be home for Christmas. John asked the choir director if he thought it would snow, but he shook his head. “It’s turned too cold for snow.”

Mr. Irving, the choir director, drove us home and stopped in for a cup of tea. A big box of holly and mistletoe had arrived from our cousins on the West Coast, so John and Daddy hung the mistletoe on one of the beams in the living room.

After Mr. Irving had left, we opened the day’s Christmas cards the way we always do, taking turns, so that each card can be looked at and admired and appreciated.

John remarked, “Some people just rip open their cards in the post office. I bet the kids never see them at all. I’m glad we don’t do it that way.”

“Everybody’s different, John,” Mother said. “That’s what makes people interesting.”

“Well, nobody else I know does something every day during Advent the way we do. What’s our Special Thing for today?”

“Oh, I think the holly and the mistletoe’s plenty. Start setting the table, Vic. It’s nearly time to eat.”

The days toward Christmas flew by, and still there was no snow. And no baby. And rehearsals went well and I was happy about the way being the angel was going, and so was the director.

On the seventeenth of December we hung our collection of angels all over the house, and on the eighteenth we put the Christmas candle in the big kitchen window. On the nineteenth we made Christmas cards, with colored paper and sparkle and cutouts from last year’s Christmas cards.

On the twentieth day we put up the crèche. This is one of the most special of all the special things that happen before Christmas. Over the kitchen counter is a cubbyhole with two shelves. Usually mugs are kept in the bottom shelf, and the egg cups and the pitcher that is shaped like a cow on the top shelf. But for Christmas, Mother makes places for these in one of the kitchen cabinets. On the top shelf goes the wooden stable and the shepherds. Tiny wax angels fly over the stable. A dove sits on the roof. The ox and the ass and all the barnyard animals are put in, one by one, everybody taking turns. There is even a tiny pink pig with three little piglets, from a barnyard set John got one year for his birthday. There is a sheepdog and a setting hen and a grey elephant the size of the pig. Some people might think the elephant doesn’t belong, but the year I was born Daddy gave him to John, and he’s been part of the crèche ever since, along with two monkeys and a giraffe and a polar bear. Mary and Joseph will be put in on the morning of Christmas Eve, and then, when we get home from Church on Christmas Eve night, Daddy puts in the baby Jesus, and reads the nativity story from Saint Luke.

On the bottom shelf we put the wise men with their camels and their camel-keeper. We make a hill out of cotton, which is a little hard to balance the camels on, but when we’re finished it really looks as though the train of camels was climbing up a long weary road toward the Christ child. On Twelfth Night they’ll have finished their journey and will join the shepherds and the animals in the stable.

Last of all Daddy put the star up above the stable and fixed the light behind it. On Christmas Eve we’ll turn off all the other lights in the house, so all you can see is the lovely light from the star shining on the stable and the Holy Family and the angels and the animals.

On the twenty-first day of December we went with Daddy into the woods to get the Christmas tree. Mother stayed home, because she was feeling tired and heavy, but the rest of us tramped through the woods, including the dogs and cats. It was Suzy who found the perfect tree this time, just the right size and shape for the living room, with beautiful firm branches all around. Daddy and John took turns sawing, and we all helped carry it home, because the tree was tall, and heavy.

Daddy said, “Tomorrow’s Sunday, so we’ll trim the tree a little ahead of time to get it ready for Santa Claus and to make sure Mother’s here to help.”

John asked, “You really don’t think the baby’s going to wait till after Christmas, Daddy?”

“I rather doubt it. Every indication is that this baby is going to be early. Now, kids, we’ll put the tree carefully into the garage until tomorrow.”

That night I woke up, very wide awake. I knew it wasn’t anywhere near morning because the light was still on in Mother and Daddy’s bedroom. After a few minutes I got up, softly, so as not to wake Suzy. I put on my bathrobe and slippers and tiptoed down to the kitchen. The dogs came pattering out to meet me, wagging their tails. One of the cats meowed at the head of the cellar stairs. I put my finger to my lips and said, “Shh! Everybody go back to sleep.”

It wasn’t quite dark in the kitchen because the embers in the fireplace were still glowing, and the night-light was on. Mother and Daddy must have gone up to bed just a little while ago. I tiptoed over to the crèche, climbed on one of the kitchen stools, and turned on the light behind the star. The manger was empty, waiting for Mary and Joseph and the baby. They were still in their white cardboard box. I opened the lid and looked in, then closed the lid and put the box back.

Instead of feeling all full of anticipation the way I usually do, I felt heavy. I thought—I don’t want Mother to be in the hospital for Christmas. I want her to be home. I’d give anything if she could be home. But I don’t have anything to give. Anyhow, God doesn’t expect us to give anything in order for Him to love us. And least not a thing. Just ourselves.

I sighed again. And thought—Mother says we should never try to make bargains with God. That isn’t the way God works. But I’d give up anything, even being the angel, if Mother could be home for Christmas.

I sat looking at the empty crib in the stable until I got sleepy.

On the twenty-second of December when we were all home from Sunday school and church, Mother made hamburgers and milkshakes for lunch. Then Suzy and I helped with the dishes and Mother put on a carol record and we all sang “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Daddy and John brought in the tree from the garage and set it firmly in a bucket of wet sand. The big boxes of Christmas decorations were brought down from the attic. First of all Daddy got on the ladder and he and John put on the lights, and the angel at the top of the tree. The angel is wearing white, with feathery sparkly wings; it’s the angel Mother used to copy my costume. It was almost as though Daddy was putting a tiny me on top of the tree.

I thought of the night before, and how I’d thought I’d be willing to give up being the angel if only Mother could be home for Christmas, but I couldn’t give up being the angel without upsetting the whole Christmas Pageant, and anyhow, that kind of thing isn’t an offering to God. As our grandfather once told us, you can’t offer anything less than yourself to God; anything less is a bribe, and bribing God is foolish, to say the least. I didn’t really understand all of this. Grandfather’s a theologian, though, and I was sure he was right.

Mother looked at me and said, “What’s the matter, Vicky?”

“Nothing. May I put on some of the breakables this year?”

Suzy was given a box of unbreakable ornaments to go on the lowest branches of the tree. Mother smiled and handed me a beautiful little glass horn that really makes a musical sound. I blew it, and then I let Suzy blow it, too. We all worked together until the tree was shimmering with beauty.

