Snow

As you may remember from the last chapter, Carl had rescued five 'problem boys' from the I. O. Sooker Home.  One of the boys, Bobby, had a brother, Chris, who was missing.  Carl had been caught in a severe snow storm on his way home on Christmas Eve.  He was playing Santa and his van had been loaded with presents and food for a Christmas Feast.  It was going to be the first real Christmas any of his boys had ever had.  Carl had heard a noise outside the van when he had to stop.  When he investigated he found a boy unconscious in front of the van.  To everyone's surprise when he got home it was discovered that the boy was Bobby's missing brother Chris.

Special note to those of you that have already read chapter one:

There was a slight error made in the first chapter which by itself would not have made all that much difference, however once we checked the events carefully, it seems we made an error in the amount of time that had passed between the time Bobby and the other boys were rescued and the time that Chris was found. The time that passed was months not years. We are working on correcting the error in Chapter One.

*  Now, Forward Into The Past . . . *

(Okay, I confess, we're starting out with a flashback, so just sit back and read it and that way you will know just what happened before Chris was rescued. Believe me, you will be glad you did, later. It will explain so many things)

Wednesdays were the slowest days of the week.  Chris had taken great pains and had carefully planned the escape for his brother and himself.  It was a new moon, so it would be as dark as it would ever be.  At 10:00, when they heard Broadzilla and Ebby turn on the news, they climbed out the basement window.  They felt bad about leaving the others, but they planned to rescue them after they got away.  Sadly, what they didn't know was that Broadzilla had set up motion detectors outside the house so as they ran to the fence and started to climb over it, she came running (If you could call it that) and Bobby, being the smaller of the two was just a little too slow getting over the fence.  When he felt the clammy sweaty hand grab his ankle, he screamed for his brother to run as fast as he could and get away.

Chris hit the ground on the far side of the fence, picked himself up and ran like his life depended on it.  Well, it did, actually and so did his brother's, as it turned out.  Broadzilla knew that she had to keep Bobby as insurance, if Chris didn't get caught, he might be picked up by the cops and the boys had better all be here and in relatively decent condition.  So in a way, things did actually improve for the boys, their customers were now being told not to leave any bruises on them that would show, that, at least, stopped the head hitting and tight ropes on their wrists, they did get more beating on the butt and back, but they all agreed that it was a pretty good trade.

After a month, Bobby simply lost all hope that his brother was ever coming back.  He was pretty worried by then, that something really bad had happened to him.

Chris ran as fast as he could with tears streaming down his cheeks.  He could hear Bobby yelling at him to run like hell, and Broadzilla was roaring her usual trash.  He ran through the alleys and turned at random cross streets and he finally stopped when he reached a dead end alley.  He had run for almost two hours and by that time he was exhausted.  He sat on some stairs and the next thing he heard was a harsh voice, "Well, well, looky here Sherman, a little Chicken, just fer us."

"Yes sir, Grant.  He looks so damn purdy don't ee.  I bet he looks even cuter when e's sucking my weiner."

"Ha, ha, how bout as a dick-ka-bob!  Ha, ha, ha,"  Grant grabbed Chris by the belt, picked him up and carried him into the musty dark basement of a neighboring building.

Chris lost track of time.  One day seemed to just run into another.  He would sleep, then be raped repeatedly by the two horny perverts, then be given some food, then put back in his room till they came back and raped him some more.  It became a routine and a vicious cycle. 

After some time, Chris guessed a couple of weeks, but it was really a month, Chris had managed to get the window in his basement prison open, only to discover that it had iron bars on the outside.  He began the task of wiggling the bars to loosen them up. They were old and pretty badly rusted.

Finally one day, Grant and Sherman were talking about how they were going to make some easy money.  They were having a party and for fifty dollars, they would sell, or rent, twenty minutes in the room with Chris.  They figured with six horny perverts, they could easily make a couple thousand bucks in just one night. After that, who knew what would happen?

Chris had barely been able to tolerate Grant and Sherman doing him, cause they didn't do anything that he hadn't already had to do for Broadzilla, and they were both surprisingly small in the equipment department, considering how big and fat they both were, but having six more men together, trying to have their way with him was just too much; he had been to one other gang bang and he knew that the men got impatient waiting and by the time they were ready to get to him, things could get pretty damn rough and he was not looking forward to the pain he was sure he would suffer.

