Madsen Morrow was eight years old the first time she met Santa Claus. She’d come downstairs to investigate a noise (sofa legs scratching on the floor as if shoved) that seemed to have come from the living room. It was empty when she got there; stockings hung, tree sparkling, fire burning low. “Well, that’s strange,” she thought and said out loud. This is was what characters on television did when they were by themselves. Madsen was very fond of television and watched it as often as possible. She was about to head back upstairs and into bed when she heard a new sound; a humming sound, coming from down the hall. “Ah-ha,” she said (this also from television). It was the toilet fan humming. Someone was inside if the light from the crack beneath the door could be trusted. “Who’s there?” she demanded. The light and fan went off at once. “It’s too late for that. You’d have done better not to turn everything off. Then maybe I’d have figured that dad or someone had forgotten.” She sighed.