I took a gold glass bell with a gentle tinkle and hung it on the highest branch I could reach. When the last decoration was hung from the tree and we’d all exclaimed (as usual) that it was the most beautiful tree ever, John ran around and turned out all the other lights so that the Christmas tree shone alone in the darkness. We all stood around it, very still, admiring it, and I was peaceful and happy. For a moment I forgot about being the angel. I even forgot about the baby.

On the twenty-third day of December, when I went to the church for dress rehearsal, it finally began to snow. Everybody began to clap and shout with glee, and we kept running to the doors to look at the great feather flakes fluttering from a soft, fluffy sky. Finally the director got cross at us and ordered everyone inside, and Mr. Irving made a big discord on the organ.

In the Sunday school rooms several mothers helped us get into costume. I was dressed early, and Mrs. Irving, who dressed me, said, “Vicky dear, if you stand around here in this mob, your wings are going to get crushed. Go sit quietly in the back of the church until we’re ready to start the run-through.”

I went, holding my wings carefully, through the big doors and halfway down the nave. The church was transformed with pine boughs and candles. The candles wouldn’t be lit until just before the Christmas Eve service, but there was a spotlight shining on the manger. The girl who played Mary came and stood beside me, a high school senior and very, very grown up. She wore a pale blue gown and a deep blue robe. She dropped one hand lightly on my shoulder.

“Some of us thought it was funny, such a little kid being chosen for the angel, and at first we thought you were going to be awful and ruin everything. But Mr. Quinn promised us you wouldn’t, and now I think you’re going to be the best thing in the Pageant, I honestly do.” Then she went and sat by the manger. She sat very still, her head bowed. She didn’t seem like a high school senior anymore. She seemed to belong in Bethlehem. Protecting my wings, I sat down in one of the pews. And for a while, I, too, seemed to be in Bethlehem.

Then the director called out time for the run-through to begin, and everything was hustle and bustle again. The choir in their red cassocks and white surplices lined up for the processional. I was shown into the corner behind the organ, from where I was to make my first entrance.

Everything went smoothly. I even managed to walk as though I had Shu to Sub on my head. My arms felt like curves instead of angles. My words were as bell-like as Mother had been able to make them. At the final tableau I stood by the manger, and I felt shining with joy.

After the choir had recessed and the spotlight had faded on the nativity scene, the director and Mr. Irving congratulated everybody. “It was beautiful, just beautiful!” The mothers who had helped with the costumes and had stayed to watch echoed, “Beautiful! Beautiful!” Except for the fathers, almost everybody who was going to be at church on Christmas Eve was already there.

The director gave me a big smile. “Vicky, you were just perfect. Don’t change one single thing. Tomorrow evening for the performance do it just exactly the way you did today.”

Daddy picked John and me up on his way home from the office. It was still snowing, great, heavy flakes. The ground was already white. Daddy said, “I’m glad I got those new snow tires.”

John said, “You see, Daddy, we are going to have a white Christmas after all.”

When we woke up on Christmas Eve morning we ran to the windows. Not only was the ground white, but we couldn’t even see the road. Mother said the snow plow went through at five o’clock so the farmers could get the milk out, and Daddy had followed the milk trucks, but the road had already filled in again.

We ate breakfast quickly, put on snow suits, and ran out to play. The snow was soft and sticky, the very best kind for making snowmen and building forts. We spent the morning making a Christmas snowman, and started a fort around him. John is good at cutting blocks out of snow like an Eskimo. We weren’t nearly finished, though, when Mother called us in for lunch.

After lunch Suzy said, “I might as well go upstairs and have my nap and get it over with.” We have to have naps on Christmas Eve if we want to stay after the Pageant for the Christmas Eve service. Suzy is very business-like about things like naps. Mother looked a little peculiar, and Suzy went upstairs to bed, taking a book. She can’t read, but she likes looking at pictures. Mother lit the kitchen fire and sat in front of it to read to John and me. We were just settled and comfortable when the phone rang. Mother answered it. We listened.

“Yes, I was afraid of that … Of course … They’ll be disappointed, but they’ll have to understand.” She hung up and turned to John and me.

“What’s the matter?” John asked.

Mother said, “The Pageant’s been called off because of the blizzard, and so has the Christmas Eve service.”

“But why?” John demanded.

Mother looked out the windows. “How do you think anybody could travel in this weather, John? We’re completely snowed in. The road men are concentrating on keeping the main roads open, but all the side roads are unusable. That means that about three quarters of the village is snowed in just like us. I’m sorry about the angel, Vicky. I know it’s a big disappointment to you, but remember that lots of other children are disappointed, too.”

I looked over at the crèche, with Mary and Joseph now in their places, and the manger still empty and waiting for the baby Jesus. “Well, I guess lots worse things could happen.” I thought—If this means Mother will be home for Christmas …

And then I thought—Blizzards can stop pageants, but they can’t stop babies, and if the baby starts coming, she’ll have to go to the hospital anyhow …

“You’re a good girl to be so philosophical,” Mother said.

But I didn’t really think I was being philosophical.

John said, “Anyhow, it looks as though the baby’s going to wait till after Christmas.”

Mother answered, “Let’s hope so.”

John pressed his nose against the window until the pane steamed up. “How’s Daddy going to get home?”

It seemed to me that Mother looked anxious as she said, “I must admit I’m wondering about that myself.”

“But it’s Christmas Eve!” John said. “He has to get home!”

All Mother said was, “He’ll do the best he can. At least I’m the only maternity case on his list right now.”

In all my worrying about Mother not being home for Christmas, it had never occurred to me that Daddy mightn’t be. Even when he’s been called off on an emergency, he’s always been around for most of the time. But if the blizzard was bad enough to call off church, it was maybe bad enough so Daddy couldn’t get up the long steep hill that led to the village.

When it began to get dark, Suzy woke up, all pink from sleep, and hurried downstairs. She was very cross when Mother told her that the Pageant and the Christmas Eve service had been called off. “I needn’t have slept so long after all! And I wanted to see Vicky be the angel!”

Mother answered, “We all did, Suzy.”

Suzy stamped. “I’m mad at the old blizzard.”

Mother laughed. “That’s not going to stop the snow. And remember, you’ve been looking for snow every day. Now you’ve got it. With a vengeance. This is the worst blizzard I remember in years.”

