“So, hi?” Skylar was talking into her phone in front of all the children. “This is, like, the most exciting thing ever? We’re going to get a sneak preview of the very first ever children’s book by Blair Pfenning? It’s, like, a world exclusive? It’s not even going to be out for a whole year! I know, like, aahhh, OMG, right?!”

Carmen looked up in confusion.

“Okay, off you go!” said Skylar, still training the camera on herself, with Carmen just visible behind her. “This is going to be so amazing, guys.”

Frowning slightly, nervous and wishing she’d done more than give the book a cursory glance, Carmen opened the first page.

“Now. This is a story about a bear who learns to love himself. At Christmas. And his name was Jimmy, the Sad Christmas Bear.”

The children eyed her suspiciously.

“Why do bears have to love themselves?” piped up a small voice. It turned out to be Ramsay’s boy Patrick, even though he was ostentatiously not sitting with the others and poring over a book about the history of Hornby with Mr. McCredie. He frowned. “They don’t need to love anything! They just need to take in enough calories from eating other animals to last the winter.”

Carmen cleared her throat.

“He was often unhappy and he didn’t know why.”

“Was it because he was a bear?”

“I’d love to be a bear,” said another small voice. “GRRRRRR?”

“Some days just felt low and gray, not sunny and blue.”

“Bears can’t see color!”

Carmen looked at Ramsay, who held up his hands.

“Patrick, I need some help in the stockroom,” Ramsay said.

Patrick carefully clambered down from the stool he was on, which was rather too high for him. “I’ll need Hari to come too.”

But Hari, who’d been read to since he was little, wasn’t going anywhere, so Patrick marched off behind Ramsay, complaining loudly as Carmen attempted to get back to the story:

“‘Please tell me, Mr. Fox, why am I so sad?’”

“‘It is because you need a friend! Like me, the fox!’”

“And the Bear and the Fox held hands and went into the woods.”

Carmen frowned.

“Then they met Mr. Snake,” she continued.

“Is this The Gruffalo?” came a voice.

“Ooh, is there a gruffalo?” came several interested voices.

“‘Why am I so sad, Mr. Snake?’”

“Mr. Snake uncurled his body.”

“‘Because you should do some breathing and yoga.’”

There was a lot of confusion about this meeting between a bear, a fox, and a snake and who would eat whom first.

“So they all did some breathing and yoga,” read Carmen.

“Snakes are very good at yoga,” Skylar chimed in, nodding.

“Chomp!” shouted the children.

“I have munched you up, pesky snake!” said one.

“No, you have not, bear. I will kill you with my lightsaber!”