School would be getting out for Christmas in just under an hour. I had to wrap this up quickly, while still leaving enough details to keep the kids interested.

"So there we were," I said. "Someone stole all our presents. Right out from under our tree while we were sleeping! Who do you think it was?"

"Bad Santa!" a little girl shouted.

"The Grinch?" a boy piped up.

"That's what we thought," I said. "But it was even stranger than that . . ."

"Simon, wake up!" I prodded him until he began to move slowly and lazily.

"Mmmhh? Whaahh?" His eyes opened and he stared up at me. "Is it Christmas?"

"Yeah, but . . . our presents are gone."

"Oh, okay." He started to roll over and go back to sleep, but then it hit him. "WHAT?"

"The presents aren't there. And neither is Dash."

"You don't think he-"

"Pulled a Grinch on us? I wouldn't put it past him. Come on, we have to find those presents before everyone else wakes up and finds them gone!"

"I can't believe he'd do that!" Simon was furious. "After we were so nice to him and everything! Why would he steal our presents?"

"It's what he does," I said. "I guess people really don't change after all. He had us both fooled, buddy."

"Where do you suppose he hid the presents?"

I had to think about it. Dash wasn't big on hard work. Filling up a big sack with all the presents and then dragging it down the street would have been too much work, not to mention obvious. "I think they're still in the house somewhere. Someplace we'd never think to look for them."

We looked at each other, and in the same instant, we realized where he must be.

"The Secret Spot!"

We ran up the stairs as quietly as possible, so we wouldn't wake the rest of the family. I was hoping I could get this taken care of before they woke up and I had to explain where all the presents had gone. If Dash gave up the presents without a fight, I wouldn't call the cops on him, but somehow I doubted it would be that easy.

We found him trying to break into the Evidence Locker, to which I have the only key. The moment I saw him, I lost my cool. First he stole our Christmas presents, now he was trying to get into our most secret of secret places? No way! I rushed over, grabbed him by the shoulders, and slammed him into the wall. "You jerk!"

"Aaahh! What the heck, dude? I wasn't gonna take anything! I just wanted to see what you were hidin' in here!"

"What about what you're hiding? Where are the presents, Dash?"

"What?" The look on his face was completely blank.

"Yeah, where'd you hide 'em?" Simon piped up.

Dash wormed his way out of my grasp and stood aside. He was still in his pajamas, the ones he'd borrowed from me last night. "Why would you think I had your presents? I've been trying to find 'em myself, but they're nowhere to be found. I came up here and thought they might be locked up in this thing." He rattled the lock, but it held.

"I invited you into my house!" I said, trying to keep my voice down. It wasn't easy; I was really mad at him. "I let you make cookies with us! I slept in the same bed with you last night! And this is how you thank me? I thought we were friends!"

"I have no friends," Dash said, like he was bragging about it. "Shoulda known better, Teller. Give me what's mine and I'll clear out of here before your folks wake up. They don't have to know about this."

"Give you what's yours? Give back what you took and I won't call the cops!"

"I'm telling you, I didn't take your stupid presents! Where would I hide them, in my underwear? Some of those boxes were pretty big!"

"You hid them somewhere! Tell me where they are!"

"How can I tell you what I don't know?"

I looked into his eyes, and though I knew he would say anything to get out of trouble, somehow I knew he was telling the truth. "Well, if you didn't take them, where are they?"

"How should I know? They were there when I went to bed. They were gone when I woke up. Someone else took them."

"But who would do that?"

"You don't suppose there's really a Grinch, do you?" He wasn't joking.

"If we lived anywhere else," I said, "I'd say of course not. But stranger things have happened in Eerie."

Simon was frantically trying to get my attention. "Marshall! I know what to do!"

"What?" I turned to him.

"Check the camera! Whoever the thief is, we caught him live on video! All we have to do is rewind the tape and we'll find out who it is!"

"Simon, you're a genius! Guess you were right all along. I just hope we got a good shot of his face."

We went back downstairs and checked the camera. It was still running-it was an eight-hour tape. I hit REWIND and waited till it went all the way back to the beginning.

"Well, there's us," I said, "going to bed."

"And there," said Dash, "are the presents. All present and accounted for. Ha!" At our confused looks, he explained, "Present and accounted for? Present, presents? Get it?"

We didn't.

"Whatever."

I fast-forwarded it a bit, and suddenly there was static on the tape. When it cleared, everything looked normal. Except . . .

"There's more presents in the pile," said Simon. "See, he was here!"

"And the camera glitched just as he got here," I said, "proving that he can't be photographed."