John lit the candle in the window and flicked the switch that turns on the outdoor Christmas tree and the light over the garage door. Then we all looked out the windows. The only way you could tell where the road used to be is by the five little pines at the edge of the lawn, and by the birches across the road. The outdoor Christmas tree was laden with snow, and the lights shone through and dropped small pools of color on the white ground. The great flakes of snow were still falling as heavily as ever, soft and starry against the darkness.

“I guess Daddy’ll have to spend the night at the hospital,” John said.

Mother came to the window and looked over our heads. “No car can possibly get up that road.”

Suzy asked, “What’re we going to have for dinner?”

Mother turned from the window. “I think I’ll just take hamburger out of the refrigerator …” I thought she looked worried.

I stayed by the window.—Please let Daddy get home. Please let Daddy get home.

But I knew Mother was right, and a car couldn’t possibly make it up the road, even with new snow tires and chains.

—Please, God, I’m not bargaining, I’m not bribing or anything, I’m just asking, Please let Daddy get home. If I knew how to offer my whole self I would, but I don’t know how, so please let Daddy get home, please let …

Then, just as the words began to jumble themselves up in my mind, I saw something in the wide expanse of snow, somewhere near where the curve of the road ought to be. A light. “Mother! John! Suzy!” They all came running to the window.

“It’s a flashlight,” John said.

“Snowshoes!” Mother cried. “John, run to the garage and see if Daddy took his snowshoes!”

John hurried to the kitchen door and in a minute came back, grinning happily. “They’re gone.”

The light came closer and closer and soon we could see Daddy, his head and shoulders covered with snow. His snowshoes moved steadily and regularly over the white ground. We ran tumbling out to the garage and flung our arms around him, and the dogs jumped up on him and barked in greeting.

“Whoa!” he said. “Let me get my snowshoes off!” He handed the snowshoes to John, who hung them up. Then he stamped his feet and shook, and snow tumbled off him. The dogs dashed out into the snow, came whirling back into the garage, and shook off even more snow. “Come along,” Daddy said. “Let’s get in out of the cold.”

When we got indoors Daddy kissed Mother. She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to get home.”

Daddy said, “You didn’t think I’d leave you now, did you?”

And Mother said, “I’ve been having contractions off and on all day. Oh, I am so glad you’re home!”

Daddy put another log on the fire. Outdoors the snow was still falling. Indoors it was warm and cozy. The star lit up the little stable, and Daddy went to the white cardboard box and took out the tiny wax figure of the baby. “I think we can put him in the manger now.”

Mother said, “We might as well have the reading now, too, because this is all the Christmas Eve service we’re going to get.”

John went into the living room and turned on the Christmas tree lights so that there was the beauty of the Christmas tree indoors and the Christmas tree outdoors, and Daddy sat by the fire and read us the Christmas story. I looked at the angel on top of the indoor Christmas tree and I felt peaceful and happy.

When we had finished dinner and were nearly through with the dishes, Mother gave a funny little gasp and said to Daddy, “How are you going to get me to the hospital?”

Daddy laughed. “Upstairs is as far as I’m going to get you tonight.” He looked at us. “Children, I’m going to ask you to finish the dishes and clean up the kitchen.” Suddenly he sounded like a doctor, not just Daddy. “John, put on a full kettle to boil. Blizzards don’t ask anybody when they should come, and neither do babies.”

He put his arm about Mother and they went upstairs.

“What about dessert?” Suzy asked. “We were going to have dessert after we’d done the dishes.”

“If you’re really interested in dessert, I’ll get you some ice cream out of the freezer,” John said.

After all, Suzy is a very little girl. She ate a large bowl of ice cream.

When the kitchen was all cleaned up, Daddy came downstairs. He carried the Christmas stockings and he told us to hang them carefully at the living room fireplace. “You’d be staying up late tonight anyhow, so please just be good. Vicky, keep that kettle hot for me, and feed the cats and put them down in the cellar for the night.”

The snow beat against the windows. The wind rattled the shutters. In spite of her nap Suzy got sleepy and curled up on the living room sofa. I went to the stove. “I’d better make the cocoa to put on the mantelpiece with the cookies for Santa Claus.”

“Make enough for us while you’re at it,” John said.

We drank two, then three cups of cocoa. We tiptoed out to the storeroom where we’d hidden our presents for Mother and Daddy and put them under the tree. Time seemed to stretch out and out and Daddy didn’t come back downstairs. The dogs lay in front of the fire and snored. Suddenly Mr. Rochester, the Great Dane, pricked up his ears. John and I listened, but we didn’t hear anything. At the top of the cellar stairs a cat meowed. Mr. Rochester sat up and raised his head; his tail thumped against the floor.

Then we did hear something, something unmistakable, loud and clear. A cry. A baby’s cry.

I started to get up, but John said, “Wait.”

In a little while Daddy came bounding down the stairs. He was beaming. “You have a little brother, children!” He took the kettle and hurried back up the stairs, calling, “You can come up in a few minutes. Wait.”

The baby cried again, a lusty yell.

I went to the crèche. The light from the star shone down on the stable. The elephant and the pig and her piglets seemed to have moved in closer. The baby lay on his bed of straw.

“Listen.” John held up his hand. Across the fields came the sound of the clock in the church steeple striking midnight. “Let’s wake Suzy up, and tell her.”

Suzy sleeps soundly and it took us a long time to wake her properly. By the time she realized what had happened, Daddy came back downstairs.

“You can come up now, for just a minute, children. But Mother’s tired, and the baby’s asleep, so be very quiet,”

We tiptoed up the stairs and into the big bedroom. Mother was lying in the big bed and smiling. In the crook of her arm was a little bundle. We tiptoed closer. The bundle was our baby brother. His face was all puckered and rosy. His eyes were closed tight. He had a wisp of dampish hair. He had a tiny bud of a mouth. One little fist was close to his cheek. We stood and stared at him. We were too excited and awed to speak.

Mother asked, “Isn’t he beautiful?” and we all nodded.

Then Daddy shooed us out. “All right. Time for bed, everybody.”

John went off to his room, and Suzy and I to ours. When we had undressed and brushed our teeth and Suzy was in bed, I stood at the window. The snow had stopped. The ground was a great soft blanket of white, broken by the dark lines of trees and the gay colors of the outdoor tree. The sky was dark and clear and crusted with stars. I watched and watched and there was one star that was brighter and more sparkling than any of the others.

The Christmas star.

Mother was home. Daddy was home. Our baby brother was home. We were all together.

I whispered, “Thank you.”

And the light shone right into my heart.

