“My intentions were good!”

  Soon, one hopes, a great, blood-colored hand whose fingers are tipped with claws will close about them and drag them down to Hell.

  So it may drag me; and mine were good, though I scorn to offer that in my defense. It is results that matter in this world and in every other. My good intentions brought innocent hearts pain that will not end. Each night, once, twice, sometimes three times in a night, I rise and dress and go out to see if they are there.

  They are not, but would be if they could—poor simple little beings whose torment I began. Do you understand?

  Of course not.

  How could you? I will explain everything in order, starting with Roberta.

  · · · ·

  Roberta belonged to the Robinsons, the couple who have the house one door west of mine. I first saw her one May morning walking to school, with her own little laptop in a shiny new bag, the picture of beauty, innocence (there is that word again) and blooming health. She was a ’bot, of course. Either the Robinsons could not have a child of their own, or were unwilling to undertake the travail and expense of a real child. I could not—I do not—blame them in the least. But I wondered, because I have never had much to do with such ’bots, about her schooling.

  So it was that I struck up a conversation with her one day when I happened to be walking in the same direction. I asked the inevitable, utterly banal question: “Do you like school?”

  And Roberta answered, “Oh, yes! It’s fun.”

  “Really? What’s your class studying?”

  “Oh, you know. The names of the letters and how each one sounds. The color wheel and watercolors. Arithmetic. Stranger danger.”

  “I’m no stranger,” I told her.

  “Of course you aren’t. You live next door.”

  “Exactly. And I’m not about to ask you to go anywhere with me or do anything, though I do enjoy talking to you.”

  “That’s good!” She smiled.

  “For me, at least. What do you get if you mix black and white?”

  “Grey if you mean paint. Brown if you mean people.”

  “I meant paint. Blue and yellow?”

  “Green.”

  “What’s the square root of two hundred and fifty-six?”

  “Sixteen.” She looked around at me with a charming little grin. “Only that’s not fair. It’s not first-grade work.”

  “Exactly. You must know everything the rest of your class—”

  “No, there are three of us.”

  “Is there to learn. So how can it be fun for you?”

  “Oh, it’s lots of fun!”

  “Is it really? What part do you like best.”

  “Tutoring. That’s where one of us takes a boy or girl who isn’t doing very well and tries to help him. Or her.” For a moment she looked serious and a little sad. “It’s nearly always a boy, because there are five boys and two girls besides us. Only what I like best is when it’s a girl like me. Sometimes I know I’ve really, truly helped. Helped her and helped Mrs. Morse, too. I like that a lot.”

  We had nearly reached the elementary school, so I said, “Well, I hope you get a girl today.”

  She said, “So do I! I hope I get Julianne!” and ran into the school.

  Not too long after that I met Julianne, and here I intruded. If I bore no guilt until now (though I think I did) I certainly bore it in that.

  I saw her shuffle sadly past our house on her way the Robinson’s, a small girl with a pinched face and long black braids. I saw her, too, on her way back home, and could not resist. I went out and walked more or less with her, trying to look as though I were enjoying the sunshine, and contrived to strike up a conversation. “Do you play with Roberta?”

  “Sure.” It was mumbled; I shall not mention the mumbling in the future. Everything Julianne said was mumbled.

  “It must be fun.”

  A sad nod. “She’s my best friend.”

  “Do you have many friends?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m know I can’t play with you the way another girl would, but I’m Roberta’s neighbor and I’d like to be your friend, too.” I introduced myself.

  “I’m Julianne.”

  I had been fairly certain of that already.

  She sighed. “My father’s a cook. We’re supposed to say chef. But he is. That’s why I’m Julianne. He fixes salads, mostly.”

  I said, “A good chef is a treasure among men.”

  “Mom says the money’s pretty good.”

  “No doubt the salads are, too.”

  “So I’m going to get another friend.” The small, pinched face seemed to brighten somewhat. “I’m going to get a puppy. Roberta’s going to have a puppy and I told Mom and Dad, so I’m getting one, too.”

