The Kid Who Stole Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

want this job.”
    Shannon arched her eyebrows. “I see.”
    “Do you?” Rick asked, suddenly sure she was going to turn him down. “Do you really?”
    “How long have you been divorced?”
    The question hit Rick as if it had been a physical blow. He actually pulled back from Shannon a few inches. “You’re very astute.”
    “Rude, too, I suppose,” Shannon said by way of apology. “It comes from spending so much of my time around children. They’re very direct, most of them. I enjoy that about them.”
    One of the clerks approached them. “Sorry to interrupt, Shannon,” the woman said, “but there’s a lady over there who wants to talk to you.” She indicated a frazzled-looking older woman standing by the overflowing checkout counter. “It’s about you-know-who.”
    “Not another one.” Shannon groaned. “Excuse me a moment, Rick. This shouldn’t take long.”
    She went to deal with the problem. The clerk smiled uncertainly at Rick, then returned to her register. Left to his own devices, Rick decided to take a look around. He was standing in front of a display of pistol-like gadgets, when Leo discovered him.
    “Hi,” Leo said.
    Rick stopped his puzzled examination of the gadget in his hand to look down at the boy. “Hi.”
    “Slime,” Leo said.
    “No, thanks,” Rick returned. “I just ate.”
    Leo grinned crookedly, not quite sure how to take that response. “I mean that’s what that gun shoots,” he explained. “Slime. I’d show you, but Shannon took away the demonstrator.”
    “Did she?” Rick studied the gun some more. “I don’t suppose that was an arbitrary decision on her part?”
    “What’s arbitrary mean?”
    “For no particular reason.”
    “Oh.” Leo colored slightly. “I suppose she had a reason.”
    Rick smiled. “Is it fun to shoot?”
    “Sort of,” Leo replied with a shrug. “It’d be a lot better if the slime wasn’t so thick. That way, it would go farther.”
    “And give a guy a head start running away.”
    “Right.” Leo nodded his approval, both of the idea and of Rick. “Sometimes, arbitrary targets get mad for no reason when you slime ‘em.”
    “I just bet they do.” Chuckling appreciatively, Rick returned to his inspection of the device in question. “So you just fill it with water, add some of that powder to this other reservoir and it’s ready to go?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Seems to me if you added some kind of control onto it, you could change how much water got mixed with the powder,” Rick said thoughtfully. “Make the slime thicker or thinner, depending on your range.”
    Leo thought that was a wonderful idea. “Neat! Hey, are you an engineer, or something?”
    “Or something,” Rick agreed.
    “Well, I bet they’d pay you for that idea.”
    “I doubt it. Big companies aren’t very good listeners.”
    “Why not?”
    Rick shrugged. “Too busy making money, I guess.”
    “That’s what Shannon says about the Arnie people. She says they don’t care that some kids won’t get one. I’ll be right here in the store when they come, so I know I will,” he added with obvious relief.
    Frowning, Rick started to say something, but Shannon returned from talking to the distraught customer and had her own opinion on the subject.
    “They don’t care what their stupid marketing scheme is doing to the parents of those kids, either,” Shannon said. “That’s the third one in an hour. In person, that is. I lost count of the phone calls from parents who have to work the rest of the week, or can’t make it into the city again for a while. For whatever reason, they’re worried sick they won’t get an Arnie and their boy or girl will be devastated.”
    “It’s just a toy spider,” Rick said quietly.
    Both Leo and Shannon stared at him. “Just a toy spider?” Shannon asked incredulously. “It is the toy of the season. We don’t know how many we’ll get or when we’ll get them. The company won’t even let us take advance orders, so