Day Twenty-One
I search the pig shed thoroughly, and the hayloft of the big barn – I find a single egg in a massive turkey vulture nest but no sealskin. I look in the basement again, and in my parents’ beat-up Volvo. Nothing. I’m beginning to wonder if Dad threw it out with the garbage, but I can hardly believe he would dare. It would amount to an egregious family treason.
At lunch, I say, “If you were a seal, where would you hide yourself?”
“In the ocean,” says Dad, without looking up from his sudoku.
“In the well, maybe?” says Mum, and Dad shoots her a look. But she does not receive this since she is scribbling on her cryptic crossword.
“Thanks a lot,” Dad says. He then proceeds to get up, pull his slicker on, his Billy boots, a straw hat he has taken to wearing since a friend’s can
