The high, crisp winter sky seemed especially clear that Christmas Day as Ryan tramped through ankle-deep snow in his tennis shoes, through the park, across the street, to his mother's apartment. Another pedestrian, head bowed in hurry, collided into Ryan just as he reached the door, knocking the green-wrapped present he was holding into a puddle of slush.

"Sorry about that," began the stranger before he recognized Ryan. "Hey, there!" he grinned broadly.

"Hi, Jake," said Ryan. Jake's cheeks were bright with cold and it looked as if he'd tried to tame his wild blond hair with some gel.

Ryan quickly fished the sopping gift from the slush puddle and frowned at it. "Well," he sighed. "At least I didn't get anything easily damaged."

"I know what you were about to say,"Jake smirked.

"What? I wasn't about to," Ryan started before he was interrupted.

"Yeah, you were. You were about to say, 'Well, too bad this present isn't for Jake, now that it's all wet.' I'm right, aren't I?"

Ryan laughed. "What can I say, Jake? You've caught me again."

As they talked, they walked into the lobby of the building and over to the elevator. Standing near it was a young man frequently glancing at his watch and running a hand through his bland brown hair.

"Sam!" Ryan called out. Sam turned around and smiled when he saw them. Ryan's older brother, he insisted that he was going to get his own place soon. Until then, he had to put up with a great deal of teasing from Ryan and Jake.

"What's going on?" asked Jake, noticing Sam's anxiousness.

Ryan spoke up, "Why even ask? He probably isn't sure he got Mother the right color of knitting needles for Christmas."

"That's not it," Sam said quickly, his face turning slightly red. Ryan rolled his eyes and held back a sigh. Sam really had gotten her knitting needles. "I think the elevator is broken again; I've been standing here for five minutes and twenty-five seconds." He glanced at his watch again. "Thirty seconds."

Jakechuckled. "Remember that time we got stuck in this old piece of junk on the way to your mom's birthday party?"

Ryan remembered very well. Nearly a half-hour trapped in a metal box with Sam, a hungry Jake, a birthday cake and fifteen helium balloons is not something easily forgotten.

"So, Sam,"Jake continued. "Which way to the stairs?"

Sam's face grew even redder as he looked around awkwardly, then he muttered, "I don't know."

Jakesnorted. Ryan managed to turn his into a gasping cough. "You're kidding," Ryan wheezed. "Sam, you've lived here with Mom for four years and you don't know where the stairs are?"

"I spend a lot of time studying, OK?" Sam snapped, then marched down the hallway to the left; Ryan andJake assumed he went to look for the stairs.

"So," Ryan said. "how's your job going?"

Jake's face lit up like a Christmas tree. "I quit."

"Congratulations! Finally had enough of your totalitarian boss?"

"I had enough within one week of working there, but I couldn't find another job with a schedule I could work with that was within a reasonable distance."

Footsteps echoed on the tile floor from the direction Sam had gone. "Hey, you guys!" Sam called. "I found the stairs, but they're roped off."

Jakeand Ryan went to where Sam was standing, and together the young men stared at the chain stretched across the stairway, a sign reading "Wet Surface" dangling from it.

Jakesquinted at the stairs. "They don't look that wet to me. How 'bout you, Sam?"

Ryan could see Sam was torn with indecision. Before him sat two choices: to be late for Christmas with Mom, or to defy the authority that the chain represented and ascend upward. Sam ran a shaking hand through his hair, then looked at Ryan for a hint of what to do. Ryan suddenly found the pattern in the cheap linoleum on the floor quite fascinating.

Sam drew a deep, shuddering breath. "I think…"

What exactly Sam thought was never heard, for at that moment all three of the young men heard a musical sound: the ding of opening elevator doors. With a speed that would make a track coach proud, they dashed for the dilapidated doorway. The two brothers and their friend spent the Christmas well, with gift-giving, pie-eating, and knitting themselves closer together in order to survive the next year with their sanity relatively intact.