FOR OLDER READERS

The Austin Family Chronicles

Meet the Austins

The Moon by Night

The Young Unicorns

A Ring of Endless Light

Troubling a Star

Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007) was the author of the beloved Austin Family Chronicles, including the Newbery Honor Book A Ring of Endless Light. Among her many books for children and adults are A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal, and the other four books of the Time Quintet.

Jill Weber has designed and illustrated numerous books for children. She lives on Frajil Farms in New Hampshire.

Farrar Straus Giroux

175 Fifth Avenue

New York 10010

www.fsgkidsbooks.com

Text copyright © 1984 by Crosswicks, Ltd.

Pictures copyright © 2010 by Jill Weber

All rights reserved

www.fsgkidsbooks.com

Text designed by Robert C. Olsson

eISBN 9781429945646

First eBook Edition : August 2011

An earlier version of this text was published

in 1964 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

L’Engle, Madeleine.

The twenty-four days before Christmas : an Austin family story /

Madeleine L’Engle; pictures by Jill Weber.

p. cm.

Summary: Seven-year-old Vicky Austin recounts the events of the twenty-four days before Christmas, as she prepares for her role as an angel in the Christmas Pageant and prays that her mother will not be in the hospital for Christmas having a new baby.

[1. Christmas—Fiction. 2. Family life—Fiction.] I. Weber, Jill, ill. II. Title.

PZ7.L5385Tw 2010

[Fic]—dc22

2009041434

Christmas card art © 2011 by Crosswicks, Ltd.

“Christmas in New York” © 2011 by Crosswicks, Ltd.

Christmas Cards by Madeleine L’Engle

Christmas in New York

Christmas and New York are for me almost synonymous—not usual, I know, but I was born in New York, and my first twelve Christmases were in my hometown. I’ve had wonderful Christmases in more typical places—a small house nestled at the foot of the French Alps, an old New England farmhouse—but there is something special about Christmas in New York.

When I was a child we lived on East 82nd Street, and the glory of Christmas was Park Avenue, with the trees lit in both directions as far as I could see. With my parents I would walk up and down this great and beautiful avenue, admiring the decorated trees. They were more garish then, with lights of every color. For the last several years now, they have been lit with tiny white lights. If I had to choose which is the more beautiful, I couldn’t.

And Christmas carols: from our apartment we could hear brass bands playing loudly, slightly out of tune, all the old favorites, and I saw nothing ironic in “Silent Night” played fortissimo. The musicians were usually German, victims one way or another of the First World War. Often I would be given pennies wrapped in tissue paper, the front room windows would be opened, and I would be allowed to toss the pennies down. A blessing, in German, would waft up.

“Poor things,” the Irish cook would say of the German players.

I didn’t understand the ways of nations then any better than I do now, but I took the ambiguities far more for granted, and enjoyed tossing down the pennies. My father was ultimately to die of injuries sustained in that war, but he, too, seemed to think the musicians were “poor things,” and gave me extra pennies to throw down.

Across the street and a few houses toward Park Avenue was a synagogue in front of which (except in snow or rain) sat old men with long beards and dark clothes and hats. I thought they must look the way people looked in Jesus’ time, and I felt a deep reverence toward them, though the Irish cook said they were very serious men and I must never disturb them or ask them questions. I decided secretly that I would wait till I was twelve, which was how old Jesus was when he questioned the elders in the temple. But when I was twelve I was more inhibited, and in any case that was when we moved to Europe for several years.

Less ambiguous than the German musicians were (and still are) the Salvation Army Santa Clauses, Santa somehow having cloned himself so that he could ring his brass bell on several street corners simultaneously.

And of course there’s the great tree at Rockefeller Center, which meant a special trip downtown on the Fifth Avenue bus, a double-decker that cost a dime—twice as much as the other busses.

Special trips: Christmas is the time when New Yorkers leave their own little parts of the city and “go abroad”—uptown, downtown, east side, west side. Some go for shopping, but that’s not my idea of Christmas. I like to have my presents all bought, if not wrapped, by the beginning of the academic year, so that I’m free to enjoy Christmas with its music and lights and sometimes even snow.

After college I hurried back to New York as soon as I could get there, and shared an apartment with several aspiring friends. Like most young artists, we were poor as church mice but had to have a Christmas tree, so we got a little one which we decorated with small round paper-lace doilies threaded through with red ribbons. It was amazingly effective and cost us only a few dollars. Like children, we went to Wanamaker’s to see Santa Claus, and though we were too old to sit on his lap and ask for presents (“Let me get a real part in a play so I can get my Equity card.” “Let my book be published.” “Let me be booked for a concert”), we still made our wishes and were as thrilled as though we were ten years younger.

Are people truly friendlier at Christmastime? It does seem that they speak to each other more freely, that there is more laughter. I remember one Christmas after I was married when we were living in the Village, on Tenth Street. My actor husband was in Boston with a play, and I strapped our year-and-a-half-old baby in her stroller and walked for blocks, pausing at each decorated tree and watching the passersby smile in delight as the baby stretched her arms out to the lights. There is something contagious about joy. Eleven years or so later, we returned to New York with three children after nearly a decade of living in the country, real country, where there were more cows than people. Our apartment was on the Upper West Side and Christmas in the city was something entirely new for them. One evening while their father was at the theater the children and I took the Fifth Avenue bus (now a single-decker) and rode it all the way to Washington Square, to see the tree there and all the trees on the way down and back. As we left the bus, our seven-year-old turned his shining face to the bus driver: “Oh, thank you! Thank you for a wonderful drive!” There was much appreciative laughter, and the bus driver actually blushed, saying, “You’re very welcome, kiddie. Come again.”

New York gets a bad press, but New Yorkers respond to friendliness and gratitude as readily as anyone else. Ask someone on the street for directions, and unless you get “I’m sorry, I’m a stranger here myself,” you’ll be given not only complete directions but time and concern. And a little thanks goes a long way.

We took the children to look at the windows decorated for Christmas on Fifth Avenue. Many were beautiful, but the most exciting were at Lord & Taylor’s and B. Altman’s, where the windows were full holiday scenes, sometimes of skaters on the lake in Central Park dressed in Victorian clothes, sometimes of Santa Claus and his elves in their workshop. Whatever it was, there were always long lines; people didn’t get cross but chatted together, and the windows when we reached them were worth the wait.

