Milo the Mole and the Littlest Christmas Stocking

On Christmas Eve, deep under the snowy meadow, Milo the mole was guarding his stocking.

It hung from the big root above the stove.

It was long and stripy, with a darned blue heel, and it used to be Grandpa's sock.

It still smelled a bit like Grandpa's cedar chest.

Next to it hung a second stocking.

A very small one.

Mom had knitted it from the thumb of an old mitten, for Milo's little sister, Poppy.

It could hold one acorn. A small acorn. If you squished it.

“Swap,” said Poppy.

“No,” said Milo.

“Pleeease?”

“It's mine. I've had it since I was your size.”

“So now it's MY turn to be your size,” said Poppy.

“That's not how sizes work,” said Milo.

Poppy grabbed the toe of the big one. Milo grabbed the top.

Pull. Pull. PULL.

It stretched. And stretched. Nearly to the floor.

“I can hear socks!” Mom called from the kitchen.

(Moms can always hear socks.)

Poppy let go and flopped onto the rug, arms folded.

“Santa won't even find mine,” she said in a small voice. “It's the size of a beetle.”

Milo was still cross. He was NOT giving away Grandpa's sock. He just wasn't.

But he looked at the thumb stocking.

Then at Poppy's droopy ears.

He remembered being little, when everything in the burrow was too high or somebody else's.

Hmm.

Milo unhooked the tiny stocking, tucked it inside the top of the big one, and pinned it with a pine needle.

“There,” he said. “Now it's one stocking with two rooms. Like a burrow.”

Poppy sat up. “Which room is mine?”

“The front room. Presents go in the front first.”

Poppy thought about this very seriously. “And you get the back room?”

“Back rooms are cozier,” said Milo. “Everybody knows that.”

“Can I put the first thing in?”

Milo sighed a big-brother sigh. “Fine.”

Poppy pulled a smooth gray pebble out of her pocket. It had a white stripe around its middle.

“It's for you,” she said. “For the back room.”

She had to push it past her own room to get it there. Clunk. Right down into Grandpa's darned heel.

“That's a good pebble,” said Milo. And it was.

Up above, the snow kept falling. Down below, the stove ticked.

Poppy was supposed to go to her own bed. She didn't.

She curled up on the rug next to Milo, mumbling, “Front room… back room…”

Then she was asleep.

Her foot was in Milo's ear.

He left it there.