“Really?” Chris was relieved that Andy was as enthusiastic as she and Susan were—and that he was familiar enough with the town of Ridgewood to be able to help them get things organized.
“Sure. Remember the church where we had that little gathering after the sleigh ride last night? Well, that community room is your answer. It’s huge, it’s easy for the people who live around here to get to, everyone knows where it is ... and I’ll bet we’ll have no trouble getting permission to hold a bazaar there for a cause as good as raising money for the Ridgewood Children’s Hospital!”
“Great!” said Chris. “That does sound like the best place to hold our bazaar. Now all we need is a volunteer to go over there—the sooner the better—to talk to whoever it is who grants permission for people to use that community room and reserve it for this Thursday.”
She looked at Andy meaningfully. With a teasing tone, she went on to say, “My, my. Just look at the time. Why, it’s almost six o’clock! Don’t you have dinner break coming up at six, Andy?”
Andy pretended to grimace, then burst out laughing. “Okay, Chris, I’ll do it. I’ll go over to the church right now and find out if we can use the community room this Thursday. Even if it means missing out on your grandmother’s world-famous pot roast, which she just told me she’s making for dinner tonight ...”
“Don’t worry!” Chris assured him. “I’ll make sure that Grandma puts aside an extra large portion for you. Let me know how it all works out. Oh, and good luck!”
With that, Chris rushed back inside the house and up the stairs to her sister’s room. Susan was sitting at the big oak desk in her bedroom, putting the finishing touches on a poster that could easily be run off in Ridgewood’s print shop so that there would be enough copies to put in store windows and on telephone poles all over town. There was a blank space at the bottom in which she planned to fill in the details about time and place once everything was set, but the rest of the poster was completed—and expertly done.
“Christmas Bazaar!” said the bold headline. In smaller print were all the other details, like the fact that the proceeds from the bazaar would go to provide a holiday celebration for the young patients at the Ridgewood Children’s Hospital. In the margins of the poster were intricate illustrations, drawn by Susan with black india ink: a sprig of holly, a wooden rocking horse, three of Santa’s elves painting the face on a rag doll.
“Oooh, Sooz, it’s perfect!” Chris exclaimed, looking over her sister’s shoulder as she drew in the curlicues on Santa Claus’s beard. “That headline will really make people stop and read on. And those pictures you’ve drawn are guaranteed to put people in a Christmas mood!”
“I sure hope so,” Susan said with a modest smile. “Now all we need is a place to hold this bazaar of ours!”
“Don’t worry. I’ve already got Andy working on it. He’s pretty sure we can use the community room over at the church—you know, where the gathering was last night after the sleigh ride. Oh, Sooz, I can’t believe that everything is already starting to fall into place! This bazaar is really going to happen, and it’s going to be fantastic!”
“Well, so far so good, anyway.” Susan, always a bit more reserved than her twin, remained more cautious about the prospects for the town bazaar—at least at this point. “We’ll just have to wait and see if everything else works out the way we’ve planned. Don’t forget: Even if we have a place to hold the bazaar and the posters that will hopefully get people to come, we have yet to plan the bazaar itself!”
Just then the girls heard their grandmother calling them downstairs to dinner. They scrambled toward the door of Susan’s bedroom, anxious to tell their grandparents about their idea.
“We can tell Grandma and Grandpa all about the Christmas bazaar while we sample some of Grandma’s famous pot roast,” said Chris as she headed for the stairs.
Her sister looked puzzled. “Famous? I never heard of it before!”
“Well,” Chris admitted, “to be perfectly honest, I never did either until just now. And that was only because I had some inside information!”
“I don’t care if this pot roast is famous or not,” Susan said with a laugh. “I’m so hungry that I’m even willing to eat food that no one has ever heard of!”
Chris and Susan never got a chance to surprise their grandparents with the news of their latest venture, however. As soon as they sat down at the table, John Pratt brought up that very subject.
