Chapter 5

“Some more shops your dad won’t let me see.”

“Okay, Mom—I was going to wait till this evening to tell you, so that you’d eat dinner with us.”

Grandmum narrowed her eyes—could this mean good news at last? “Whatwere you going to tell me?”

“After tomorrow’s trip over the White Pass, we’ll have about an hour to shop.”

“Hurray!”she shouted. Heads swiveled to frown at the seventy-two year old’s juvenile behavior. Grandmum stared unflinchingly back at them, triumph gleaming in her eyes.

* * * *

The next morning she felt eager to, as she put it, “excurt.” Her mood was upbeat. Another long walk in the now familiar Alaskan drizzle couldn’t weary her, for today she had something to look forward to.

Predictably, our ship was tied at the farthest end of Skagway’s pier, and we passed two massive, snobbish, and docked-near-the-town Celebrity and Holland America liners on our traipse to the waiting railway coaches.