The last week before Christmas was a hectic one. A snow storm left Danville cloaked in a thick white mantle. At school, with exams over, all the kids were in fit of Christmas spirits and anxious for the holidays to begin. As a result, the teachers mostly gave up trying to keep their classes in order and allowed the their charges free reign to do what they wanted, so long as they kept things to a dull roar, which left Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda free to talk in the back of the class. They mostly just chattered and laughed and traded inside jokes about the various scrapes they had gotten into and out of together while the snow fell thickly out the classroom windows and gathered into snow drifts, which were piled against the side of the building.

Two days before the Christmas holidays were suppose to start, Principle Milder came over the school's public address system. "Hello? Hello?" she asked, "is anybody listening? Is this thing actually on? Yeah? It is? OK. Due to the inclement weather we have taken the decision to close the school early and-," the rest of whatever Principle Milder was trying to say was lost in the scramble of bodies and stamp of feet as everyone made for the door.

"I'll meet you guys outside," said Milo, as he, Zack, Melissa and Amanda fought their way through the press of bodies filling the corridors. Milo eventually made his way up to his locker on the third floor. He opened his locker and proceeded to pull on his heavy snow suit, hat and gloves. He put his feet into his winter boots, triple knotted the laces and walked downstairs to where Zack, Melissa and Amanda were waiting for him. He stopped just inside the doors, pulled his traction spikes out of his backpack and slipped them on over his boots. Milo pushed open the door and stepped out side. As soon as he stepped outside, Milo was hit with a blast of icy wind. It seemed to go through him as if he had nothing on. He pulled down the ear flaps of his trapper's hat, knotted the cord tightly under his chin and set off with Zack, Melissa and Amanda trailing behind him. The snow was still accumulating and only came up to just above Milo's ankles. As a result, walking wasn't too bad, but the roads hadn't been plowed yet, and there was enough accumulated snow to shut down the city transit system and the four of them mutually decided it would be best to wait out the storm at Milo's house. The walk from the school, which normally took fifteen to twenty minutes in good weather took at least half an hour. By the time they arrived at Milo's front door, their winter clothing was soaked through and they were all freezing. Milo's hands were numb as he awkwardly turned the door knob, which came off in his hand, as he pushed open the front door and Zack, Melissa and Amanda piled in behind him on to the door mat.

Diogee barked happily at the sound of his hapless master's arrival and gambolled around Milo and his friends as they shrugged off their sodden winter clothing. A second later, Brigitte and Sara emerged from the kitchen, drawn by the mixed sounds of Diogee barking and Milo, Zack, Melissa and Amanda talking. "Oh hi, kids," said Brigitte.

"Hi, Mom," said Milo. He was red faced from having been out the frigid weather. He pulled off his spikes and left them on the rubber mat by the front door to dry. No sooner had he sat down on the stairs to untie his boot laces, than the stairs gave way and Milo fell over backwards through the stairs and into the basement.

"Are you OK, little bro?" asked Sara, staring down through the hole in the stairs.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Sara," replied Milo. He lay spread eagled on his back. His backpack and a pile of boxes had cushioned his fall. Milo levered himself upright and clambered out of the pile of boxes. He walked over to the basement stairs. Milo put his foot on the bottom most step and it broke. He put a foot on the next step after that, and it broke too. The third step held his weight and Milo carefully walked upstairs. He got the the top of the basement stairs, pushed open the door and walked back down the hall to the front door where he pulled off his boots and snow suit. Milo left his boots to dry on the mat by the door next to his spikes and hung up his snow suit in the laundry room to dry along with everyone else's winter clothing. When he was done, Milo followed the sound of the babble of voices into the living room.

He pushed open the living room door and found Martin, with a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and a Christmas ornament in the other, standing in front of a large spruce tree. Amanda was sorting the boxes of ornaments by size, shape and colour and Zack and Melissa were trying to untangle the Christmas lights.

"Oh, hi Milo," said Martin.

"Hi, Dad," replied Milo.

"Did you fall through the floor into the basement again?" asked Martin.

"Yep," replied Milo.

