“I did.”
Elsie knew what she wanted to ask. But she couldn’t. She didn’t dare. If she waited, Nan would tell her.
So Elsie studied her fingers and picked at the little scab on the finger she’d nicked while peeling spuds. She ran one nail through the groove along the edge of the table. She peered underneath to look at Dog Bob, who was wide-awake, blinking up at her as if he was listening and waiting. Just like she was waiting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Nan was silent for what seemed a long time. Almost forever. Then at last she opened the letter and read it through to herself again while Elsie studied the writing on the envelope lying face up on the table. Her fingers tingled with wanting to reach over and pick it up. To know for sure. But instead, she waited for Nan.
“Well, then.” Her grandmother’s eyes were moist as she looked across the table. “I’ve reread this a few times these past few days,” she said. “Shame is a dreadful thing.” Her voice was so low, Elsie had to lean forward to hear her. “It stopped your father from coming home. Just like it stopped Ernest from telling you his secret. But you’re not to blame your father. Hear?”
Elsie nodded. Even though she did not understand.
“Your father ran away. That’s a cowardly thing. I won’t deny that.”
“Where did he go?” asked Elsie. “Does he say?”
Nan tapped the letter that now lay open between them. “Boxcar tourist he was, for a while. Jumping the trains. Traveling between cities. He fetched up in Winnipeg. Met a jeweler, an old man who had gone blind, sudden like, just before your father got to town. This man met him and gave him a place to stay. Then, when he found out your father’s trade, he put him to work. Isn’t that something?” Nan didn’t seem to need an answer. She pushed the letter toward Elsie. “He gave your father just what he needed. Work. The pride of real work. Go on, then. You might as well read it for yourself.”
But Elsie didn’t need to read it now. She needed to know only one thing. She took a deep breath and asked, “Is he coming home?”
Nan got up and gathered the tea things. She set them carefully on a tray and carried it to the dresser. When she came back to the table, she said, “If your mother lets him.”
“Oh.” Her father would come home if her mother let him?
“But there’s more,” said Nan. “The old gentleman has a brother in business here. Across town, mind. There will be work for your father there, if he wants it. So that’s that.” Nan groaned as she sat down. “You have to be patient just a little longer. We’ll give your mother the news as soon as she gets home from New Westminster. And this too.” She reached into the deep pocket of her apron. “Your father sent this to keep us going until he comes home.” She held up some folded bills, then tucked them back where they’d come from.
Elsie wanted to ask how much money Father had sent. But it was rude to ask. At least it might be enough so she would not have to pick dandelions at Bryant Park again.
She chewed the inside of her cheek. Was her mother in New Westminster with Daisy Newman? Or was she at the dance marathon? She had to find out so she could tell her about the money. And the letter from Father.
Surely, she would let him come home.
“You look like you’ve perked up,” said Nan.
“I feel a bit better.”
“What do you plan to do about your friend? He’s a handful, that’s for sure. But a person can’t help but be fond of the boy. Be sad if that friendship went out the window.” Nan opened the door for Dog Bob and watched him trot outside. “That dog’s back to his old self, looks like. And you, miss. Take that hat off. How many times.” She picked up her knitting.
Elsie twisted her hat between her hands as she sat in Father’s chair and thought about secrets. She had to keep hers to herself, for now. Until she was sure. But she needed to talk to Scoop about his secret. At least check that he was still talking to her after the argy-bargy outside the dance hall.
Maybe he couldn’t read. Or write. But she could. Maybe he’d never be a newspaperman.
But she was his friend. Friends helped each other. And she was bright. Nan said so. She would help Scoop learn to read and write.
But first she had to go back to the dance marathon, to be sure about what she had seen. And Scoop would want to be there when she found out the truth about who was shuffling around the floor at Taylor’s. If her mother was there, she could tell her about Father. And the money. That would make her come home. And with Father home too, the family fractions could work out at last.
