"Adam-Two, or -Three?"
"-Two."
I nodded. "Okay, go on."
"He talks crazy, an' he's always wonderin' about things. I never seen a kid to wonder so much. An' he's only twenty-three."
I nodded again. "And now he's got you to wonderin' about something and you want Daddy to straighten you out. Right?"
"Uh-huh."
"Okay," I said, "shoot!"
He sniffed and scuffed his feet and scrooched around in the chair some more. Then suddenly he opened his eyes wide and looked me square in the face and blurted: "Is there really a Santa Claus?"
The grin I was wearing froze on my face. It seemed I'd been waiting twenty years for one of the Kids to ask me that question. Daddy, is there a Santa Claus? A loaded question, loaded and fused and capable of blasting the Fairyland Experiment into space-dust.
Mike-One was waiting for an answer, I had to deal with the crisis of the moment and worry about implications later.