The world is at war. Shocking events have rattled the residents of the small town of Elderberry, Georgia down to their worn, rationed shoes. It's 1942, almost a year since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and most of the men in town have either volunteered for the armed forces or are waiting for "Greetings" from Uncle Sam.

For Charlie Carr, a young teacher at the Elderberry grammar school, life and love aren't going exactly as planned--her head dictates loyalty to the handsome corpsman, Hugh Brumlow, but whenever she thinks of her best friend's beau, Will, her heart does the Jersey Bounce. One frosty November morning just before Thanksgiving, Charlie and her fellow teachers are a trifle miffed with the school custodian, Wilson "Christmas" Malone--so called because he was as slow as--when they discover that not only has he neglected to stoke the furnace, but wastebaskets still brim with yesterday's apple cores and pencil shavings.

When the custodian is found dead in a broom closet, it seems a heart attack is to blame. But when beloved schoolmistress Miss Dimple Kilpatrick, who is as dependable as gravity and has taught the town's first graders--including Charlie--for almost forty years, fails to show up for school the following day, the entire town is stunned by her disappearance and begins to question the events surrounding Christmas' death. Charlie and her friend Annie Gardner begin to do some sleuthing on their own, and soon find a whole mess of suspects, and mystery upon mystery to boot.