Miracles occur right under our snouts every day. We just don't look closely enough to see them.

—Rufus Flycatcher

Benjamin Ravenspell's mother Mona liked to put things off. She never paid her taxes until the tax agents beat down her door. She could go months without mopping. And she never bothered to cook dinner—period. Instead, she'd just waste away and waste away until hunger drove her to throw Ben in the car and then race to the nearest fast food restaurant.

Which is how nine-year-old Ben Ravenspell found himself eating at McDonald's at midnight on Christmas Eve.

The speakers overhead played "Silent Night" as Ben's mom scarfed down Chicken McNuggets and asked, "So, honey, what would you like Santa to bring you tomorrow?"

Finally! Ben thought. He'd been waiting for weeks for her to ask that question, but she had put it off and put it off—as usual.

"Mmmph." Ben tried to clear a French fry from his throat, then he

blurted, "I want a pet!"

His mom's eyes grew wide in surprise, and her face went as red as a pomegranate. She coughed up a chicken McNugget.

It arced right over the table and plopped onto some bald guy's neck. The fellow grabbed it, eyed it suspiciously, and then plopped it in his mouth.

"But, but," Mom sputtered, "I thought you wanted a baby brother!"

Ben thought back. He had wanted one last year on his birthday, but that was forever ago. "Not anymore."

His mom shouted hysterically, "What if it's too late to change your mind?"

Ben knew then, that he wouldn't get a pet for Christmas. His mom probably had a baby already hidden in her closet. All she'd have to do is wrap it in gold foil and shove it under the tree.

Ben explained, "Colton, who lives down the street, asked for a baby brother—and the doctor gave him a sister! All she does is stink up diapers and suck on stuff. She leaves a slime trail wherever she goes. The kids call her the 'Rug Slug.'"

"Okay," Mom said, as if searching for some way to change his mind. "What kind of pet would you like? You know that I'm allergic to cats and dogs."

Ben shouted, "Could I get a mammoth?"

"Mammoths are just pretend, hon," Mom said reasonably.

"Well, I want something cool. I want a pet that I can play with and talk to, one that will be my friend."

"We'll have to think about that," she said, which was her way of putting him off.

#

As he tried to sleep that night, Ben heard his parents downstairs under the Christmas tree. Ben always wore a football helmet to bed and took a baseball bat with him—just in case a monster invaded his closet. So he removed his football helmet, laid his baseball bat by the bed, and sneaked to the top of the stairs.

"What are we going to do?" Mom asked Dad. "We've tried for a baby for months. And now he's changed his mind."

"I'm glad he changed his mind," Dad said. "If we had a baby tomorrow, he'd get bored with it in a week—and we'd be stuck with another kid."

Ben inched to the landing and peered through the banister rails.

Both parents knelt near the Christmas tree. His folks had never been taken that tree down. It had been sitting in the corner for two years, and had gathered so much dust, it looked as if it was covered in gray snow. Cobwebs seemed to be holding it upright.

"Ben needs a friend," Mom said. "Ever since Christian . . . he's been . . . lost."

Ben felt a pang. Christian had been his best friend. Then Christian's dad said that he got a job at a penguin cannery in Antarctica, and the whole family moved away.

"What does Ben need friends for?" Dad asked. "I never had any, and I turned out all right."

"I had a friend, once," Mom said. "You have to have a friend to learn how to be a friend."

"He'll never have a friend," Dad objected. "At his age, there are only two kinds of kids: jocks and nerds. Ben isn't either."

"He's a jock, definitely," Mom said. "He's almost got his black belt in karate."

"He's a wimp," Dad objected. "You can only be a real jock if your knuckles drag on the ground. Besides, he reads books, for heaven's sake! What kind of weird kid reads books?"

Dad's right, Ben thought. Most kids specialize in something. You could only be a friend with a jock like Spencer Grimes if you could hawk boogers all the way across the playground, and you could only be friends with a nerd like T.J. Piddly if you had all gazillion Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

But Ben's friend, Christian, had been the kind of kid you could jump puddles with, or explore sewers with, or just talk to. Friends like that are hard to find.

"Ben needs to learn how to get by without friends," Dad concluded. "Maybe if we could make him grow up faster, he could get through this awkward phase. I know: we could try steroids! In a couple of years, we could turn that kid from a runt into a grunt. I made plenty of friends when I was in the Marines!"

"You know," Mom said, "Ben's birthday coming up in a couple of months. . . ."

"Well," Dad said, "Ben's not ready for a pet. He'd have to feed it and clean its cage. Any kid who doesn't keep his own room clean, isn't ready to have a pet."

Humph! Ben thought. By Dad's way of thinking, neither one of his folks would ever be ready to have a kid!

The truth was that Ben didn't have any friends because his mom never cleaned the house. At school, they said that it was so dirty that you had to wipe your shoes after you left. They called it the Roach Hotel. No one ever wanted to come over, and Ben figured that if he got any less popular, even his imaginary friends would start to avoid him.

"All right," Mom said. "We'll tell him tomorrow. If Ben can prove he can be responsible, we'll take him to the Noah's Ark and let him pick out a pet."

"What kind?" Dad asked, "A guppy or a gorilla?"

"A small pet," Mom said with finality.

#

So Ben crept back into his bed, and in his dreams that night a talking rabbit took him fishing for perch on the Long Tom River.

The perch lay big and purple under the water, like bruises, burping.

