Hare-iette finally told me the whole story. This is how it went.

The children practiced every day except Sunday, three days a week for choir practice, three days for pageant practice. Hare-iette was loving every minute of it. Well, almost every minute of it. The boy, Peter, was still picking on her. He was making fun of her because she believes in Santa Claus. You can imagine how strange that seemed to Hare-iette. She tried to ignore him most of the time.

The animals for the pageant were staying in a barn behind Miss Amelia's house, right near the church. Some of the high school kids would bring them over for practice. Hare-iette got to be good friends with some of the animals. Miss Amelia's big bloodhound, Homer; the cow, Clover; and the donkey, Burrito, understood everything she said. Homer could even talk to her. The sheep were hopeless. They couldn't understand a word she said.

One day they were getting ready for pageant practice and Peter was making fun of Hare-iette's ears. He said she got the part of a shepherd so her ears would be covered up with the costume. Then he pulled her ear again. Burrito saw what Peter had done, trotted over to him and gave him a hard push with his head that sent Peter right into the animals' big tub of drinking water. It was very cold. Peter was wet from head to toe. He screamed and cried. Miss Amelia had to take him home. Hare-iette gave Burrito a big hug and laughed so hard she had tears running down her face.

Hare-iette was having a wonderful time. She loved Miss Amelia. Mrs Watts, the pastor and the rest of the children and adults were all nice. Peter was home with a bad cold.

Hare-iette wanted to get Miss Amelia a special present for Christmas. I'd made some cookies and jam that I planned to have her give the adults who were working with the program. That just wouldn't do for Miss Amelia though, it had to be something special. I should have realized, right then, that things were going to get complicated.

One day Hare-iette was a little early. Miss Amelia was coming out of the office, loaded down with boxes of things for the pageant. She asked Hare-iette to go in the office and bring out some things she had left on the desk in the office. Hare-iette hopped right to it.

Hare-iette went to the desk to get the items. She noticed the computer was on. On the screen was an e-mail Miss Amelia had been writing to a friend. Hare-iette couldn't keep herself from reading what was there.

She grabbed the things from the desk and ran to Miss Amelia with them, a huge grin on her face. Then she ran to find Lisa. She grabbed Lisa by the arm and said in low voice, "I know what Miss Amelia wants for Christmas!"

"What Hare-iette? Tell me!"

Hare-iette stood on tip toes and whispered in Lisa's ear.

"Hare-iette, we couldn't get that for her, it's impossible!"

"It is not! But it will take some work. Are you going to help me or not?"

"Well, I guess we could at least try."

And so, Hare-iette and Lisa started trying to come up with a plan.