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top of section, until they were seven feet tall and ready for the roof.
    Installation was not a simple matter. A ladder and a rope were required, along with the help of a neighbor. First, the roof had to be scaled with a rope around the waist, then Frosty, who was made of hard plastic and weighed about forty pounds, was hoisted up, very carefully so as not to scratch him over the asphalt shingles. When Frosty reached the summit, he was strapped to the chimney with a canvas band that Vic Frohmeyer had invented himself. A two-hundred-watt lamp was screwed into Frosty’s innards, and an extension cord was dropped from the backside of the roof.
    Wes Trogdon was an insurance broker who’d called in sick so he could surprise his kids by having their Frosty up first. He and his wife, Trish, washed their snowman just after lunch, then, under her close supervision, Wes climbed and grappled and adjusted until the task was complete. Forty feet high, with a splendid view, he looked up and down Hemlock and was quite smug that he had got the jump on everyone, including Frohmeyer.
    While Trish made hot cocoa, Wes began hauling boxes of lights up from the basement to the driveway, where he laid them out and checked circuits. No one on Hemlock strung more Christmas lights than the Trogdons. They lined their yard, wrapped their shrubs, draped their trees, outlined their house, adorned their windows—fourteen thousand lights the year before.
    Frohmeyer left work early so he could supervise matters on Hemlock, and he was quite pleased to see activity. He was momentarily jealous that Trogdon had beaten him to the punch, but what did it really matter? Before long they joined forces in the driveway of Mrs. Ellen Mulholland, a lovely widow who was already baking brownies. Her Frosty was up in a flash, her brownies devoured, and they were off to render more assistance. Kids joined them, including Spike Frohmeyer, a twelve-year-old with his father’s flair for organization and community activism, and they went door to door in the late afternoon, hurrying before darkness slowed them.
    At the Kranks’, Spike rang the doorbell but got no response. Mr. Krank’s Lexus was not there, which was certainly not unusual at 5 P.M. But Mrs. Krank’s Audi was in the garage, a sure signthat she was home. The curtains and shades were pulled. No answer at the door though, and the gang moved to the Beckers’, where Ned was in the front yard washing his Frosty with his mother-in-law barking instructions from the steps.
    “They’re leaving now,” Nora whispered into the phone in their bedroom.
    “Why are you whispering?” Luther asked with agitation.
    “Because I don’t want them to hear me.”
    “Who is it?”
    “Vic Frohmeyer, Wes Trogdon, looks like that Brixley fellow from the other end of the street, some kids.”
    “A regular bunch of thugs, huh?”
    “More like a street gang. They’re at the Beckers’ now.”
    “God help them.”
    “Where’s Frosty?” she asked.
    “Same place he’s been since January. Why?”
    “Oh, I don’t know.”
    “This is comical, Nora. You’re whispering into the phone, in a locked house, because our neighbors are going door to door helping our other neighbors put up a ridiculous seven-foot plastic snowman, which, by the way, has absolutelynothing to do with Christmas. Ever think about that, Nora?”
    “No.”
    “We voted for Rudolph, remember?”
    “No.”
    “It’s comical.”
    “I’m not laughing.”
    “Frosty’s taking a year off, okay? The answer is no.”
    Luther hung up gently and tried to concentrate on his work. After dark, he drove home, slowly, all the way telling himself that it was silly to be worried about such trivial matters as putting a snowman on the roof. And all the way he kept thinking of Walt Scheel.
    “Come on, Scheel,” he mumbled to himself. “Don’t let me down.”
    Walt Scheel was his rival on Hemlock, a grumpy sort who lived directly across the street. Two kids out of