After they were finished with him that night, he went to work in earnest  on the rusty old bars, and fear and loathing gave him the extra strength he needed to pull them free from the window frame.  All he had in the room, to wear, was an old ragged pair of briefs that somehow had been forgotten, but he knew he had to run.  If he could just find a cop, they would at least give him some clothes and they'd probably end up sending him back to his brother and Broadzilla at that terrible 'home', but he realized that he really didn't have much choice. He had to get away.

He carefully squeezed through the bars being careful not to cut himself on the jagged leftovers of the two or three bars that broke slightly higher than the frame, and then he stood up.  He froze in fear, as the door to the building across the ally opened.  A seven year old black street kid stepped out into the ally.  "Sheet boy, what tha fuck ya doin' standin' there awmost nekked?"

Chris turned to run, but the little black kid was a lot faster than he was, and he grabbed him, "Come on, you goin'a freeze yo balls off out heah.  Sorry, I almost forgot,  I'm John, and I'll help ya."

Chris let John lead him into the other building and down into what must have been a storage area at one time.  John searched through a couple of piles of stuff and eventually found Chris enough clothes for him to get dressed pretty well, and a pretty decent, if a bit old, pair of shoes. 

"Thanks John, I'm Chris.  God, it feels good to be dressed again.  Grant and Sherman didn't ever let me wear nothin' but these briefs, and usually they took um away when they put me in that room." Chris told his savior.

"Yeah, those assholes, that sounds like them.  I stay as far away from them as I can.  They tried to keep me once, but Big Daddy had his thugs beat the shit out of Sherman, and they let me go."  John looked Chris over, "Come on Chris, I got some time before I gotta work, let's go get you some food.  It don't look like them honkies been feedin' yo right.  After all, a slut boy need mo meat on him than yo got."

"John, I thank you for the help, but I got to get my brother away from that place, and from Broadzilla."  Chris walked along with John.

John headed down an ally to the back of a deli.  He knocked on the door and a man looked out, "Hey John, I don't got no time now, but thanks for stopping by."  The man rubbed the front of his pants with regret.

"S'okay, Jacob.  This here is Chris, he needs some food and maybe he could help you out some."

"Does Big Daddy get a cut?" Jacob asked.

"Sheeet, this ain't got nothing to do with him.  Chris needs food and someplace warm 'til I gets back.  If he wants to suck you, you pay HIM da fifty." John instructed.

John then turned to Chris, "You ain't got to do that stuff with Jacob, but if you let him fuck you, make sure you get two hundred from him each time, hear?"

"T – two hundred.  Wow." Chris stuttered.

Jacob brought Chris into the back room.  "Could you sweep up back here, Chris, while I go bring you a sandwich and something to drink."

Chris took the broom he was handed.  By the time he was finished sweeping the small room, he was pretty winded and he sat down on a box, panting.

Jacob was concerned when he came back in the room, " Damn, Chris?  Are you okay?"

Chris looked up at the tired sad expression on Jacob's face and smiled weakly, "Yeah, I'm alright; I just haven't had any exercise for awhile.  I've been locked up by a couple of perverts since like the first part of October."

"Holy Moses!  That's two and a half months!"

"What?  It can't have been that long!"

Jacob handed Chris a paper plate and a can of soda.  "Today's the twenty second of December."

Chris began eating, it was delicious, and it was gone way to soon.  Jacob had to go take care of a customer.  Chris finished his meal and began straightening up the room.  He had to rest often, but he kept working until Jacob came back. 

When Jacob finally got back, he was shocked at how good the room looked.  "Hey, you've done a really great job back here."

"Thanks.  Can I do you now?  I really need the money.  I got to find my brother and get him out of that horrible place."

"Chris, you don't have to do that stuff.  I'll pay you for what you have done back here, it's great!"

Chris sat down and cried.  Jacob came over to him, "Chris, what's the matter?"

"You don't even want to let me... I'm just worthless," Chris sobbed.

Jacob took off his apron, picked up Chris and sat holding the crying boy.  "Oh Chris, it's not that at all.  You're a really hot little kid and I must admit that the idea of you doing that to me is pretty exciting, but right now you are wiped out.  You really need to build up some strength.  I'll give you fifty for your work tonight, and tomorrow, if you have recovered some strength, we'll do the other stuff, Okay?"

