IT was chaos at Strawberry Cottage and Cadmium (known as Caddy) was briskly hanging up the stockings. Meanwhile her little sister Rose, who was six, was trying to crack the polar bear snow shaker.

"What are you doing with MY snow shaker?" cried her brother Indigo.

"I'm trying to crack it so I can build a snowman with that snow inside!"

"If you managed to crack it, it would be a mini snowman" Indigo replied. And lastly Magenta was worriedly flicking through the colour chart. Caddy's name was in the gold's, Indigo was in the middle of the blues and purples and Rose was in the reds. But where was Magenta?

"Caddy," Magenta complained, "why am I not on the colour chart?" Suddenly the whole place went silent.

"Well you see...I chose it," said Caddy wiping a tear from her eye. There was a long pause. "But Rose and Indigo are younger than me which means you chose their names as well," said Magenta who was quite puzzled.

"Yeh that's right"

"So why have they got names from the colour chart?" asked Magenta.

"When I was eight Mum said if she had another baby girl she would call her Magenta. Then the illness came on. She couldn't talk. Then she had you, after that she had Indigo, then rose. Rose was the last straw," cried Caddy "and then she passed away you mean "muttered Magenta.

All the Casson children knew about their mother but didn't talk about it that often.

"Look we shouldn't be talking about this on Christmas Eve. Let's leave it for now" said Indigo.

"Off to bed now" said Caddy, "And no sneaking downstairs looking under the Christmas tree."

Magenta had converted her sleeping bag into Indigo and Rose's room who were very relieved (especially Rose) to see her.

"So" said Indigo, "Gor any ideas for seeing if Santa's been while Caddy's asleep?"

"hhmmm" thought Magenta "Well we could take it in turns to go outside pretending to go to the toilet and feel the stocking. Anyway it's only on the door handle," replied Magenta.

"lets go to sleep and we'll talk in the morning," said Magenta sleepily.

In the morning Rose climbed the ladder up to the top bunk where Indigo was steadily and slowly awakening. Rose gave him a firm jig. He bolted up.

"It's Christmas," she cheered.

"Brilliant," he said grinning. "Why don't you wake Magenta."

Rose carefully stepped down the ladder and bounced on Magenta's sleeping back. She unzipped her sleeping bag and Magenta sat up with a bolt.

"Merry Christmas!" smiled Magenta, "Lets climb into Caddy's bed so we can open our stockings together. Then we'll look downstairs together too." So the children got up, got their stockings and climbed into Cadyy's bed. Rose got a pack of hairclips, stickers, chocolate coins, a pencil case, felt tip pens and a mini purse. Indigo found chocolate coins, gel pens, stickers, mini joke book, yoyo and a air of football socks. And Magenta got hairsprays, bodywash, smelly bathroom kit, gel pens, chocolate coins, two cute pairs of socks and a farmyard mobile phone cover.

"What about your stocking Caddy?" asked Rose.

"Oh I'll open it later," replied Caddy. "Let's go downstairs and open the pressies."

It was an old tradition in the Casson family, they always opened the small presents first. Magenta looked at all the presents. She was thrilled! She suddenly glanced down. There was a small parcel with a gold envelope attached to it. Firstly she opened the card, inside was a short riddle.....

A long way away

You shall find yours

Left from your mother

To treasure forever

If you are stuck

In a bit of a pickle

Here is a clue

And I'll leave it to you.

Magenta showed this to Caddy who was extremely shocked. By now Rose and Indigo had sensed something was wrong.

"Open the parcel,2 said Rose curiously.

Magenta picked up the present and opened it. It was a small book called 'Angels'.

"Oh dear," said Caddy, "I've been dreading this"

"What?" said Magenta who didn't seem to care.

"Well this is from your Uncle Paul he was a poet and wrote them in riddle form," said Caddy.

"Where is my angel?" asked Magenta.

"Nobody knows," replied Caddy.

"I do," squeaked Rose.

"WHERE?" asked the Casson children.

"In the cupboard under the stairs," said Rose

Magenta rushed to look and there before her was an ornamental wooden coffin. Carefully she opened it and there was a beautiful stone angel.

"How do you know where it is?" asked Magenta

"Oh you know, just a little Christmas wish," smiled Rose