“What’s this I heard about a Christmas bazaar?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye as he reached for a slice of New England brown bread, still warm, that Emily had taken out of the oven just a few minutes before.
“How did you know about that?” demanded Chris, so surprised by his question that her mouth dropped open.
“Easy,” her grandfather replied. “Ridgewood happens to be a very small town. And in small towns, nothing remains a secret for very long!”
“Especially if some of the town’s more distinguished citizens like to eavesdrop,” Emily Pratt said, pretending to scold. “You girls should have seen your grandfather, standing next to the window by the porch, taking in every word Chris and Andy were saying to each other!”
“Grandpa, you didn’t!” Susan cried. “How are Chris and I going to manage to keep any Christmas secrets if you’re going to go around listening in on all our conversations?”
“I guess I’ll just have to try to restrain myself,” John Pratt replied, “Not that that’s very easy to do around Christmastime, of course. But let’s not get off the subject. If there’s going to be a Christmas bazaar, I want to know about it. I’ll be your very first customer! In fact, I’ll be there the minute it opens!”
“You can do better than that,” Susan countered with a mischievous smile. “You can help Chris and me make it happen!”
“You, too, Grandma,” said Chris. “As a matter of fact, Sooz and I really need your help if this thing is going to come off at all!”
John and Emily Pratt exchanged wary glances.
“I don’t know,” Emily said slowly. “Don’t forget that your grandfather and I aren’t as young as we used to be. We don’t have that much energy anymore....”
Chris stifled her first impulse, which was to contradict her grandmother, to insist that she was just as lively as ever and that she was just feeling as if she should be slowing down because of what the calendar was telling her. But instead she said, “But Sooz and I are really counting on you two! After all, you’ve both lived here for so long that you know everybody in this town, and so you can help us convince them to volunteer to help us make the bazaar a success. Besides, you’re both bound to come up with some good ideas, ones that Susan and I could never think of....”
“Well, I guess we could help you girls out a little,” John Pratt finally said. “Just tell us what we can do.”
Over a delicious dinner of pot roast—so good that Chris was sure that it deserved to become famous if it wasn’t already known throughout the state of Vermont—the girls told their grandparents all about their plans for the Christmas bazaar. There would be entertainment, they hoped, local people singing Christmas carols and playing musical instruments and doing whatever else they were talented in. But the main attraction would be booths—or, more likely, long lines of tables covered in red and green fabric tablecloths—displaying gift items, decorations, and edible goodies that people could buy, with the profits of course going to pay for the children’s holiday celebration over at the hospital on Christmas Eve.
After they described the way they saw the bazaar, their grandparents were silent for what seemed an eternity.
And then John Pratt said, “You know, I’ll bet we could make some money selling Christmas trees. After all, a lot of people wait until the last minute, then decorate their trees on Christmas Eve. Maybe Andy and I could go up to the woods tomorrow and cut down a few to be sold at the bazaar.”
Chris and Susan looked at each other, their brown eyes shining.
“That�
��s exactly the kind of ideas we need!” Chris exclaimed.
And it was not only the sale of Christmas trees to help raise money for the hospital that seemed like such a good idea to Chris. Having her grandfather go outside and cut down trees, just when he was feeling he was too old to be of any use to anyone, was precisely the kind of thing the twins had been hoping to get their grandparents involved in, to help convince them that they were still spirited and energetic ... and young at heart.
“I have an idea, too,” Emily ventured, setting down her fork thoughtfully. “You know I like to make things, and well, as Chris knows, I’ve got some things that I made just for fun that I’d be pleased to donate to the bazaar. I could spend all day tomorrow and Wednesday making some more as well—little things, like patchwork pillows and stuffed animals and potholders, out of the fabric scraps I’ve saved.