Chris nodded.

"Now, come on, son, let's go upstairs to my apartment.  John won't be back here till morning."

"What about the store?" Chris asked, a little worried.

"Closed for the night."  Jacob stood and carried the exhausted boy upstairs to his small apartment.

Jacob sat on his couch, still holding the boy tenderly, and asked, "You mentioned a brother?"

"Yeah, his name is Bobby.  We both tried to escape, but Broadzilla caught him as we climbed over the fence.  I just kept running and running.  Then I fell asleep and Grant and Sherman found me."

Jacob hugged Chris tighter, "Shit, those two assholes are bad news.  You're lucky to be alive.  If you'd been there much longer, you probably would have been dead.  I've heard some pretty scary rumors of them getting tired of a boy they were diddling, and then having a gang bang party and using the poor kid till he up and dies, they're sick bastards.  Don't you worry, old Jacob won't hurt you like that, hell I won't hurt you none. You're safe as houses with me."

Chris started to cry again, "Shit, they was goin' to do that party thing with me tonight. I'm sure glad I got outa there when I did."

Jacob held Chris and softly rubbed his back, until Chris finally fell asleep.  He then carried him to the bedroom and carefully undressed him and put him into bed.  Jacob was shocked when he saw how thin the boy really was, and he really needed a good bath, but of course that could wait.  He undressed too and joined the boy in bed. He soon fell asleep holding the boy in his protective arms and Chris snuggled right up to him, his nose pressed into Jacobs neck.

Jacob awoke just as Chris brought him to climax.  When he was finished, Chris stuck his head out from under the covers.  "Good morning Mr. Jacob."

Jacob smiled and ruffled Chris's hair, "It sure is.  That was really wonderful.  Now I got to go pee."  Jacob got out of bed and went into the bathroom.  After taking care of that problem, he looked around and Chris was standing there watching.  "You need to go?"

Chris entered the small bathroom and added his donation to Jacobs, then flushed the toilet.  Jacob had finished shaving by then, and was putting the electric razor away.  He got a new toothbrush out of the cabinet and gave it to Chris and they brushed their teeth together.  Then Jacob turned on the shower and nudged Chris into it before him.  He washed the boy very carefully and shampooed his hair twice.  After drying off, Jacob wrapped a towel around Chris and took his clothes and put them into his washer.  They heard the buzzer and Jacob unlocked the door. Soon John was knocking at the apartment door.

John grinned when he saw Chris standing there in a towel.  "So, how much you make?"

Jacob said, "John!  Are you his pimp?  Are you 'Li'l Daddy'?"

"Sheeet!  Yo knows better den dat.  It just looked like yo old ass got lucky."

"John, John, John.  I think both Chris and I actually got lucky.  I'm washing his clothes right now.  They just started a minute or so ago. If you want to throw yours in you can."

"Cool."  John walked into the utility room and stripped down,  throwing his clothes into the washer.  He walked back out buck naked.

"Since you're already naked, why don't you take a shower and I'll start making some breakfast."  John came out and was wrapped in a towel like Chris.  Jacob put three plates on the table.  There were three thick pancakes on each plate and a bottle of maple syrup and jam on the table.  The boys dug in.

"So, just where is this place that your brother is in?" Jacob asked, as the boys were finishing their breakfast.  He poured himself and John a cup of coffee and raised an eyebrow at Chris who shook his head.

"It's a place called Sooker House." Chris said.

"Sheeet, where yo been?  Dat place been in Da news a couple months ago.  All hell done broke loose dare and da boys they was sellin' all gots adoped by some nice rich dude."

Chris just looked at John in shock, barely able to comprehend what he was hearing.  "He's gone?  Bobby's gone?"

Jacob reached across the table and took Chris's hand, "It will be in the newspapers and we can go to the library and look it up.  Then we can contact your brother. I'm sure everything will be ok."

Chris looked up at Jacob, "Really? You would help me?  Would you help me?  Please?"

With a tear in his eye and a catch in his voice, Jacob replied, "Sure I would.  Delores will be back on Tuesday so she can run the counter and we can go do the research, when the library opens, at nine o'clock."

"Oh, God, Jacob, thank you so much!"  Chris came around the table and gave Jacob a big hug.

