Silver Rain

by Lois Peterson

  Nan stood back and set her fists against her waist. “You do look peaky. You and Scoop been up to something?”

  “No.” It was the truth. Elsie had been up to something. But not Scoop.

  “I thought he was with you. He gone home already?” asked Nan.

  “Mmm.” That wasn’t a lie either. He must be at home. Or he’d have been at the shantytown with her.

  Nan patted her apron. “All right then. You go tuck down. I’ll be in with your bowl in a bit.”

  On her way to the bedroom, Elsie bent down to put her hand against Dog Bob’s side. His heart thumped against her fingers, and his coat was damp and twitchy. He gave her a long, doggy look and dropped his head onto his front paws.

  Elsie shucked off her coat and laid it across the foot of her bed. She took off her pants and sweater and climbed into bed in her underwear and socks. She pulled the cold covers up to her chin. At night, the room was almost cozy with the flowery curtain down the middle of the room and the lantern on the dresser. In the daytime, with only two grimy windows, it was always dark and chilly.

  From the kitchen she could hear the rasp of the pan across the stove, the shuffle of cornmeal as Nan scooped it out of the bag. She listened to the rattle of crockery and the rustling paper as Nan rooted around for some currants.

  Elsie shivered, wondering if she would ever be warm again.

  When she woke up, Elsie could just make out the bowl on the chair next to the bed. She pulled on her sweater and settled the bowl in the blankets between her legs. By now it was just one cold soggy lump, with a scattering of currants dotted through it like bugs.

  But she ate every bit. She didn’t light the lamp or go out to sit with Nan, who she could hear knitting, her chair squeaking from time to time. Instead, Elsie lay back in the bed that hadn’t seemed warm since Mother had been gone.

  While she had been napping, Dog Bob had crept into the bedroom. He lay in a warm lump across her feet. The man who had stolen him wouldn’t have let him go if she hadn’t stood up to him. She couldn’t imagine what it would have been like, coming home without her uncle’s dog.

  She swung her legs out of bed. Her toes curled when they touched the chilly linoleum. Nan would have called Scoop a bugger in a bag for not showing up this morning. She wanted to tell him how clever she had been to get Dog Bob back, but there’d be real trouble if Nan found out that she had been anywhere near the shantytown, especially as the Reverend Hampton, who Nan admired more than anyone else, had told her not to.

  Scoop would like to know how well things had turned out, Elsie knew. But instead of getting dressed, she sat on the edge of the bed with a draft creeping across her bare legs. Refusing to stay inside where they belonged were the tears that Elsie had managed not to cry when she had been surrounded by the hoboes in the shantytown, and she’d seen Dog Bob at the end of that rope, struggling to make his way back to her. Elsie grabbed the pillow and held it against her face as she cried and cried.

  She held it there until it was damp and cold with tears, and the place in her chest where they came from was all hollow and empty. She cried into the pillow until Nan’s knitting needles had stopped clicking, and Elsie heard her get up from Father’s creaky chair and go outside to the outhouse.

  She took a deep breath and wiped her nose on the corner of the sheet. She put the pillow back on the bed with the wet side down. Then she got dressed, even though her whole body felt heavy and tired. And much older than when she’d got up from this same bed just that morning.

  She pushed the curtain aside and took her bowl and spoon into the living room. She scrubbed her face with the damp washcloth and was spreading it over the edge of the washbowl when Nan came back into the house. “Feeling better, are you?” She picked up a rag from the table and chose a spoon from the pile of silverware. “Thought these might fetch a dollar or two.” Nan rubbed each piece hard before returning it to the pile on the table.

  Elsie leaned one hip against the table. “I thought I’d go and visit Scoop.”

  “One minute you’re in bed asleep, being mollycoddled. Napping in the middle of a perfectly good day!” said Nan. “Now you want to go out and play?”

  “I’m feeling better. Thank you for the corn mush.”

  “You could be helping me with this.” Nan put a spoon back on the pile, then picked it up again, blew on it and gave it another brisk rub.

  “Please, Nan.” Elsie put one arm around her grandmother’s waist. She reached up to give her a kiss.

