Nothing happened, as far as we knew. We finished the route and came home and made hot chocolate. All our cheeks were red, and we went back to sleep, and when we woke up, my Dad turned on the radio. I guess you know what we heard. Another paper boy had disappeared, right here in Crowell. That's an M.O. if I ever heard of one. Three carriers gone, and two of them from town, and all three when it was snowing.

The storm kept on, so this time there weren't even any tracks from the police and the neighbors searching. They couldn't find his sack of papers. A couple of people helping out had to go to the hospital because of frost bite. The missing boys didn't live on our side of town, but even so, my Dad went over to help. With the streets so drifted, he couldn't drive – he had to walk. When he came back after dark with his parka all covered with snow, he said it was horrible out there. He couldn't get warm. He just kept sitting hunched in front of the fireplace, throwing logs on, rubbing his raw-looking hands and shivering. My Mom kept bringing him steaming drinks that she called hot toddies, and after an hour, he slumped back snoring. Mom and me had to help him up to bed. Then Mom took me back downstairs and sat with me in the living room and told me I had to quit.

I didn't argue. Crowell's got forty thousand people. If you figure three-quarters of them get the paper and most of the carriers have forty customers, that's seven hundred and fifty paper boys. I worked that out on my Dad's pocket calculator. Kinda surprising – that many paper boys – if you're not a carrier yourself. But if you're on the streets at five-thirty every morning like I am, then you see a lot of us. There's a kid on almost every corner, walking up somebody's driveway, leaving a paper in front of a door. Not counting the kid in Granite Falls, that's two missing carriers out of seven hundred and fifty. That might make the odds seem in my favor, but the way I figured it, and my Mom said it too, that many paper boys only gave the nut a lot of choice. I like to play video games and all, but the money I earned wasn't worth disappearing the way those other boys did with my sack of papers stuffed behind some bushes, which by the way is where they found the third kid's sack like the others, when the snow stopped. After we put my Dad to bed and my Mom looked out the living room window, she made a funny noise in her throat. I walked to her and saw the house across the street, all shimmery, covered with snow and glinting from the streetlight. Any other time, it would've looked peaceful, like a Christmas card. But I felt sick, like all that white had something ugly underneath. I was standing on a vent for the furnace, and I heard the gas burner turn on. Warm air rushed up my pajama leg. All the same, I shivered.

I've told you I quit. But my Dad says we've got something called a body clock inside us. It comes from being used to a regular routine, like when you know even if you don't have your watch on that it's time for your favorite TV program or you know you'd better get home 'cause your Mom'll have supper ready. I wasn't going to deliver papers, but I woke up at five-thirty the same as usual, even if Mom didn't wake me. For just a second, I told myself I'd better hurry. Then I remembered I wasn't going to deliver the papers anymore. I slumped back in bed and tried to go back to sleep, but I kept squinting at the digital clock Mom and Dad gave me last Christmas, and the red numbers kept changing, getting later. 5:40. Then 5:45. At last I couldn't bear feeling guilty, like I'd done something wrong even though I hadn't. I crawled from bed and opened my curtains and peered at the dark snow in our driveway. I could see the tire tracks on the street where the guy from the Gazette had pulled up and thrown my bundle. It was all by itself in the driveway, sunk in the snow. It was wrapped in a garbage bag to keep it dry, this big black shape with all this white around it.

I kept staring at it, and the Gazette office hadn't been open the day before, on Sunday. Even on Monday, they're not open till eight, so there wasn't any way for the paper to know I'd quit. I kept thinking of my customers getting up, looking forward to reading the paper at breakfast, going to the door, not finding it. Then I thought of all the calls we'd soon be getting, forty of them, wanting to know where their paper was. The more I thought about it, the more I felt worse, till I reminded myself of what my Dad always says: "There's only one way to do a job, and that's the right way." I put on my longjohns, my jeans and sweater and parka. I woke up my Dad, whose face looked old all of a sudden, I guess from being out in the storm searching the day before. I told him I had to deliver the papers, and he just blinked at me, then nodded with his lips pursed like he didn't agree but he understood.

My Mom made a fuss as you'd expect, but my Dad got dressed and went with me. I wasn't sure if I was shaking from the cold or from being scared. It wasn't snowing, though, and even shivering I knew I'd be all right. We hurried. We'd started a half hour late, but we got the papers to every customer without seeing any tire tracks in their driveway to tell us they'd left for work already. A couple places, we met a customer shoveling drifts, puffing frost from his mouth from the work, and every one of them looked glad to see me, like they'd been sure they weren't going to get a paper and here I'd been as dependable as ever. They grinned and promised me a tip when I came around next time to collect, and I guess I grinned as well. It made me feel warm all of a sudden. Even Mr. Lang, who's normally so hard to get along with, came out and patted me on the back the way the track coach sometimes does. My Dad and I did the route the fastest we ever had, and when we got home, my Mom had pancakes ready and syrup hot from the Radarange. I guess I'd never been so hungry. My Dad even gave me a little coffee in a glass. I sipped it, feeling its steam on my nose, actually liking the bitter taste. Then my Dad clicked his cup against my glass, and I felt like I'd grown in the night. My chest never felt so big, and even my Mom had to admit it, we'd done the right thing.

But that didn't change what had happened. At eight, just before I left for school, my Mom phoned the paper and told them I was quitting. When I went outside, I felt relieved, like something heavy had been taken off my back, but that didn't last long. A block from school, my stomach started getting hard, and I couldn't stop thinking I'd lost something or like the track season was over or I'd missed a movie I was looking forward to. It's funny how you get used to things, even a job which I know isn't supposed to be fun, that's why it's called a job, but I liked being a paper boy, earning money and all, and I could tell I was going to feel empty now from not doing it.

All morning, I couldn't concentrate on what the teacher said. She asked if I was sick, but I told her I was only tired, I was sorry, I'd be okay. I tried my best to act interested, and when I got home for lunch, my Mom said the paper had called to ask if they could send somebody over to talk to us around suppertime. She'd done her hardest to tell them no, but I guess they insisted, 'cause someone was coming anyhow, and I ate my hamburger fast from being curious and I'll admit excited from getting attention.

The afternoon was the longest I ever remember. After school, I didn't care about hanging around with the guys. I just stayed at home and played video games and watched the clock on the TV recorder. My Dad came home from work a little after five. He was just opening a can of beer when the doorbell rang. I don't know why but my arm muscles hurt when he went to the door, and it was Sharon from the paper. She's the one who came to the house and explained how to do my route when I first got started. Lots of times, she stopped at the house to give me extra cards for figuring out how much my customers owed me. Once she brought me the fifty dollars worth of movie passes that I won from going around the neighborhood and convincing the most new customers than any other carrier in town to take the Gazette in the morning instead of the Chronicle from Granite Falls, which is the evening paper, but you know that, I guess.