"Will you two knock it off and find our present thief?" Dash grumbled. "Fast-forward."

So I did. I must have gone too far, because when I stopped it, the presents were gone. The time stamp in the corner said 02:15:04. I backed up to just after the glitch, and that time stamp was 00:12:22.

"So the thief came in sometime between midnight and two a. m.," I said. "Let's let it run for a bit and see if we can spot him."

The tape continued at normal speed. Nothing to see except the three of us sleeping. Then, at about 1:30, the front door opened.

"Here we go," I said, slowing down to frame-by-frame. "Let's get a look at you, Mr. Present Thief."

We watched the door open in extreme slow motion. Then we saw him.

"It's Seventies Guy," I said. "I've seen him all over town the last couple of days. What's he doing here?"

"Do you know who that is?" Simon asked.

"No. Why?"

"How did he get in, anyway?"

"I . . . might have told him where to find the spare key," said Dash.

I stopped the tape and looked at him. "Why?"

"I didn't know he would steal all our Christmas presents! I ran into him on the street. He asked me if I knew you, and I said yes. He seemed real excited about it. Asked me where you lived. So I told him."

"You told a complete stranger where I live?"

"I thought he knew you! Honestly, I wouldn't have told him if I thought he was gonna steal from you!"

"Right, that's your job," Simon quipped.

"Let's just watch the rest of this," I said. I restarted the tape.

The guy-thief or not-came in and took a seat in the recliner. He seemed to be waiting for something. I wondered what.

We found out a few minutes later. There was another one of those glitches, and suddenly Seventies Guy was in the middle of the frame, struggling with something tall and green.

"Holy cow, there is a Grinch!" Simon exclaimed.

"Wrong shape," I said. "And not really . . . furry enough."

"Can you get a better angle on the action?" asked Dash.

I shook my head. "I can zoom in, though, see if we can see them better."

"Do it."

I hit MAGNIFY, and went in for a better look at our intruder. On closer examination, I found that he wasn't the Grinch. In fact, he wasn't human at all.

His lightbulb-shaped head had eyes that were three times the size of a normal human's, and appeared pure black. Or maybe that was just the video. He had no clothes other than a flap of fabric covering him below the waist, and I could only think that he must have been freezing. Then I remembered that this alien had stolen our Christmas presents, and I felt a little less sympathetic toward him.

"What is that thing?" asked Dash.

"It's a real live alien," Simon gasped. "Do you realize that we have right here real photographic proof of life on other planets?"

"I'd settle for getting our presents back," I said. "But we'll save the tape anyway."

"Why would an alien steal our Christmas presents?"

"Why would they want to stick a probe up someone's butt?" Dash quipped. "They're aliens, squirt. Who knows why they do what they do?"

"What's he doing?"

The alien started to shimmer and fade, and at first I thought it was the video, but Seventies Guy looked perfectly normal. Then he seemed to realize what was happening, and he made a grab for the alien just as the alien faded away completely. A moment later, so did all our presents. Just vanished, into thin air.

Seventies Guy looked around, and said something, but the camera didn't record audio, and I suspected that in this case, that might be for the best. Somehow I doubted that whatever he'd said was anything I could repeat in front of my mom. Then he went out the front door, slamming it behind him.

"That's what woke me up," I said, as my video counterpart sat up, looked around, and then went back to sleep. "How come it didn't wake you guys up?"

Simon shrugged. "After years of sharing a room with Harley, I guess I'm used to loud noises."

Dash said nothing. He looked like he was thinking hard about something. I waited to see what he would come up with.

"I know where this guy is," he said at last. "If he's still here. He asked me if I knew a place to stay, off the grid. I told him there were lots of places. He asked what was the best one, and I said probably the old Peavey mansion on the edge of town. It's scheduled to be torn down after the holidays, but I got the feeling he wasn't planning on sticking around that long."

"We'll go there right now," I said. "Simon, you stay here. If my parents or Syndi wake up, don't let them go into the living room! Wait till I give you the all-clear. We don't want them to know about the missing presents."

"Yes, sir!" Simon gave me a clumsy salute.

"C'mon," I said to Dash. "Let's go talk to this guy."

He looked at me seriously. "I think we should get dressed first. Unless you plan on confronting him wearing Batman pajamas."

I hadn't realized I was wearing the Batsuit. "Right," I said, and ran upstairs to change. A few minutes later, we were on our way.

The Peavey mansion was on the edge of town, all right-all the way on the other side of town. It took forever for us to get there on foot.

