Free The Seventh Most Important Thing by Shelley Pearsall

had no idea how to reply. Officer Billie wasn’t the kind of person you’d expect to get a gift from. Especially not something she’d made. It also took him a minute to realize that when the officer said “my kids,” she probably wasn’t talking about her real kids—she meant juvenile delinquents like him.
    “Stop.”
Officer Billie’s hand went up as the awkward silence continued. “When someone gives you a gift, it is polite to look them in the eye and say in a clear and appreciative voice, ‘Thank you very much.’ ”
    Arthur forced his eyes upward. “Thank you very much.”
    “You’re welcome,” Officer Billie replied. She pointed one of her square fingers at him. “Share it with your family. And don’t mess up over the next couple of weeks. A lot of people mess up over Christmas. It’s a tough season. Don’t let me catch you being one of them.”
    Arthur nodded. “Okay.”
    Officer Billie put on her cap. “Have a good evening.” She pulled the door closed behind her with a firm, official-sounding thud.
    After she left, Arthur leaned against the door, still holding the caramel corn and feeling kind of shaken up. People could surprise you, he thought.

NINETEEN
    O fficer Billie was right about one thing, Arthur discovered. Despite having the least sweet personality of anybody he knew, she made awfully good caramel corn.
    And she was also right about another thing.
    Christmas was a very tough season.
    The one bright spot was that his mom got the receptionist job. The dentist called a few days before Christmas and told her she could start in January. After his mom got off the phone with her new boss, she sat down on the kitchen floor and started crying into a dish towel because she was so happy. That’s what she told Arthur when he came running into the kitchen to check if she was okay—she was crying because she was happy.
    Sometimes he gave up trying to figure out his mom.
    —
    Christmas Day was a different story. If it had been up to Arthur, he would have pulled the covers over his head and pretended it was a regular day. But Barbara and his mom were counting on him.
    So when Barbara poked him in the arm at about six o’clock and whispered loudly in his ear that Santa had been there, he managed to say “Good, let’s see” in a fake excited voice. He followed his sister’s polka-dot robe downstairs.
    “Merry Christmas, guys!” Arthur’s mom said extra cheerfully as they came into the living room. She’d put on bright pink lipstick, even though it was six in the morning and nobody else was around. “White Christmas” was playing on the record player. The air smelled faintly of burned cinnamon rolls.
    Arthur could tell his mom was trying hard to make Christmas nice for them. But it seemed strange. Like they were actors in a play. Or aliens on a planet that looked exactly like their own, only it wasn’t.
    Barbara squealed as she tore open her gifts of baby dolls, and paper dolls, and Barbie dolls—and more dolls than Arthur could be bothered to pay attention to. He’d already been warned about the gifts. How there wouldn’t be many and most of them would be for Barbara. Money was still tight.
    He handed his mother the small gift he’d wrapped for her. “Here, Mom.”
    “For me?” she said, looking surprised.
    “It’s nothing, Mom, really.”
    His mom opened the tissue paper slowly. Inside, there was a small metal flowerpot in the shape of a watering can.
    “It’s a flowerpot,” he explained, just in case she didn’t get it.
    “I know what it is,” she said, still acting surprised. “But you shouldn’t have spent money to buy me anything this year. Not with all that’s happened. I was fine with nothing.”
    Arthur shrugged. “That’s okay. It wasn’t much.”
    Because the truth was—it was free.
    He’d found it on the same Saturday that he’d found the mirror. It had been stuck in a trash can with a bunch of broken clay pots and garden stuff. The silver spout was