  Nan shifted away. “That’s enough of that. All right, then. Skedaddle if you must. Home by supper, mind.”

  Elsie shoved her hat down hard on her head and flung her jacket over her shoulder. She put one hand on the door handle and stood aside, waiting for Dog Bob to go through the door ahead of her. But instead of getting up to join her like he usually did, he just lay under the table as if he was not planning to come out anytime soon.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Scoop answered the door, his nose red and his hair sticking out all over the place. “Don’ yell at be,” he said. “I bin sick.” He stepped aside so Elsie could make her way around two bicycles, a shopping basket, three boots and a baby blue sweater heaped at the foot of the stairs.

  In the kitchen, Scoop’s mother was sitting in the big Windsor chair with her feet up on the table—on the table!—reading a Ladies Home Companion magazine. “Don’t expect me to get up,” said Mrs. Styles. “I’ve been canning. You like applesauce?”

  Elsie’s mouth got all watery just at the sound of it.

  “Two whole crates of apples last week. The father of one of our boarders grows them in the Fraser Valley.” Mrs. Styles reached behind her head to retie her apron strings behind her neck. “Runty, many of them. Scabby, the others.” She pushed up the nest of hair that just fell back over her ear again. “Enough for eleven jars though. One for you, if you want it.”

  She nodded toward Scoop, who sat huddled in a chair. “Our boy’s got a nasty cold. We sent him to bed. But that didn’t last.”

  When his mother leaned across the table to ruffle Scoop’s hair, he muttered, “Gedoff,” and pulled back out of her reach. “Bud I’b bedder now.” He sniffed loudly.

  Mrs. Styles eased herself up from her chair with the kind of sigh Nan made when she got out of bed in the morning. “I’ll leave you to it. There’s bread in the bin and jam in the pantry. Ernest, cold or no cold, you be a good host. Find a snack for your friend. I’m off upstairs for forty winks.”

  Elsie could hear thumps and laughter overhead, but she couldn’t tell if it was the Noises or the lodgers. How could you sleep with all that noise?

  “Nice to see you, lovie,” said Mrs. Styles. She gave the brim of Elsie’s hat a flick. “Come and see us again soon.”

  When the door had closed, Elsie poked her finger in a hole in the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. “Where were you?” she said.

  “Whadda you bean?” asked Scoop.

  “We were supposed to go to the shantytown. I waited and waited. Then I had to go on my own.”

  “Without be?” Scoop hacked a lump of bread from a loaf with a black blistery crust. “Ma wouldn’t let be out of the house. Because ob by cold.” He carved a second piece of bread, then slathered them both with jam—the blackberry jam Elsie had helped make last fall with the berries they’d picked from along the railway tracks, where the shantytown was now.

  “I had an adventure,” she told him. “I was in a tight spot for a bit. But it all turned out well.” Elsie knew she was using Nan’s words; she couldn’t think how else to describe what happened. She was still scared in a shaky kind of way. But proud too.

  Scoop dumped the bread and jam on the table and plunked down on a chair. “Go on. Hab the biggest.”

  Elsie took a slab of bread and spread the glistening jam evenly right to the edge with one finger. Not all globbed in the middle the way Scoop had doled it out. She sniffed, inhaling the sweet musty smell of blackberries. If she took the time to
smell the food before she ate it, it seemed to make it go further.

  “So. You gonna tell be?” asked Scoop.

  Elsie could just make out his question around his mouthful of bread and jam. She took a little bite of her bread, chewed each bite twenty times, and only then did she swallow it. “Me and Dog Bob went to the shantytown, and there were these hoboes. When I asked them if they knew Father, they just laughed.” She took another bite of bread, chewed slowly and put her slice back on the table. “I don’t know if they’d have told me if they did know him. But I don’t think he was there.” She pulled the crust away from what was left of her slice of bread, leaving just the soft white middle. “One of them stole Dog Bob.” She rolled the bread into a lump.

  “Ged away!” Scoop’s eyes were big and round. They were red from his cold and very bright.

  “He did! A man had him tied up to a rope. He wouldn’t let go. But I made him.” Elsie sat up straight in her chair and looked steadily at Scoop.

