“Why couldn’t you have had a gravestone for your father, even if nothing was buried there?” asked Flora.
“A very good question,” said Mary, “but one I didn’t know enough to ask. Then, the other day, I was watching a true-crime show, and I learned that although most people think a fire is a good way to cover up a crime — you know, set fire to a house to hide the fact that a murder was committed there — it isn’t. And this is because fire almost never burns a body completely.” Flora shivered, and Mary said, “I know. It’s unpleasant — and certainly not very Christmasy. But it was important because it made me wonder why nothing was ever found of my father. The newspaper articles I read about the factory fire mentioned identifying the workers by their remains. So what happened to my father’s remains? I set out looking for my benefactor, and instead, my father’s death became another mystery.”
“But back then,” said Flora, “there weren’t any crime labs. I mean, you couldn’t identify people by their DNA like you can today. Isn’t it possible there were remains of your father, but nobody knew how to identify them?”
“I suppose so,” said Mary. “Still, that doesn’t explain why my mother decided not to put up a headstone in his memory. She could have buried something symbolic or meaningful, such as ashes from the fire.” It was Mary’s turn to shiver and she set down her teacup. “My goodness. Such talk. Let’s put it aside. Tell me, Flora, how are you going to celebrate the holidays?”
Flora told Mary their plans for the next few days, including Ruby’s concert and the surprise for Mae Sherman on Christmas Eve. A few minutes later, Mary rose, and Flora stood, too.
“Thank you for the visit,” said Mary.
And Flora, without knowing she was going to say anything, blurted out, “Would you like to come over on Christmas Day?”
“Oh, no, dear. Thank you very much.”
“Will you have visitors then?”
“No,” said Mary simply. “I’m used to celebrating alone.”
Flora, who had been feeling rather sorry for herself, facing her first Christmas without her parents, now tried to imagine celebrating the day with no one at all and couldn’t do it. But Mary, standing in her parlor amid her tree and her cats, a fire blazing in the hearth, looked serene and not at all sad. So Flora hugged her, wished her a merry Christmas, and walked outside. There was wood smoke in the air, peppermint on her tongue, and a gift in her hand. She turned for a final look at the peaceful house and set out for her own home.
“Doll?”
“Check!”
“Doll clothes?”
“Check.”
“Stuffed dog?”
“Check.”
“Piano?”
“Check.”
The items Mae Sherman had asked Santa for (as well as several things she hadn’t requested) were arranged in Olivia’s living room. And Olivia was standing over them, clipboard in hand.
“We did it!” she said. “With a lot of help.”
“Everyone was so generous,” said Flora.
“Presents for all the Shermans,” added Ruby. “Well, except for Mr. Sherman.”
Olivia and her friends had worked hard. They had talked to Olivia’s parents and Min and their friends, young and old, and had collected enough money for a truly special Christmas surprise for Mae and Nikki and their family. The day before, Olivia, Flora, and Ruby had gone into town and headed first to Zinder’s to buy exactly what Mae had requested — a doll with party clothes, a stuffed dog (not as big as Paw-Paw but still quite large), a bead kit, and a small but playable piano. (Nikki had already purchased Twister and the crayons.) Then, just for fun, and because they could afford it, they had bought another set of clothes for the doll and a stack of paper to go with the crayons.
After that, they set out for Cover to Cover, where they chose books for everyone in the family. Olivia was in charge of Mrs. Sherman (who she didn’t know at all), and after much consideration chose To Kill a Mockingbird for her, a book she knew her own mother liked. Flora had the hardest job, choosing something for Tobias. She thought and thought and looked and looked and finally, after consulting with Ms. Vinsel (one of the owners of the store) chose The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Ruby’s job was the easiest and the most fun (in her opinion). She was to buy books for Nikki and Mae, and chose two for each — The Saturdays and A Wrinkle in Time for Nikki, and A Bear Called Paddington and The Polar Express for Mae.
“These bags are heavy!” Olivia had exclaimed as they left the bookstore, so they walked to Needle and Thread and hid the packages in the storeroom.