One late evening during the Christmas season not long after our return to New York, my husband, Hugh, was coming home from the theater on the subway and got to talking with a young man who had an armload of classical records. He invited the young man to come to our apartment for an after-theater supper. He was a doctor in New York for a medical conference, and we enjoyed him. The next time he was in the city he brought his wife to our place for dinner, and we’ve kept in touch all these years. Would we feel free enough today to ask a stranger on the subway to come home for supper? I’m not sure, but I’m glad it happened, and even back then, the season surely had something to do with it.

Through a series of these “non-coincidences” which make life so interesting, we became friends with a young star of the New York City Ballet, and the Christmas production of The Nutcracker became even more exciting than it had before. What a delight to watch our new friend dancing the cavalier! But there are marvelous Christmas pleasures in this magical ballet for anyone lucky enough to be in the New York State Theater during The Nutcracker’s run. I still feel a thrill as the Christmas tree becomes larger and larger and larger and larger! And the beauty of the snow falling in the pine forest as Clara and the young cavalier dance together usually brings a lump to my throat. Many Christmas joys in New York cost no more than a bus or a subway ride: but if only one thing is worth spending money on, it is The Nutcracker.

I love Tchaikovsky’s music, but indeed I love all of New York’s Christmas music, from the Salvation Army carolers to the great choirs of the various churches. In one church or another a performance of Handel’s Messiah will be found, or Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, or seventeenth-century carols played on period instruments. This abundance is listed in various papers and magazines. Sometimes the people in the churches have come for the music; sometimes they have come to get warm; sometimes they have come to cry.

Christmas is a season of beauty and light, but it can also be a time of great loneliness. Suicide rates rise at Christmastime. Each year there are more homeless folk sleeping in doorways, at the Port Authority, in Penn Station. Many churches have opened basements and filled them with cots for the homeless, and that is undoubtedly better than nothing, but the loneliness and the homelessness persist. In our city there are people who are very rich and people who are very poor, and a lot of us in between, but as the city gets rebuilt, with more and more condominiums, the homeless and the jobless have a harder and harder time. The city itself provides shelters, but sometimes shelters can be more dangerous than the street, even in the cold. There are no easy answers to the problems, which seem more poignant at Christmastime than at any other time of the year.

But my own enjoyment of New York at Christmas is not at the expense of the poor and hungry; it is set beside it. And because it is Christmastime there can be a kind of sharing that would be impossible at any other time of year. One cold and drizzly December day my three children and I walked along Broadway singing Christmas carols. We sang with enthusiasm if not great beauty, and were joined by an amazing number of people. Only one man turned and snarled at us, and my children were shocked and hurt. Without stopping to think, I said to him, “It’s all right, you’re loved, you really are,” and started to sing again. The children joined me and so did the passersby who had witnessed the rebuff. I don’t think that this kind of incident could have happened in February, for instance. There’s something about Christmas in New York that breaks down ordinary reticence.

In apartment buildings, windows are outlined with blinking, multicolored lights. Christmas trees are placed in windows where the lights can be seen by passersby. In the lobby of my apartment building the tenants on the decorating committee place a cluster of trees covered with tiny white lights for Christmas and a menorah for Hanukkah, one candle lit for each evening. We have a potluck party for the whole building, from babies to grandparents.

My apartment building reflects in miniature the city of New York. We New Yorkers are a marvelously rich melting pot—many languages, many colors, many religions. At Christmastime, the time of the winter solstice, our differences become less divisive. In the shortest days of the year we light more and more trees each year, so that we become a city of light, and in this unifying light we reach out to each other, daring to touch.

—Madeleine L’Engle, c. 1980

EXCERPT FROM

A Wrinkle in Time

1

Mrs Whatsit

It was a Dark and Stormy Night.

In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraithlike shadows that raced along the ground.

The house shook.

Wrapped in her quilt, Meg shook.

She wasn’t usually afraid of weather.—It’s not just the weather, she thought.—It’s the weather on top of everything else. On top of me. On top of Meg Murry doing everything wrong.

School. School was all wrong. She’d been dropped down to the lowest section in her grade. That morning one of her teachers had said crossly, “Really, Meg, I don’t understand how a child with parents as brilliant as yours are supposed to be can be such a poor student. If you don’t manage to do a little better you’ll have to stay back next year.”

During lunch she’d roughhoused a little to try to make herself feel better, and one of the girls said scornfully, “After all, Meg, we aren’t grade-school kids anymore. Why do you always act like such a baby?”

And on the way home from school, as she walked up the road with her arms full of books, one of the boys had said something about her “dumb baby brother.” At this she’d thrown the books on the side of the road and tackled him with every ounce of strength she had, and arrived home with her blouse torn and a big bruise under one eye.

Sandy and Dennys, her ten-year-old twin brothers, who got home from school an hour earlier than she did, were disgusted. “Let us do the fighting when it’s necessary,” they told her.

—A delinquent, that’s what I am, she thought grimly.—That’s what they’ll be saying next. Not Mother. But Them. Everybody Else. I wish Father—

But it was still not possible to think about her father without the danger of tears. Only her mother could talk about him in a natural way, saying, “When your father gets back—”

Gets back from where? And when? Surely her mother must know what people were saying, must be aware of the smugly vicious gossip. Surely it must hurt her as it did Meg. But if it did she gave no outward sign. Nothing ruffled the serenity of her expression.

—Why can’t I hide it, too? Meg thought. Why do I always have to show everything?

The window rattled madly in the wind, and she pulled the quilt close about her. Curled up on one of her pillows, a gray fluff of kitten yawned, showing its pink tongue, tucked its head under again, and went back to sleep.

Everybody was asleep. Everybody except Meg. Even Charles Wallace, the “dumb baby brother,” who had an uncanny way of knowing when she was awake and unhappy, and who would come, so many nights, tiptoeing up the attic stairs to her—even Charles Wallace was asleep.

How could they sleep? All day on the radio there had been hurricane warnings. How could they leave her up in the attic in the rickety brass bed, knowing that the roof might be blown right off the house and she tossed out into the wild night sky to land who knows where?

Her shivering grew uncontrollable.

—You asked to have the attic bedroom, she told herself savagely.—Mother let you have it because you’re the oldest. It’s a privilege, not a punishment.

“Not during a hurricane, it isn’t a privilege,” she said aloud. She tossed the quilt down on the foot of the bed, and stood up. The kitten stretched luxuriously, and looked up at her with huge, innocent eyes.