“And, come to think of it, if I make a few telephone calls this evening, I’ll bet I could get some of my friends to donate some of the things that they’ve made, too. Why, Jean knits so quickly that I’ll bet she could make two or three baby sweaters by Thursday. And Mary Evans is good with baskets; maybe I could talk her into parting with a few. Then there’s Virginia, who makes pottery, and her husband makes toys out of wood....”
She thought for a moment, then broke out into a huge smile. “Come to think of it, I could plan an entire bazaar myself, using just the creative people I know here in town!”
“Don’t forget baked goods,” Susan reminded her. “Perhaps some of your friends who aren’t skilled at making crafts could make Christmas cookies for us to sell.”
“Oooh, I have an idea!” Chris exclaimed. “Someone could make up one of those fancy gingerbread houses, decorated with cookies and candy and white icing that looks like snow, and we could raffle it off!”
Susan and her grandmother looked at each other and smiled.
“That sounds like an awful lot of fun,” Susan said. “Do you think that between me planning the bazaar and you making fabric items to sell at it, you and I could find the time to make a gingerbread house? I’ve always wanted to try ... and I’ve got a wonderful recipe for gingerbread dough. Why, I welcomed in the Christmas season this year by making little gingerbread people!”
“And they were fantastic,” Chris said sincerely. “If you two want to volunteer to make the gingerbread house, the honor is all yours. We can place it right at the very front of the room so it’s the very first thing that people see when they come into the bazaar.”
“Okay, great!” said Susan enthusiastically. “And I just thought of someone else who can bake things for us to sell. Brian mentioned that he has a sister who likes to make cookies. I’ll ask him to talk to her.”
“Wow, this bazaar is already shaping up!” Chris exclaimed. “Now there’s one more idea I had. While Grandpa is cutting down Christmas trees with Andy, and Sooz and Grandma are baking the gingerbread house, I can go around to the shops here in Ridgewood and ask the shopkeepers to donate things for us to sell. You know, the card store could donate Christmas wrapping paper and pretty stationery that people could give as gifts. Betty at the craft supply store might donate some yarn or some craft books. Then there’s the bookstore....”
“That’s a lovely idea,” said Emily. “And that way, everyone in town could get involved in helping raise money for the children’s hospital. Not only by going to the bazaar but by helping make it happen in the first place.”
“Whew!” Chris said suddenly. “We’ve certainly got our work cut out for us! Sitting around the dinner table and discussing all this is one thing. Going out and doing it is going to take a lot of footwork and coordination and creativity....”
“But I think we can make it work,” Susan insisted. “We’ve already got so many good ideas. And we do have two full days to get everything ready....”
“Now all we need is a place to hold the bazaar!” Chris interjected ruefully.
Just then Andy strolled into the dining room, grinning from ear to ear.
“I take it you’ve got some good news for us,” Susan said with a chuckle. “At least, if the expression on your face is any indication!”
“As a matter of fact, I have!” Andy declared. He sat down at the dining room table. “As far as the folks over at the church are concerned, we’re on. We’ve got the community room all day Thursday and Thursday night as late as we please. Gee, so far everyone I’ve talked to thinks that holding a Christmas bazaar to raise money for the children’s hospital is a great idea. And everybody wants to help!”
“It sounds as if Andy here has recruited some more volunteers for you girls,” said Emily with a smile.
“As a matter of fact I have. Mrs. King, who plays the organ over at the church on Sundays, asked if we’d be interested in having her play Christmas carols on the piano during the bazaar. I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s a piano right in the community room. It was tucked away in the corner the other night, but I think having some music could add a nice touch.”
“Perfect!” Susan cried. “And if we do get some of the local people to volunteer to sing or perform, she can be their accompanist.”
“Wait—there’s more. Mrs. Washington, who made the hot cider we were drinking last night, offered to make some for the bazaar. That way people can buy a cupful to drink while they enjoy the entertainment.”
“And we can sell Christmas cookies and brownies and things for people to eat on the spot,” said Susan. “Besides selling them by the batch for people to bring home, I mean.”