A mallard duck with a dozen yellow chicks swam by, warning her young, "Be careful, those hooks can put out your eye."

When Ben tried to put a worm on his hook, it wriggled away crying, "Why can't I be your pet? I'm not as slimy as a little sister!"

And if darker dreams disturbed his slumber, Ben did not recall them in the morning.

#

Ben's mom and dad didn't talk to him about the pet that Christmas morning, but Ben thought about it all day.

He cleaned his room that day, and when his mom took him to town later that week, he stopped at Noah's Ark and peered through the windows at the hamsters.

He tried very hard to start growing, so that his dad would like him better, and he only read in secret.

In an effort to make some friends, he tried smiling and being friendly, even to the weirdest kid at school, but no one wanted to be his friend.

#

On the thirteenth night, of the thirteenth month, of the new millennium, Ben sensed a change. He could feel it in the wind, and wondered at it even as he dressed for bed. Something was different. He could almost smell . . . magic in the air.

All day long, snow had fallen, lazy flakes drifted into heaps, settling between the fir trees in his backyard. Then the clouds fled and stars simmered in the sky, casting a web of silvery light on the snow while the moon sprung up as orange as a pumpkin.

The neighbors still had their Christmas lights on, winking from the eaves.

In the backyard, a snowman leaned over, almost as if to pick up the carrot nose that had fallen from its face.

Suddenly, a light streaked overhead, a flaming yellow ball that struck Bald Hill, exploding in a blaze of glory.

"Look, a star fell!" Ben told his mother, who was staring in awe at the clean sheets that Ben had starched and ironed and put on his bed that morning.

"Make a wish," she said.

Ben's heart hammered. He let his mind drift, as if seeking across the world to connect to the object of his desire. He whispered, "I wish I had a pet, uh, I mean—a friend. I mean a friendly pet."

He pulled on the football helmet that he kept on his nightstand, grabbed his baseball bat, and jumped into bed.

"You know," Mom said reasonably, "other children sleep with teddy bears to help them feel safe."

"That's crazy!" Ben said. "If a robber broke in here, hitting him with a teddy bear wouldn't help. Would it?"

"I suppose not." Mom sighed. It was an old argument. Ben had slept with his bat and helmet for years. "I guess that I should be grateful that you don't want to keep swords in your bed."

Hmmm . . . swords! Ben thought, but his mother drove the idea from his mind by having him say his prayers. Then she gave him a peck on the cheek, wished him "Goodnight," and slipped from his room.

#

And outside, miracles occurred.

Thirteen minutes after the first star fell, another streaked through the sky at a perfect twenty-degree angle to its left. Every thirteen minutes after that, another star fell, until thirteen had fallen in all, each aligned perfectly with the thirteen cardinal points on the compass—at least as cardinal points are understood by crows.

And in Dallas, Oregon, though no humans took notice, small wonders broke out everywhere!

Thirteen dazed children suddenly put aside their video games and rushed to do homework.

Thirteen mutts began to howl so beautifully that the nuns at St. Mary's thought they were a heavenly choir announcing the Second Coming.

In Ben's backyard, the snowman leaned over, picked up the carrot, screwed it onto his face, and trudged away.

While down at Noah's Ark pet shop, the greatest wonder of all occurred: beneath the pale lights thrown by the fish tanks that held the neon tetras, a mother mouse gave birth. Twelve small, pink kittens she had in her nest, all with eyes closed. The other mice gathered and gazed on in awe.

Even the angelfish across the room gaped with eyes as bright as gold coins.

The lights above the fish tanks flashed brightly, and their green glow came together to form something that lived and breathed. Thirteen luna moths suddenly took form from the weaving light, circling above the mouse pen like a crown, pale green wings flapping in unison, graceful tails sweeping behind.

The feeder crickets at the front counter began to fiddle beautifully as the thirteenth mouse made its way, squeaking and squirming, into the world.

As it dropped into the wood shavings, a wise old mouse named Barley Beard said reverently, "Thirteen mice in one litter—and the last is a girl, just as the prophets foretold. A thirteenth miracle on this night of miracles."

"But Grandfather," a young mouse asked, "what's so special about this mouse?"

Barley Beard scratched his head, as if looking for an answer, and said, "I only know that the number thirteen is normally unlucky, and in some ways this kit is destined to lead a dangerous life, for her enemies will seek to destroy her. Yet on this night of nights, all of the fortune in the world will flow into this child."

"You mean she'll be lucky?" the young one asked.

"More than lucky—" Barley Beard peered at the glass walls of his cage and longed to escape. "She'll be magic! Not since us small creatures ruled the earth has a mouse like this one been born. He didn't need to remind the young ones that to be born in a cage was hard indeed. No mouse of the field could be born to a more humble fate.

Barley Beard only hoped that this young kitten, this "thirteenth mouse," would find a way to free them all.

A shadow darkened the window to the pet shop. Barley Beard glanced outside just as a snowman plodded past. It was dressed in a fine top-hat and twirling a cane.

Why that's very odd, Barley Beard thought as he watched the man of snow go strolling under the streetlight, the ice crystals glittering like diamonds.

But soon the snowman stepped into the shadows and disappeared from Barley Beard's view. The snowman trudged several blocks down the street until he found a snowgirl in a yard nearby.

Then he cuddled against her, wrapping one arm around her shoulders, and then went quiet, waiting for spring.