“Go back to sleep,” Meg said. “Just be glad you’re a kitten and not a monster like me.” She looked at herself in the wardrobe mirror and made a horrible face, baring a mouthful of teeth covered with braces. Automatically she pushed her glasses into position, ran her fingers through her mouse-brown hair, so that it stood wildly on end, and let out a sigh almost as noisy as the wind.

The wide wooden floorboards were cold against her feet. Wind blew in the crevices about the window frame, in spite of the protection the storm sash was supposed to offer. She could hear wind howling in the chimneys. From all the way downstairs she could hear Fortinbras, the big black dog, starting to bark. He must be frightened, too. What was he barking at? Fortinbras never barked without reason.

Suddenly she remembered that when she had gone to the post office to pick up the mail she’d heard about a tramp who was supposed to have stolen twelve sheets from Mrs. Buncombe, the constable’s wife. They hadn’t caught him, and maybe he was heading for the Murrys’ house right now, isolated on a back road as it was; and this time maybe he’d be after more than sheets. Meg hadn’t paid much attention to the talk about the tramp at the time, because the postmistress, with a sugary smile, had asked if she’d heard from her father lately.

She left her little room and made her way through the shadows of the main attic, bumping against the ping-pong table.—Now I’ll have a bruise on my hip on top of everything else, she thought.

Next she walked into her old dolls’ house, Charles Wallace’s rocking horse, the twins’ electric trains. “Why must everything happen to me?” she demanded of a large teddy bear.

At the foot of the attic stairs she stood still and listened. Not a sound from Charles Wallace’s room on the right. On the left, in her parents’ room, not a rustle from her mother sleeping alone in the great double bed. She tiptoed down the hall and into the twins’ room, pushing again at her glasses as though they could help her to see better in the dark. Dennys was snoring. Sandy murmured something about baseball and subsided. The twins didn’t have any problems. They weren’t great students, but they weren’t bad ones, either. They were perfectly content with a succession of B’s and an occasional A or C. They were strong and fast runners and good at games, and when cracks were made about anybody in the Murry family, they weren’t made about Sandy and Dennys.

She left the twins’ room and went on downstairs, avoiding the creaking seventh step. Fortinbras had stopped barking. It wasn’t the tramp this time, then. Fort would go on barking if anybody was around.

—But suppose the tramp does come? Suppose he has a knife? Nobody lives near enough to hear if we screamed and screamed and screamed. Nobody’d care, anyhow.

—I’ll make myself some cocoa, she decided.—That’ll cheer me up, and if the roof blows off, at least I won’t go off with it.

In the kitchen a light was already on, and Charles Wallace was sitting at the table drinking milk and eating bread and jam. He looked very small and vulnerable sitting there alone in the big old-fashioned kitchen, a blond little boy in faded blue Dr. Dentons, his feet swinging a good six inches above the floor.

“Hi,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

From under the table where he was lying at Charles Wallace’s feet, hoping for a crumb or two, Fortinbras raised his slender dark head in greeting to Meg, and his tail thumped against the floor. Fortinbras had arrived on their doorstep, a half-grown puppy, scrawny and abandoned, one winter night. He was, Meg’s father had decided, part Llewellyn setter and part greyhound, and he had a slender, dark beauty that was all his own.

“Why didn’t you come up to the attic?” Meg asked her brother, speaking as though he were at least her own age. “I’ve been scared stiff.”

“Too windy up in that attic of yours,” the little boy said. “I knew you’d be down. I put some milk on the stove for you. It ought to be hot by now.”

How did Charles Wallace always know about her? How could he always tell? He never knew—or seemed to care—what Dennys or Sandy were thinking. It was his mother’s mind, and Meg’s, that he probed with frightening accuracy.

Was it because people were a little afraid of him that they whispered about the Murrys’ youngest child, who was rumored to be not quite bright? “I’ve heard that clever people often have subnormal children,” Meg had once overheard. “The two boys seem to be nice, regular children, but that unattractive girl and the baby boy certainly aren’t all there.”

It was true that Charles Wallace seldom spoke when anybody was around, so that many people thought he’d never learned to talk. And it was true that he hadn’t talked at all until he was almost four. Meg would turn white with fury when people looked at him and clucked, shaking their heads sadly.

“Don’t worry about Charles Wallace, Meg,” her father had once told her. Meg remembered it very clearly because it was shortly before he went away. “There’s nothing the matter with his mind. He just does things in his own way and in his own time.”

“I don’t want him to grow up to be dumb like me,” Meg had said.

“Oh, my darling, you’re not dumb,” her father answered. “You’re like Charles Wallace. Your development has to go at its own pace. It just doesn’t happen to be the usual pace.”

“How do you know?” Meg had demanded. “How do you know I’m not dumb? Isn’t it just because you love me?”

“I love you, but that’s not what tells me. Mother and I’ve given you a number of tests, you know.”

Yes, that was true. Meg had realized that some of the “games” her parents played with her were tests of some kind, and that there had been more for her and Charles Wallace than for the twins. “IQ tests, you mean?”

“Yes, some of them.”

“Is my IQ okay?”

“More than okay.”

“What is it?”

“That I’m not going to tell you. But it assures me that both you and Charles Wallace will be able to do pretty much whatever you like when you grow up to yourselves. You just wait till Charles Wallace starts to talk. You’ll see.”

How right he had been about that, though he himself had left before Charles Wallace began to speak, suddenly, with none of the usual baby preliminaries, using entire sentences. How proud he would have been!

“You’d better check the milk,” Charles Wallace said to Meg now, his diction clearer and cleaner than that of most five-year-olds. “You know you don’t like it when it gets a skin on top.”

“You put in more than twice enough milk.” Meg peered into the saucepan.

Charles Wallace nodded serenely. “I thought Mother might like some.”

“I might like what?” a voice said, and there was their mother standing in the doorway.

“Cocoa,” Charles Wallace said. “Would you like a liverwurst-and-cream-cheese sandwich? I’ll be happy to make you one.”

“That would be lovely,” Mrs. Murry said, “but I can make it myself if you’re busy.”

“No trouble at all.” Charles Wallace slid down from his chair and trotted over to the refrigerator, his pajamaed feet padding softly as a kitten’s. “How about you, Meg?” he asked. “Sandwich?”

“Yes, please,” she said. “But not liverwurst. Do we have any tomatoes?”

Charles Wallace peered into the crisper. “One. All right if I use it on Meg, Mother?”

“To what better use could it be put?” Mrs. Murry smiled. “But not so loud, please, Charles. That is, unless you want the twins downstairs, too.”