"So is there anything else you told this guy that I should know about?" I asked Dash. "Anything he told you? Like his name, or why he wanted to break into my house, or anything at all?"

"I didn't ask, and he didn't volunteer. Here we are. Don't bother going to the door-they're all locked. But there's a broken window on the north side of the house that they haven't bothered to board up. I used to go in and out that way."

"Wait, you stayed here?"

"I lasted one night before leaving it for better accommodations. The way the wind blows through the place, it sounds like voices sometimes. I didn't like what they were saying about me."

I just shook my head. "Whatever. You think he's here?"

"Oh, he is here," said a voice from behind me. "Turn around slowly, and keep your hands in sight."

We did so. I was expecting a cop, or a night watchman or something. What I was not expecting was Seventies Guy, a blue puffy jacket thrown over his usual ensemble, standing there holding a gun on us.

When he saw me, though, he lowered the gun and bowed his head slightly. "You are Marshall Teller?" he asked.

"Yeah, who are you?"

"Why have you come here?"

"Why did you come to my house? Where are all our Christmas presents? What was that thing you were fighting with?"

"It is rude to answer a question with a question-or several questions-rude boy who will become a great man. Come inside before someone sees us." He slipped the gun into his coat pocket and led us up onto the front porch.

"I thought the doors in this place were locked."

He looked back at me and smiled. "Not to one such as me." And then he pulled a little device out of his other pocket and pointed it at the door. It swung open all on its own.

"Wow," I said. "Are you a spy or something?"

"No," he said. "All my activities here are legal."

"Stealing Christmas presents?" asked Dash.

"No," he said. "I have recovered the stolen presents. It is what a policeman does, no?"

"You're a cop?" I stared at him. He looked about as far from a cop as anyone I'd ever seen.

"I am. Come in, boys. I will explain everything."

We stepped inside. The place was a little dusty, but didn't look like it would fall down around us. There was even a couch and a recliner.

Seventies Cop settled into the recliner, and invited us to share the couch. I looked at Dash, and he nodded. We sat down.

"First of all," the man said, "my name is Nareef Almazi. I was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, but my family originated in the country formerly known as Iraq."

"It's still called Iraq," I said. "They haven't changed the name of the country."

"They will," he said. "I am with a branch of law enforcement which deals with extraterrestrial offenders."

I stared at him. "Aliens?"

"Indeed. The 'thing' you saw me fighting with on your primitive video device was a Skreezik, a being from a planet in the vicinity of Alpha Centauri. Most Skreeziks are decent and law-abiding, but this one-Maah-is the worst sort of criminal imaginable. He has no regard for human life whatsoever."

"And he came and stole my Christmas presents?" I asked.

"Yeah," agreed Dash. "Real small-time for a galactic baddie."

"He was not here to steal anything," Nareef explained. "He came here for me. He wanted to kill me here, one hundred and seventy years before I will be born."

At this revelation, I got up and paced around the room. "Aliens and time travel? Are you sure you're not just messing with me?"

"I would never mess with you, Marshall Teller," he said. "I came here to thank you."

"For what?"

"For saving a little girl who will grow up to become my great-great-grandmother. It took me almost ten years to save up enough credits for the jaunt. I did not know that Maah had followed me, until he appeared in your house and we struggled. I believe he stole your presents only to draw me out; he has no use for them."

"But you said you recovered them."

"I have." He gestured to a huge, overfilled plastic bag beside the chair. "You may take them home with you."

"So where is this Maah guy now?" asked Dash.

"Not here and now," said Nareef. "He has snapped back to his own time, and I must follow. I wanted to thank you first, for all you have done, and all you have yet to do. You will be a great man, Marshall Teller. Always remember to follow your heart. They may call you foolish, even insane, but you must stay true to your own-"

All of a sudden there was an explosion of white light, and something green landed on top of him mid-sentence.

"Thought you could get rid of me that easily?" Maah growled. He sounded like a dog who had somehow learned English.

There was a clunk as Nareef's gun hit the floor. Dash and I both dove for it, but I got there first. I came up pointing it at Maah, but he swiveled around so that Nareef was in front of him like a shield.

"I will kill you next," the alien said. "Or maybe I should kill you first and solve both my problems in one go? I will be famous throughout the galaxy as the one who-"

BONK! Dash clonked him over the head with a chair. The alien went down and then vanished, in the process dropping Nareef, who scrambled away. I handed him back his gun.

"Thank you for not attempting to fire this," he said. "It is a toy."

"A toy?" Dash looked astonished and offended. "What were you gonna do with a toy gun?"

