“Santa is magic. You’re not Santa.”

　“Meaning I’m not magic? Geez, Louise, you’re a tough customer.”

　“I’m not Louise,”

　“I know. You’re Clare. Clare Anne Abshire, born May 24, 1971. Your parents are Philip and Lucille Abshire, and you live with them and your grandma and your brother, Mark, and your sister, Alicia, in that big house up there.”

　“Just because you know things doesn’t mean you’re from the future.”

　“If you hang around a while you can watch me disappear” I feel I can count on this because Clare once told me it was the thing she found most impressive about our first meeting.

　Silence. Clare shifts her weight from foot to foot and waves away a mosquito. “Do you know Santa?”

　“Personally? Um, no.” I have stopped bleeding, but I must look awful. “Hey, Clare, do you happen to have a Band-Aid? Or some food? Time traveling makes me pretty hungry.”

　She thinks about this. She digs into her jumper pocket and produces a Hershey bar with one bite out of it. She throws it at me.

　“Thank you. I love these.” I eat it neatly but very quickly. My blood sugar is low. I put the wrapper in her shopping bag. Clare is delighted.

　“You eat like a dog.”

　“I do not!” I am deeply offended. “I have opposable thumbs, thank you very much.”

　“What are posable thumbs?”

　“Do this.” I make the “okay” sign. Clare makes the “okay” sign. “Opposable thumbs means you can do that. It means you can open jars and tie your shoes and other things animals can’t do.”

　Clare is not happy with this. “Sister Carmelita says animals don’t have souls.”

　“Of course animals have souls. Where did she get that idea?”

　“She said the Pope says.”

　“The Pope’s an old meanie. Animals have much nicer souls than we do. They never tell lies or blow anybody up.”

　“They eat each other.”

　“Well, they have to eat each other; they can’t go to Dairy Queen and get a large vanilla cone with sprinkles, can they?” This is Clare’s favorite thing to eat in the whole wide world (as a child. As an adult Clare’s favorite food is sushi, particularly sushi from Katsu on Peterson Avenue).

　“They could eat grass.”

　“So could we, but we don’t. We eat hamburgers.”