of allegiance to hold up the three middle fingers of her right hand and recite the Girl Scout Promise. At first, the kids had laughed at this solo. After a few times, it became routine, just Penny being Penny.
“Oh, no. It’s not cookie time. This is special—really special.”
Alice brought their plates to the kitchen table.
“Yum.” Penny grabbed her square and took a big bite. Then, with a few spewed crumbs and a flourish of her hand, she announced, “Snow globes!”
Alice set down her plate. The partially unfolded brochure was glossy and colorful. “Cool. Let me see.”
A dozen snow globes were for sale. Every one of them shared identical specifications in the accompanying label—the same size, price, and “genuine oak base.” Their scenes, however, were quite distinct. In Snowy City, skinny skyscrapers crammed a car-clogged street. And in Cape Cod Christmas, a clapboard cottage faced a swelling ocean. Alice didn’t like that one. The artist had shaped the water into a wave that was big enough to knock over the tiny cottage. She smoothed open the last flap and studied a woodland snow globe, a farmhouse snow globe, and a Victorian village snow globe.
But the one Penny tapped with her chocolate-smeared finger—the bottom corner one and certainly, Alice silently decided, the most magnificent one—was the snow globe that miniaturized a mountaintop scene: Winsome Peak.
“Look at the pine trees,” Alice murmured.
Penny pointed to the side of the cabin. “And the neat stack of firewood.”
A snow-speckled pond gleamed like an opal. “It looks like a person could step right on that ice and skate,” Alice said. She was impressed. The artist must have loved designing this