“But wait—there’s one more thing.” Andy grinned. “I have a feeling you’re going to like this one a lot.”
“Things are going so well that I can’t imagine what else you’ve got up your sleeve, Andy Connors!” Chris cried. “So you’d better end the suspense and tell us.”
“Well, while I was over at the church talking to Mrs. King and Mrs. Washington, I ran into Mrs. Keating, the Sunday school teacher. She’s got a class of seven-year-olds, and they’ve been rehearsing a little song and dance number just for the fun of it. All the boys and girls get dressed up like Santa’s elves, and they bring in toys and pretend they’re working at making them while they sing. It sounds pretty cute, and Mrs. Keating said the kids would be thrilled to perform at the bazaar. Especially since the whole idea of the bazaar is to raise money for kids like them who are sick and have the bad luck to be in the hospital over Christmas.”
“You’re right, I do like that one a lot!” said Chris. “Wow, this bazaar of ours is sounding better and better every minute!”
“Well, if we want it to be as good as it promises to be,” said Emily Pratt, standing up from the table, “I’d better get on the phone and start talking to some of my more creative friends. And while I’m at it, I’d better check on my supply of sugar and flour and spices. Making a gingerbread house is no small task!”
“And I’d better go check on my electric saw.” John Pratt stood up as well. “No time for dessert tonight. Andy, you’d better rest up. Tomorrow we’re going to start cutting down some Christmas trees to sell at the bazaar. And, believe me, that’s a lot more work than shoveling the front walk!”
“Okay, Mr. Pratt,” Andy agreed cheerfully. “Sounds like fun. Just let me know when you’re ready to go up into the hills.”
“I guess I’d better get moving, too,” said Susan. “Now that we’re all set on the location for the bazaar, I can finish up that poster. Maybe I can even get it over to the printer’s tonight so we can start putting them up all over town first thing tomorrow.” She, too, stood up and left.
Now only Andy and Chris were left at the dinner table.
“Wow, you sure did a good job of getting everybody all fired up about this bazaar!” he exclaimed. “Maybe you should run for mayor in this town!”
“Maybe I will one of these days!” Chris countered.
“In the meantime,” Andy said, “how about keeping me company while I finally get to eat some of that pot roast that I�
�ve been thinking about ever since I left the church fifteen minutes ago? Planning Christmas bazaars is hard work!”
“Okay,” Chris agreed. “But then I’ve got to run. I’ve got a million things to do. I’ve got to plan which stores to go to first tomorrow and decide the best way to lay out the tables at the bazaar and figure out the best way to get some of the local talent to perform....”
“Whoa! You haven’t even had dessert yet!”
“No time for that tonight. There’s too much to do. Oooh, I’m so excited about this bazaar! It’s funny how things work out, isn’t it? Here Sooz and I vowed to help our grandparents feel young again while we were up here in Vermont, to come up with some way of making them feel vibrant and involved in things so that they’d reconsider their decision to sell the house. And Sooz wanted to find a way to help out the kids at the Ridgewood Children’s Hospital....” Chris sighed deeply. “And here it is, all about to happen!”
“It’s about to happen, Chris, because you and Susan decided that you wanted it to happen. That it was something that you felt needed to be done. And you both deserve a lot of credit for that!”
“Aw, shucks,” Chris teased, trying to hide the fact that she was blushing wildly at Andy’s praise. “Now I’m going to have just one more piece of that brown bread. After all, I need to keep my energy up, or this bazaar will never come off!”
As she lingered at the dinner table with Andy, downing that one last piece of New England brown bread, it never even occurred to Chris that in less than twenty-four hours, a tremendous shadow would be cast over the holiday festivities that at this point she and the others were planning with such optimism and joy.
Chapter Eight
“How would you like to help the kids at the Ridgewood Children’s Hospital have a merry Christmas?”
The Candy Cane Caper Page 6