Santa's Blitzen Block

Chapter 1Caleb's Plan

On Christmas Eve, Caleb Marchuk had a notebook, a plan, and a problem.

The problem was Dominic Ruggiero.

Dominic sat behind Caleb in Mrs. Okafor's fourth grade class, and on the last day before winter break, in the middle of the class party, he leaned over with a frosted cupcake in one hand and said, "You know Santa's just your parents, right?"

Caleb had said, "Nuh uh."

Dominic had licked his thumb and said, "My brother found the receipts. In the kitchen drawer. From Target."

Caleb had a comeback for almost everything. He did not have one for receipts.

That was five days ago, and he had been thinking about it ever since. He thought about it while he wrapped the bird feeder he'd made for Grandma. He thought about it at church, and in the car, and while he watched his favorite Christmas movie for the third time. Receipts. It stuck in his head like a popcorn kernel in his teeth.

Now it was six o'clock on Christmas Eve, the kitchen smelled like cinnamon, and his dad was getting ready to leave.

Officer Timothy Marchuk stood by the back door in his dark blue township police uniform, clipping things onto his belt. His radio. His flashlight. His keys, which jingled. Mom was at the counter packing him a container of Grandma's pierogi and a thermos of coffee so big Caleb could have taken a bath in it.

"You're really working tonight?" Caleb asked. He already knew the answer. He asked anyway.

"Somebody's got to keep Feasterville safe." Dad snapped the radio into its holder. "But I'll tell you a secret. Christmas Eve is the quietest night of the whole year. Everybody's home. Nobody's out speeding on Street Road on Christmas Eve."

"Then why do you have to go?"

"Just in case." Dad reached over and tugged the brim of Caleb's Eagles cap down over his eyes. "That's the whole job, buddy. Just in case."

Caleb pushed the cap back up. He looked at his dad. He looked at his mom. Then he said it.

"Dad. Is Santa real?"

Mom stopped putting the lid on the pierogi.

Dad didn't laugh, and he didn't say of course he is in the fake cheery voice grown ups use for things like shots at the doctor. He crouched down so his eyes were level with Caleb's, the way he did when something mattered.

"What brought this on?"

"Dominic Ruggiero says it's just parents. He says his brother found the receipts."

Dad nodded. He had the same look he got when a neighbor told him about a broken car window. Like he was taking a report.

"Receipts," he said. "Okay. That's evidence."

Caleb's stomach dropped into his socks. "So it's true?"

"I didn't say that. I said it's evidence." Dad held up one finger. "You know what eleven years of being a cop taught me? People will tell you all kinds of things. Some of it's true and some of it isn't, and the only way to know for sure is to look for yourself. Don't make up your mind until you've checked it out."

"How am I supposed to check out Santa?"

Dad stood up and grinned, and Caleb could tell he wasn't going to get a straight answer.

"I'll be home at seven tomorrow morning. Seven sharp. Save me a cinnamon roll." He kissed Mom, took the giant thermos, and pointed at Caleb from the doorway. "Good luck, detective."

The door shut. The car started. The headlights swept across the kitchen wall and were gone.

Caleb stood very still in the middle of the kitchen.

Look for yourself.

Mom was watching him with a funny little smile. "You've got a look on your face."

"I'm thinking," Caleb said, and he went upstairs to get his notebook.

It was a red spiral notebook he'd gotten for school and never used, because writing about the water cycle was boring and this was not. On the first page, in his best capital letters, he wrote:

OPERATION: FIND OUT

Then he drew a line down the middle. On the left side he wrote SANTA IS REAL. On the right side he wrote SANTA IS PARENTS.

He chewed on his pencil and started with the left side.

1. The presents from Santa have tags in handwriting that is not Mom's or Dad's. He knew this for sure. Mom wrote in loopy cursive. Dad wrote like a chicken had stepped in ink. Santa's tags were neat and tall and a little bit fancy.

2. The cookies are always gone. Even the oatmeal raisin. Nobody in the Marchuk house ate oatmeal raisin cookies. Nobody. Mom said raisins were just grapes that had given up. And still, every Christmas morning, the oatmeal raisin cookie was gone, with only crumbs left.

3. Grandpa says he saw Santa once in 1979. Caleb looked at that one for a while. Grandpa also said he once caught a catfish the size of a canoe in the Neshaminy Creek. He put a little question mark next to number three.

Then the right side.

1. Receipts. (Dominic's brother.)

2. Our fireplace is GAS. It turns on with a switch. There's a metal box in the chimney. How would anybody fit?

Caleb looked at both columns. Three on one side, two on the other. But one of the three was Grandpa's catfish story, so really it was a tie, and a tie didn't help anybody.

So he turned the page and wrote THE PLAN.

The plan took him two hours.