“Let’s be exclusive,” Charles Wallace said. “That’s my new word for the day. Impressive, isn’t it?”

“Prodigious,” Mrs. Murry said. “Meg, come let me look at that bruise.”

Meg knelt at her mother’s feet. The warmth and light of the kitchen had relaxed her so that her attic fears were gone. The cocoa steamed fragrantly in the saucepan; geraniums bloomed on the windowsills and there was a bouquet of tiny yellow chrysanthemums in the center of the table. The curtains, red, with a blue-and-green geometrical pattern, were drawn, and seemed to reflect their cheerfulness throughout the room. The furnace purred like a great, sleepy animal; the lights glowed with steady radiance; outside, alone in the dark, the wind still battered against the house, but the angry power that had frightened Meg while she was alone in the attic was subdued by the familiar comfort of the kitchen. Underneath Mrs. Murry’s chair Fortinbras let out a contented sigh.

Mrs. Murry gently touched Meg’s bruised cheek. Meg looked up at her mother, half in loving admiration, half in sullen resentment. It was not an advantage to have a mother who was a scientist and a beauty as well. Mrs. Murry’s flaming red hair, creamy skin, and violet eyes with long dark lashes, seemed even more spectacular in comparison with Meg’s outrageous plainness. Meg’s hair had been passable as long as she wore it tidily in braids. When she went into high school it was cut, and now she and her mother struggled with putting it up, but one side would come out curly and the other straight, so that she looked even plainer than before.

“You don’t know the meaning of moderation, do you, my darling?” Mrs. Murry asked. “A happy medium is something I wonder if you’ll ever learn. That’s a nasty bruise the Henderson boy gave you. By the way, shortly after you’d gone to bed his mother called up to complain about how badly you’d hurt him. I told her that since he’s a year older and at least twenty-five pounds heavier than you are, I thought I was the one who ought to be doing the complaining. But she seemed to think it was all your fault.”

“I suppose that depends on how you look at it,” Meg said. “Usually, no matter what happens, people think it’s my fault, even if I have nothing to do with it at all. But I’m sorry I tried to fight him. It’s just been an awful week. And I’m full of bad feeling.”

Mrs. Murry stroked Meg’s shaggy head. “Do you know why?”

“I hate being an oddball,” Meg said. “It’s hard on Sandy and Dennys, too. I don’t know if they’re really like everybody else, or if they’re just able to pretend they are. I try to pretend, but it isn’t any help.”

“You’re much too straightforward to be able to pretend to be what you aren’t,” Mrs. Murry said. “I’m sorry, Meglet. Maybe if Father were here he could help you, but I don’t think I can do anything till you’ve managed to plow through some more time. Then things will be easier for you. But that isn’t much help right now, is it?”

“Maybe if I weren’t so repulsive-looking—maybe if I were pretty like you—”

“Mother’s not a bit pretty; she’s beautiful,” Charles Wallace announced, slicing liverwurst. “Therefore I bet she was awful at your age.”

“How right you are,” Mrs. Murry said. “Just give yourself time, Meg.”

“Lettuce on your sandwich, Mother?” Charles Wallace asked.

“No, thanks.”

He cut the sandwich into sections, put it on a plate, and set it in front of his mother. “Yours’ll be along in just a minute, Meg. I think I’ll talk to Mrs Whatsit about you.”

“Who’s Mrs Whatsit?” Meg asked.

“I think I want to be exclusive about her for a while,” Charles Wallace said. “Onion salt?”

“Yes, please.”

“What’s Mrs Whatsit stand for?” Mrs. Murry asked.

“That’s her name,” Charles Wallace answered. “You know the old shingled house back in the woods that the kids won’t go near because they say it’s haunted? That’s where they live.”

“They?”

“Mrs Whatsit and her two friends. I was out with Fortinbras a couple of days ago—you and the twins were at school, Meg. We like to walk in the woods, and suddenly he took off after a squirrel and I took off after him and we ended up by the haunted house, so I met them by accident, as you might say.”

“But nobody lives there,” Meg said.

“Mrs Whatsit and her friends do. They’re very enjoyable.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about it before?” Mrs. Murry asked. “And you know you’re not supposed to go off our property without permission, Charles.”

“I know,” Charles said. “That’s one reason I didn’t tell you. I just rushed off after Fortinbras without thinking. And then I decided, well, I’d better save them for an emergency, anyhow.”

A fresh gust of wind took the house and shook it, and suddenly the rain began to lash against the windows.

“I don’t think I like this wind,” Meg said nervously.

“We’ll lose some shingles off the roof, that’s certain,” Mrs. Murry said. “But this house has stood for almost two hundred years and I think it will last a little longer, Meg. There’s been many a high wind up on this hill.”

“But this is a hurricane!” Meg wailed. “The radio kept saying it was a hurricane!”

“It’s October,” Mrs. Murry told her. “There’ve been storms in October before.”

As Charles Wallace gave Meg her sandwich Fortinbras came out from under the table. He gave a long, low growl, and they could see the dark fur slowly rising on his back. Meg felt her own skin prickle.

“What’s wrong?” she asked anxiously.

Fortinbras stared at the door that opened into Mrs. Murry’s laboratory, which was in the old stone dairy right off the kitchen. Beyond the lab a pantry led outdoors, though Mrs. Murry had done her best to train the family to come into the house through the garage door or the front door and not through her lab. But it was the lab door and not the garage door toward which Fortinbras was growling.

“You didn’t leave any nasty-smelling chemicals cooking over a Bunsen burner, did you, Mother?” Charles Wallace asked.

Mrs. Murray stood up. “No. But I think I’d better go see what’s upsetting Fort, anyhow.”

“It’s the tramp, I’m sure it’s the tramp,” Meg said nervously.

“What tramp?” Charles Wallace asked. from among turned-up coat collar, stole, scarves, and hat, a voice like an unoiled gate, but somehow not unpleasant.

“Mrs—uh—Whatsit—says she lost her way,” Mrs. Murry said. “Would you care for some hot chocolate, Mrs Whatsit?”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Mrs Whatsit answered, taking off the hat and the stole. “It isn’t so much that I lost my way as that I got blown off course. And when I realized that I was at little Charles Wallace’s house I thought I’d just come in and rest a bit before proceeding on my way.”

“How did you know this was Charles Wallace’s house?” Meg asked.

