The Reindeer Who Came in the Wrong Season

That morning, there was something odd in the garden.

Emma noticed it first, because Emma always notices everything first. She had set her bowl down on the table, turned her head toward the window, and said, in the calm voice people use for perfectly ordinary things:

"There's a reindeer in the leaves."

Theo knocked over his apple juice.

You have to understand: a reindeer, in October, in a garden where the apple trees are dropping their last apples, is not really where it belongs. Reindeer come later. They come when the sky turns white, when your fingers sting a little inside your mittens, when you can hear the bells far off in the village. They do not come while the leaves are still rust-colored and you can go outside without a scarf.

And yet. There he was.

A small reindeer. Not a big sleigh reindeer, no: a little one, with tiny antlers like two tree branches just getting started, and a pale patch on his muzzle shaped like a slightly crooked heart.

Emma and Theo went down into the garden without making a sound.

The little reindeer looked at them. He did not run away. If anything, he looked frankly relieved that somebody had finally shown up.

"You're early," said Emma.

The little reindeer lowered his head and blew into the leaves. The leaves went spinning into the air. Theo burst out laughing.

"He doesn't know," said Theo. "He doesn't know he's early."

That was exactly it. The little reindeer had heard, very far away, something that sounded like the beginning of winter. Maybe a slightly colder wind. Maybe the smell of a chimney. He had decided it was time, and off he had gone, all by himself, two months too soon.

Now he was standing in a garden full of leaves, with no idea what to do with himself.

"Right," said Emma.

When Emma says "right" in that particular way, it means she has decided something.

They made him a spot. Not a house, not a shelter: a spot. Under the big apple tree, where the grass stays dry even when it rains. Theo brought the blanket, the scratchy one nobody wants. Emma brought three apples, a little hay found at the back of the garage, and an old bucket filled with water.

The little reindeer sniffed the apples. He ate one and a half, which, for a polite reindeer, is a way of saying thank you.

"He needs a name," said Theo.

They thought about it for a long time. Emma suggested winter names, Theo suggested dessert names, and that is how they landed on Nougat.

Nougat lifted his head when they said it. Twice. So that settled it.

That evening, before going up to bed, Emma stopped at the window.

Down below, under the apple tree, there was a small dark shape curled up in the scratchy blanket. It was not moving. It was waiting.

"He's going to stay all autumn," said Theo, who had come to join her in pajamas and mismatched socks.

"Yes," said Emma.

"And then?"

Emma looked at the sky. There was not a single snowflake yet. Not one. But there was that faintly blue light at the far end of the garden, the one you only see at this time of year, the one that means: it's coming.

"Then," said Emma, "it will be winter. And he'll be right on time."

They turned off the light.

Outside, Nougat blew into the leaves one last time, just for the pleasure of it, and watched them spin away in the dark.