“How much did Father send?” Elsie asked her grandmother.
“Household finances are none of your business, young lady.”
“What did you get for the silverware, then?” Elsie picked at a loose thread on the arm of the chair.
“A dollar or two,” said Nan.
“Thank you for the money for the dance hall,” said Elsie.
“Mmm. A pleasure, I’m sure. You didn’t tell me how you got on.”
“It was interesting,” Elsie told her. Nan seemed to have forgotten that she wanted to know nothing about it.
“That all?”
“We met a reporter. A real one from the Columbian. He’s going to interview the Reverend for a story about dance marathons.”
“That would be the story your friend was after, eh? Beaten at his own game. That will be a blow for the young man.”
Maybe that’s why Scoop had been so quiet in the dance hall, thought Elsie. And outside. She remembered his face as his book and notes scattered all over the sidewalk. It gave her a sad twinge to think of him without his big plans and schemes, especially now that people knew that his notes were all just nonsense.
“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” said Elsie. She got up and moved to sit on the arm of Nan’s chair, leaning against her warm shoulder. “Can I have a dime, please?”
Nan shifted her elbow as she turned her knitting. “What for?”
“I have to go back to the dance hall. Just this last time.” She waited for Nan to say something, but her needles were clicking away as fast as ever. “I want to help Scoop get his story. I want him to scoop the other reporter. He can dictate, and I’ll write the story. Just like Miss Beeston does in class. Can I? Can you spare a dime?”
Nan studied the mud-colored sweater she was knitting. “You’d need two, I expect.”
“Yes, please. Oh, thank you, Nan.”
“I’m doing this for the boy.” Nan prodded Elsie gently with her knitting needle. “I can only imagine how he feels, shown up in front of his best friend. Be gentle with him, mind.” She put her knitting in her lap and looked at Elsie. “What are you waiting for, miss? I could be doing with you out of my hair while I get this floor cleaned.”
The floor looked just fine to Elsie.
“And take that nasty thing with you,” Nan said, pointing to Elsie’s hat sitting in the middle of the table.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A flurry of Noises pushed past Elsie as she walked up Scoop’s front path. The girls giggled and called out to each other in their high fluty voices. One of them—Elsie thought it was Lilly, but she could never be sure—said, “Hi, Elspeth,” to her as she danced down the street. They should know her name by now! There were so many of them, but only one of her.
Mrs. Styles nodded toward the stairs as she let Elsie in. “He’s upstairs. I think he’s under the weather again. You can go on up this once.”
Elsie could tell which was Scoop’s room by the picture of an airplane on his door. Inside, she had to duck to avoid the paper planes hanging from the ceiling. “How many are there?” she asked.
“Thirty-seven. You should have knocked.” Scoop was lying on his back on his unmade bed, with his arms under his head. “What do you want?”
The only chair in the room was heaped with clothes and towels. An empty plate teetered on top. “Budge over so I can sit down,” said Elsie.
Scoop moved an inch. No more. “What do you wan
t?” he repeated. Instead of looking at her, he stared up at the ceiling.
Before she could think of the best way to say it, Elsie blurted out, “It doesn’t matter if you can’t write or read. I don’t care.” When Scoop rolled over and turned his back on her, she said, “But you could have told me. You should have.”
Scoop muttered something.
“What?”
“I said I don’t care what matters to you.”
Each plane hanging from the ceiling was made out of newspaper. On some, Elsie could see small advertisements. On others, parts of headlines. “I can help,” she said.
Scoop turned back toward her. “Help how?”
“I can help you learn to read and write,” she told him.
“It’s hopeless. I’m dumb. Anyway. Who cares about dumb old writing. I’ll never be a reporter. I bet I couldn’t even be a printer like my dad.”
Elsie studied the dangling airplanes. “What did you think of the dance marathon place?” she asked.
