Big grey clouds had rolled in to cover the sky, and the wind had picked up. Although it wasn’t late, the day had grown so dark that they had flicked on the light in the cabin. It was a single bulb suspended from the ceiling, and it cast swaying shadows on the wooden floor.
Finally Ginette reluctantly climbed down from her bunk and headed for the door. She looked grumpier than ever as she stomped along the path to the washroom cabin where the showers and toilets were. Her camp hat was pulled low over her forehead.
The washroom was warm and steamy when they entered by the freshly painted yellow door. The sharp smell of disinfectant tickled Sophie’s nose. She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. The floor was grey concrete, and there was a long row of toilet stalls across from a row of sinks and one big shower area with six taps and six shower heads. About ten girls were yelping and giggling as they showered together in the steam under the hot water.
Another bunch of girls from cabin five were jostling one another, combing out their wet hair in front of the fogged-up mirror above the sinks. One of them turned and stared at Ginette, then she snickered and said in a loud whisper, “DP. Look. There’s the DP.”
One of the girls covered her mouth and appeared shocked that she would call anyone such a derogatory name, but the other girls just giggled.
Ginette’s cheeks burned.
How dare they! Sophie thought, DP was the worst thing you could call anyone. It stood for displaced person, and only the most down-and-out people who had no home or nowhere to go in the whole world were called displaced persons.
She clamped her hands on her hips and glared at the rude girls with her mad Star Girl stare. Most of the girls just turned away and continued primping their hair in the mirror. Only a couple of them looked embarrassed.
Sophie knew Ginette had heard them. The back of the girl’s neck had turned red, and her shoulders were sunken.
“Looks like this is where we hang up our towels and clothes so they won’t get wet from the shower,” Sophie said to Ginette in a loud voice, as though nothing had happened.
Ginette shook her head.
Sophie lowered her voice and said, “But you have to have a shower, Ginette. Everyone has to. Miss Rosy said.”
Ginette shook her head and looked away.
“Well, I’m going to have one. You can just wait here then,” Sophie said, pulling off her bathing suit and dropping it onto the floor beneath a peg holding her towel and dry clothes. Elizabeth was already in the shower, so Sophie stood next to her.
The gush of warm water on her head felt lovely. She let it stream down her hair, the back of her neck, and over her shoulders. She didn’t have a shower at home, so this was a real treat. Elizabeth was rubbing shampoo into her hair.
“Can I borrow some of your shampoo, Liz?” Sophie asked.
“Sure. Here.”
It didn’t take much shampoo to get a good lather in Sophie’s short, curly hair. As she was rinsing out the shampoo, Ginette crept timidly into the shower beside her. Sophie was puzzled. Ginette had kept on her underwear and a long-sleeved grey undershirt.
A girl on the other side of Sophie snorted at Ginette.
“Hey, Liz,” Sophie said loudly to Elizabeth so Ginette wouldn’t hear the tittering, “can Ginette borrow a bit of your shampoo, too?”
“Sure. Don’t use it all, though. It has to last me the whole week.”
“Do you want some shampoo?” Sophie held the bottle out to Ginette. She nodded. Sophie tried to pour a little onto her hair, but a big blob came out. Ginette rubbed it in, and soon her head was covered with mounds of suds.
“Just rinse under the tap,” Sophie told her.
Ginette stood under the tap for ages, but there were still suds in her hair. Finally she left the shower area, took her towel and clothes into one of the toilet cubicles, and locked the door with a loud click.
“She sure is modest,” Elizabeth said, towelling her hair.
“She’s just not used to all this camp stuff yet, I guess,” Sophie said, pulling her pants and sweater on over her underwear.
“Well, she’ll never fit in if she doesn’t get used to it,” Margaret sniffed, patting her braids dry with a towel.
As they were hanging their wet bathing suits and towels on the clothesline behind their cabin, the supper bell rang, so they all tramped over to the mess hall. And still Sophie hadn’t had a chance to go down to the dock to hunt for her Star Girl ball.
“Spaghetti! Yum! Spaghetti and meatballs,” Sophie said, slurping up a long, wet tomatoey noodle. “This is the best spaghetti I’ve ever tasted in my whole entire life!”
