Lo, the Perfect Plan

by Sarah Ellis

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Preface

  Lo, the Perfect Plan by Sarah Ellis

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Also Available

  Books in the Dear Canada Series

  The homesteading life that Ivy and her family were promised when they emigrated from England to the Canadian West turns out to be a pipe dream. Some settlers gave up and headed back home to England; others stayed on, trying to scrape out a living.

  Lo, the Perfect Plan

  Thursday, December 1st, 1927

  Dad has been reading aloud to us from The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes was a detective and he lived in London in the olden days. He solved crimes using the science of deduction. I have decided that I shall be a detective. Ivy Weatherall: the Sherlock Holmes of Saskatchewan.

  First case: The Singular Affair of the Missing Raisins. Last Saturday when Mother went to make the Christmas cake, somebody had eaten the baking raisins. Who?

  With the aid of this, my detective notebook, I am going to collect clues, and use the science of deduction to solve this mystery. The game is afoot! (That’s what Sherlock Holmes says to his friend Watson when they head out on a case.)

  Friday, December 2

  It is all very well to say “The game is afoot” if you are Sherlock Holmes. All he and Watson have to do is grab their hats and walking sticks and off they go. Nobody says to them, “Have you dusted the bannisters, Sherlock?” or “There are pillowslips to be ironed, Watson.” Mother says that running the hotel is a family business and we all have to lend a hand, but William’s off working at the store, Dad’s at the blacksmith shop and the twins are too little to be much use at anything — which leaves the helping hand of guess who? The Sherlock Holmes of Saskatchewan, except that what time do I have for the science of deduction? When do I have time to identify suspects by their footprints or their brand of tobacco?

  It is especially important to pursue my detective career now, because today after school I came across a real mystery. (The missing raisins were more of a practice case. It was obviously Gladys. I didn’t do it. Dad and William are too grown up. Harry only likes raisins after they are baked in a cake. Case closed. Except — when Gladys is so clearly the guilty party, how come I’m the one who has to interrupt homework, put on my boots and coat and trudge to the store for a pound of raisins? This is not deductive reasoning. This is whining.)

  The real mystery is that after school today I saw Elizabeth huddled in a corner of the store, talking with Emily Piggott. What is going on? Elizabeth doesn’t like Emily. Emily is silly. She treats us like children when she’s only three years older than us, and we remember when she was sweet on Gerhard and told him that we were “nuisances.” We have not forgotten or forgiven. Elizabeth will tell me what is going on, but until then this is a good mystery to think about.

  Saturday, December 3

  Elizabeth came over today. She didn’t say anything about Emily. Usually she tells me everything. I had an awful thought. What if she is getting to like Emily? How could she?

  I tried to stick to deductive logic. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t get his feelings hurt. He just concentrates on thinking. Question number one: What is the link between Elizabeth and Emily? Elementary, my dear Watson. It is Gerhard. I asked about Gerhard, and Elizabeth told me that her father just gets angrier and angrier about Gerhard leaving home to become a musician instead of a farmer. First of all her father wouldn’t read Gerhard’s letters, and now he won’t even let any of the family accept letters or write to Gerhard. I had the feeling that Elizabeth was going to tell me more when the twins roared in and interrupted. They are so bothersome.

  Sunday, December 4

  Here is something that is no mystery. Who is the most annoying girl in Milorie? Answer: Nyla Muir. Today was a big day at church. After the service was over we had the first meeting about the Christmas pageant. The Christmas pageant is Reverend Partridge’s idea. Rev. Partridge moved to Milorie last spring. We share him with Manyberries and Vidora. I like him. He is very kind and pink. He loves baseball and in the summer he let the boys come to church in their baseball-playing clothes so that they could all start the game right after the service. Mrs. Muir disapproves.