Jacob turned on the TV and left the boys sitting on the couch.

A couple of hours later, John went downstairs and told Jacob he had a job he had to do, and he probably wouldn't get back until tomorrow morning.  When Jacob closed the deli after the lunch rush, he went up to check on Chris.  Chris was curled up, asleep on the couch, but the apartment was all neat and clean.  The dishes were washed and everything was straightened up and dusted.  Jacob went over and gently woke Chris up.  "Hey little guy, you'd better wake up now, or you won't be able to sleep tonight.  If you're hungry, come on down and I'll fix you up a nice lunch."

"Okay," Chris said.  He stood up and stretched and followed Jacob back down to the Deli.  Jacob opened the door and then fixed Chris a nice lunch.  "This is real good. I love Corn Beef.  Thanks Jacob."

When Chris was done, he started cleaning up the booths in the Deli and then cleaning the fronts of the display cases.  By closing time, the place looked better than it had looked in years. Everything just plain sparkled. Chris had somehow managed to get most of the awful stains off of the tables and the counter that had been there before Jacob had taken over the place years before.

After locking up, Jacob and Chris went back upstairs and Chris turned on the TV as Jacob put a frozen pizza in the oven.  The weatherman on the TV was predicting a snow storm for the next day.  "Hey, Jacob?  Who clears the snow from the front of the store?" Chris asked.

"Each of us does their own. Shovlin'," Jacob replied, as he fixed a salad.

"You s'pose maybe I could earn some money tomorrow, shoveling snow?"

"Sure, If you do shov'lin' like you did sweepin' Hell, I'd give you twenty to clear the way, and I betcha every shop on the block would be glad to do that too."  Jacob told him.

"I'll get John to get me a good warm coat and gloves, and a shovel..."  Chris was really getting excited about earning some money.  Before they went to bed, Jacob counted out some cash and put it in Chris's pocket.

Chris was somewhat disappointed when he woke up the next morning and looked out the window in the bathroom, there was no snow at all.  "Oh well," he sighed, he took care of business and returned to bed and enjoyed Jacob's cuddling.  He was amazed that Jacob didn't want the sex stuff all the time.  Except for Ebby, every man he had ever been around wanted sex.  He played that Jacob was his real dad, and really loved him.  It was just a dream, of course, but he so wished it could come true somehow.

When Jacob got up, he got Chris up too and they showered like they did yesterday and got dressed.  John joined them as Jacob was finishing making their breakfast.  "You're just in time for breakfast, John.  Take off your coat, sit down here and join us."

"Whew, it was really a long night, five tricks and two of them were doubles. I'm really beat.  All that was on top of the party that Big Daddy had me at in the afternoon, my mouth and ass is so damn tired."  John explained as he sat at the table.

Jacob fixed John a plate, "You need to tell Big Daddy to back off some.  Damn, he can't work you too much, or you'll get sick."

"Yeah, I'll be doin' that sure. Remember what happened when li'l Tony tried to tell him that? Now he's dead, so I think this nigga boy is gonna be keepin' his mouth shut."

Jacob frowned, "John, I do not want to hear that kind of language in my house. I hate that word.  Besides, you know as well as I do that if Chris or I used that word, you would have a fit, so you can't use it either."

"Yeah, I guess you're right, fair enough Jacob." John began eating.

Chris swallowed and asked John, "John?  Could you, maybe, let me have a good coat so I can go out and shovel some snow today, to make some money?"

"No problem, Dude, you are jus' about my size so go ahead and use that one, and if I need one, I'll go get it from the stash.  Right now, I really need to crash for awhile.  Big Daddy tol' us we gots tonight off, 'cause everybody doing that Santa shit and they ain't out doing little boys.  I'll come out and help you after I gets some sleep, Okay?"

Chris nodded and smiled, "Thanks."

Jacob cleared off the table, John went and lay down on the bed and Chris bundled up and followed Jacob downstairs to the Deli.  It had begun to snow. The big beautiful dry flakes that made for one of those post card pictures, but nothing too much, yet.  Jacob got out a broom and a snow shovel from the storage closet and gave them to Chris.  "Here you go, Chris.  Use the broom till the snow gets too deep.  Don't worry if these fall apart, they are old ones that I just never got around to throwing away."

