“Oh my God, what’s that in your hand?  Put it down, quick!” Frank Hardy stared over at his younger brother as Joe reached for Frank’s hand to relieve him of the Ding-Dong which Frank currently held.  “I gotta save you from yourself, big brother.  Gimme.”

“Touch that Ding-Dong, little boy, and you’re going to lose that hand,” Frank gently slapped Joe’s hand and turned away, taking a large bite of the chocolate confection and licking his lips in satisfaction.  “Icy cold Ding Dong.  My favorite!”

“Geez, what happened to the spirit of Christmas around here anyway?” Joe demanded as he grabbed the empty box.  “You ate all of them?”

“Nope,” Frank licked his fingers in satisfaction.  “Dad ate most of them.”

“What?” Joe pouted again and threw the box into the garbage with force.  “You guys are all pigs, you know that?  Big ole pigs.  Oink, oink!”

Frank laughed hysterically.  “Kinda dramatic aren’t you?”

Joe stuck his tongue out at his brother and went rummaging in the cupboards.  He emerged a moment later, a look of profound satisfaction on his face as he set a box of Twinkies on the countertop. 

“Twinkies,” he announced happily.  “A much superior food to those nasty ole Ding Dongs.”

Frank shuddered dramatically.  “Hallucinations, I see.  And a really good imagination to boot.  Nobody in their right mind likes Twinkies.  Do you know what’s in those?”

“Nope,” Joe raised a hand toward his brother.  “And I really don’t want to know.”

Frank smirked and turned away, heading into the living room to finish watching the movie they started earlier that day.  Joe, carrying a handful of Twinkies, followed and sat down next to Frank.  He stripped the wrapper from one of his Twinkies and smiled in satisfaction as he took a large bite from one of his treats.

“We’re really lucky Mom and Aunt Gertrude aren’t home.”  Joe grabbed the remote control from the table beside his chair and hit the play button.  “Can’t you just hear them badgering us about ruining our appetites for dinner?  Instead, we can munch on junk food and…since when did Dad eat Ding Dongs?”

Laughing, Frank turned toward his brother.  “You mean you haven’t seen it?  He’ll sneak one out on occasion, take it into his study and eat it before Mom or Aunt Gertrude know what’s happening.  It’s like his one guilty pleasure and Mom keeps accusing me of eating all the Ding Dongs!  I haven’t got the heart to snitch on Dad though.”

“You know, if they don’t want us to eat them, why do they keep buying them?” Joe asked.  “It’s not like we do the shopping.”

Frank shrugged.  “No idea.  It’s one of those mystery things moms do.  It’s like knowing soda is bad for you but buying it anyway.  It’s a mom thing.”

“Then she should expect us to eat them if she buys them,” Joe grinned impishly.  “And, mm, these are good.  Want one?”

Joe’s only answer was a shudder of revulsion – and a pillow to the face.  Joe protested when he lost part of his Twinkie to the pillow and he threw it back with a glare.  “You can clean that off!”

Snorting, and just barely managing to hide a chuckle of amusement, Frank wiped the cream off of the pillow and set it back on the couch beside him.  He turned back to the television and watched for a few minutes as Carol Kane grabbed Bill Murray’s nose.  Joe cackled with mirth at Murray’s chagrined expression and polished off his last Twinkie.

“Now this is a good version of that story,” Joe leaned back in his chair and stretched, muscles rippling.  “Lots of good humor going on and still telling the tale just right.”

“You mean dumbed down, right?” Smirking, Frank settled back in the couch.  “That’s what you mean.”

Joe ignored his brother in an effort to pay attention to his movie.  Carol Kane was just about…oooh, that had to be painful!  He flinched reflexively in pain and crossed his legs uncomfortably.  Ouch!

“Where’s Dad at again?” he asked Frank a moment later while Murray listened in on his television and real-life brother’s Christmas party. 

“Tampa,” Frank said.

“Is he going to be back in time for Christmas?” Joe wondered.  His father almost always made it home in time for Christmas and only rarely even took a case this late in the year.  This one had been important though – the kidnapping of a young child – and they all agreed he should lend a hand if he could.

“Don’t know.  It just depends on how long it takes them to find that little girl who’s missing.  Can you imagine being kidnapped at Christmas?  Her parents must be going through hell right now.”

Joe sat quietly for several moments.  He looked out the large window that overlooked their front yard and saw fat flakes of snow drifting down, adding to the accumulation on the ground.  He forgot the television as he got up and walked over to the bench underneath the window and sat down, just to watch the snow.

Across the street, their neighbors, the Cooleys, had several strands of white Christmas lights draped all through the tall elm trees and along the front of their house.  Their glow looked mysterious through all the white snow falling from the sky.  They had several wooden deer placed on the front lawn, looking like they were grazing on the grass. 

“You all right Joe?” Frank crossed over to his brother’s side and lightly touched his back. 

“What?” Joe turned to look at Frank and blushed slightly.  “Sorry, was just thinking.  It’s nothing major.  Just wondering how lonely that little girl is, away from home when she should be dreaming of Santa Claus.  We’re sitting here where it’s warm, in the house where we grew up; we know we’re going to have a merry Christmas.  That little girl doesn’t.  I don’t understand people who hurt little kids, Frank.”

Frank gently touched his brother’s shoulder.  Not normally a very touchy-feely family, beyond the usual pat on the back (or hit on the arm or smack or mock-punch) it felt right to do at the moment. 