  Rev. Partridge explained that a pageant is the Christmas story done like a play. Today was the day for deciding the parts. The boss of the pageant is Nellie’s mother, Mrs. McLaren. She said why don’t we start with baby Jesus and this turned out to be a good idea because the decision was easy. Little Ivy Nygaard (my namesake) is the only baby in town. It doesn’t matter that she isn’t a boy because who will know once she’s in swaddling clothes? Mrs. Nygaard gets to be Mary, because then if Ivy-Jesus fusses during the pageant she can settle her.

  One by one the parts got decided. There was a bit of a laugh when Elizabeth said she wanted to be a wise man. But Rev. Partridge said that if we can have a girl Jesus we can have a girl wise man. I knew what I wanted to be. I wanted to be the angel. I’m not saying that I think I have an angelic personality. But I do have blond hair and I am very good at looking holy. I’m not bragging. This is just the plain truth. I have practised looking holy in the mirror and I’m good. By the time we got to the second wise man, however, I noticed that Nyla Muir wasn’t volunteering for anything either. An awful thought hit me. Did she want to be the angel? What cheek! Nyla is already going to be the princess in the school play. Even Nyla Muir would not want to grab both good parts — angel and princess in the same year — I reasoned, using my powers of scientific deduction. But I was wrong. First mention of the angel and up goes Nyla’s hand. I did not take this lying down. I shot up my hand too.

  Rev. Partridge and Mrs. McLaren had a discussion. Then Nyla did a sneaky thing. She mentioned how much her mother was looking forward to making an angel costume, that she had some good ideas for making wings out of gauze and a golden halo out of an embroidery hoop. That was it. I knew I had lost. I knew that Mother would not have time, while running the hotel, to be making wings out of gauze. My nightgown and white crepe-paper wings was the most I could expect. Forget the halo.

  Then Mrs. McLaren flabbergasted me. She said that she was relieved to know that Mrs. Muir was good at creating costumes. She (Mrs. McLaren) had some ideas about how to make an angel costume but she was defeated by the idea of a donkey costume and she would like to give the role of the donkey to Nyla and the job of donkey costume design to Mrs. Muir.

  I did not dare to look at Elizabeth. We would not have been able to contain ourselves. Of course Nyla had to say yes or else she would have had to admit that the costume idea was a sneaky, get-to-be-the-angel trick.

  I decided to be dignified in victory. My dignified-in-victory look is kind of like my holy look.

  Wednesday, December 7

  New guest in the hotel. Another travelling salesman. This one has something to do with tractors. More laundry and dishes. The Emily mystery is almost a week old and I have not progressed in my detections. Elizabeth hasn’t said anything. She is friendly as always but also woolly-headed. Today Miss Hutchinson had to ask her three times to collect the spelling papers. Maybe the solution lies with Emily. Maybe I should find a way to go out to the Piggott farm in the dead of night and collect clues.

  Wednesday, December 14

  I’ve had the grippe. It is hard to be a detective or even a regular human being when you have the grippe. My cough still sounds like some animal barking. It doesn’t hurt. It just sounds impressive. The twins were nice for a change. They came and did a puppet show in my doorway. I missed the Sunday afternoon practice for the pageant but Mrs. McLaren came round to tell me what I must do as the angel. I don’t have to say anything. (Go
od thing — angels don’t bark!) Dad says I look peaky, but I think peaky is a good look for an angel. I can go back to school tomorrow.

  Thursday, December 15

  Today at school my brain was full of cotton batting so I gave up on being a detective. I just asked Elizabeth about Emily. She said she was so happy that I had asked because keeping the secret was making her almost burst.

  I was right. It is all about Gerhard. Gerhard has been writing to Elizabeth, but the letters have gone to Emily, who passes them along. Gerhard made Elizabeth promise she wouldn’t tell anyone, because he didn’t want to get Emily into trouble. And Elizabeth did promise, but it made her feel like a bad friend to leave me out and like a bad daughter to disobey her father. And then she said how much she misses Gerhard and then she cried a little.

  Then I confessed that I was jealous because I thought she was getting to like Emily and then Elizabeth said that she was getting to like Emily a little bit, and I didn’t care at all because I am so sorry that Elizabeth’s father is so stern and mean and if William went away I would miss him too. Then I cried a little bit.