“Now where should we go?” asked Ruby.
“How about Flare?” suggested Flora. “Their clothes aren’t too expensive, and we could get something for everyone.”
So Flare was the girls’ next stop. They chose a party dress for Mae (guessing at her size), two shirts for Nikki, and scarves for Tobias and Mrs. Sherman.
“How much money do we have left?” asked Ruby as they left Flare with a bulging shopping bag.
Olivia counted the bills in an envelope that she had labeled SECRET SANTA. “A little over a hundred dollars,” she said.
“Excellent!” said Flora. “Let’s get a couple more things for Nikki and Tobias and Mrs. Sherman and then buy the extras.”
The “extras” were wrapping paper, a box of candy canes, and food for Christmas dinner.
They needed help when it came time to buy the food, so Mr. Walter drove the girls to the grocery store and selected some of the more difficult items for them, such as the turkey.
At the end of the day, when everything — toys and books and clothes and food — had been stowed at the Walters’, all Olivia could say was, “Wow.” This, however, was before Olivia’s mother called from Stuff ’n’ Nonsense and asked if Olivia’s father could come to the store at closing time. Olivia, sensing something out of the ordinary, begged to go along, so in the end, the entire Walter family gathered in the store.
“Gina,” said Olivia’s mother, with a nod at Mrs. Grindle, “wants to propose something.”
Mrs. Grindle closed her eyes briefly, then said, “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but … I’m thinking of selling the store. Lately, it’s just seemed too difficult to manage. But it would be a great relief to me to know that if I did decide to sell it, you’d be interested in buying it.”
Olivia’s mother looked at her husband. “It isn’t exactly what we’re looking for,” she said.
“It doesn’t have a kitchen,” said Mr. Walter.
“But maybe we could make it work.”
“And it’s right here in town!” exclaimed Olivia, trying not to shriek.
“We’ll think about it,” said Mr. Walter.
“Then I can breathe easier,” said Mrs. Grindle.
Me, too, thought Olivia, who spent the rest of Saturday evening feeling very giddy.
And now it was Sunday and time to turn her attention back to the surprise for Nikki.
“Let’s go over the plans again,” said Flora as the girls settled onto the Walters’ living room floor with tape and scissors and paper and ribbon, ready to wrap the gifts.
“Okay,” said Olivia. “Tomorrow night —”
“I can’t believe tomorrow is actually Christmas Eve,” said Ruby dreamily.
“Tomorrow night after the Christmas parade,” Olivia continued, “around six o’clock, everyone who’s going to the Shermans’ —”
“Sorry to interrupt,” said Flora, “but remind me who’s going. Tell me everybody.”
“My parents and Henry and Jack,” replied Olivia, “and Min. Is your aunt coming?” (Flora and Ruby shrugged.) “Well, okay. And Mr. Willet, of course.” (Mr. Willet was going to be Santa Claus.) “And Mr. Pennington.”
“I think Lacey wants to go, too,” said Ruby.
“And Lacey,” said Olivia. “Anyway, we’ll meet back here after the parade, and we’ll load everything into our van. Mom and Dad will drive the van to Nikki’s, and Henry and Jack and I
will ride with Mr. Pennington.”
“Mr. Willet and Lacey can ride with us,” said Flora. “Mr. Willet will already have the Santa costume on, by the way.”
“Okay. We should park at the end of the Shermans’ lane, and then we’ll carry everything to their house. We’ll do it really quietly. I hope Paw-Paw doesn’t hear us and start barking. We’ll put all the things on their front porch and then we’ll hide, except for Mr. Willet. He’ll stay there and we’ll ring bells while he calls ‘Ho, ho, ho’ and stuff until the Shermans hear him. Then they’ll open the door —”
“And Mae will get to see Santa!” cried Ruby.
When the presents had been wrapped, the girls regarded them with satisfaction.
“This is so exciting!” said Flora.
“My heart is dancing,” said Ruby.
And suddenly Olivia could no longer keep her secret. “You guys,” she said. “Guess what.”