"I could not bring my real one. Thank you for your assistance, whoever you are."

"You don't know my name?"

He shrugged. "You are not in the history books. I am sorry."

"What are you going to do now?" I asked.

"Go after Maah. If I leave now, I can pick up his tachyon trail easily. It has been a pleasure and a blessing to have met you, Marshall. I thank you for my existence."

"What's her name? Your grandmother, I mean."

He smiled. "Things must happen in their own time, my friend. If I were to tell you now, you would search for her until you found her, and that would be several years too early. She has not even been born yet. Let nature take its course. You will know her when you meet her, but you must meet her when it is the proper time. Farewell, and God be with you both."

He touched something on his belt, and disappeared.

"Well, that was helpful," said Dash. "Now let's get this big bag of presents home before your parents find out."

"I don't know how I'd explain it if they did. An alien came here looking for a guy who time-traveled back two hundred years to meet me? They'll think I made it up."

"Yeah, it definitely sounds nuts." Dash picked up the bag, and almost dropped it again. "How many presents did you get, anyway? This thing weighs a ton!"

"It's not just my presents," I pointed out. "They're for the whole family."

"So who asked for a box of rocks?"

"We'll take turns carrying it. When it gets too heavy for you, let me know, and I'll take it."

"Too bad we don't have two bags, so we could split the load."

"Right. Next time we have our Christmas presents stolen by an evil time-traveling alien, I'll remember to bring along an extra bag."

He smirked. "Hey, this is Eerie. There's nothing too weird for this town."

Eventually we made it home, snuck in the back door, and emptied the bag in front of the tree.

"I hope nothing got broken," I said. "You didn't hear anything rattling around in there, did you?"

"I don't think so." Dash started separating the presents into piles.

"What are you doing?"

"Sorting them by who they're for. So everyone gets their own pile. That okay with you?"

"Just do it quickly!" I could hear voices upstairs, but I knew Simon couldn't hold them off long by himself. We were lucky he'd managed it this long.

"Where are you going?" Dash demanded, as I started up the stairs.

"I'm going to give Simon the all-clear."

"You're not gonna help me with this?"

"I'll be back in a minute."

"I'm doing you a favor here! I want you to do me a favor too."

I sighed. "Fine. What?"

"I want you to show me what's in that cabinet you keep locked up. Gotta be something really cool."

"No way! That's our stuff! You'll just try to steal it!"

"I promise I'll keep my hands to myself."

I considered it. Without Dash, I never would have found Nareef, or the presents. We wouldn't even have Christmas if it hadn't been for him. "Okay. But don't touch anything!"

"I won't!"

I hurried up the stairs just in time. Mom was saying, "I don't want you boys touching the stove after the mess you made the other day!"

"Even if it's a surprise?"

"Oh, it was a surprise, all right! No more baking!"

"You can come down now," I said.

Syndi gave me a funny look. "Why are you dressed already?"

"Cause . . . um . . . we went for a walk before the surprise. To look at all the Christmas decorations."

"The Michaelsens leave their lights on all night long," Dad said. "Terrible waste of electricity!"

"Yeah, but it's pretty," I said. "Come on."

When we all made it downstairs, Dash had separated the individual piles and made them look neat. He had even poured eggnog for each of us. "Merry Christmas," he said, beaming.

"Merry Christmas."

"Allow me to play Santa and pass out the gifts. This one's for you . . ." He started with the smaller ones first.

I didn't get a big haul, but I was pleased with the ones I got. My parents gave me a couple of video games, some clothes (parents always give clothes), and some books I had been asking for. Simon got some too, and he got even more when his family came over, Harley waving his bright red Dino Megabot proudly. Even Dash got a new coat from my parents.

We were just about to go have breakfast when Dad said, "What's this? There's still a few presents under the tree."

It was the way he said it: not like "Wow, kids, look at this!" but more like "What the heck are these doing here?"

There was a long, thin one with my name on it. The heavy rectangular one had Simon's name on it. And there was a small square one with a short line and a cross in the "To" space. It took me a minute to figure that one out, but once I did, I handed it to Dash.

The "From" space was blank on all three, but there was a note, on light green paper with holly berries in the corner, attached to each one. I opened mine first.

Dear Marshall, reach for the stars, always.

No signature, either.

I tore off the wrapping paper and found . . .

"Stargazer 5000!" I looked at my parents in shock. "These have been sold out in the stores for months! Every time I asked, the guy said they were on back order!"

"Honey," Mom said, "these didn't come from us."

I looked at the note again, and didn't recognize the handwriting.