Sophie and the other girls at the table dug into their suppers with gusto, but Ginette beat them all. Her pale, straight hair was still wet from the shower and stuck out from the sides of her head. At least she wasn’t wearing the same old camp hat.
For dessert there were ginger cookies again, with squares of wobbly orange jelly in little glass bowls. When Ginette got her jelly, she poked at it with her spoon and looked puzzled when it jiggled. It was as if she had never seen jelly before. After tasting it tentatively with the tip of her tongue, she sucked it up noisily, smacked her lips, and looked around for more. Her eyes were shiny with eagerness, and her damp hair stuck out like pale whiskers. The other girls fell quiet and stared. Margaret giggled behind her cupped hand and whispered to Elizabeth, who started to giggle back but stopped when she saw Sophie glaring at her.
Sophie knew the girls were thinking: Just look at that dumb DP.
Looks as if she’s never seen jelly before. She doesn’t even know how to eat it.
“Want another cookie, Ginette?” she asked purposefully as she passed her the plate of cookies.
Ginette took two. She quickly shoved one into her mouth, and the other disappeared up her sleeve. Sophie couldn’t figure out the girl’s strange behaviour.
After supper Sophie was about to sprint away to the dock to look for her ball when Miss Bottomly announced that it was cabin four’s turn for KP. Of all the rotten luck! Sophie thought.
While the rest of the campers filed out of the mess hall and had free time, the girls from cabin four had to stay and wash the dishes, cutlery, pots, and pans. Then they had to dry them and put them away, ready for the next meal.
“Why do we have to do all the cleanup?” a girl named Brenda complained, flicking back her ponytail.
“They should hire maids to do this work,” Margaret said.
“Each cabin will have a turn doing KP,” Miss Rosy told them. “Don’t worry. And if we do a good job, we could earn ten extra points. So, campers, let’s do our very best.”
“What is all this points stuff about, anyway?” Margaret asked.
“The cabin with the most points at the end of the week will be the grand champions, and everyone in the cabin will get a prize.”
“What prize?” Elizabeth asked.
“Wait and see,” Miss Rosy said. “It’ll be something really, really good.”
“That we get to keep?”
“Of course. Now, who wants to wash and who wants to dry?”
Before Sophie could volunteer, all the jobs had been taken. Of course, Ginette hadn’t volunteered for anything. Sophie hoped that she could slip away unnoticed to the dock.
“Here, Sophie,” Miss Rosy said, handing her a damp cloth and a broom. “You and Ginette can tidy the dining area. Wipe the tables and sweep under them so everything is clean and neat.”
Sophie gave Ginette the cloth and showed her how to wipe off the tables. “Comme ça. Nettoyez toutes les tables,” she said in French, telling the girl to clean all the dining tables.
Ginette blinked her pale eyes, seemingly puzzled. She wiped one of the tables. “Comme ça?” she asked with just a ghost of a smile playing on her lips.
“Oui. Juste comme ça,” Sophie replied, smiling back at her as she began to sweep the floor. Mrs. Carson’s little boy, Danny, was there. Sophie smiled at him, too.
“Want t
o play hide-and-seek with me?” he asked Sophie.
“We can’t now,” Sophie said. “It’s cleanup time. Would you like to hold the dustpan for me?”
“Sure,” he said. “I know the best hiding places on the island.”
“Maybe we could play sometime tomorrow,” she said. “Let’s get this dust under the counter now. You’re a very good helper, you know that, Danny?”
He grinned and followed her around, carrying the dustpan and holding it whenever she asked him.
By the time they were finished cleaning the dining room, the wind had picked up and was blowing hard outside. The steady drumming of rain pounded the metal roof.
Miss Rosy stared out the window. “Just look at that rain. No campfire for us tonight.”
“Ah, but a campfire would be the best. What will we do instead?” Margaret asked, pushing one of her braids back over her shoulder.
“We’ll have our evening meeting in here. It’ll be lots of fun. It’s almost time for inspection, and all the girls from the other cabins will soon be here. Sophie, could you and Ginette move the tables to the sides of the room? We need enough space for everyone to gather around the centre.”
