Special Delivery by Ann M. Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

were standing on Paulie’s front porch, and Paulie and his mother were talking to them at the door.
    â€œWell, we’ll come back later,” said Nikki.
    But Mae said, “No. You know what? This one doesn’t have to be a secret.” And in a flash, she opened the car door and dashed along the walk to the porch.
    â€œHi, Paulie,” Nikki heard her sister say. “Happy Thanksgiving. This is from me and my family.”
    Nikki watched Paulie, who was indeed bald and was wearing pajamas and slippers, take the basket from Mae.
    â€œThanks!” he exclaimed. “Look, Mom.”
    Paulie’s mother turned to Mae. “Who are —” she started to ask.
    â€œJust a Thanksgiving elf!” Mae replied, and ran back to the car. She slid in next to Nikki and said, “Thanksgiving’s not even here and I feel like we already had a holiday.”
    On the drive home, Mae’s head drooped against Nikki’s shoulder. Before she fell asleep, she said, “Let’s do this again next year.”

There was nothing like New York City during the holidays. Allie was convinced of that. She had lived in New York for many years, and while she had grown tired of it and found that she was now happier in tiny Camden Falls, there were things she missed about the city, and one of them was the way the old town got dressed for the holidays. And Allie felt that it got dressed as surely as an actor put on a costume to play a role on the stage. Decorations — some brand-new and some decades old — were brought out, and slowly New York was transformed from a grimy gray labyrinth into a sparkling magical kingdom. A giant tree appeared in Rockefeller Center near the end of November, and by the beginning of December had been decorated with thousands of tiny lights and was heralded by two rows of twinkly angels. Allie found that if she squinted her eyes and looked at only the grand tree and the skaters on the rink below, she might be a visitor in Old England.
    Then, thought Allie, there was the enormous lighted snowflake that would be suspended above Fifth Avenue, and the blazing trees up and down Park Avenue, and another lighted tree at Lincoln Center, and the windows at Tiffany, Saks, and, best of all, Lord & Taylor. Each year she marveled at the way a single plain window could become a scene from a Victorian Christmas or a sleigh ride through the woods or the start of Santa’s enchanted flight around the world.
    On Wednesday afternoon, while Nikki and Tobias and Mae were delivering their baskets in Camden Falls, Allie was looking out the window of the apartment in Manhattan, drinking in the sights of the city as it put on its holiday garb. She hadn’t heard from Mrs. Prescott, and while she knew that this was actually a good thing, since it meant that the baby was staying put and growing bigger and healthier before the birth, she found that she felt, as Min would say, antsy. She couldn’t sit still. All she could think about were the baby and the mom and whether they would be okay and whether the parents would want their baby to be adopted after all and how bringing a baby home to Camden Falls would
really
feel. The thoughts tumbled around in Allie’s head until she was so antsy that she decided to take a walk. She checked to make sure her cell phone was on, set the ringer to the opening bars of “Jingle Bells,” turned the volume up high, and slipped the phone into an inside pocket of her coat. There. No matter where she went that afternoon or what she decided to do, she would hear her cell phone if Mrs. Prescott called with news.
    Allie left the apartment on 12 th Street, turned east, walked to Fifth Avenue, and then decided to walk all the way to Midtown. She could stay on Fifth Avenue, she told herself, or she could make detours. What did she have but time? She was crossing 23 rd Street and thinking about a children’s clothing store in the neighborhood that she