Noah slogged his way up the hill through the snowy woods. An opening in the trees had led him into a sort of track or road. Prints of tires in the snow showed it had been used recently, since yesterday's blizzard. It was easier walking in the prints than in the deeper snow between the trees, and he hoped a road like this would lead to the village. He really didn't want to go back to the highway, where those people might catch up with him.

But the road kept going upwards. He reached a place where it veered away to the right, the opposite direction from where he thought the village must be. The tire-marks headed off to the left there. That was interesting; maybe there was another way down to the village, though it looked too narrow to be a proper road.

He followed the tire-tracks and discovered a truck pulled off to the side in a place where a thick growth of trees and bushes hid it from view. He was almost on top of it before he saw it.

It was a battered old pickup with a lot of stickers on the windows and the bumpers. Some were NRA, which wasn't unusual around there, but always made Noah uncomfortable because his parents didn't like it. They said the NRA was responsible for more preventable deaths than any other organization in the country, barring the military, and that their influence on lawmakers at all levels of government was one of the biggest scandals in the country, too.

A big, new-looking sticker said, "Stop the War on Christmas!" He'd never seen that one before. What did it mean? Did someone want a war stopped just on Christmas Day but not on any other? Noah tried to think what war it could be talking about. It didn't make sense.

Then he noticed a sticker in the side window, and felt his face go hot with anger: "Lick Lyin' Lyman." That had been a campaign slogan in the last election. He absolutely hated it. His father was not a liar! He never told lies. A lot of commentators on what his parents called Fox Noise had said he was, though; had said there was a big left-wing media conspiracy, and even a video that had been made years ago right here in the village had been photo-shopped to make Noah's dad look like a hero when he wasn't. Noah was quite certain that his dad was a hero. They were the liars. He hated them.

He shouldn't have wasted time looking at the stickers. He needed to get away from there and get to the village and Cat. There were boot-prints going up the hillside away from the truck. He took a few steps after them, thinking the track might go over a rise and then turn down to the village, but he didn't get far before he stopped.

Something about the idea of following those tracks was making the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Suddenly he felt cold, and very much aware of all the sounds around him that he hadn't noticed before: creaking sounds, and cracking ones, and then a sharp, snapping noise. They might have been caused by little animals moving about, or the wind-there was a very slight one-moving frozen branches and breaking off twigs. Noah didn't like them, though. It occurred to him that he was alone in the woods with no one else nearby except someone who loved guns and didn't like his father.

Moving as quietly as he could-which wasn't very-he walked back towards the main track. As he passed the hidden truck, he saw another trail he hadn't noticed before, one that ran roughly in the same direction as the one he was on-east-but downhill instead of up. There were bootprints on that, too, but they were going the other way; someone had walked up there, and hadn't gone down again.

The snow was deep, over the tops of Noah's boots. It was going to be a struggle to get down there, but following that trail felt like the right thing to do. Stepping in the prints whenever he could, Noah plunged on down the hill.

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About ten minutes before the Jag came to grief, Max had turned off the main highway onto a secondary one that was the shortest route into town. One of the things he cursed about as he and Sabrina trudged along was the absence of any fast food outlets or gas stations along this stretch of road. They were all up on the main highway, and there was nowhere at all for a ruined car's owners to take refuge until they crossed the bridge over the river and came to the town dock.

There was a restaurant there that Sabrina had always despised, although it was clean and bright, had a terrific view of the harbor, and served food that the townspeople and most tourists thoroughly enjoyed. On any other day, she would have shuddered at the thought of eating there, but she made no protest now as Max steered her towards it. Her spirits actually lifted when she saw its brightly-lit windows, and realized it was open. In all the years she'd been coming to this town, the Salty Dog tavern had never looked so good to her as it did now.

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The path Noah had taken was the right choice. Twenty minutes later, he was hurrying down Hill Street toward the park. As he crossed the road, he saw to his relief that Cat was still there, dancing from foot to foot, her arms wrapped around herself as if she was cold. Noah waved his own arms wildly, and started to run.

"Cat!"

"Noah!"

She ran, too. Then they stopped and looked each other over, suddenly almost shy.

Her dark hair under her pink-and-purple pom-pom hat was longer than he remembered. It curled up at the ends in a very un-pirate-like way. Her face seemed to have changed its shape somehow, and her brown cheeks were flushed with pink. Over them her eyes shone at him brightly. It suddenly struck him that she was pretty. He'd only ever thought that about his mother before, never a girl his own age. It made him feel awkward, as if he didn't know what to do with this new piece of information about his best friend.

