‘Has she ever read one of our letters?’ Silky Josephine asks of the letters that I write to you, which, apparently, are no longer only from me, but have become ‘our letters’, and are from Silky Josephine and Peter Pan and Harley as well. 
     ‘Not that I know of,’ I tell her. 
     Silky weighs this reply for a moment and then for another moment is distracted by the dry flutterings of gallinipper that has somehow managed to get into the house, but finally she asks, ‘Do you think that she ever will?’ 
     ‘I doubt it very much, Josie,’ I tell her.
     Again with the weighing, but with a slight look of confusion added this time, a crinkling of the cinnamon patches Silky wears as eyebrows. 
     ‘Then why send them to her?’ she asks. 
      I smile. 
     More than once have I asked myself this very question, and each time been given the same answer in reply ...a book from my shelves. 
     ‘Have I ever read to you ‘The Magician’s Elephant’?' I ask Silky Josephine. 
     She shakes her head no. 
     ‘Well, let’s do that tonight why don't we. See if it doesn’t help to answer your question.’