Sophie and Ginette, with Danny’s help, had just finished moving the tables when Miss Bottomly came in. “And how are we doing, girls?” she puffed, out of breath.
“We’re all done,” Miss Rosy said proudly.
Miss Bottomly polished her glasses and checked under the tables to see if the floor had been swept properly. She leaned over so much that her knickers showed. Sophie looked away quickly. She wished she had someone she could giggle with, but Ginette was busy positioning a row of chairs and, of course, Elizabeth was off with Margaret.
Miss Bottomly confirmed that all the cups and glasses and plates shone from their places on the shelves. “Everything looks spick-and-span to me. Ten points for you, cabin four,” she announced, writing in her notebook.
“Hooray!” the girls of cabin four cried.
“And just in time, too,” Miss Bottomly said. “Here come the rest of the girls.”
Sophie gazed out the window at the bleak sky. She would never get down to the dock to search for her ball! Maybe she could after the meeting? Although by then it would probably be too dark to see anything.
SIX
The girls moved the rest of the chairs into a semicircle, facing the windows. Then they all took their seats, chattering away in anticipation.
Sophie had to sit in the back row beside Ginette, who remained as silent as ever. Sophie felt left out of all the socializing. She looked longingly at Elizabeth who was, as usual, the centre of a lively discussion.
“Can I sit beside you?” Danny asked Sophie.
“Sure thing, buddy,” she said, patting the seat next to her.
Miss Bottomly stood in front of the girls, smoothing down her skirt. She held up her hands for silence. “Thank you, girls!” she boomed. “Well, here we are. Our first evening together at camp. Too bad it’s raining, but we’ll have a good time nonetheless. First, we’re going to have a contest for the best cabin cheer. So get together with the other members of your cabin and start thinking. Your cheer should be peppy and cheerful. Mrs. Carson, Mr. Buzz, and I will be the judges. I’ll give you—” she paused and consulted her watch “—twenty minutes to get it ready.”
“Can our counsellors help us?” a tall girl from cabin five asked.
“No. You’re on your own. The counsellors will be busy getting a surprise ready for you. In fact, you counsellors may leave now.”
As Miss Rosy left, she said, “Good luck to you, girls,” and gave them a thumbs-up sign.
“Now, when I blow my whistle like this,” Miss Bottomly said, “that means your time is up. Starting now.”
All the campers from cabin four huddled around Elizabeth and Margaret. Danny huddled with them.
“Anyone have any ideas?” Elizabeth said. She had her camp notebook and pencil poised in the air. She was as organized and bossy as ever.
“I liked the one we started this afternoon,” Margaret said. “Maybe we should try to think of some more words to rhyme with four.”
“Door, floor, bore, sore, more, store, core!” the girls shouted.
“Okay, okay,” Elizabeth said, jotting the list of words in her camp notebook as fast as the girls called them out.
“How about starting, ‘Oh, we’re not a bore, ’cause we’re cabin four’?” Brenda suggested.
Elizabeth nodded. “I like it.”
“We need a couple more lines,” someone else said.
Ginette just sat there, her eyes flitting from one girl’s face to another, then staring out the windows at the wet night.
Sophie felt she had to try extra hard to make up for her buddy not contributing, but she was stuck. She couldn’t think of a third line.
“How about, ’We yell for some more, ’cause we’re rotten to the core’?” Margaret finished.
Miss Bottomly said, “Five more minutes, girls.”
The girls all squealed.
“What have we got so far?” Brenda asked.
Elizabeth cleared her throat and read, “We’ve got a green door, so we’re not a bore, and we yell for some more, ’cause we’re rotten to the core. We’re all in cabin four.”
“We could say it all together, then end up with our hands in the air and yell, ’Yeah!’” Brenda said.
Miss Bottomly blew her whistle. “Time’s up, girls. Let’s hear your cheers. We’ll start with cabin one. Come on up, girls.”
The eight girls from cabin one marched up to the front of the semicircle of chairs. The tallest girl was standing at the end. She nodded and they began. “Oh, we’re cabin one, and we’re the one on the run, ’cause we all like to have fun.”
Everyone clapped politely. Sophie didn’t think they were very good. Certainly not loud enough. Certainly not as good as cabin four.