“What?” said Flora and Ruby.
“You have to promise not to tell anyone yet. Except Nikki.”
“I promise,” said Flora.
“I promise,” said Ruby.
Olivia lowered her voice. “Mom and Dad,” she said, “are thinking about buying Stuff ’n’ Nonsense and starting their own business.”
“Really?” said Flora.
“You’re kidding!” exclaimed Ruby.
Olivia grinned. “Nope. They want to start selling their gift baskets.” (Olivia refrained from mentioning that her parents had been looking at property in other towns.) “And Mrs. Grindle says she wants to give up the store. It would be perfect for Mom and Dad. Well, not perfect because they really need a place with a kitchen. But they think they could make it work.”
“Cool,” said Ruby.
“Wow,” said Flora.
Olivia felt just the teensiest bit guilty for not telling her friends the whole story, but she didn’t want to worry them. Not so close to Christmas. Besides, this possibility was so exciting that it had wiped away most of her own worries. She chose to ignore the small part of her brain that wondered whether Mrs. Grindle would actually give up the store.
Ruby lay down on the floor with her head under the Walters’ Christmas tree. “Mmm, smell that,” she said. “I could go to sleep right now and pretend I’m in a pine forest.”
“Well, don’t go to sleep,” said Flora. “We were going to deliver the other presents, remember?”
“Oh,” said Ruby with a groan. “I can’t. I’m too tired.”
“But the sled,” said Olivia. “Think of the sled.”
Ruby rolled out from under the tree. “Okay.”
For nearly a week, Olivia, Ruby, and Flora had been planning to load the Walters’ sled with presents for their neighbors and walk from one end of the row to the other, delivering them. They had been working hard making the gifts, and delivering them was part of the fun.
“We can pretend we’re pioneers,” said Olivia, “and the sled is our only way of getting around in the snow.”
“And we can go caroling at each house!” added Ruby, suddenly inspired.
“No!” cried Flora. “I am not singing in public. Come on. We’d better get going.”
Soon enough, the sled was piled with gifts. Olivia, who had taken photos of her neighbors all year long, had printed them out and made frames for them, one for each family. Flora had done a lot of knitting, including a long striped scarf for Robby. Ruby’s projects, in Olivia’s opinion, ranged from ambitious (she had invented a board game for the Morris kids) to haphazard. The haphazard gifts included a hastily scrawled card for Mr. Pennington and a pencil cup she had created for Dr. Malone by wrapping a piece of construction paper around an empty soup can and printing MERRY CHRISTMAS! on it.
Olivia and her friends set off in daylight and returned after dusk, their sled now laden with gifts from their neighbors. Flora was red-cheeked and smiling, Ruby was singing “Frosty the snowman was a jolly, happy soul!” and Olivia, her belly full of hot cider and cookies, was so gladdened by the sight of her house — Christmas tree in the window, lights twinkling around the front door, smoke curling out of the chimney — that she thought she might burst.
When Flora was eight years old, she had decided that her favorite day of the year was Christmas Eve. Christmas Day was wonderful, but it always went by too fast. And when it was over, suddenly the holidays seemed stale, even if the rest of vacation stretched ahead of you, and even if you had a houseful of new toys to play with. The letdown was terrible. But on Christmas Eve you could still look forward to Christmas. And when you were little, you could dream about Santa’s visit that night. Flora used to hope that Christmas Eve would go on and on forever. She thought she wouldn’t even mind if Christmas Day never arrived, because the best part of Christmas was waiting for it.
But Flora wasn’t eight anymore. She was eleven — almost twelve — and this would be the first time in her life that she had celebrated Christmas without her parents. She was worried about how this would feel (even though she and Min and Ruby had had many conversations about it), so when she went to bed the night before Christmas Eve, she tried playing a game. When you wake up tomorrow, she said to herself, pretend that Camden Falls is where you have always lived and always celebrated Christmas. Pretend that you have woken up in this room every single day, with Ruby across the hall and Min down the hall and Aunt Allie upstairs. And every morning you have looked out the window and seen Aiken Avenue. And every Christmas Eve morning you have thought, Yippee! Tonight is the parade on Main Street, and tomorrow Ruby and Min and Aunt Allie and I will celebrate Christmas.