His curly hair was shorter than the last time she'd seen him. Otherwise he looked just the same, except that his smile seemed more hesitant than usual. Wasn't he glad to see her? Cat had never been so glad to see anyone in her life. She had no idea why her stomach suddenly tightened, and her breathing went funny. This was Noah, her fellow-pirate and best friend. Wasn't it?

She shivered. And then Noah was talking, and his voice sounded just like himself, the same as ever.

"I've got something for you." And he was holding something out to her, and she was taking it, and it was her book. Her beloved Swallows and Amazons, that Mrs. Maxwell had snatched from her that morning. There was no mistaking that patched-together cover. But how had he got it?

He was grinning more widely now. Her heart leapt up when she saw the familiar dimples peeping out.

"How-where-?"

"I'll tell you all about it. I've got something else for you, too. If it hasn't broken; I hope it hasn't broken. It's in my pocket, and I went over the car seat and landed on that lady's lap and she grabbed for me and I had to get out of the car so fast I didn't remember to be careful of it. . . ."

His words were running together the way they always did when he was excited. Yes, this was Noah, not changed in any way that mattered. Cat beamed at him.

"I've got something for you, too." And then she shivered again.

Noah had worked hard on his hike, and had gotten so warm that even without his coat or hat he wasn't cold yet himself, but he didn't like to see Cat shivering like that.

"Come on," he said, "let's go somewhere and get warm."

And he put out his hand, the way he always had, and Cat took it, the way she'd been doing for years. Noah's family was a demonstrative one; he'd grown up holding hands and seeing hands held, and it had always been natural for him to take Sally's hand, or Cat's, when he wanted to steer them someplace. It felt a little different to both of them this time, but neither of them said anything about it, and after a minute the strange feeling left and they both were comfortable again.

"Where to?" she asked.

"The bakery. I've got some money I had left over from my birthday."

"Doubloons?"

His grin got wider.

"Gold moidores. I've got to get Sally some gingerbread, too, but there's plenty."

The bakery was toasty warm. Cat felt better once her hands were wrapped around a big paper cup of hot chocolate, and her pockets were full of warm gingerbread. She wiped some crumbs from her mouth-she'd already devoured one ginger lighthouse and a snowman-and realized something.

"Noah," she said, "where's the rest of your family?"

"It's kind of a long story."

"But-what about your agents? We couldn't do anything this summer because they were always there with you. Where are they now?"

"I got rid of them. Look, Cat, I've just thought-maybe this isn't the best place for us to be. Too many people are coming in; if someone recognizes me, they'll call my parents, and the agents will come for me and I'll have to go home. Let's find somewhere else where there aren't so many people."

"Back to the park?"

"Too cold."

"What about the library?"

"Perfect."

The library had always been one of Noah's and Cat's favorite places to meet, when they weren't playing on the beach. Not every small town had one, but Crabapple Cove had been a prosperous place a century ago, and Carnegie funds had helped. It had been on the brink of closing several times, but some of the town's wealthy summer community had taken an interest in it-not everyone was like the Maxwells-and it still served a number of villages along the coast.

A few years ago the librarians had followed a national trend and posted signs saying that food and drink were welcome. The librarian was helping an elderly man check out a large pile of books and videos, and get them bundled into his shopping bag. When the police talked to her later, she said she'd had no idea the President's son had been there; she'd never seen him come in.

The children spent a very happy hour stretched out by the fireplace, eating gingerbread and drinking their hot chocolate and catching up. Cat needed to hear all about how Noah had escaped from the Secret Service and how he came to have her book. Noah needed to find out why her book had been in the Jaguar, and who the crazy people were that he'd unintentionally hitched a ride with. And then there were their gifts to exchange.

Cat's was a small picture of a sailboat. She'd drawn and colored it herself, and framed it with popsicle sticks that she'd glued together and painted. She was good at drawing; Noah was impressed.

"I put Amazon on the end of the boat," she pointed out.

"It's really great." He was grinning in a way that meant something, but she didn't know what. "Open yours now."

She laughed when she unwrapped it. They'd both had the same idea, only Noah, who couldn't draw to save his life, had built Cat a model sailboat out of Lego. He'd gone through all his sets and taken some of his favorite spaceships apart to get the special pieces that would make it look right, so the hull actually curved smoothly, without the usual jagged Lego edges, and there was a mast and sail. He had wrapped it very carefully in tissues and a small cardboard box, and then wrapped that in Christmas wrap, and even tied a ribbon round it. Miraculously, the only thing that had broken off was the mast, which he was able to re-position quite easily.