“Thank you, girls,” Miss Bottomly said. “Let’s hear from the girls in cabin two now.”
The girls from cabin two gathered. The rest of the girls watched a short red-headed girl who held a paper. “Here’s ours,” she said.
“Two, two, you want to know who? That’s us, that’s who. Yeah, cabin two!”
Again everyone clapped politely.
Way too short, Sophie thought.
Then it was cabin three’s turn. “Oh, who can that be? Is it a tree? Is it the sea? No, it’s me, and I’m in cabin three.”
“Well done, girls!” Miss Bottomly said. “It’s amazing what you can come up with in just twenty minutes. Now, let’s hear what the girls from cabin four have for us.”
Sophie swallowed hard and followed Margaret and Elizabeth to the front.
“Can I come, too?” Danny asked.
“Sure thing,” Sophie said. “You can stand right beside me. Come on, Ginette.”
But Ginette just sat there, frowning.
“Come on, it’s our turn,” Sophie hissed at her.
Ginette frowned and shook her head.
“You have to. Come on,” Sophie said, tugging at her sleeve.
But Ginette shook her head again and didn’t budge.
Finally Sophie left her and joined the other girls and Danny. They had all gathered around Elizabeth, who was consulting her notebook.
“Okay, ready?” Elizabeth said. “Let’s go. One, two, three, four...”
“We’ve got a green door,” the girls from cabin four cried, “so we’re not a bore. And we ask for some more, ’cause we’re rotten to the core. We’re all in cabin four. Yeah!”
Sophie shouted out in a loud voice, especially the “Yeah!” part. Danny yelled, too. Sophie again felt she had to make up for the fact that Ginette hadn’t joined them.
The audience clapped. They seemed to like it a lot.
“Thank you, cabin four,” Miss Bottomly said. “Just a reminder. We’re expecting everyone from each cabin to participate. One more to go. Girls from cabin five, your turn.”
Sophie
thought that if it wasn’t for Ginette they would have had a good chance of winning.
Cabin five was a bigger cabin and had ten girls instead of eight. And they were an older bunch, mostly eleven- and twelve-year-olds instead of ten- and eleven-year-olds. The girls all stood in a straight line across the front. Sophie couldn’t see anyone who seemed to be in charge. No one was holding a paper. They started together by marching on the spot. “If you want to dive and feel really alive and not live in a hive, you gotta come to cabin five. F-I-V-E! Five! Five! Five!”
They all shouted in strong, clear voices and ended their cheer by stamping loudly and throwing their hands into the air.
Oh-oh, Sophie thought. They’re good, all right.
The three judges consulted for a few moments while the campers waited expectantly, whispering to one another excitedly.
Miss Bottomly stood and smoothed down her wrinkled skirt. “We’re very impressed by the obvious talent here. Everyone did a great job, and on such short notice, too. You’ve made our job very difficult, but there was one cabin that had the enthusiastic participation from every single member. So we’ve decided that the winner of the cabin cheer and ten extra points for their cabin is...cabin five.”
“Hooray!” the girls from cabin five cheered.
“They think they’re so smart,” Elizabeth said, her teeth clenched. “We’ll get them next time. Just wait.”
“That’s right,” Margaret said. “Just wait.”
Sophie felt the eyes of her cabin mates glaring at her and Ginette. They were blaming Ginette because she hadn’t participated. Sophie didn’t know where to look. She felt angry and embarrassed.
A loud knock startled her, and she jumped. Danny squealed and hid behind Sophie’s chair. Ginette screamed, too, and ducked behind Margaret, who was sitting in front of her.
“Oh, my! Whoever could that be?” Miss Bottomly said.
Mr. Buzz pulled the door open. Ginette cowered in fear, whispering, “Non, non.”
Two bedraggled figures tumbled through the door. They were dressed in ripped pants and coats, and their faces were covered with soot. Sophie’s heart stopped thudding as she recognized the two. It was Miss Rosy and Miss Bonny. Miss Rosy was wearing an old overcoat with the collar pulled up, and Miss Bonny sported a blond wig and had a big umbrella that dripped rain onto the floor.
Sophie's Friend in Need Page 4