"Thanks Jacob.  You're awful nice, for a grown-up."  Chris took the tools and went outside and started to work.

Chris was doing pretty well.  He would go into a store and ask if they would pay him twenty dollars to clear a path to the street and a path on the sidewalk.  Almost all of the store owners said yes, and he kept on working his way down the street.  At the corner, he crossed the street and worked his way back, then he turned the next corner and kept going.  The storm increased in strength and the wind began blowing pretty hard.  When Chris realized he was getting cold, he didn't exactly know where he was.  The street sign on the light pole was covered on both sides with the wet sticky snow. He tried hitting the street light pole to make the snow fall off, but it seemed to be frozen solid.  He set the shovel against the side of a building and went to try to find his way back to Jacob's Deli.  The snow was so thick and heavy that he couldn't tell where he was at all, and there was no one out on the street.  He realized that he was lost, and he figured he was in trouble.  He kept moving and couldn't see where anything was, but he had to keep moving or he got too cold.

When John woke up, he dressed and came downstairs.  Jacob was just standing there, looking out the window.  The Deli was completely deserted.  There was a pure whiteout blizzard outside.  "Hey, Jacob, where's Chris?"

"Out there, somewhere," Jacob said, with dread and fear in his voice.

"Sheeet, dat boy done got no sense.  I'll go fetch him back in.  Which way did he go?" John asked.

"Last I saw him, he was working his way back across the street."

John Pulled on a jacket that had been left some time ago by a customer, and headed on out.  He made a detour to the building to get himself a warmer coat, and he was soon on the trail.  Three blocks away, he found the shovel leaning against the building.  There was a faint path in the snow, that was quickly being covered by the blowing drifting snow, but he took off following it as best he could.  It seemed to wander around and John was about to give up when he saw a pair of headlights through the blowing snow.  He ran closer, just in time to see the van's passenger door open and a man in a Santa suit get out and pick up something from in front of the van.  'Oh my God! It was Chris.'  John started moving towards the van as the man climbed back in and closed the door.  John approached the van from behind, and carefully wiped the wet sticky snow off the license plate, LKY BOYS.  As he began moving around the van to knock on the door, a plow came barreling along and the van quickly took off, following the plow.

John stood there in shock, as the tail lights disappeared in the blinding blowing snow, taking Chris with them.  Slowly, John walked back to Jacob's place.  He thought he heard a voice say, "Don't worry, It's okay, John.  Chris will be fine, now.  And your Christmas next year will be absolutely unbelievable.  Remember, Fred promises you that."  John looked around and there was no one there. "I'm going crazy" he said, to no one in particular.

John returned to the Deli and told Jacob what he had seen.  Jacob thought for a minute and said, "John, this is really incredible. You remember that Chris was looking for his brother, right?  Well, in one of those stories about the guy who saved the boys, there was a picture of a brand new van he had just bought, and it showed the tag.  It was him, John. Talk about The Lord moving in mysterious ways, Chris is going to be with his brother!"

John and Jacob were both greatly relieved and had a nice night off together. They stayed in the living room on the couch holding each other and fell asleep holding each other close.

And so, Carl and Arty's family was complete, for the first time.  After the excitement of opening the presents on Christmas Eve, the boys were totally wired.  Chris, although the oldest, was the first to yawn and start to nod off.  Carl noticed this and said, "Bobby, I think your brother has had quite a long tiring day.  Why don't you show him up to your room and get him ready for bed.  Papa Arty and I will be up shortly to tuck you in."

The other boys decided that it was a good idea to go to bed too.  By the time Carl and Arty had given goodnight hugs and kisses to the other boys, Bobby and Chris were cuddled close together and were both sound asleep.  "You did real good today, Carl.  I had made a call to a private eye friend of mine, and he was coming here in a few days, on another matter and I was putting him on Chris's trail, but I guess Nick is out of a job."

Carl thought of his Uncle and his comedy collection and Firesign Theater's own 'Nick Danger, Third Eye',  "He doesn't by chance spell his name 'Danger' does he?"

"No, silly boy, he's Norwegian, his last name is Regnad." Arty said, grinning broadly.

For some strange reason, Carl found this extremely funny.

They covered Chris and Bobby with the soft blanket, and kissed them goodnight.  They then they returned to the family room. 

"I guess we'd better get this place cleaned up," Arty said.

