Saving Sophia

by Fleur Hitchcock

  She crosses the little rope bridge that hangs over the ravine, “the easy way,” and comes to stand next to me. There’s a ripple of polite applause, and sighs of admiration.

  “So clever, so impressive,” says Miss Sackbutt, slapping Sophia on the back. “Wonderful to have you with us.”

  I feel rubbish.

  That night, I dream I have to climb a mountain. It has a narrow crumbling path, with a tiny wire handrail and a bottomless cloud-filled chasm to the side. At the end of the path, a ladder goes straight up into clouds; for some stupid reason, I always climb it, only to find that I’ve got to go down another vertical ladder, back through the clouds and over a valley hundreds of feet below. This time, Mum’s there, brandishing the chicken, a mad light in her eye. She’s behind me, telling me not to be a wimp, telling me to get on with it; behind her is ancient Irene, dressed in her RAF uniform and holding another chicken in her lumpy hands. I look forward and there’s Ned, skipping down the ladder easily, laughing and talking as he goes. I turn and start to descend, my feet slipping on the rungs.

  I hate heights.

  My foot slips, I let go, and fall…

  “Lottie!”

  Something is happening to my shoulder. Someone’s shaking it. That’s odd, because normally Ned just bellows in my ear if he needs to wake me up.

  Perhaps it isn’t Ned.

  “Lottie.”

  I open my eyes. It’s dark, but it’s not utterly dark, and my bedroom seems to have changed shape.

  “Lottie.”

  I follow the arm up to the head. I can’t work out who it is.

  “What?”

  “Shhh – it’s Sophia. Put on your swimsuit.”

  “What?”

  “We’re going for a swim.”

  “Now? But it’s the middle of the night – isn’t it?”

  “It’s four o’clock. C’mon.”

  The figure glides through the cabin, and a faint rectangle of light appears around the door. I fumble in the dark, pulling on my damp costume, snapping the elastic over my shoulders and hoisting up the baggy legs. I’m ridiculously tired, so my arms and legs move but my brain’s still asleep on the pillow.

  I pad across the floor and out of the door. It’s before dawn so there’s only a little light, enough to show shapes but not colours. Over in the woods creatures rustle but here in Bream Lodge, nothing’s moving.

  I stop and nestle my foot into the damp earth, and look up. The sky’s all different, not at all like it was when we went to bed. I can see Orion; I’m sure Dad said it was a winter constellation.

  “C’mon, Lottie – this way.”

  From where I’m standing, Sophia’s head is all mixed up with the silhouettes of the trees, but when a large bush makes a run for it, I know it’s her and follow.

  Behind me something rummages in the grass. A giant rat?

  “Stop here.” We’re by a tall black thing. I put my fingers out and brush it with my fingertip. It’s a fence. I think I’ve finally woken up enough to realise what we’re doing.

  “Sophia – we’ll get into big trouble for this.”

  “We won’t get caught. Now – the way we did the wall – put out your hand.”

  “Wha–?” But I do put out my hand, and although I can’t see a thing, I feel her foot in my fingers and her other foot on the top of my head before there’s a jolt and a thump on the other side, and then silence.

  “Sophia?” I whisper.

  Something rattles, and the big dark patch develops a pale hole as Sophia opens the gate in the fence.

  “Come in – welcome to our private swimming pool.”

  The tiles are cold and dry, but I catch a whiff of chlorine as Sophia tugs at the cover. It crunches as she pulls and the water slops in the pool. It’s all very black.

  SPLASH!

  “Sophia?” I call.

  White rings appear on the surface and in the middle, a blacker blob.

  “Come in, it’s deliciously warm.”

  I sit, dangling my legs over the side. I wouldn’t call it warm, more freezing, but I lower myself until the water reaches my waist and my feet brush the bottom.

  “Isn’t it heavenly?” she says.

  I lean forward, the water slopping in through the top of my cossie.

  “It’s cold,” I say. “And how are we going to get back in without Miss Sackbutt spotting wet footprints?”

  “Stop worrying,” says Sophia. “Lean back, float… dream. We’re free.”