"It's amazing," she said. "And you've written Amazon on the end, too!"

"The stern," he reminded her.

"How did you get the letters to stick?"

"Nail polish. I borrowed some of my mother's."

They grinned at each other happily. Beside them the fire danced. One of the richer supporters of the library, who liked to bring her grandchildren there when she came at Thanksgiving and Christmas, had paid to have a gas unit installed in the old fireplace so the room would be cozy in cold weather. She had never imagined that the son of the President of the United States and the daughter of an Hispanic domestic would spend one of the happiest hours of their lives talking and laughing quietly beside it-but since she was no Republican, she would have been delighted.

"But Noah," Cat finally said, "what are we going to do next summer? You can't pull that one off again. It wouldn't work a second time, and besides, there won't be any snow to sled on then."

Noah frowned. He hadn't thought about that. It was a good point.

"I'll think of something," he promised.

"And how are you going to get home now? You've got to get back before dinnertime, don't you?"

He hadn't thought about that, either. His plan had been to hitch a ride into the village with the agents, slip out of the car while they were in Starbucks and the grocery store, and then get back in it again before they drove home, which he'd assumed would be well before his mother called him to dinner.

There had been some loose ends in that scheme that he hadn't really given much thought to, such as how he would know when to get into the car and when the agents were going to leave, and what he would do if they didn't go back to the lighthouse before his mother went looking for him-but now he didn't have a car to get back into at all. That was a problem.

He could, of course, call home and ask someone to come and get him, but he still wanted to keep this whole adventure a secret. He really didn't want the agents to find out what he'd done-or his parents, either. He didn't want his mother to worry. And if his father ever found out . . . Noah squirmed a little at the thought of what he'd say. That was another of those things he hadn't thought about very carefully, though in this case he hadn't forgotten to think about it so much as he'd deliberately shut the thought out.

Cat saw his forehead scrunch up, and guessed what he was thinking.

"Maybe my mother can take you back," she suggested. "I'm supposed to call her soon, anyway."

Noah's face cleared.

"Great!" he said, cheerfully. "But there's something I've got to do first. I promised Sally I'd give her wish-list to Santa. She still believes in him, you know."

Cat smiled. She didn't know Sally very well but she liked what she knew of her, and she liked that Noah looked after her and remembered what he'd promised her.

"Okay," she said. "Let's go."

The librarian was busy at her desk, getting ready to close up. She was eager to get home. There had been a considerable debate about whether to keep the library open on Christmas Eve or not, but the committee had felt it would be a nice gift to the community, and she'd come in. There had actually been quite a few patrons through earlier in the day, so she didn't begrudge the time-but she didn't want to stay any later than she had to, either.

She looked up as she heard the children walk by. All she saw was the backs of a boy and a girl walking out together.

"Merry Christmas!" she called after them.

"Merry Christmas!" they called back.

On the steps outside, Cat paused and looked at Noah critically, then pulled off her hat and handed it to him.

"Here," she said. "Put this on. Pull it down over your forehead, and pull your scarf up over your mouth. That way people won't know it's you."

Noah nodded.

"Thanks," he said, and even though the hat was pink and purple, he put it on and pulled it down as low as it would go.

There was no point in getting caught now, and there did seem to be an unusual number of police cars out, cruising up and down the street and circling the square.

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High up in his look-out over the village, Reggie Morton looked at his watch. It would be dark in half an hour. A wave of disappointment, frustration, and anger swept over him.

Goddammit, it wasn't supposed to have been like this. They came this time every year. Every year. He'd read it on the internet, checked it out in a bunch of different places. He'd come days early, just in case, but he hadn't been discouraged when he didn't get his chance then. Today was supposed to be the day. Could he have missed something when he drove out to the gas station for that coffee and chaw a coupla hours ago? But he'd only been gone a few minutes. Surely he couldna missed the varmint then.

Goddammit, Goddammit, Goddammit. . . .

He was shaking with rage and cold. That would never do. He still had half an hour, after all. Maybe he'd better take another slug to warm himself up and calm his nerves.

His hand shook as he opened his flask, but it steadied as the heat coursed down his throat and through his veins. He picked up his binoculars again.

That varmint had better show up. He was the best shot in Chattahoochee County. It was Christmas, and someone had to save it.

To be cont'd. . . .