"You really shouldn't have spent all that money on those computers,  I mean, a laptop for each boy is a bit over the top, don't you think, Judge?" Carl chastised his partner.

"Hey, not me.  It was T.G.I.F., whatever the heck that is.  Besides, how did they all get in the bottom of your bag?" Arty asked.

"Well, I bought the bag at the mall.  They had a place that was all set up where you could purchase the presents and give your number and 'Elves would collect the packages, wrap them, tag them and put them in your sack."  Carl said.

Outside a grinning young 'boy' said, "Come on Bart, let's go let Shorty know the computers got delivered."  With a jingle of bells the they flew off into the night.  The Big Guy needs to make a stop here too.

"Well, since you kind of already did your Santa thing, let's get the trash cleaned up in here, so I can do mine," Arty teased.

"Oh my, you did the Santa bit too?  You realize we're going to spoil those boys Rotten..."

  "They deserve it.  Come on, let's get going so we can go to bed and celebrate a little ourselves."

Two hours later, they did just that.

Having never had a real Christmas before, the boys were still fast asleep when their Dads got up.  "Carl, it just isn't right for kids to sleep in on Christmas Morning," Arty commented.

"Unfortunately, they don't know about Santa and what surprises are waiting for them.  You really did over do it, you know."

"Me? Hey, you had stuff hidden away too.  Come on; let's go get those sleigh bells and wake up some wonderful boys."

The boys were all a bit grumpy about being so rudely awakened at six o'clock in the morning, until they were herded into the family room.  There were wrapped gifts everywhere, eight piles of them, in fact.  Each boy had his own pile.  Chris and Arty were both a bit confused, as to how there were presents there for Chris, Arty hadn't bought them, so how did they get there?  Nobody had known beforehand that Chris would be there yet.  Each boy had a set of CDs of their favorite groups with a portable CD player and headphones. Each boy had two Classic Disney DVD's and Chris being a bit older had a special edition set of the Harry Potter DVD's.  The smaller boys each had a super cuddly stuffed animal and Chris had a remote controlled Hummer and three sets of rechargeable batteries.  When the boys got their stockings down, they found that they were filled with candy and each one had a note inside, even Chris's.

The notes said for them to go look in the 'empty' section of the huge three car garage.  They all raced through the house and when they got out there, standing in the middle of the section, they found six brand new shiny bikes, all with training wheels attached. It had taken Arty and Carl over an hour to assemble five of the bikes, but seeing the looks of wonder and appreciation on the boys' faces made all their work worth it.  Arty turned to Carl and mouthed to him, "Six Bikes? We only built five. Santa Clause?" Each and every bike was that boy's favorite color, and had a small license tag with their name stamped on it.  Before they could figure that out Chris came up and said; "Blue! My favourite color, how did you know?" The boys could hardy wait for Ebby to fix breakfast so they could go and ride their new bikes.

Carl felt like a heel for having to remind the boys that fifteen inches of snow had covered the ground, outside.  The expressions on the boys' faces were absolutely pathetic.

Arty finally came up with an excellent idea, "Boys," he smiled,  "let's bundle up real warm, and go outside and shovel the snow off the driveway, so we can back all the vehicles out of the garage, then you'll have the whole garage available to ride in."

The boys were soon having a snowball fight in the front yard, while Arty used the snowblower and cleared the driveway.  When the boys had, had enough fun, they went back inside, changed into clean dry cloths and then had a mug of hot chocolate, before venturing outside to head for the garage again.  Carl took his video camera outside and dutifully taped the boys' first attempts at riding their bikes.  It was a fun filled hour or so, as they learned to turn and use the brakes properly.  The boys all learned pretty quickly how to ride a bike, and soon they were all doing pretty darn good for only having ridden a bike that very day.

When they all came back inside, Ebby had the Christmas feast all prepared.  Although it had looked like enough food to feed the crew of an Aircraft Carrier, it seemed that when the boys were done, there wasn't much in the way of leftovers.

After that, they all went into the family room and the boys got their computers out and began exploring to see what they could do.  The 'Philip' character, or program or whatever the heck it was, really helped them navigate through everything.  It seemed that the character was totally interactive and could converse with the boys as if he were a real person. He answered their questions in plain English and seemed to understand them perfectly.  All they had to do was ask their questions clearly and distinctly, and 'Philip' would simply tell them what they needed to know. He was amazing.

