Later that day, the mist had melted and the sky was an unbroken sheet of bright gray that mirrored the gray of a frozen lake on which children were skating. Pirouettes and figure-eights trailed by multicolored scarves. Shrieking laughter, barking dogs, alarmed cries of beginners as they slipped and fell. From Pokey's bedroom window every flash of red could be Picky turning a corner on the ice. A door slammed shut at the house across from his as his neighbors left to join the fun. Pokey noticed the children wielding new mittens, a new baseball glove, a new teddy bear.
Pokey himself was still in his pajamas. He stepped away from the window and closed the curtains. On his bed, resting on a nest of festive papers that Picky had decided to throw away after all, was his lump of coal. "Well, coal," Pokey said more to himself than to his present. "You are my Christmas gift. So I have to make you last all year." He took a length of leftover ribbon and taped it onto the coal in the shape of a smile. Then he used scissors to cut some circles which he taped on to become eyes. And because there was still some ribbon left, he taped a bow to the top of the 'head'. Finished, he stepped back and smiled at his creation. The coal smiled back stoically with its crude ribbon mouth that was now more black than its original gold. Pokey scrunched wrapping paper around the coal and shoved it under his bed. He went downstairs to console himself on what was left of last night's Christmas dinner. He wouldn't think about the coal until later that night. It was past midnight. He was asleep at the time. Then a strange sensation befell his young body and caused him to toss and turn and eventually awaken. Staring up at the ceiling, he wondered why he was awake. It wasn't hunger, the usual culprit. He blinked away sleep and registered the eerie glow filtering into his room that he must have sensed through his closed eyelids. He rose slowly and silently, as he felt befitted this time of night, to look out the window. Street lamps reflecting off a fresh coating of snow. That quality of light turning bronze the newly painted snowscape of Onett. Still-falling flakes silently stippling under the margarine cones. Pokey pressed his hands against the cold glass and whispered, "Wow," impressed by the sight, then impressed by how his own voice punctuated the silence. There shall be sledding and snowmen and snowball fights tomorrow. He turned away from the window and decided that he was hungry after all. Fortunately, he prepared for just such occasions by maintaining a stockpile of junk food under his bed. Kneeling on the floor with his chin tilted against the mattress, Pokey rummaged under the bed with one hand, searching by feel. He clawed at a promising bag, but it flattened under his fingers. He crumpled it up and tossed it aside. When the next five wrappers he fished out yielded similar results, he crawled under the bed to see what had become of his snack collection. Pokey blinked, not believing his eyes. It was all gone! Nothing but crumbs and empty packages left. That's when he saw the bundle of festive paper that he wrapped his coal in. It was black with soot and likewise empty. Pokey squinted. In the dim light he could make out the soot that was everywhere under his bed. He wiggled out from beneath the bed and noticed spots of soot leading out of his room. There, on the carpet, two even rows of spots like footprints, as if some animal left incriminating evidence of its departure after raiding all of Pokey's junk food.