Martin hung the brightly coloured Christmas ornament on the end of a long, deep green spruce bough and a took a sip of his hot chocolate.

"Milo, can you give us a hand untangling these Christmas lights," called Zack over his shoulder. He held up a snarled tangle of multicoloured lights.

"Oh sure thing, Zack," said Milo. He crossed the room in a couple of strides and together with Zack and Melissa, set about untangling the several snarled green cords. After ten minutes the three of them managed to separate five or six strings of various lengths and colours. Milo took one and plugged it in. The lights in the house flickered a couple of times and went out. "Hmmmm," said Milo thoughtfully, "must have blown a fuse. Be right back."

Milo rooted through his backpack and pulled out a headlight. He flicked it on, put it over his forehead and walked out of the room. He walked down the hall and opened the basement door. He put his foot on the top step and he was suddenly in free fall as the entire stair case collapsed. Milo landed with a hard thud on the basement floor, feeling the jarring impact momentarily compressing his spine. "Oh c'mon!" he muttered, "it's Christmas." Milo quickly checked himself, then got to his feet. He looked around and quickly found the fuse box next the furnace. He extracted his tool kit from his backpack, pried off the cover and examined the interior. Sure enough the main circuit breaker had been tripped. Milo made a couple of adjustments and flipped a switch. He heard a metallic click and the lights came back on a second or two later. Whistling causally, Milo put away his tools and walked over to where the basement stairs had been. He unfolded his collapsible ladder and climbed back up to join his family and friends.

"Basement stairs collapse again?" asked Martin when Milo returned to the living room.

"Yep," replied Milo.

The storm didn't blow itself out until early the next morning. As a result, Zack, Melissa and Amanda spent the night, which bothered the four of them not in the least. Milo loaned his friends spare pajamas and sleeping bags, but none of them slept. They stayed up until well past three in the morning, laughing, talking and playing three long distance games of Skiddley Whiffers and Lard World with Reggie via Skype. When the four of them casually traipsed downstairs and walked, yawning, into the kitchen the next morning, they found Sara standing at the kitchen counter flipping pancakes. "Morning little bro," said Sara brightly.

"Oh, morning Sara," said Milo, suppressing a yawn. He walked around to the far end of the kitchen table, where Brigitte was spreading cream cheese on a toasted bagel and studying a set of architectural drawings. Milo bent down and gave his mother a kiss. "Morning, Mom."

"Morning kids," said Brigitte to the kitchen at large.

"Morning Mrs. Murphy," chorused Milo's friends.

At the same moment, the door from the kitchen into the living room banged open and Doof came through followed by Perry and Cavenpuss. Evidently the bitterly cold weather had driven them out of Doof's shed in the backyard and they had spent the night on the pull out bed in the living room. The three of them appeared to be in the middle of some kind of heated argument.

Heinz was shaking his head. "There is too much quantum flux if you do it that way," he was saying, "the math, your math, by the way, said that the quantum flux would have a variance no more than 0.3, and now you're telling me that the quantum flux has a variance of 0.6!" The round shouldered scientist threw up his hands. "Your math is either right or its wrong, Cavenpuss. It can't be both."

Cavenpuss thought for what seemed like a long moment, then said, "the mathematical model is sound, Heinz-,"

Doof interjected with a triumphant, "aha!"

Cavenpuss ignored him and kept talking, "-it simply needs to be fine tuned, which I have explained to you twice."

Milo was standing at the kitchen counter mixing four cups of hot chocolate for himself and his friends. He had been listening to Doof arguing with Cavenpuss and, not wanting anything to spoil the good mood filling the kitchen, decided to mix two more for Perry and Cavenpuss. Doof was nursing a cup of coffee. He took two more mugs out of the kitchen cupboard, one of which cracked in his hand. He put it aside and took out a third one, opened two more packets of hot chocolate mix, added hot water and handed them to the platypus and his companion. Perry accepted the steaming mug with a tip of his fedora and a chittered thanks. Cavenpuss took the mug of hot chocolate from Milo with a polite nod of thanks for the hapless teenager and a sardonic look for the scientist.

"Finally," he said, "some civilized treatment."