Bobby noticed something interesting and said, "Hey guy's, check out the stories file, there's a shortcut on the desktop.  There is a section of Christmas stories in there, from someplace called Jeff's Fort Board or something like that.  I just had 'Philip' read one of them to me. It was about an Elf named Fred, it was written by a sixth grader named Neal. He writes real good too.  And there is another story in there called Dragon Earl and I'm going to read that one next. 'Philip' said it was real good and that it had a real cool dragon in it, named 'Goos'. From his description, it sounded real neat."

"Hey, this one looks kewl," Greg said, "The Shimmering Ship, I bet that's about a space ship."

Leroy said, "this is a long one it's called Haven and it has a character in it named Neal. I wonder if the kid that wrote the story about the elf was somehow in this Haven story.  What kind of name is Str8mayb?"

Carl said, "Its Str8mayb's name sir." Then he chuckled. "That is a take off on a story I read once, a long time ago, and they made a movie out of it. Of course, Str8mayb is the author's pen name." He chuckled again and almost couldn't control his laughter.  "I think his real name is Kelly Deforest.  He's an Eye Doctor.  He has a brother named Clancy, that works for the  Department of the Interior."

Bobby said, "We read about that in school. Why do they call a department that has everything to do with the outdoors, the Department of the Interior. It should be called The Department of the Exterior." 

Anyway, as I was trying to say, he is one of those advocates for saving the old growth trees.  That's right, he's Clancy Deforest, for the trees.  I have heard that a lot of authors on the Internet use a pen name rather than using their real names.  It's cool too, that you can probably write an e-mail to the author and most of them will actually write back to you."

Arty and Carl watched their sons all having a wonderful time, enjoying themselves until it was time for them all to go to bed.  Hugs were the perfect way to end this perfect day, and also this chapter of SNOW.

Author's notes:
Well, we did it we wrote another chapter.  It only took us a year to get to the next day.  {Darry's version: Jeez you mean after a whole year, we only get to go one day ahead in the story?}  We wrote those lines at the same time.  It has been weird, because we often do that and it is just creepy weird sometimes.
We will have even more to come eventually, like maybe next year...
                   Str8mayb

Co-Author's Notes:
Yes, I find myself doing that twin like behavior all the time. I really enjoyed working with Str8mayb writing this story. I was really glad to see what actually happened to Chris after he got away from Broadzilla. I am also glad that everyone figured out that Chris would not only be safe, but he would be reunited with Bobby. I am sure that among others, The other Bobby is glad to see the family so happy and that Bobby and Chris found each other. I have to wonder if there were plans made in heaven to bring that about. 

I do want to point out that we are going to move this story along a bit faster now.  We have several things in the works for this story. I don't think it will take us anywhere near a year to write the next chapter. If you noticed, we did actually introduce two new characters in this chapter, and they will both be important in the future. Don't ask us how they will fit in, because that is for you to find out later on. Just keep them in mind and remember them when you see them later.

Oh yes, one more thing, I want to point out once again that it is our responsibilities as adults to try to protect children from being harmed by the system and those who work for that system.  If you ever suspect that a child is being mistreated or abused, please tell someone. Don't just assume that someone else will do it, because all to often that person will think that you reported it. It won't hurt a thing if you both report it. In fact, if more than one person reports abuse, and especially if the people that report are diligent enough to describe what they saw, then maybe we can get this abuse stopped before someone gets seriously hurt.
Okay, Soapbox mode switched off.

Now it is time for me to send this to the editors and let them fix all our mistakes. It is fun to write the stories and let someone else find the mistakes. I do enjoy editing stories, but there is something really gratifying about writing a story or a chapter yourself, and passing it on to an editor who can more rapidly see glaring errors. We all seem to be able to see other people's mistakes much better than we can our own. I don't know why that is.

Darryl AKA The Radio Rancher

Editor' Note: Well this is a wonderful addition to the world of Snow. We now know more about what happened to Chris. But we took one step backwards and one step forwards so we ended up right back where we began. Albeit a little wiser. Thanks Radio Rancher and Str8mayb for a wonderful tale.

By the way the next chapter of the "Ghost of Christmas Present" will be ready when the next chapter of Snow is :)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

The Story Lover