And there was another time, when we went to Mr. Saintpatrick's house. Laura's mom never let us visit Mr. Saintpatrick's. She said we shouldn't go to stranger's houses. But I saw them talking once, and they waved at each other a lot, so I guess he wasn't a stranger, really.
That afternoon, we only went into his house because Amber had slipped on the gravel in front of his house. We were running away from this kidnapper who kept driving by getting ready to steal us, and we turned around the corner in front of Mr. Saintpatrick's house and Amber bought the farm. She scratched up her whole body, and the kidnapper was still chasing us in his car, so I knocked on Mr. Saintpatrick's door.
He looked scared when he opened the door; I think I knocked really hard. He looked both ways while he asked me what I wanted. I explained the situation to him and pointed to Amber limping up the sidewalk. When he saw her, he didn't look so scared anymore. He told me to go inside and call Laura's mom, to tell her to come as fast as possible. She said she'd be right over and to not let him feed us anything, but I forgot that part, because when I got off the phone, I saw Amber on the couch and Mr. Saintpatrick was taking off her coat. He wasn't doing anything dirty. He just put bandaids on all of her scratches, and told her he'd make her some chocolate milk with his secret recipe to make her bruises go away. He made some for me and Laura too.
We sat on the couch next to the patient, and he stood by the fireplace with his back to the fire. Across from the fireplace, the news was playing really quiet on his TV. He looked scary with his face flashing colors in the TV light, but when he turned to stoke the fire, he looked a lot like my Grandpa. He had a belly and eyebrows like my grandpa, so I felt safe. He asked us about school, and riding bikes, and did we like our chocolate milk. We forgot about the kidnappers pretty soon. He sat down in a rocking chair next to the fire, and finished his chocolate milk that he was drinking out of a metal bottle with a very short neck.
Amber asked him to tell us a story. He told us about when he was a kid and his uncle taught him how to make it snow. Laura didn't believe him, so she double-dared him to prove it. He laughed a big laugh, like Danny Kaye in White Christmas, and he went to the window and rubbed his chin at the clouds. He looked over his shoulder at us on the couch, and at the news. He smiled at the clouds for a few seconds, like he saw an old friend flying by, and then maybe he did see a friend, because he waved at the clouds a few times and he laughed again. He said to the window, loud enough for us to hear, "Just wait -- it'll snow tonight. It'll snow. Your mom is here now." He opened the door for her, and she thanked him for taking care of us and she almost died when she saw us drinking chocolate milk from a secret recipe. We walked home very fast and she squeezed my hand and Laura's hand really hard. I tried to get my hand away, but Laura's mom wouldn't let go. She was very nice to Amber that afternoon, but not me or Laura. She told us not to go into stranger's houses, and especially not Mr. Saintpatrick, because he was a bad man. I thought about her waving at him a lot when they talked, and him waving at her, and I couldn't understand. I thought about it all afternoon. We were having pancakes for dinner, so I forgot about him until the next morning. When I woke up I had to squint when I looked out the window, because the everything was so bright. There was snow on the lawn and the neighbor's roof, and there were tracks from the neighbor's car. Laura's mom might not like Mr. Saintpatrick, but I don't think he's bad. I don't think he's bad at all. I think he's a good man who knows a recipe for secret hot chocolate and I think he's a wizard who can make it snow.
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