“By the smell.” Mrs Whatsit untied a blue-and-green paisley scarf, a red-and-yellow flowered print, a gold Liberty print, a red-and-black bandanna. Under all this a sparse quantity of grayish hair was tied in a small but tidy knot on top of her head. Her eyes were bright, her nose a round, soft blob, her mouth puckered like an autumn apple. “My, but it’s lovely and warm in here,” she said.

“Do sit down.” Mrs. Murry indicated a chair. “Would you like a sandwich, Mrs Whatsit? I’ve had liverwurst and cream cheese; Charles has had bread and jam; and Meg, lettuce and tomato.”

“Now, let me see,” Mrs Whatsit pondered. “I’m passionately fond of Russian caviar.”

“You peeked!” Charles cried indignantly. “We’re saving that for Mother’s birthday and you can’t have any!”

Mrs Whatsit gave a deep and pathetic sigh.

“No,” Charles said. “Now, you mustn’t give in to her, Mother, or I shall be very angry. How about tuna-fish salad?”

“All right,” Mrs Whatsit said meekly.

“I’ll fix it,” Meg offered, going to the pantry for a can of tuna fish.

—For crying out loud, she thought,—this old woman comes barging in on us in the middle of the night and Mother takes it as though there weren’t anything peculiar about it at all. I’ll bet she is the tramp. I’ll bet she did steal those sheets. And she’s certainly no one Charles Wallace ought to be friends with, especially when he won’t even talk to ordinary people.

“I’ve only been in the neighborhood a short time,” Mrs Whatsit was saying as Meg switched off the pantry light and came back into the kitchen with the tuna fish, “and I didn’t think I was going to like the neighbors at all until dear little Charles came over with his dog.”

“Mrs Whatsit,” Charles Wallace demanded severely, “why did you take Mrs. Buncombe’s sheets?”

“Well, I needed them, Charles dear.”

“You must return them at once.”

“But Charles, dear, I can’t. I’ve used them.”

“It was very wrong of you,” Charles Wallace scolded. “If you needed sheets that badly, you should have asked me.”

Mrs Whatsit shook her head and clucked. “You can’t spare any sheets. Mrs. Buncombe can.”

Meg cut up some celery and mixed it in with the tuna. After a moment’s hesitation she opened the refrigerator door and brought out a jar of little sweet pickles.—Though why I’m doing it for her I don’t know, she thought, as she cut them up.—I don’t trust her one bit.

“Tell your sister I’m all right,” Mrs Whatsit said to Charles. “Tell her my intentions are good.”

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Charles intoned.

“My, but isn’t he cunning.” Mrs Whatsit beamed at him fondly. “It’s lucky he has someone to understand him.”

“But I’m afraid he doesn’t,” Mrs. Murry said. “None of us is quite up to Charles.”

“But at least you aren’t trying to squash him down.” Mrs Whatsit nodded her head vigorously. “You’re letting him be himself.”

“Here’s your sandwich,” Meg said, bringing it to Mrs Whatsit.

“Do you mind if I take off my boots before I eat?” Mrs Whatsit asked, picking up the sandwich nevertheless. “Listen.” She moved her feet up and down in her boots, and they could hear water squelching. “My toes are ever so damp. The trouble is that these boots are a mite too tight for me, and I never can take them off by myself.”

“I’ll help you,” Charles offered.

“Not you. You’re not strong enough.”

“I’ll help.” Mrs. Murry squatted at Mrs Whatsit’s feet, yanking on one slick boot. When the boot came off, it came suddenly. Mrs. Murry sat down with a thump. Mrs Whatsit went tumbling backward with the chair onto the floor, sandwich held high in one old claw. Water poured out of the boot and ran over the floor and the big braided rug.

“Oh, dearie me,” Mrs Whatsit said, lying on her back in the overturned chair, her feet in the air, one in a red-and-white striped sock, the other still booted.

Mrs. Murry got to her feet. “Are you all right, Mrs Whatsit?”

“If you have some liniment I’ll put it on my dignity,” Mrs Whatsit said, still supine. “I think it’s sprained. A little oil of cloves mixed well with garlic is rather good.” And she took a large bite of sandwich.

“Do please get up,” Charles said. “I don’t like to see you lying there that way. You’re carrying things too far.”

“Have you ever tried to get to your feet with a sprained dignity?” But Mrs Whatsit scrambled up, righted the chair, and then sat back down on the floor, the booted foot stuck out in front of her, and took another bite. She moved with great agility for such an old woman. At least Meg was reasonably sure that she was an old woman, and a very old woman at that.

Mrs Whatsit, her mouth full, ordered Mrs. Murry, “Now pull while I’m already down.”

Quite calmly, as though this old woman and her boots were nothing out of the ordinary, Mrs. Murry pulled until the second boot relinquished the foot. This foot was covered with a blue-and-gray Argyle sock, and Mrs Whatsit sat there, wriggling her toes, contentedly finishing her sandwich before scrambling to her feet. “Ah,” she said, “that’s ever so much better,” and took both boots and shook them out over the sink. “My stomach is full and I’m warm inside and out and it’s time I went home.”

“Don’t you think you’d better stay till morning?” Mrs. Murry asked.

“Oh, thank you, dearie, but there’s so much to do I just can’t waste time sitting around frivoling.”

“It’s much too wild a night to travel in.”

“Wild nights are my glory,” Mrs Whatsit said. “I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course.”

“Well, at least till your socks are dry—”

“Wet socks don’t bother me. I just didn’t like the water squishing around in my boots. Now, don’t worry about me, lamb.” (“Lamb” was not a word one would ordinarily think of calling Mrs. Murry.) “I shall just sit down for a moment and pop on my boots and then I’ll be on my way. Speaking of ways, pet, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract.”

Mrs. Murry went very white and with one hand reached backward and clutched at a chair for support. Her voice trembled. “What did you say?”

Mrs Whatsit tugged at her second boot. “I said,” she grunted, shoving her foot down in, “that there is”—shove—“such a thing”—shove—“as a tesseract.” Her foot went down into the boot, and grabbing shawls, scarves, and hat, she hustled out the door. Mrs. Murry stayed very still, making no move to help the old woman. As the door opened, Fortinbras streaked in, panting, wet and shiny as a seal. He looked at Mrs. Murry and whined.

The door slammed.

“Mother, what’s the matter!” Meg cried. “What did she say? What is it?”

“The tesseract—” Mrs. Murry whispered. “What did she mean? How could she have known?”