  “’Beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of Man, without his vices.’ Lord Byron said that. I believe his dog was a Newfoundland. Do you know what breed you’ll be getting, Julianne?”

  “A robot. Roberta’s going to get a border terrier, though.” For a moment it almost seemed that Julianne smiled. “They can play with each other while we do.”

  It left me speechless. Or if I spoke, I do not recall what it was I said or why I said it.

  Perhaps I turned at some corner or other, or perhaps Julianne reached her home and went inside. I do not recall that either. I only know that I walked on, alone, filled with a tragic anger. Our gently curving streets offended me. Our neatly finished green lawns, more than half of them of artificial grass, offended me still more. I hated every house I saw; their fresh paint and absurd mixture of styles were more than sufficient to account for any amount of hatred.

  Yet I had another, better, reason. I hated then because there was scarcely one that housed two children, and that most housed none.

  Like my own.

  My kind had built a paradise, of which I was a part. A paradise for machines, in which the human race, though welcome, could not and did not thrive. In and around the filthy huts of the medieval peasants, children ran and shouted, laughed and wept, and no doubt received sturdy buffets when they made too much noise. There the family sang around a table we would scorn. There grandmothers recounted wild tales before the fire, tales full of bold boys who made good and honest country maidens who tricked evil dwarves like me.

  Tales that were full of life because the children were, and full of death, too, because each child had to learn that death is life’s shadow.

  Here—But I have gone on too long already.

  · · · ·

  A week passed before I spoke to either girl again. As often as I could I watched them out my windows or from my deck. Sometimes they waved to me, and when they did I took care to smile and wave in return.

  For the most part they did not.

  Roberta remained the perfection of childhood beauty. Julianne seemed always her sad, pinched self. This though once I heard her laugh, a sound every bit as unnatural as her playmate.

  The promised puppies appeared, Roberta’s first. It was small and wigglesome, brownish, reddish, and blackish. Both girls embraced and kissed it, Julianne shyly and Roberta often.

  Julianne received hers a week or two later. It was larger and seemed to be a caricature of a Dalmatian, white with over-regular black spots and too-large eyes. Perhaps I can best characterize it as resistibly cute, though both girls appeared to adore it. Roberta’s puppy played with it as he might have played with a ball or any other inanimate object. I doubt that he knew it was a counterfeit of his own species.

  Watching them, I meditated upon a plan. It is because of that plan and its result that I am writing this.

  First I seized an opportunity to speak to the girls together. Roberta’s puppy had penetrated the hedge that separates the Robinson’s back yard from our own. Both girls screamed, jumped up and down, and did little else. I quieted them, assured them that I would capture their small fugitive, and did so by tempting him with scraps of meat.

  He was a charming little creature when I held him at last, innocent as are the young of almost every animal, and friendly as are the young of a very few.

  I carried him back to the waiting girls, cautioned them against permitting him to escape again (fruitless cautions, as you shall read), and broached my plan. “Have you two ever thought of trading puppies for a few days? A friend and I did it (this was a lie) when I was a boy. He took mine for a week—maybe it was two, I can’t remember for sure—and I took his. We both had a lot of fun. We learned something, too.”

  Roberta asked, “Do you think our parents would let us?”

  “I don’t see why not, and certainly there could be no harm in asking.”

  She turned to Julianne. “Do you think you could give up Robber for a week if I gave you Rover?”

  Hesitantly, Julianne nodded.

  So it came to pass, even as I had planned. Julianne, the human girl, went home with Rover, the flesh-and-blood dog. Roberta, the blond robot girl, remained at home with Robber, the black-and-white robot dog.

  I thought it a great improvement, and would fearlessly have predicted that both dogs had found new homes.

  In which I was wholly wrong. A few days later, I met Julianne, and she had Robber once more. I petted him, and he wagged his tail and licked my hand.

