“Okay, guys, settle down. And then Mr. Bear, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Snake met Mr. Frog.”

“Why are all these animals boys?” Phoebe wanted to know.

“That’s a very good question,” agreed Carmen, to a disapproving sniff from Skylar, who was still taping.

“‘Now we will all think about the beautiful woods and the beautiful sky and the beautiful rivers full of fish,’ said the frog. ‘And we will not be unhappy anymore.’”

“Because they eat all the fish?”

“Shh,” said a parent.

“And they thought about the beautiful woods and the beautiful sky and the beautiful rivers and how they were all friends, and then they had a big Christmas party and lived happily ever after with the most important gift of all—loving themselves,” Carmen concluded.

A ring of faces stared back at her.

“All the animals love each other?”

“Yes. Well, I think they’re friends. And they love themselves.”

“And he doesn’t get any real presents?”

“But he gets the gift of love,” said Carmen.

There was quite a lot of arm-folding going on down on the floor.

“And bears have no concept of cooperation with other species!” came a distant voice from behind the stacks.

“Well, wasn’t that was just wonderful,” said Skylar, beaming into the camera. She turned it on the children, managing not to get Carmen in the shot at all. “Wasn’t that lovely? Amazing new story by Blair: Jimmy the Sad Christmas Bear. Let’s have a round of applause.”

There was a muted round of applause from the children, not replicated by the mothers, who had secretly hoped Blair would be there.

“Excuse me, bookshop lady?” came a small voice. It was a little girl with long pigtails who’d been there before. “I think I liked better the one where there was a little girl? And she died? And that was the end of the story.”

“But it was sad about the bear? And then he played with the other animals and they were all friends?” Skylar interjected.

“Meh,” said the girl. “We have a lot of those stories at school.”

“Was it actually about anti-bullying?” said another one. “All the stories are normally.”

“And kindness,” added a third.

“Well, kindness is good, isn’t it?” said Carmen.

“Sometimes,” said Phoebe, “people say ‘be kind’ when they just mean ‘shut up.’”

The other girls nodded vehemently.

“Well, okay,” said Carmen. “Thanks for coming.”

“See you next week!” they all said cheerily, putting on their mittens, leaving Carmen slightly off-kilter that this was apparently now part of their social calendars.

“SO ZOE’S COMING down tomorrow, bringing the teens for a bit of Edinburgh’s Christmas,” Ramsay was saying to Mr. McCredie.

Carmen made a face.

“Don’t you start,” said Ramsay. “Do you think we could possibly just leave them to it?”

“There’s a lot of screaming and some vomit,” said Carmen.