Silver Rain by Lois Peterson

the pages.
    Elsie could already feel the empty space where the picture had been. She’d got used to putting her hand in her pocket during the day, just to be sure the snapshot was still there. At night she stuck it under her pillow, then imagined she could feel it under her head all night, like the story about the princess and the pea. “I want it back, mind,” she told him.
    â€œSure,” said Scoop. “When the Reverend told you not to go to the shantytowns, what did you do?” he asked. He rolled up his trouser leg and picked at the edges of a scab on his knee.
    â€œThe magic nod,” said Elsie. “That says I heard him. But no promises.”
    â€œThat’s the ticket. So you could come if you want to.”
    â€œWhat about Mother?”
    Scoop flapped an arm in the air. “She’s just in New Westminster, waiting for her friend to die. There’ll be a letter soon.” He rolled down his trouser leg and then looked up at her again. “Do you think it will be a long, slow, agonizing death?”
    Elsie didn’t say anything. It was another of those questions that didn’t really need an answer.
    She and Scoop sat with their feet in the gutter, flicking stones at the few cars that passed by. Even though they missed every time, it was almost as good as skipping stones on the river, where the tugboats steamed past dragging log booms. She would have suggested that they go down there now, but Nan had said to stay close to home. With Father gone, then Mother and Uncle Dannell, perhaps Nan wanted her close by for her own sake. Not for Elsie’s. Besides, the Reverend Hampton was coming by after supper. Elsie had told him she needed some trousers; the ones she had were at least three inches too short for her already, and her ankles got cold on the way to school. He had promised to see what he could find in the church rummage. She would go indoors when the Reverend got here.
    After Scoop and Elsie arranged to meet at the end of the block outside Lewis’s Repair Shop the next morning, they practiced whistling. Scoop could only spit noisily. Elsie whistled “Yankee Doodle” right through without hardly taking a breath.
    â€œWhat are you children doing sitting in the dirt?” Elsie turned to see Nan coming down the path toward them. “I’ve been calling you for supper, miss. Time for you to go too, young man. Get on with you.”
    â€œWhere’s the fire?” muttered Scoop. He leaned over to give Dog Bob a tummy tickle. Then he stood and hitched up his pants. He was the only person in the world who wasn’t scared of Nan.
    He said goodbye, then strolled down the road, his hands in his pockets, his elbows sticking out in triangles as he rocked from side to side. Nan laughed as she watched him go. “He’s a case, that one. Come along now.” She put one hand on Elsie’s back as they walked toward the garage, Dog Bob trotting ahead of them. “And that hat comes off as soon as you go inside,” Nan told Elsie. “How many times!”
    But Elsie wasn’t listening. Uncle Dannell said that with the proper training, Dog Bob would have been the perfect sheepdog. Even without it, it was in his nature to try and keep everyone in his pack together. It had to do with instincts, he told her.
    Maybe she had the right instincts for finding her father. If he was down in the shantytown with all the other hoboes, she would find him and bring him home.

    As she waited for Scoop the next morning in front of Lewis’s Repair Shop, Elsie studied the radios in the window. She ran her finger down the glass, then rubbed the black smudge off on her coat. She paced back and forth along the sidewalk, dodging out of the way when someone wanted to go into the shop. Dog Bob drifted off to sniff around, then came back and sat beside Elsie for a bit before leaving again.
    After she had asked three passersby the time, Elsie figured Scoop