  “He’s a nice dog,” Julianne said unnecessarily. “He won’t bite.”

  I said, “I didn’t imagine he would, but I’m surprised you didn’t keep Rover longer.”

  “I didn’t want to. I like Robber better.”

  “I see. Can you tell me why?”

  She shrugged and turned away. “He don’t mess the carpet.”

  After that I spoke with Roberta, and for once I did not contrive some supposedly accidental encounter. She was playing with Rover in her back yard, and I simply went to the hedge and told her I wanted to speak to her. After all my pretense, it was a great relief.

  “I’m going to pry, Roberta. I’m going to ask you about things that are none of my business. I hope you’ll answer.”

  She nodded.

  “But if you don’t, I’ll understand. You and Julianne were supposed to exchange dogs for week, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes, we were.”

  “But it ended after what? Three days?”

  “Two.” Roberta would not meet my eyes.

  “Was it you who called it off? Or Julianne?”

  “It was both of us.” I must have looked doubtful, because she added, “It really was. We were talking at recess, and we both started crying. I—I don’t know why she didn’t like Rover.”

  She seemed about to cry again. I kept my voice as soft as I could. “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Robber thinks he’s a real dog.” The words held a world of agony.

  “Does he?”

  “Yes! He’s—he’s a thing, but he thinks he’s a real dog.” She turned away and ran into her house.

  Glancing out my picture window a few days after that, I saw Dan and Tamara Robinson—and Roberta, too—roaming the neighborhood with flashlights. I went out and asked how I might help, and they explained that Rover was lost.

  “Or missing,” I said.

  I am not a brilliant man and this was not a brilliant idea, simply what proved to be a useful one. You see, I recalled the sentimental dog stories I had heard or read over the years. Lassie coming home, Grayfriars Bobby, and all the rest. I got Julianne’s address from Roberta, drove over there, and found Rover lying quietly by the side of the house, half hidden by shrubbery, under a window that I would guess was that of Julianne’s bedroom.

  God forgive me! I picked him up and carried him home.

  · · · ·

  That should be the end of my story, and I wish it were. Julianne and her mother came to the Robinsons’ the next day to get Robber, whom Roberta had found waiting for her when she left for school. During the weeks that followed, I saw him there twice, his dotted white coat plainly visible as he waited on the Robinsons’ porch.

  Twice, as I said. I have never seen him again. Julianne says they keep him chained up.

  Christmas Inn

  I’m June Christmas. My husband Julius and I own the Christmas Inn, an old hotel out in the country that we keep modernizing as we get the money. That Christmas, it didn’t look like we were going to get any, just deeper in debt. I kept telling myself it was good, because of breakfast.

  Felix is our cook and he handles lunch and dinner, usually without any help from me. But I do breakfast. When we have twenty or more guests, that’s a buffet, with lots of scrambled eggs, bacon, and sausage. Milk and coffee, and hot water for tea. Cold cereal. Bread and bagels for toast. You know.

  Before she was married, our daughter Mary would help. Then after the divorce, she helped again; but Mary had been taken from us a year ago. She was dead and gone, Julius said. Sometimes our son helped, mostly at the waffle iron. It’s hard to get him to do much.

  That Christmas, before the five of them came (the five who looked to all of us so much like four), it seemed the only breakfasts would be for Julius, Wyatt, and me.

  · · · ·

  Hi. My name’s Wyatt Christmas. Go ahead and laugh. People call me Whitey, mostly. Mom calls me Darlin’, like she can’t think of my name. Dad calls me The Snide Brat. Or Pimples. I get that sometimes, too. You can call me anythin’. Don’t matter to me.

  It started a couple days before Christmas. We were snowed in, and I mean snowed in good. There wasn’t one guest in the whole fuckin’ place. I liked it ’cause there wasn’t as much for me to do, only Dad kept pissin’ and moanin’ about no money comin’ in.

  As if much ever did.