  But I can’t help worrying. I’m never in trouble. I hate being in trouble, it makes me feel ill, but then I don’t want to lose Sophia, either, so I try to relax and lean back. The stars are fading overhead and the sky’s gathering a kind of greeny-blue colour, but I’m not enjoying the beauty – I’m feeling sick instead. My hair soaks up the water, then I remember it’ll give me away so I yank it out with a splash which worries me because it makes so much noise and I have to scramble out of the water before I drown myself and sit on the side, shivering.

  “What were you going to tell me?” I say.

  “Oh – I don’t know, it doesn’t matter.” Her voice is flat.

  “I sort of want to know now,” I say. “Something’s going on, isn’t it?”

  There’s a long silence while Sophia swims over to the side. “I’m worried,” she says. “Worried about landing you with it all.”

  I look at her head; I might be looking into her eyes but it’s too dark to tell. “All what?”

  Sophia sighs. “Everything. All of it. It’s complicated.”

  I pull my knees up and breathe hot air on to them.

  “Tell me,” I say.

  “Are you sure?”

  I nod, then realise that she can’t see my head. “Yes.”

  She takes a deep breath. “My name is Sophia Formosa—”

  “I thought it was Pinehead?”

  “He – the ‘Pinhead’ – is not my dad. He’s not even my proper stepfather. He married my mum years ago in an illegal ceremony in Thailand, to which I wasn’t invited. Since then, I’ve been in boarding school after boarding school while he and Mum trot round the world.”

  I revise my opinion of Pinehead back to racehorse trainer, then to pork-meat spy, touch on bouncer before looking for something darker still. Paid assassin? “That’s rough. Why so many schools?”

  Sophia laughs. “I keep getting expelled! I managed to break the rules in each one until they asked me to leave. I’ve run away three times. I just wanted to get back to Mum, but Pinhead keeps on finding me and finding more schools.”

  “Expelled? I’ve never met anyone who’s been expelled.” I sit in silence, digesting the news that this tiny, innocent-looking person has managed to get herself expelled and more than once. I’m not sure if I’m in awe or just horrified.

  “It’s easy – if you try hard enough – and believe me, I’ve tried. But that’s not the point. I get myself thrown out of the schools so that I can get home. Pinhead hasn’t let me see my mum for two years, no, actually it must be five; not since they got married, anyway. He’s keeping us apart.”

  “What? But why? Why would he do that?”

  “Because – because…” Sophia pauses, swooshing her foot in the pool. “He hates her, he hates me. He wants to make us both miserable, and, he’s a fraudster.”

  “That’s so… so…” I want to say exciting – but just stop myself in time.

  “He wants her money – there’s plenty of it; he’s in love with someone else, and Mum’s in the way…” She finishes quietly, sounding infinitely sad.

  “Blimey,” I say.

  “It’s that Wesson woman. She’s the one he’s having an affair with. I know, but my mother doesn’t. I need to tell her about them – and the money.”

  I listen to the water plopping back into the pool, absorbing everything Sophia has told me. I want to say: It sounds like The Savage Night and you sound like Tina Temper – catgirl extraordinaire – fighting against the forces of evil, but inste
ad I say: “I thought Miss Wesson was something to do with you. We’ve never had anyone like her come to Bream before.”

  “Yes. She appeared a few months ago, they—” Sophia stops, listens. “Shhh.”

  There are voices, and rattling, and only just enough time to slip back into the pool.

  Unfortunately, the voices have a big torch, water’s see-through, and they shine it right at me.

  Miss Sackbutt is rubbish at telling people off. I don’t know why I’ve always been so frightened of it.

  “And Charlotte – you shouldn’t do things like this, you know, you nearly gave me a heart attack. Miss Wesson waking me like that in the night, peeling back my eye shades and shining a torch – well!” Miss Sackbutt flaps her hand in front of her face as if she’s having another near heart attack.

  “And so unexpected – YOU? The most sensible child in the class, of all children! It was the dog that found you, of course – clever little thing.”

  I sit very still and hope it will blow over, which it does in about a minute, and before I’ve even had a chance to do tears and beg forgiveness she’s given me a piece of her KitKat.