Of course, this hadn’t worked. When Flora awoke on Monday morning, the morning of her favorite day of all, her heart didn’t leap as it had the year before. Instead, she felt a vague heaviness, so she lay in bed longer than usual. She watched the gray morning light slide into her room around the window shade, and she felt King Comma purring next to her head. She thought about Ruby’s concert with the Children’s Chorus that afternoon and the surprise for the Shermans, but nothing made her want to get out of bed.
She was still lying there (stewing, as Min would say) when the door to her room opened quietly and Ruby poked her head around it. “Flora?” she whispered.
“Yeah?”
“You’re awake?”
“Yup.”
“Well, why don’t you get up? It’s Christmas Eve.”
Flora said nothing.
“Are you sick?” asked Ruby. “You can’t be sick on Christmas.”
“I’m not sick.”
Ruby sat on the end of Flora’s bed. “Are you sad?”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
Flora raised herself on one elbow. “Really? You haven’t seemed sad.”
“I’m excited and sad at the same time. That’s possible, you know.”
“I know.”
“Are you excited and sad, too, or just sad?” asked Ruby earnestly.
Flora thought for a moment about Mae and Santa Claus and remembered the fun of shopping at Zinder’s and of delivering presents on the sled. Then she tried to imagine the parade on Main Street. She had never seen the parade, of course, but she had heard plenty about it. After the parade, Santa Claus arrived in town and not just waving from the last float. No, the method of his arrival was magical and unexpected and different every year. No one (except the mayor) knew who played Santa; it was a big Camden Falls secret. And no one knew how he would appear. Min said that once Santa had sprung out of a giant jack-in-the-box in the town square, and once he had been flown in on a helicopter, and once he had even ridden down Main Street on an elephant. Flora tried to picture this.
“Flora?” said Ruby.
“I guess I’m excited and sad,” said Flora. Then she added, “I was thinking about the parade.”
Ruby scooted closer to Flora and pulled King Comma into her lap. “How do you think Santa Claus will arrive tonight?” she asked.
Flora pursed her lips. “In a limo!” she said afte
r a moment.
Ruby laughed. “I think someone’s going to unwrap a gigantic present, and he’ll be inside.”
“Oh, that’s good,” said Flora. “Speaking of which, Min said we can put our presents under the tree today.”
“The closet is stuffed,” observed Ruby.
“I know some secrets!”
“Me, too.”
And with that, Flora threw back the covers and leaped out of bed.
The Children’s Chorus concert was held at the community center that afternoon, and when Flora walked inside with Aunt Allie — Min and Mr. Pennington arm in arm behind them — she drew in her breath. Pine boughs adorned the end of every row of seats, and garlands outlined each window. The room smelled as much like an evergreen forest as if Flora were actually walking through one. Tall white candles burned at the front of the room, and later, when the members of the chorus, wearing blue robes, filed solemnly from the back of the room to the risers at the front, each was carrying a candle in a tin holder, and their faces glowed in a golden light.
The room at this moment was hushed. Flora was sitting between Aunt Allie and Min, and she reached for Min’s hand. Min gave it a squeeze, and Flora thought Min’s eyes looked awfully bright. At the front of the room was a piano, but it was silent. There was not a sound until the first member of the chorus reached the risers. Then the choir began to sing “Silent Night.” When the carol was over, the children, robes rustling, stood in tidy lines, their eyes on Ms. Angelo, who stood before them, also wearing a robe.
The next carol was “I Saw Three Ships,” and Flora’s gaze drifted from Ruby and Lacey to the windows and beyond. No snow was falling, not today, but the afternoon was overcast, and the light outside was silvery. Flora shivered. She looked at Min, whose eyes were still bright, then at her aunt, who seemed far away, even though she was just inches from Flora.