  He told me to get out there and shovel the drive, and he didn’t give a damn whether it was snowin’ or not, by God get out there and shovel. He’s got a big, loud voice for such a little guy. So I got my coat and boots and the shovel, and out I went. With Dad yellin’ at me, it took about fifteen minutes.

  Was it snowin’? Jack, you never seen so much fuckin’ snow in your life. It was snowin’ so hard I was down off the porch and about to turn around and shovel the steps before it got through to me that there was a place in the drive that looked darker than it should have. Naturally, any dark was darker than it should’ve been. Everythin’ else was blind white. So I went to see, wadin’ through three feet of snow. That was my first big mistake.

  It was a big SUV, just sittin’ there. I’ve been tryin’ to remember if there were tire tracks behind it. I don’t think so, so either it had been there a while or somethin’ else. I know what else, only I’m not goin’ to say. You want to guess? Give it a shot.

  I went up to the driver’s side window and rapped it with the handle of my shovel, and said very polite, “Can I help you folks?” when he rolled it down. I’m the politest bastard you ever saw as long as there’s a chance of a tip.

  The big, square-faced guy behind the wheels said, “We are looking for Christmas.”

  “You’re here,” I told him. “Clean rooms and good food. Hikin’, cross-country skiin’, and huntin’ and fishin’ in season.”

  There was a dark lady in back that looked like she had a fever. She leaned up and touched my arm and said, “Have we come to the place? For Christmas?”

  If I’d known what was comin’, I’d have hit her with the shovel. But I said, “You bet. This’s the Christmas Inn. We’ve got Christmas decorations and all sorts of stuff you can send for presents. We’ll have carol singin’ and games, and the biggest tree in the county.” Dad couldn’t have done it better.

  “Dendrolatry?” That was the other woman, the big blonde.

  I thought it sounded good, so I said, “Sure.” Then I said, “If you folks’ll just pull up another hundred feet, I can help you up the steps—they’ll be slippery—and bring in your bags.”

  Even a big SUV ought to have trouble in three feet of snow, but that one didn’t. It rolled right up to the front door, practically floatin’ on the snow. I never did hear the engine start.

  · · · ·

  J. R. Christmas heard voices and the stamping of feet, and got behind the long desk between the fireplace and the grandfather clock as the doors opened.

  Andril and Dondel came in shoulder to shoulder; Andril was tall and stooped, with burning eyes. Dondel was tall, too, but wide. Red-faced in the cold, a big man who looked as if he might have played football in college.

  Erennide followed them, brushing snow from her green parka with rose-red gloves. (All four wore green parkas.) Erennide’s face seemed all big blue eyes and plump pink cheeks. Golden hair strayed from under her knit cap.

  After her, Nranda—smaller than Erennide, darker than Andril, and ready to solo on her first broom.

  The child came last. No one paid much attention to the child.

  · · · ·

  Julius R. Christmas is my name. June and I own this place. We’ve owned and run it for eight years, and have felt, both of us, that it would eventually be a highly profitable operation, one that would make us rich. I don’t for one moment doubt we’re right, but we’re right only if we can keep it. There’s a mortgage, a big one. People say (correctly, I believe) that banks never foreclose at Christmas, biding their time until January. I don’t know that I’ve ever dreaded anything quite as much as I dreaded January that day.

  We’re out-of-the-way, you see. To reach us, you exit the Interstate and drive a bit over three miles along back roads. Snow had made those roads almost impassible.

  Let me be frank. There are a lot of lonely men and women at Christmas. Good people, many of them. They have no families, or their families are far away. Some are alienated by long-standing quarrels. I could give details; some confide in me, but it’s better not to repeat those confidences. What are they to do for Christmas? Where can they go? Should they sit alone in some apartment, cut off from humanity, drinking and watching television? It’s a recipe for suicide.

  Our place offers a solution. They come by dozens, each alone in his or her car. They sit around the fires (we’ve seven fireplaces), drink hot buttered rum, and talk like old friends.