  Scoop ducked his head and asked in a quiet voice, “Did you cry?” As if it would be all right if she had. But he hoped she hadn’t.

  “I did not.” When Elsie thumped her hand on the table, the breadboard bounced a little. “I was too mad.” She brought her hand down again and squished a chunk of bread. “I told them they should be ashamed of themselves. All of them. I yelled at them!” Elsie felt a giggle move along her throat, up into her mouth. It escaped in a loud shout of glee. “I told them they should be ashamed of themselves!”

  Scoop laughed too, spluttering flecks of chewed bread onto the table. When his laughter turned to a cough—just like the shacker’s at the shantytown— Elsie jumped up and pounded his back until he stopped.

  He elbowed her aside. “I think you broke my rib,” he said dramatically. Then he laughed again. “I wish I had bin there. You told ’em off. Just like your nan would hab done!”

  He shoved the jam jar away, tipped his chair back and propped his knees against the table. “But you should hab waited for be to get bedder. We’re a team. We could hab gone together.” He took another bite, staring at the bread in his hand as he chewed.

  Elsie grabbed a rag from the sink and swiped at the table. “You’re disgusting. You’ve got bread and jam spit all over the table.”

  “Disgusting yourself. Eat that bread or Mother will think I was wasting food. So what habbened? Did you rescue Dog Bob?” Scoop’s mouth was so red with jam, he looked like he’d been attacked by the Noises’ lipstick.

  “He’s home safe and sound under the kitchen table. He won’t come out.”

  “You should hab waited until I could come. I could hab interviewed those fellas. Found out bore about the life of a hobo.”

  “I think the Reverend Hampton is right. It feels dangerous there.” said Elsie. She knew how much Scoop hated missing out on an adventure. But she’d had one on her own, and lived to tell the tale, as Nan would say. Now she knew she could take care of herself wherever she went. But adventures were important to Scoop. Until she grew nubs like the Noises, he would be her best friend, and they needed to have adventures together. “How about we track down the story about the dance marathon?” she asked. “And this time we’ll both go.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “I’m ready when you are, pardner,” said Scoop as he cut himself another slice of bread without asking Elsie if she wanted one.

  “We can’t go today,” Elsie told him. “Your mom won’t let you, with that cold. Anyway, it’s too late. And tomorrow Nan’s going over to Mrs. Tipson’s to change the shelf paper in her pantry. If I go and help, maybe I can earn ten cents.”

  “Thad’ll ged you into the barathon. How ’bout I budder up the Noises and baybe they’ll gibe be a dibe. Or the boarders, if I polish their shoes.” Scoop’s nose was streaming again. He swiped one arm across his face and sniffed loudly.

  Elsie brushed the crumbs off the table and screwed the lid back on the jam jar. “Let’s go on Sunday. But I have to do my homework first,” she said. “Did you do yours?”

  In Nature class, Miss Beeston had drawn a diagram of a leaf on the blackboard, marking the ribs and veins, the stipules and blades. At home, they were supposed to find a leaf and diagram it the way she’d done on the board. When Scoop said that he would rather draw a dead body as if he could see straight through it, Miss Beeston had told him to follow the instructions to the letter for once.

  “I haben’t done by hobework. I bin sick, you know,” he told Elsie again.

  She rolled her eyes. Her leaf was pressed between the pages of Nan’s Bible.

  She pushed her chair back and brushed the crumbs from her pants. If Dog Bob were here, he’d have cleaned up the floor after their snack. “I gotta go now,” she told Scoop. “Do your homework so we can check out that dance marathon. Hear?”

  “Okay, pardner.”

  He was still sitting at the table as Elsie opened the door to leave.

  Outside the dance hall stood a billboard with Fifth Day slapped across it. Elsie could hear music coming from inside and a loud voice sounding like someone giving orders. Someone laughing. “Nan gave me a dime. Where’s yours?” she asked Scoop.

  His nose was still red, and he kept sniffing. Even though the sun on the street was warm, he flapped his arms up and down as if he were cold. “Don’t got one.”

  “I thought you were going to ask your sisters. Or the lodgers.”

  “I was too sick to shine shoes. That’s hard work. I thought you said you’d get one for helping that lady in your old house?”