Scoop sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees. “It gave me the creeps, if you want to know. Maybe because of what we saw.” He still wouldn’t look at her. “Maybe because of what your Reverend said. Or that other man. The reporter from the Columbian.” He sneered. “That rag.”
“How about this, then?” said Elsie, ignoring Scoop’s grumpy voice. “How about we go back? To check it out properly. Ask all the questions you want. We can interview the Reverend too. Just like that Mr. Forrest. Then you dictate the story to me. And I’ll write it.
“That’s not real writing.”
“Sure it is,” said Elsie. Although she wasn’t sure at all.
“I tell the story, and you write it down?” asked Scoop. “What about the interviews? Someone has to write down what people say.”
“I can do that too.”
“Then it will be your story. Not mine.” He slumped facedown in his blankets.
Elsie poked his back. “I’ll be your assistant. Your sidekick, like Uncle Dannell said.”
Scoop turned over and looked up at her. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Something’s going on.” At least he was looking at her now. “Why would you want to be the assistant when you could do the whole job yourself? Be a lady reporter. I bet you want to be the first one ever on the Vancouver Sun.”
“You are so dumb.” As soon as Elsie said it, she wished she’d bitten off her tongue. “I don’t mean that. You’re smarter than smart. But maybe I want to help you.”
“But why?”
“Because I’m your friend. And because…”
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Scoop. “Cat got your tongue?”
Could she tell him? Elsie looked down at her hands. He was her friend. She was his best friend until she grew nubs. She should be able to tell him anything.
Scoop swung his legs over the side of his bed. “You gonna tell me or not?” He looked around the room. “Seen my shoes?” Elsie bent down and peered into the dark under his bed. She pulled out one boot, then the other, and handed them to him. “You can’t tell anyone else. Not yet. Specially not Nan.”
“So tell me.”
“You have to promise.”
“All right.” Scoop held out his little finger. She linked hers around it. They shook.
“I think Mother is one of the dancers,” Elsie said.
Scoop got busy shoving on his boots, tying up the laces. “I know,” he said quietly. Almost to himself.
“What?”
“I said, I know. Least, I think I saw her.”
“Me too!” said Elsie. “Just as we were leaving. Why didn’t you say?”
“I didn’t know what to say. That’s why I wanted to get out of there in a hurry.”
“How about the Reverend?” asked Elsie. “You think he saw her too?”
“He’d have said, wouldn’t he?”
“I guess so. Well. I have to find out if it’s really Mother dancing in that marathon. And if it is, you have to help me get her out of there. I saw her shoes. And her blouse. And you know what else?”
“What?” Scoop got off the bed and hiked up his pants.
“I think the man dancing with her is Dannell.”
“Course it is!”
“I thought he was picking cranberries,” said Elsie.
“You were conned, you were. And your nan. Hey. That’s some story,” said Scoop. The old Scoop. All shiny eyes and big ideas. “Maybe it will make the front page. Can you see the headline? Mother Abandons Daughter to Dance!”
“We couldn’t. Nan must never know,” said Elsie.
“Okay, then. We’ll keep her name out of it.” Scoop paced around the room. He flicked each little plane overhead as he passed, until they were all swinging. “Your mother went away,” he said. “But she never went to New Westminster. That’s why she never wrote to say she got there.”
“I know that. And Uncle Dannell had a newspaper!” Elsie remembered it in a flash. “He cut out something. One minute he was all down in the dumps because he lost that money and Nan said he had to go. Then he said he was going away to work.”
“He’d found out about the dance marathon. I bet that was it,” said Scoop. “Now. We need to pin down this story. Put it to bed. And you know what?” he asked Elsie.
“What?”
“When the story is published, we’ll put both our names on the byline.”
“The what?”
“Don’t you know anything? It’s who it’s written by.” Scoop scrawled across the air, as if he was writing more gibberish. “By cub reporters Scoop Styles and Elsie Miller. Or Elsie Miller and Scoop Styles.” He looked at Elsie. “No. It sounds better the other way. What do you think?”
