Miss Elva Read Online Free Page A

and would skin him alive if he knew he’d taken them.
    “What for?”
    Gil said Dom had a school project so they were hunting for mourning cloak butterflies.
    “I found one!” Dom studied the clover, then gave it to Jane.
    Jane was picking off the four leaves, one by one. Oh Jane, said Dom. As Gil had only brought three nets, it was a given that she’d not been doing any work.
    “They’re kinda black with white trim and little purple dots,” said Gil. “But they’re hard to come by and Dom’ll get a full ten points if we find one.”
    Nobody expected Elva to catch anything. Jane said with that gimpy arm of hers she’ll scare everything from here right into town.
    “I will not,” said Elva, and she tried her best to follow Gil and Dom, swinging her net after anything that moved.
    Jane quickly got bored watching everyone run about for butterflies, and when Dom saw her sit in the clover and start weaving headbands from the mauve flowers, he set down his net beside her.
    Elva’s breath caught.
    “What is it?”
    She was too excited to speak, to do anything but point. Gil laughed and took her net from her.
    “Elva, you’ve done it! You’ve got a mourning cloak here! Dom! Jane! Elva got one!”
    When the others joined them, Gil held up Elva’s net. Dom beamed as he opened his knapsack and took out a block of wood, a long darning pin stuck into it. Gil reached into the net and very gently secured the flapping butterfly in his fingers.
    “What are you doing?”
    “I’m going to mount it,” Dom said.
    “No! You’re going to kill it!”
    “C’mon, Elva. It’s just a bug.”
    When Jane noticed her tears she said, “Couldn’t you put it in a jar or something?”
    “Yes! In a jar, but don’t hurt him!”
    Everything was a him to Elva.
    “What’s the matter with you?” Dom said. “It’s a butterfly.”
    “Yes, Elva,” said Jane. “It’s just a butterfly.” She let out a holler when it looked as if the pin was going to be driven home.
    “Look, Dom,” said his brother. “Maybe not, eh? Let it go.”
    “You know how hard these are to come by?”
    “Just let it go.”
    No way, and Dom made again to pin the insect to the wood. He would have succeeded had his brother not suddenly let it go.
    “Yes, Gil!” said Elva.
    He smiled at her, not seeing Dom fire up quickly and swing his knapsack, catching him in the face. Gil went down hard, and his brother stormed off home.
    “Sorry, Elva. It being your birthday and all.”
    She said it was okay, but the day was ruined.
    Gil was twelve when this happened and still a year away from crewing on the
Meghan Rose.
Amos was always saying about people like the Barthélemys, Don’t have two cents to rub together, that kind. Well, Gil didn’t have two cents for anything, let alone Elva’s birthday, but he’d found the comb in the patch of grass with the war cenotaph on it, next door to the Towne movie palace. Guess he thought now was as good a time as any to give it to her.
    “Sorry, Elva.” He pulled it out of his back pocket, broken when he fell. He looked again after his brother. “Now you’ve got two instead of one.”
    It was the most beautiful thing Elva had ever seen, even if it was smashed. A woman’s comb like the one Rilla used to pull up her hair behind her head. Only this one was shiny and full of colours like it was made from a rainbow. All Elva could do was hold the pieces in her hand and say,
oh!
    Gil was suddenly embarrassed and not sure where to look.
    Elva wanted to put them in her hair right there, but Jane grabbed the broken comb out of her hand.
    Hey now, said Gil. Elva started to cry.
    “Why’d you do that?”
    Jane thought about being penitent.
    “Because she’d want to take it up to her room and sit by the mirror and put it in. Then she’d see.”
    “See what?”
    “That she’s ugly and she’s better off not having pretty combs in her hair.”
    But that’s not what hurt the most for Elva. That came next when Gil said,