"You open yours next," I said to Simon.

He started at one end and tore just enough to reveal expensive brown leather. Excited, he ripped the rest of the paper off. "Wow! Monsters of North America: the Illustrated Edition! Just what I wanted from . . ." He looked at me. "Santa?"

"What's your note say?"

"Oh." He picked it up off the floor and unfolded it. "Dear Simon: knowledge is power. And with this, you'll be the most powerful hunter ever. P. S. Nice try with the video camera, but you know I can't be photographed."

Dash was watching us with a strange look on his face. "Look," he said, "I don't know where these gifts came from, but I don't think they were from Santa. What's mine, then? I asked him for my life back."

He opened the present first. Inside a small white box was . . . a photo frame. It had My Family across the top, but the inside was blank.

"What is this, a joke? It's not funny, whoever you are!"

"Read the note," I suggested.

"I don't wanna read the note! Why did I even think things were gonna be that easy? Oh, sure, I just ask Santa for my whole life in a box, and I get-"

"Dear Dash," I read, "the best life is the one we make for ourselves. Build your own future, and you need no past. Good luck to you."

"What does that mean, build your own future? Out of what?"

"Well, look around you. You're not alone. You've got us."

"That's right," said my dad. "We'll be your family. Let's take a picture to put in that frame of yours." He went to get the good camera, the one with a timer so we could all be in the picture, and we all grouped together under the Christmas tree.

It was right at the moment that the flash was going off that I realized something.

"Build your own future," I muttered under my breath. "And he was there when we went to see Santa."

Simon looked at me. "You think these are from Nadine?"

"Nareef," I corrected him. "Yeah, I think so. That's why he broke into our house last night-to leave these for us."

"Cool. But why?"

"I don't know," I said, "but I think we'll find out someday."

"Let's get one more picture," said Dad. "Smile, everybody!"

After breakfast, but before we got all dressed up for Christmas dinner, I decided it was time I kept my promise.

"Come on, Dash," I said. "You want to see what's up there? I think you've earned it."

"Just don't touch anything," said Simon. "Some of it's kinda sensitive."

"I just want to see it," he said. "Then I'll be happy."

We climbed the stairs to the attic, and then I brought out the key that I wore around my neck and unlocked the Evidence Locker. It was just an old roll-top desk, but it was full of all the artifacts we'd collected from our adventures.

"Wow." Dash was staring at everything, his eyes wide. "What is all this stuff?"

I picked up a few items at random and held them up. "This," I said, "is a genuine fossil. It's the preserved shell of a sea creature that lived millions of years ago."

"Where'd you find that?"

"Right near the lake."

He gave me a dubious look. "Right. The fossil of an ancient sea creature shows up in landlocked Indiana."

"The oceans were a lot different back in the time of the dinosaurs. Now this one you might recognize."

"That's part of the Brainalyzer, isn't it?"

"We couldn't keep the whole thing, in case someone figured out what it was and tried to put it back together. But one piece is all we needed."

"And that there, in the plastic bag?"

"Don't open it!" Simon cautioned him. "Let's just say that it would be really, really bad if that got out."

Dash withdrew his hand and stepped back. "Boy, you guys have everything here! This is really cool!"

I smiled. "You're welcome. This is your real present, Dash. Better than socks any day, right?"

"Oh, absolutely. What's a pair of socks compared to the secrets of the universe?"

"The end," I said to the class. Everyone applauded just as the bell rang. "Merry Christmas," I called out to them, "and may all your dreams come true!"

Jack and I rode home together, and he asked me, "So did you save her? The little girl in Iraq?"

"I might have."

"Dad!"

"Okay, okay! There was a school we liberated. It was mostly boys, but there were a few little girls. One of them might have been Nareef's great-great-grandmother. Or maybe it hasn't happened yet. He didn't say she was in Iraq when I saved her."

"You'd better save every little girl you can, just in case."

"I will."

We pulled into our driveway. As I helped him out of his safety seat, Jack asked me, "So Santa can't be photographed, can he?"

"Nope."

"Does he know about digital recorders?"

"Jack!"

"Come on, Dad! We'll hide it so good he'll never spot it!"

"That's what we thought," I said.

"He'll never know it's there!"

"Jack! Some things should remain a mystery. End of story. Let's just enjoy Christmas for what it is, and not try to dissect it."

"Okay."

The real treasures of Christmas are the ones we can't put a price tag on. The wonder on a child's face when they come face to face with holiday magic. The time spent with family and friends. The joy of giving someone the perfect gift.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all . . . a little magic in your own lives.