“I don’t think I understand them any more than you do.”  Frank sat down next to his brother and watched the snow as well.  “I mean, kids are supposed to be precious, right?  That’s what Mom and Dad always told us growing up, that we were special and important to them.  Even when we got in trouble and had to be punished, they always let us know that they loved us.  Some people are just born evil, I guess.  Or unloved.”

He sighed, the happy feeling of a few moments ago gone.  Frank wondered if dealing with cases with missing children would get easier the more cases he and Joe took.  He still dreamed of the day when they started their own detective agency, or joined their father’s detective agency.  However it worked, he wanted it very badly.

And, yet, knowing they would have to hunt for missing children on occasion and that sometimes those cases did not end happily or well…sometimes that was the part Frank dreaded.  It was bad enough that he and Joe got kidnapped or captured during one of their cases…what if they were only five or six?  Still innocent to how the world worked?

“Come on.”  Frank got back to his feet and motioned toward the kitchen.  “Let’s go make some hot chocolate.  I’ll even use hot milk instead of water.”

“Wow,” Joe grinned.  “I’m gonna be spoiled, aren’t I?”

“Don’t get used to it, junior,” Frank growled playfully as he smacked the back of his brother’s head.  “Come on.”

Joe laughed as he followed his brother into the kitchen.  Now this was the life.  A good movie on television, a box of Twinkies and hot chocolate with hot milk and not hot water. 

“You know,” Joe leaned on the counter in the kitchen and filched another Twinkie.  “You’re going to make someone a good wife someday…”

That earned him a swift swat on the back of the head for his pains.  Joe glared at his brother before turning his attention resolutely back to the television and his movie.  A few moments later, however, he looked back to his brother.

“What are you doing today?” he asked curiously.

“I’m going to take Callie to Colsons’,” Frank looked up from the book he was reading. 

“Colsons’?” Joe looked over at him.  “I thought she was going to her grandmother’s for Christmas?”

“They were,” Frank said.  “But the whole town is socked in with snow; there’s no way she’s going to be able to go up there.  They’re going to try to make it later in the week now.  That means they want a tree to decorate and I promised I’d help Callie so Mrs. Shaw can organize the decorations and Mr. Shaw can focus on his outdoor display.  I can’t figure out why they’d bother to put up an outdoor display this late in the season but then again, half the time I can’t understand Mr. Shaw.”

Joe grinned.  “Those are the potential in-laws you’re talking about you know.”

Frank looked slightly sick as he shrugged.  “Yeah…anyway, I’d better get going.  Try not to eat too much more junk food or Mom and Aunt Gertrude will have your head.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Joe waved a hand nonchalantly.  “Off with you.”

Frank laughed and shook his head as he took the van keys from the table by the door and, after fastening his parka, went out to the van.

** **

“Oh, it’s so beautiful!” Enthusiastic, blonde-haired Callie Shaw pulled on her boyfriend’s hand tugging him toward the remaining trees of Colsons’ Authentic Christmas Tree Farm, where you wandered the field of trees until you came across ‘the one’.  Colsons’ did not allow you to cut your own down; there had been too many accidents in the past that nearly bankrupted the tree farm, therefore, Mr. Colson’s two older sons waited in the wings to take down the trees selected by the customers.  Even this late into the Christmas season, the tree farm was fairly busy with last minute tree-shoppers and Callie seemed determined to beat every one of the shoppers to the perfect tree – whatever that was.

“Let’s go this way,” Callie pointed down a path.  She pulled on his arm again as they set off amongst the trees and Callie stopped to study each one, checking height (using Frank as a model) and width and bushiness as well.

“Perfect height but too thin.  Not tall enough.  Too bushy, couldn’t fit ornaments.  Not bushy enough…”

Frank sighed softly, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Oooh,” Callie said a moment later.  “Look at this one!”

She pointed to the tree that she liked and Frank looked up, trying to stir up some interest in the tree.  “It’s bushy enough, but not too bushy.  It might be an inch or two too tall but we could cut off more of the trunk, maybe.  It’s practically perfect!”

Frank resisted the urge to make a Mary Poppins reference.  “Shall I go get one of the Colsons and you wait here with the tree?”  he asked.

Callie nodded emphatically.  Frank wandered back down the path toward the entrance to the tree farm.  Both brothers were industriously trying to help one of the other tree-shoppers tie a humongous tree to the top of their almost too-small car.  Frank walked out toward them and smiled at Ernie Colson.

“That’s a big tree,” he commented idly.  “Need any help?”

Ernie shook his head.  “Nah, we’re almost done.  They shoulda brought a bigger car, though.  This thing might mush their car flat if they aren’t careful.”

Frank laughed.  “My girlfriend found her practically perfect tree, when you get a chance.  No hurry, she may fall in love with another tree while we’re waiting.”

Ernie laughed.  “At least she wasn’t here hours.  We had a couple here earlier that must have gone through every tree over two acres before taking one of the ones up front.  They were here almost all day!”

Frank snickered.  “I’m fortunate, then.”

Ernie turned to finish with the tree he was working on and Frank paced a little, moving about to keep warm.  He went over to the van to open up the back and did a little mental measuring.  It would take some doing but they just might be able to fit that practically perfect tree inside.  He lowered all of the seats down flat to make a little more room and hoped for the best.  Fortunately, Callie’s mother didn’t like seriously tall trees, despite the height of the ceilings in their house.

Frank turned away from the van once he had it ready and stopped short when another van pulled up beside him, making him take a step backward.

He gave a start as the sliding door on the other van was pulled open in front of him and, before he could move or cry out, he was pulled inside and something sweet was pressed over his face.

The world went dark only moments later.