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create confusion. Nobody wants that.”
    “On the other hand, we do want to keep people moving from store to store,” Liss interjected. “The Twelve Shopping Days of Christmas promotion, with a ceremony every evening, will help with that. Then the pageant will draw everyone to the town square on the final day.”
    She’d spent hours last night—who needed sleep?—working on the logistics. Each evening they’d add a new “day” to the festivities. The twelfth would now fall on the twenty-first of December, the beginning of winter. That seemed appropriate.
    “How does the shopping days thing get them to stop in at every business?” Betsy asked.
    “They probably won’t need my services,” Jim Locke of Locke Insurance commented, “and I hope there won’t be any call for Doug’s.” He and Doug Preston of Preston’s Mortuary sat side by side on two more of Liss’s kitchen chairs.
    Laughter helped ease the tension but Stu wasn’t about to give up. While he continued to lobby for a consignment of bears and others tried to talk him out of his stand, Liss kept mum. Her gaze roamed over the rest of the gathered businesspeople. Her eyes locked momentarily with Patsy’s and the coffee shop owner sent a sympathetic look and a shrug her way, then mouthed, “Some people could find things to argue about till doomsday.”
    At least they were discussing the twelve days proposal, Liss told herself. That was good, right? She resolved to let them have at it for a few more minutes before attempting to restore order and take a vote.
    She jumped when something heavy bumped against the back of her calf. Liss looked down into the malevolent gaze of the big yellow Maine coon cat she’d inherited along with her house. Lumpkin glared back at her, obviously displeased by the presence of all these noisy people in his domain.
    “Go back into hiding,” she advised.
    She couldn’t blame the cat for disapproving of all this noise and confusion. Truthfully, She hadn’t expected to see him again until everyone had left. At the first sight of strangers approaching, he’d taken shelter under the kitchen sink.
    When Lumpkin stayed put beside Liss’s chair, she reached down to scratch behind his ear. A deep, rumbling purr made his entire body vibrate.
    Meanwhile, Stu had progressed to waving his arms in the air as he expostulated. With one particularly emphatic gesture, his hand came within an inch of the end of Marcia’s nose. She sent a withering glance in his direction, but he didn’t seem to notice.
    “My toy store should be the only place to sell Tiny Teddies,” Thorne declared in a loud voice.
    “You just want to jack up the price!” Betsy snapped at him.
    “You say that like price gouging is a bad thing.” The wounded look on Thorne’s face was far too theatrical for anyone to take seriously.
    Marcia cut short that incipient debate by rising abruptly to her feet. “If you idiots can’t agree, then I’ll just go ahead and sell my Tiny Teddies in an online auction.” She reached behind her for the coat she’d been sitting on.
    Stu bounced up, ready to square off with her. “I thought you were in favor of this one-for-all and all-for-one deal?” Since Stu Burroughs was only an inch or two over five feet tall, going nose-to-nose with Marcia was a physical impossibility. He only succeeded in making himself look foolish.
    Liss took a deep breath. This was going nowhere. Someone had to step in before the meeting dissolved into total chaos. “Enough!”
    Startled by the volume she’d managed—all those years onstage had included more than dancing—everyone shut up. Lumpkin streaked back into the kitchen.
    “I’m calling for a vote,” Liss said. “Yea or nay—will the Moosetookalook Small Business Association support this project or not?”
    Dan Ruskin had taken pains to stay out of the fray, but as soon as Liss made her demand, he put it into the form demanded by Robert’s Rules of Order and asked for a show of