  Miss Wesson tells off Sophia. I don’t know what she says but Sophia’s face is red and puffy afterwards, as if she did do tears, and I don’t think there was any KitKat-sharing.

  We have to sit separately at breakfast and Miss Wesson gets between us afterwards, so I can’t talk to Sophia even when we’re walking down to the wetsuit sheds although I’m dying to find out more about her mum, Pinhead and Wesson.

  “Who’s done it before?” asks tracksuit man, pointing at a kayak.

  Everyone puts their hands up, except for me. Ned shoots me a glance. I have done it before, but I’m no good at it; I’d rather everyone thought I was a complete beginner.

  It turns out Sophia is rather excellent at kayaking – one of her schools was on the shore of Lake Superior in Canada – so tracksuit man puts us together.

  “But—” says Miss Wesson, her mouth open in disbelief.

  “It’s a health and safety issue, Miss Wesson,” says tracksuit man. “I can’t send Charlotte out there on the sea without an experienced kayaker and I need to keep the instructors in boats on their own, so…” He shrugs and picks up a life jacket from the beach.

  I send Miss Wesson a bright smile and she scowls back, but then she climbs into her kayak and waits for us to launch.

  Sophia gets to sit in the back, steering, while I’m in the front, as “the engine”. The boat smells of old wellington boots, as does the wetsuit, but I lower myself in until the wetsuit cuts off my circulation and the lifejacket blocks my nose and mouth. Once the helmet’s on too, I can barely see, move or breathe.

  “Brilliant,” says tracksuit man. “Sea’s nice and calm, see how you get on, paddle out towards the yellow buoy and then back to the orange one.”

  We launch, and Miss Wesson launches a millisecond afterwards, the bow of her kayak bobbing along beside us. We leave her dog on the shore, barking.

  I try very hard, but I don’t think I’m a natural. The yellow buoy turns out to be miles away and before very long I’m sweating, and the sandy bits in the wetsuit are rubbing my armpit, and the stupid helmet’s slipped and is dangling over one eye. I can see the front of our boat but that’s about it. After a short burst of rain, the sun comes out and boils the water that’s fallen inside my wetsuit. If you like the feeling of sitting in warm wee, then it’s nice. If not, don’t go kayaking.

  Sophia is talking to me but because of the stupid lifejacket I can’t hear her properly.

  I run through the plot of Last Stand in Paradise. The hero’s just swum the river, and he’s exhausted, and three more trained assassins spring out of the bush…

  “Five more minutes,” shouts tracksuit man. Everyone seems to be racing now, kayaks are whizzing across our bow, the water’s white with mad paddling.

  I start to count.

  One chimpanzee, two chimpanzees…

  Back in Last Stand in Paradise the hero grabs at a piece of bamboo, sweeping the assassins off their feet… This is taking forever.

  Five chimpanzees, six chimpanzees.

  Someone clips our stern heading towards the yellow buoy at speed.

  “Hey!” shouts Sophia.

  Nine chimpanzees, ten chimpanzees, eleven chimpanzees…

  “Ow! You idiot!”

  I crane my neck round to see who shouted, nearly decapitating myself on the sharp edge of the lifejacket. Miss Wesson’s boat’s gone. Sophia swings the boat around so that we can see what’s happened. The motorboat seems to be next to a pair of kayaks, but someone’s in the water and one of the kayaks seems to be upside down. All the other kayaks are charging towards it.

  Tracksuit man’s standing, shouting in the motorboat, and, just as the overturned kayak starts to right itself, we see him dive into the water.

  I try to keep it in view, but I find keeping anything still about the kayak almost impossible.

  “Quick!” Sophia yells. “Just paddle as hard as you can – I’ll steer!”

  Without thinking I paddle like a maniac, trying to copy what other people’s arms have been doing, which is far more efficient than the thing that my arms have been doing. We whizz back towards the shore and then skirt around some rocks. The sea’s slightly rougher here but Sophia steers through it, and I try to keep up the speed. It’s all hard work and the stupid helmet means that I can only just see the rocks bobbing in front of me.

  “Sophia,” I shout. “Sophia, slow down!” I can’t look back to see where we’ve come from, the lifejacket would saw my head off, but I can just about see where we’re going.