  The big news is that Gerhard is going to come home for Christmas, even though he knows his father doesn’t want to see him. What will he do if Mr. Muller turns him away? Elizabeth and I talked about this all through lunch. Even in the afternoon the thoughts of it spilled into grammar. One week of the grippe and I seem to have forgotten grammar. Grammar does not stick.

  Sunday, December 18

  Last practice before the pageant. It was chaos. Mrs. McLaren had told the sheep that they could make soft sheep noises when they came up the aisle to gather at the manger. But they didn’t pay any attention to the “soft” part and they were all baa-ing like crazy and drowning out the choir. Gladys and Harry were the worst. But I rose above it all, being an angel.

  This was the first time we wore our costumes. Mine is my best nightgown. I have wings and a halo. I love the bouncy feeling my wings make. Elizabeth has a wool beard that is itchy, but she really likes wearing Mrs. McLaren’s brocade dressing gown. And Nyla was right, her mother really is clever at costumes. The donkey is a wonder. The head is made out of papier-mâché with a wool mane. The body is made out of a brown blanket, and when Nyla gets down on her hands and knees you would really think it was a donkey. Nyla has sulked through all the practices. I told her what a great costume it was and she just looked at me as though I were a worm. Nobody seemed to be able to remember where they were supposed to be and Ralph (he’s the first Wise Man) got the giggles and snorted through his nose when Hilda Hacker sang Lo How A Rose because she has one of those fat, wobbly voices. (I don’t blame Ralph. I would have giggled myself except that I was being holy.) Finally Mrs. McLaren was starting to lose her temper and Rev. Partridge said that the first Christmas was probably very disorganized too and that we should all just pray for divine intervention.

  Monday, December 19

  Less than a week until Christmas! How can time creep so slowly? The tractor man is gone so Mother let me off after school and I went over to Elizabeth’s to make Christmas presents. Last summer there was a paint and wallpaper salesman staying at the hotel and he gave me a whole book of wallpaper samples. They are beautiful. Elizabeth and I decided that we would use them to make picture frames for everybody. As we measured and cut and glued we talked about Gerhard. He will arrive home on Christmas Eve on the train. Elizabeth thinks that her father will not let him in the house and that will make her mother really sad.

  I can tell that Elizabeth is worried because she is chewing her fingernails. We talked and talked about what we could do. Why is Mr. Muller so angry at Gerhard, I asked myself, using deductive reasoning. One thing is that Gerhard likes music but Mr. Muller doesn’t think music is a proper job. The other thing is that Mr. M. is very German and old-fashioned and he thinks Gerhard is too modern and Canadian.

  Then it hit me, like the shining star in the east that the shepherds saw. Lo, the perfect plan.

  I know what we can do to soften Mr. Muller’s heart. Elizabeth thinks it is a wonderful idea and she thought of one more bit to make it even better. The extra bit means that I have to be unselfish and it took me a minute to come around to it. But I’m willing to do it, because I have an angelic nature and also because that extra bit is going to completely knock the socks off Nyla Muir! The game is afoot!

  Tuesday, December 20

  We had the afternoon off school to get ready for the Christmas concert at school tonight. I’m reciting one verse of a poem called “That Little Christmas Tree.” It is about what happens to the tree after it is thrown out into the yard after Christmas. My verse, which is now stuck in my brain forever, is:

  What afterward befell it would take me long to tell:

  It once became a fairy wood, where elves and dryads dwell;

  And once a prancing, coal-black steed, With a noble knight astride;

  And once a dark and gloomy cave Where bears and lions hide.

  I try to make my voice dark and gloomy on the last line.

  Reminder to myself: I need to borrow two pairs of brown wool socks from William for the Christmas Eve plan.

  Thursday, December 22

  I have to have a diary gap. There is too much to say, do, remember, plan and make happen in the week before Christmas to write it as well. I will use point form, as Miss Hutchinson says we should when we are planning a composition.

  1. At the Christmas concert I said “elves and dwayds dwell” but it didn’t much matter because most people don’t know what dryads are anyway.