“You can have your name first. I don’t mind.” After all, being a newspaperman had been his idea.
“I knew you’d see it that way. Now, let’s make plans.” Scoop frowned at her. “One problem. We need twenty cents to get in again. How are we going to get that?”
“Nan sold some silverware.” Elsie showed him the two dimes.
“We’re in business!” said Scoop. As if it was all his idea.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
By the time they got back to the dance marathon, it was after six, but they persuaded the fat man at the door to let them in for a dime each.
All the way there, Elsie and Scoop had debated whether to sit right at the front, where they could see the dancers’ faces, or at the very back, where there was no chance of being seen by Elsie’s mother and uncle until they were ready to be seen. Elsie won the argument by saying that she had the money, so she chose to sit right up at the back, way up high, where it was darkest. From there, they had a view of the whole dance floor.
By now, the bleachers were crowded. The noise of the spectators almost drowned out the scratchy music the dancers were ignoring. Near Elsie and Scoop sat a woman with two children, one sleeping against her side, the other leaning forward to watch the dancers. One man had his dog with him, lying right next to him on the bench. If Dog Bob had come along, he would have sniffed out Uncle Dannell in a minute. But Elsie had good instincts too.
“Stop fidgeting,” she told Scoop.
“I’m looking for that reporter.”
“Can you see who’s dancing?”
“They all look the same from up here,” Scoop answered. “That’s hardly dancing. It’s even slower now.”
“They must be dead tired,” said Elsie. “It seems cruel, it does, making them dance all day.” She watched a handkerchief fall from a dancer’s sleeve and drift onto the floor. No one picked it up. When a woman’s heel tipped, her shoe fell off, but she kept dancing. One man was being held up by his very fat partner, his face almost completely buried in the lady’s large chest.
“I don’t think they’re here,” said Elsie as she studied each couple on the dance floor. “We must have imagined it.”
“I know what I saw,” said Scoop. “Some might be out back sleeping in shifts, lik
e the Reverend said.”
“You think so? Maybe that’s where Mother and Uncle Dannell are,” said Elsie. “We’ll wait until they come back out.”
Just then the music stopped, and all Elsie could hear now was the shuffling of feet around the dance floor, and the audience’s chatter. The dancers hadn’t even noticed that the music was no longer playing.
“Look!” Scoop’s sharp elbow nudged her arm.
Elsie had also seen the fancy couple come through the curtain.
“It’s those toffs we saw that day,” said Scoop.
“I know. Sshh.”
The couple moved toward the front of the dance floor. “Ladies and gentleman,” the man announced. He waited until most of the chattering and laughing from the audience died down. “As you will see, the number of dancers is dwindling. The wheat has been separated from the chaff. The weak from the strong. Only the strong and the valiant remain.”
Elsie couldn’t see anyone who looked strong. And she had no idea what valiant meant.
The man went on. “As this event moves inexorably toward its conclusion, my partner Letty Driver and I would like to perform for you.”
Inexorably? Even if he couldn’t write, Scoop would know what it meant. She’d ask him later.
The dancers were hardly moving now. They just rocked in place, their heads resting against each other’s shoulders and chests. As if none of them had noticed that the fancy couple had upstaged them.
“Let’s give our friends here a short break. And a show of our appreciation.” The man clapped, his partner’s hand dropping from his elbow as she joined in. The audience—those who were listening and watching, and not too busy gossiping or eating—clapped too.
The fancy couple stood aside as two nurses came through the curtain, moved across the dance floor and led the dancers away. As if they were children, thought Elsie. Or dogs.
Then the man took Letty Driver’s hand and turned her in a big circle until she was standing next to him in the center of the dance floor. As he drew her into his arms, she rested one hand on his shoulder and placed her other in his outstretched hand. She turned one way and stretched out her foot a little way ahead. The man did the same.
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