When I started to describe the costumes, Wilma raised her freckled hand and said, “You don’t have to convince me.”

“I’d go get them,” I said, “if we had the time. Anyway, the boys seem fine about it.”

Wilma grunted, then moved into the kitchen, where the other Strubels—each of them large and lumpy—sat around a circular table, eating second and third helpings of the Big Bird cake.

Wanting to escape, I considered going up to the roof. But the sounds of Dale and the sugar-laced children laughing and stomping convinced me I was not needed, at least not yet. So I went on a quest for some candy I could pocket and snack on later. I made my way to the abandoned basement and found that synthetic cobwebs had been stretched over the banister leading down the stairs. Other webs had been strategically woven around the room. Cardboard witches and bats and pumpkins had been taped to the walls. And on a hidden stereo, a CD of ghost sounds, banging doors, and creaking floors filled the musty air. Many kids had left unwanted stickers and candy wrappers scattered across the shag carpet. A bowl of potato chips had been knocked over, and the chips had been stepped on, crushed into little bits. In the corner, on a plenty big enough TV, a video played of a recent animated extravaganza from Walt Disney. And when a trio of unfortunate-looking animals appeared to sing—mercifully, the TV had been muted—I slumped into a child’s beanbag chair and had this thought: Too many guests, too many presents, too much candy and cake for any one kid.

I closed my eyes, though not for sleep. I closed them because I couldn’t bear looking at the well-intended decorating effort any longer. It depressed me. But closing my eyes didn’t help, because I pictured the grotesque stack of presents upstairs, most of them bought at the last minute from the same toy store on Pineapple Street. Most frightening of all was the image of Angus Strubel’s privileged frosting-coated fingers tearing off the wrapping paper of his many presents.

When I opened my eyes, I was startled. Standing before me, her face merely inches from mine, was a young girl dressed in a lacy white dress. Her blond hair had been pulled back with a festive pink ribbon. She was either Cinderella or Goldilocks. She had these almost unreal curls, her big eyes were maple-syrup brown, and her lips were lined with chocolate. In her raised left hand, she held a book.

She stared at me with a kind of otherworldly wisdom. I thought, This may be the most beautiful child ever. She kept staring. Unnerved at first, I did my best to stare back, determined to outlast her. I was about to ask her name when she handed me the book to read. Then she crawled onto my lap, rested her head and those curls on my shoulder, and waited for me to start.

Five pages in, I was overcome: This girl, light in my arms, made for a feeling unlike any I’d ever had with a child. It was disarming. My boys had no capacity to be this still, to give in. They fussed and kicked and wiggled. But she was so light, as if she were warm air, and I read in a near whisper until, the next thing I knew, a woman said, “Somebody’s got the touch.”