  Elsie hadn’t told Scoop that she’d run out on Nan in the middle of the job. She couldn’t bring herself to explain how humiliating it had been to crawl all over what used to be her own kitchen, to be cooped up in the pantry where she had helped her father build the shelves not so long ago. And she wasn’t about to tell Scoop that Nan had said she wasn’t much help and hardly deserved a dime for being so childish, then finally gave her one grudgingly only because A promise is a promise. Elsie hadn’t dared ask for another, Nan was so aerated. Sometimes you could not tell your best friend everything. “I thought we were just coming to get the lay of the land,” she said. “You said that real newspapermen do their research first.”

  “That’s important, of course.” Scoop pulled out his book and licked the end of his pencil. Then he stuck it behind his ear.

  “How about I take notes this time?” Elsie suggested. “You tell me what to write.”

  When she reached for Scoop’s book, he pulled away from her. “You’re just my sidekick, remember?” he said. “I’m the reporter. Anyway, I don’t think you’d know a red-hot story if it burned you.” He stepped back to let a couple go to the door. Then he changed his mind and tapped the man’s elbow. “Excuse me. Could I have a moment of your time?”

  The woman took her hand from the crook of the man’s arm. She patted her hair with a very pale hand with long red nails. Her blond curls were pressed tight against her head like a pretty hat, and her tiny mouth glistened with bright red lipstick.

  The man ran his finger down one long black sideburn and flashed a toothy smile. “No autographs. Please.”

  Scoop frowned as if he didn’t know what to make of this. Then, in a most un-newspapermanly way, he asked, “Who are you?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out,” the man said.

  The lady snickered. “I could ask the same of you, little boy.”

  “I’m Scoop.” He puffed out his chest and drew his book from his overalls pocket. “I’m hoping to document… I mean I plan to make a record…I mean…” He sniffed and looked at Elsie, then back at the man as, all in a rush, he asked, “Can you spare a dime?”

  Elsie felt herself flush red. Over and over, she’d been told that no matter how difficult things were, they would never beg. She had seen the men on the street with cardboard signs pleading for a day’s work, mothers with crying children huddled around them begging for food. She knew it was because of the Depression. But she knew t
hat begging was not the right thing for her to do.

  As she grabbed Scoop’s arm, the man stepped back and frowned at his companion. All Elsie wanted to do was get Scoop away from there before the man gave them his spare change. As if they were beggars. As bad as the hoboes. “Sorry to trouble you, sir,” she said. “Come on, Scoop. We’ll come back later.”

  “Hang on!” Scoop tried to pull away from her.

  “No. Let’s go.” She struggled to keep hold of Scoop’s sleeve. But he yanked back and forth, just like a dog hanging on to a rope with its teeth. She finally let go and fell back onto the sidewalk with a thump that went all the way up her back and gave her head a jolt.

  When the man in the silky gray suit put out a hand to help her up, the woman said, “We’re due on in ten minutes, Jake. Leave these children alone, for heaven’s sake.” She tottered to the door on her high heels and held it open. The man winked at Elsie, then followed the woman with a little flick of his wrist, which might have been a wave.

  “Look. You ripped my coat.” Scoop shoved his arm at Elsie as the door closed. “I think they were famous. They’ve been in the glossies, I bet. You made me miss out on a big story.”

  “You shouldn’t have begged,” she told him.

  “Well, it’s better than stealing,” he answered, as if that idea had just occurred to him.

  “You shouldn’t do that either!” said Elsie.

  “No one got hurt.”

  “I did.” Elsie thumped him.

  Instead of hitting back, Scoop stepped away from her and peered at the billboard.

  “What’s so interesting, anyway?” said Elsie. “It’s just a dumb dance. Mother and Father used to dance. Sometimes after I went to bed I’d hear them, and I’d come down and watch. But Nan and the Reverend say what they’re doing here is degrading. I don’t know what that means. Do you?”

  “Whatever it means, it’s a story. Don’t you know that?” said Scoop. “If I’m going to be a newspaperman, I have to follow the stories. Wherever they lead.” He tapped his nose and tried to wink, but only managed to scrunch up his face.