Two separate stories mesh – in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.

Jacob Two Two Meets The Hooded Fang is about a young boy who strives to be heard. He is nicknamed “Two-Two” for having to say things twice to be heard. One day, he decided to buy the groceries for his parents. There is a misunderstanding by the clerk, so Jacob finds himself in court. He is sentenced Two Years, Two months, two weeks, two minutes and five seconds in the Children’s Prison hundreds of miles away from civilization. It is a dark, dirty dungeon-like place where the children work and are kept in cells. There are the three head characters, Master Fish, a fish/human, Mistress Fowl, a bird like woman and the Hooded Fang himself. They also have green henchmen who spray “slime resistors” at the children to prevent them escaping. Two child agents try to help him out, as the children also come up with a plan for escape.