Episode 12
Two new faces have joined the Green Gables family! Introducing Davy and Dora are Marilla’s relatives’ twins whom she decided to take in after their mother had died shortly after their father had. Anne was happy to have them, but while Dora’s a well behaved child, Davy on the other-hand… was just one heck of a troublemaker.
Goodness he did himself no favours with his nasty and unapologetic behaviour when he arrived. It was one thing after another. He dropped a caterpillar down a girls’ dress during mass at Church, put in a toad in Marilla’s bed, and perhaps the worst thing: constantly made his sister the victim of his boredom. Besides snatching cakes out of her hands, he made her walk the fence of the pigpen only to fall in, and the worst one yet: locking her in an neighbour’s shed. Goodness, it was the absolute worst. He was getting a real kick out of watching the Anne, Marilla and Mr. Barry searching frantically for the poor girl.
It’s hard to say whether this whole extreme mean streak kicked off with the way Anne had brought up her shiny-pupil’s good behaviour to set as an example, as Davy did look particularly pissed off (if not jealous) at the kid when they first met. He had always argued that he doesn’t need to be a ‘gemplum’ (gentleman) until he grows up, because being a gemplum isn’t fun.
Eventually Anne did finally set him straight, Davy had gone on about saying he didn’t know that “whoopers” (lying) is bad. He said Mr. Sprott’s children told lies every day, so he didn’t realize it was a ‘bad thing’. That’s pretty much the problem kids faces. If their peers or adults around them are practising bad habits, kids just don’t know better when they pick up on these things. After-all, monkey sees-monkey do! But at the very least he seemed genuinely apologetic when he saw Anne cry instead of getting mad at him. Certainly a ‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed’ mood right there, and it seemed to be far more effective of getting the point across to him.
Needless to say, Anne’s carrying on Matthew’s patience and wisdom without even realizing it. Marilla was quite tickled to hear Anne say the same thing as Matthew had when they had first took her in: “Perhaps we always love best the people who need us.” And she’s committed to paying their love and kindness forward to Dora and Davy.
Episode 13
This episode Anne just couldn’t catch a break from mishaps, but to her credit, she didn’t let that sour her days. It starts off with Anne receiving a letter from Priscilla, a friend from Queen’s informing her that her aunt Mrs. Morgan (Anne’s favourite author) was going to be in Avonlea for a bit. Anne was of course ecstatic, and truly wanted to prepare the best for her. Unfortunately for Anne, things just didn’t quite worked out as she had hoped it to. Desert was spoiled with Davy accidentally fell on the pie, too many cooks in the kitchen led to a communication error of the three of them each adding a spoonful of sugar to the peas that made them simply inedible and had to be tossed. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Anne mistakenly left the willowware platter she had been cleaning on the stairs, and Davy ended up shattering it when his conch shell fell out of his hands. To say it was a chaotic series of event would be an understatement. And then on top of that, after waiting and waiting wondering where could their guests be, Anne receives a letter update that Mrs. Morgan had twisted her ankle was set to return to Toronto to recover. While that certainly put a damper on Anne’s excitement, the silver-lining is– it really just gave Anne one less thing to worry about after a tiring streak of misadventure. At least Rachel was able to fill the seat since she was the one who had delivered the letter to inform of their absence!
That wasn’t the end of mishaps for Anne though. The next day, Anne’s still trying to make her freckles fade a bit, so she has a lotion she uses to do so. The problem is… this time she used Marilla’s red carpet dye! EEK! Seriously, Anne seems to have the absolute worst luck when it comes to dyes in general. First her hair, which she could at least chop off and regrow, but her nose? Thank goodness the red carpet dye isn’t like the permanent black one! Diana really had to scrub hard to get it off, to the point which even Davy was wincing at how painful the process was. Needless to say, I think it’d be fair at this point it should be a household rule to ban them altogether!
And talk about impeccable timing for this to happen: Of course Priscilla, her aunt Mrs. Morgan and her friend Mrs. Pendexter made a surprise visit! But at least she was at least able to use the unfortunate incident as an entertaining story to share with her guests, which left both Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Pendexter were in absolute tears from laughing so hard about it.
Although it just seemed like one mess happening after another (including another separate mishap where the Hall was painted blue instead of Green), Anne did get some peace of mind for a little while. She had promised the twins to take them out for a picnic on the boat if they behaved well and helped with the chores, but also through Marilla’s suggestion (well played, if I may add), invited Gilbert to join them. Frankly it was a good idea that she did, because of course Davy’s still a troublemaker and was seriously considering jumping into the water despite being told over and over again that he shouldn’t because he doesn’t know how to swim! If he had, at least there would be someone on board (Gilbert) who knew how. At least they were all able to have a pleasant time together.
And finally last but not least, we got to see Anne providing some much needed comfort to her star pupil Paul. The two encountered each other when she was visiting Matthew’s grave, and he had showed up to visit his grandpa’s grave, while also leaving some roses for his mother who had passed away three years ago. Although it’s been three years, Paul’s still plagued with the grief and loneliness of missing his mother. He finds himself unable to talk about it with his father, because he know show hard it is whenever he mentions her, so he chooses not to spare him from further grief. But as result of that, Paul’s forced to bottle up all the emotions he holds for her. Thankfully Anne was able to help him process a bit of it, assuring him that it’s okay that it still hurts, and neither he nor his father is to blame. She offered to lend him her ear, so that she could be that person he could freely talk about his mother, along with things that deeply trouble him (such as the idea of his father remarrying), which is super important because these things could accumulate into bigger problems if he had to keep suppressing his own grief. So it was really good that she was able to do that for him.