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And not before I had a plan to fix it.

“There are six non-decorated houses in our neighborhood,” I said to Marcus on our way home from school a couple days later.

“Okay,” he said, waiting for me to say more.

I wanted to say more. I needed him to help me figure out which house might be the most likely to want to end happiness. But I hesitated. I didn’t want Marcus’s last Christmas here to be about finding Scrooge.

Out of all the houses in town, I decided the culprit must be in our neighborhood. After all, it was the epicenter. The most decorated with lights and therefore the most crowded with out-of-towners and noise and cars this time of year. The Scrooge obviously lived at one of the never-decorated houses.

“Seven, if you count Mr. Lenny,” I said. He only had that single string of lights and a small nativity scene.

Marcus flipped on his blinker and looked over his shoulder to change lanes. “Did you drive around the neighborhood counting?”

I had. The day before. It took me forever because I had to wait until it got dark to really see which houses weren’t participating. So I had to drive around like a normal visitor. “I was just curious,” I said.

“Are you going to talk to them? Tell them they are bringing shame on our neighborhood? On our town? They should move out of Cherry Ridge?”

“I might.”

“I thought you’d be happy about those houses. Less competition for us.”

“It’s not all about winning the competition.”

He laughed. “Maybe those families don’t celebrate Christmas.”

“Yeah, maybe not. But not all Cherry Ridge decorations have to be Christmas themed. The Robinsons decorate for Kwanzaa, and it looks amazing!”

“Yeah, that’s true. Hey, I was thinking next year in my dorm, I should decorate the hallway in December. Bring a bit of Cherry Ridge to Utah.”

I smiled. “That would be so fun! You should. I bet they would love that. Too bad the snow globe wouldn’t fit in the hallway.”

“You’d let me take the snow globe if it did?”

“Well, no, but we could make you your own.”

He turned onto our street. “Why are you counting non-decorated houses again?”

“Just wanted to know.”

“Weirdo,” he said.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

We pulled up to our house to see Mom outside, her hand on her hip … yelling? My eyes quickly snapped over to where she was directing her anger. Mrs. Moreno stood on her porch, saying—yelling?—something back. Mrs. Moreno had had her bad moments over the years, but she wasn’t nearly as cutting as Mr. Moreno had always been. Maybe it was because his history with my moms stretched back longer. Still, it wasn’t like my moms and Mrs. Moreno were besties.

“Oh no,” I said.

“This doesn’t look good,” Marcus agreed.

I opened the car door before Marcus even cut the engine, and I hopped the curb, heading straight for my mom. Marcus was close behind.

“It’s common sense!” Mom was saying. “Have you heard of that?”

“Have you heard of class?” Mrs. Moreno retorted.

“Can it be bought?!”

“Mom,” I said, grabbing hold of her arm. Her focus changed to me and she cringed. Without another word, she spun toward our house and walked inside.