Miss Elva Read Online Free

it bouncing on his lips. The habit was new but he made it seem old.
    “It’s not Dom, you idiot,” Jane said.
    “Can’t fool you?”
    “Never. Besides, you’re thinner now than he is.”
    Not a word from him in five years and yet Jane could still tell Guillaume and Domenique Barthélemy apart in a heartbeat. Gil, like his twin brother, not overly tall, square of face, maybe even plain. And some people think the ocean is just water. Dom’s face expressed calm, reflecting an inner peace, ’cause he’s close to God. Or so his maman, Jeanine, claimed. Gilwas different. A funnel cloud just itching to form into a twister. Jane said Gil had an undertow and it could suck you down if you weren’t careful.
    But you’ve come back!
    Gil smiled and traced his finger around Elva’s face. “And you, my little marionette?”
    Don’t do that, don’t look at me.
And Elva turned away.
    He took her chin in his hand and pulled it towards him. “You still do that?”
    Of course she did. What did Gil expect? What did any of them know? Elva certainly hadn’t forgotten it. Or him. How could she? Sure, it was just a comb, an old comb with some of its teeth missing. But Gil had remembered it was her birthday. Dom didn’t think about those things, and in later years, Elva’d attribute Dom not being considerate like Gil to his being busy with God’s work and all. Like everyone said, that was more important.
    The comb thing happened on Elva’s seventh birthday. Jane, for her last birthday, had laid in the groundwork for her party weeks in advance, humming
Hap-py-loo-loo to me,
getting chafed in the hands scrubbing dishes without complaint, leaving out the flour tin on the table, even managing to be nice to Amos. The result, apart from Amos slipping Rilla fifty cents and telling her to get that girl something, if only to shut her up, was a tray of cupcakes from Rilla. Elva had seen them on topof the icebox. Vanilla, with cocoa and cinnamon sprinkles on yellow icing. Yellow was Rilla’s favourite colour. Too bad Elva spilt tea at dinner and Amos said, Get out of my sight. She hated that she was always spilling things because that meant the closest Elva would come to those cupcakes was dreaming about them. But sometime during the night she awoke, like someone had shaken her. Elva hadn’t even noticed that Jane had crawled in beside her and was asleep. There on the side table in all its glory was a single radiant cupcake on one of Rilla’s best tea saucers. Elva would never know who put it there, surely not Jane, but she held it in her hands and stared at it for a full five minutes before she pinched off little pieces and let them melt in her mouth. She didn’t expect the same fuss for her own birthday, but she was secretly hoping someone would remember.
    Amos said nothing to Elva on his way out to the foundry that morning. Rilla said, Happy birthday, Elva, and put her arms around her and kissed her head. Jane was sitting at the table eating toast and looking like she’d swallowed something that was tickling the inside of her tummy. No presents. No cupcakes on top of the icebox. Elva pulled her longest face ever as she sat down, too disappointed to eat.
    Rilla didn’t like her girls to be around when the boarders came down for breakfast, so she hurried them along as she began to spoon out the eggs onto a row ofplates. That’s when Jane leaned over to her sister and said that Gil and Dom were waiting for them.
    Really? She was being invited to spend the day with Jane and Gil and Dom, not running after them all like an afterthought? A genuine, honest to goodness, you’re coming too? To hell with breakfast! Elva beamed. Best present ever!
    The boys were waiting in Dorion’s field that had been left fallow, next to the Barthélemy farm. It was already thick with spring clover. Dom was looking for the elusive four leaves. Gil was holding nets attached to long poles and gave one to Elva. His father used them to scoop minnows for bait