First, he went down to the basement and found Dad's tackle box. Inside, under the rubber worms and the little lead weights, was a spool of clear fishing line. Caleb cut a long piece of it. He tied one end to the jingle bell from last year's stocking, the one that had fallen off, and the other end to the bottom of his stocking, which hung from a hook on the mantel. Then he hid the bell behind the little ceramic snowman that sat at the end of the mantel.

He tested it. He tugged the stocking, just a little.

Jingle.

Perfect. If anybody touched that stocking tonight, Caleb would hear it.

Second, he got the flour.

This was the part he was most proud of, and also the part he was most worried about. He took the big canister from the pantry and a sifter, and very carefully, he sprinkled a thin white layer of flour all over the hearth in front of the fireplace. Not a lot. Just enough. If anybody stepped there in the night, they would leave a footprint. A boot print would be big and wide. A slipper print would mean Mom. A sock print with a hole in the big toe would mean Dad, because Dad's socks always had a hole in the big toe.

He was sprinkling the last corner when he heard Mom behind him.

"Caleb James Marchuk. What is that."

He froze with the sifter in the air. "Science."

Mom looked at the flour. She looked at the fishing line, which she could definitely see. She looked at the notebook on the couch, open to the page that said SANTA IS PARENTS, and Caleb's ears went hot.

But she didn't get mad. She folded her arms and tilted her head, like she was deciding something.

"You're vacuuming that up tomorrow," she said.

"Deal."

"And whatever you find out," she said, softer, "you'll tell me?"

"Only if it's real evidence," said Caleb.

"That's fair." She went back to the kitchen, and he was almost sure she was smiling.

Third: the plate.

Caleb put out exactly six chocolate chip cookies on Grandma's good Christmas plate, the one with holly around the edge. He counted them twice. Then, for science, he added one oatmeal raisin cookie from the box Aunt Diane had brought over, which nobody had touched. He wrote in his notebook: 6 chocolate chip. 1 oatmeal raisin. 1 glass of milk, full to the line on the glass. He drew a little picture of the plate so he would remember exactly where each cookie was.

Fourth: carrots. He washed and set out eight carrots in a row on a paper towel by the back door. Then he thought about it and added one more, a little skinny one.

Just in case Rudolph came too.

Fifth, and last: he took the big flashlight from the junk drawer, tested it, and put it under his pillow.

He was not going to sleep. He was going to stay awake all night, and he was going to find out.

At nine thirty, Mom tucked him in, kissed his forehead, and turned off the light. "Merry Christmas Eve, detective," she said.

"Merry Christmas Eve."

When she was gone, Caleb got up again and went to his window.

His bedroom looked out over Juniper Court, the little curved street where he had lived his whole life. When he was small, Juniper Court had been the brightest street in all of Feasterville. People used to drive over from Trevose and Langhorne just to see it. They drove slowly with their windows down, and little kids pressed their faces to the glass. The Delgados used to have a light show that blinked in time to music on the radio. The Hendersons had twelve giant blow up decorations, including a snowman as tall as the garage. And across the street, Mrs. Kowalczyk had the best lights of all: white candles in every single window, and red and green bulbs all the way around her porch, and a big wreath with a gold bow on her front door.

This year was different.

The Delgados had moved to Florida in the summer, and the new family hadn't put up anything at all. The Hendersons' big snowman had sprung a leak and now lay on the lawn in a flat, sad puddle of white plastic, like a giant marshmallow somebody had sat on. A few houses had a string of lights here and there. Most were just dark.

And Mrs. Kowalczyk's house was the darkest of all.

Caleb knew why. Mrs. K had slipped on her icy steps in November and broken her wrist, and she couldn't climb a ladder with a cast on her arm. And her grandkids, who always came from Ohio for Christmas, couldn't make the trip this year. Mom had brought her a tin of cookies that afternoon. When she came back, she'd been very quiet.

There was one light on in Mrs. K's front window. Just one. Caleb could see the shape of her in her armchair, all by herself, watching TV.

He didn't like looking at it. It made his stomach feel funny. He pulled the curtain almost closed, left a crack so he could see out, and got back in bed.

Then he waited.

The numbers on his clock glowed red.

10:14.

He thought about receipts.

10:39.

He thought about the oatmeal raisin cookie.

10:51.

Outside his window, through the little crack in the curtain, the first snowflakes of the night began to fall. Not the slushy kind that Feasterville usually got, the kind that turned the sidewalks gray and wet. Real snow. Big, slow, fat flakes that floated down past the streetlight and stuck to the cars.

Caleb pulled the flashlight out from under his pillow and held it against his chest, just to be ready.

"Okay," he whispered to the window, to the snow, to whoever might be listening. "If you're real, I'm going to find out."

Nothing answered. The snow kept falling. Somewhere downstairs, the furnace clicked on with a soft hum.

Caleb did not know it yet, but far away at the top of the world, Santa Claus had already set out on the strangest Christmas Eve of his whole long life.

And it had all started, hours earlier, with a very big grin and a very big idea.