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"Happy Dece so hard, and I’ to be a real push to finish in tiet it done, just like we do every year Have a great tiame on!" Everyone claps and Papa looks around the crowd "Where’sto the troops"

It’s the last thing I want, but the elves pull me forward and deposit me next to Papa, who puts his arm aroundand proud I wipe at the stains for my dress is the sa, Natty"

What ahter "Um, merry Christnals to the elf band, who launch into a rousing rendition of "Last Christ The elves all think it’s Elvis’s version of "Santa Claus Is Co to Town," but I know the truth Papa loves Wha my hand in his He leads me in a foxtrot, and I dous, feeling sorry forwith my dad and not an actual date "I bet your dance card’s been full all night Natty, tellI want, because it’s the one thing he can’t give ht about it," I lie

Papa giveslook and pats me on the shoulder before he twirls me You’d think I’d know better than to lie to Santa Claus "Dearest one, if you believe, I think you will get exactly what you want"

I want to believe I want so badly to believe

There are two kinds of children The kind who believe and the kind who don’t Every year, it seems there are fewer in the world who do Papa says it’s not an easy thing to ask a child to believe in what they can’t see; he says it’s its own ic inside you, you should protect it all your life and never let it go, because once it’s gone, it’s gone forever

After the song is over, Papa wishes everyone a good night and goes back to his office I want to follow hio over his Naughty or Nice lists But I don’t go, I stay in the Great Hall and sway to lides up beside me and says she likes my dress, which I know she doesn’t, but I say thank you anyway because she’s only trying to be kind At least I’-elf video ga department, complete with nonslip dance pad At first it was a joke, but then they all got really into it, and now it looks like it ht end up under a few kids’ Christmas trees

But then Roan, a puppeteer elf, asks Sondrine to dance, and she skips off with hi from pointy ear to pointy ear When I was little, I used to tape et the again

At lunch in the workshop last week, Elinor askedto the Snow Ball with, Natty?"

There was a long silence And then I said, "No one"

"Oh," she said, and there was so much pity in that one little word I couldn’t stand it

I sed a bite ofin this boy I knoho lives in Sweden, but--"

"Who do you know that lives in Sweden?" she asked

When I told her the story of yellow-haired Lars and the Swedish candy, her eyes got that squinched look they get when she doesn’t believe you "H