  To my huge relief, she rams the boat on to a sandy gap in the rocks, wriggles and clambers out, before grabbing me and hauling me out of the boat.

  “Well done, Lottie,” she cries. “Are you OK?”

  I nod – I can’t answer, I’m too out of breath – so I lie for a moment staring at the sky. A bank of cloud is approaching from the sea and I can just make out the ragged edge of rain that must be coming our way.

  “Sophia,” I breathe. “What have we done? What are we doing?”

  “Escaping,” she says.

  “Oh,” I say. I’d like to add, “I want you to be my friend but I wasn’t expecting this,” but instead I say, “Of course. But is this a good way of doing it?”

  “I want to see my mum. She’s in the country, for a week – I have to talk to her…” Her voice fades away. Then, “Come on,” she says briskly. “We need to hide this boat.” She scrapes the sand away on either side of the kayak so that it sinks into the beach.

  I stand watching her, absorbing the leg-shaking enormity of what we’ve done. “But Sophia – we’ve just run away, by boat.”

  “Yes.” She turns and looks up at me. “I know. And thanks.”

  “But I haven’t entirely agreed to it yet,” I say, struggling with the wet straps and tearing off the beastly life jacket.

  She doesn’t say anything, just looks up at me, and I can see that her eyes are brimming with tears.

  “Oh, all right, I promise I’ll help, but this is insane, you do know that?” I say, pulling the boat into a hollow in the sand and dumping a wodge of seaweed over it. I crouch down to join her, taking off my helmet and using it to dollop sand on to the kayak.

  “Brilliant,” she says, copying me. “This is my only chance to see Mum, tell her what’s going on… And I knew you were the right person to bring.”

  “Not Ned, then?” I say, thinking of them sitting on the top of the wall, hand in hand, or skipping along cliff tops, careless of the drop below.

  “Ned?” she laughs. “Why Ned?”

  “No reason,” I say, allowing a tiny light of hope to flicker in my heart. A light that says that just as she means something to me, I mean something to her. “Just wondered.”

  “There’s no one else who I can trust and who’s capable of it.” She looks with her almost black eyes into mine. The tiny light
of hope becomes a steady flame. “Can you imagine Sarah-Jane doing this?” she asks.

  I think of Sarah-Jane in my place, complaining, sitting helpless on the sand, clamouring for attention. Then in my mind’s eye I see me, a strong silent me striding alongside Sophia, guiding her, giving wisdom to her in her mission. A heroic me. “No.”

  “Exactly.”

  We probably spend about ten minutes hiding the boat. When we’ve finished, we pile rocks and more seaweed on the disturbed sand, and watch as a sudden squall blows in from the sea and the rain destroys our footprints.

  “Brilliant,” Sophia says, flicking her dripping plait to the side. “Let’s get going.”

  “Have you got a plan?” I ask, following her over the rocks.

  “We need to get to Mum before Pinhead finds us. This way, I think,” she says.

  It’s not exactly a plan, I think but don’t say, as we scramble over boulders and through three small bays that nestle beneath the cliffs.

  Soon, the mist that was out at sea rolls in towards us, and I can barely see my arm in front of my face.

  “How far are we going?” I ask, out of breath. “Is this a long escape or a short escape?”

  Sophia doesn’t reply, but I can hear her feet on the stones in front of me, and I follow them through to another sandy bay.

  “Sophia?” I ask. I’m just beginning to feel anxious. I’m not sure whether I want to see a coastguard helicopter scouring the sea for us, or whether I don’t. It slightly depends on what Sophia is thinking of doing. I want to be a hero but what is there to eat, for example, or drink?

  We stumble on for another hour or so, until the coastal path comes down to meet the shore. An orange boat appears just out to sea, joined soon after by a helicopter. We hide under a pile of nets until they go away, before walking some more.

  In Rendezvous at West Point, Dr Tabitha Cross walks twenty-seven miles along rocks before wrestling her evil stepmother to the ground. Difference is, Dr Tabitha Cross was fit and wore shoes. My feet hurt and I’m out of breath.