  2. I suspect, based on deductive reasoning and investigation, that I might be getting skates for Christmas! I’m trying not to hope too much.

  3. Everything is organized for tomorrow night. Elizabeth and I are going to tell Nyla the good news tomorrow at school.

  Sunday, December 25, just past midnight

  It is Christmas but it isn’t really Christmas until you go to sleep and wake up and I’m too full of what happened today — well, yesterday — to go to sleep.

  The first step of the plan was to tell Nyla that I had decided that I didn’t want to be the angel after all. I told her I was too scared to stand up in front of everybody in church and that I would rather be hidden in the donkey costume and would she please please switch with me because she had done such a good job as the princess that I knew she could do it. She was amazed and I think she suspected that something was afoot but of course she agreed. She was so grateful that she forgot to look stuck-up and for a moment I almost liked her, but then she said that of course she would wear her own store-bought white nightgown because it was much nicer than my homemade one so then I didn’t have to feel bad about fooling her.

  I thought I might be able to go meet the train yesterday, but Mother kept me busy preparing turkey stuffing and polishing the gravy boat. But Elizabeth came by and gave me the news. Gerhard arrived and Emily met him and they went out to the Piggott farm. Elizabeth told me that when she told Gerhard the plan he looked sad and then very happy and he said he would do it, which was a great relief because I sure didn’t want to miss out on being an angel for nothing.

  This is how it went. We all went to the church after supper, to the room where the choir gets together before they walk into church. It was a hubbub of costumes and choir members and shepherds’ crooks. We put on our costumes and then Rev. Partridge told us we were all going to be wonderful and then he said a prayer and all the main people in the pageant went into the church. The animals stayed behind. We peeked out the door. All the people were there, but it was dark. Then the choir members lit candles and started singing. When they finished the first hymn it was the cue for all the animals to go outside, around the edge of the church and in the main door to walk up the centre aisle.

  We went out into the cold but we were all cozy in our animal costumes. My heart was in my mouth when we got to the church door, but Gerhard was there. We did a quick costume transfer and he became the donkey. I remembered the socks for
his hands and feet. The sheep were too surprised to say anything. Then on they went, into the church, baa-ing and hee-hawing, but not loudly, in a kind of holy way. Maybe somebody noticed that the donkey, crawling along on all fours, looked bigger than he had in the practice, but mostly everybody was looking for the sheep or cow that they knew.

  I slipped into the back pew, next to Daft Binnie. He always sits there.

  And then the story went on. Mary and Joseph and the baby. The manger. The shepherds and the wise men. The sheep and cow and donkey. The angel. Ivy-Jesus made some gurgling sounds but she didn’t cry. I never thought before how the first Christmas was like Christmas right now — there was family and travelling and gifts and music and surprises.

  The final carol was “Silent Night.”

  The choir sang the first verse. Then just as they were singing the first “Sleep in heavenly peace,” the donkey stood up and took off his head and joined in the singing.

  Gerhard’s voice rang out over the church. Without giving Mrs. Gilmour, who plays the organ, time to do a twiddly bit before the next verse, Gerhard started to sing in German. “Stille Nacht, Heil’ge Nacht.” Mrs. Gilmour caught up and played very softly with him. The sound was so big and holy that I needed to hold on to something. I grabbed Daft Binnie’s hand. He smiled his daft smile and held my hand back. Everybody stood up and finished the hymn together. I stood up on the pew to try to see Mr. Muller, but all I could glimpse was part of the back of his head and I couldn’t tell if his heart was softened.

  On Boxing Day, when I get to see Elizabeth, I will have to ask her what happened. There wasn’t any time after the service, because everyone was in a hurry to herd all the sheep home to bed. But here is what I know I saw. I saw the Muller family, Gerhard included, piling into their car. And here is what I think I saw, in the darkness, through the snow dancing in the air. I think I saw Mr. Muller put his hand on Gerhard’s shoulder. It might have been good tidings of great joy. It might have been a miracle.