Sophie's Friend in Need

by Norma Charles

  “Hurry, Sophie, climb now!” Ginette shouted.

  In a brief moment of calm Sophie managed to pull herself out of the water and crawl up beside Ginette.

  “Good, good,” Ginette muttered, patting her arm.

  They both stared down at the waves crashing against the cliff.

  Sophie gasped until she caught her breath. “Thanks for giving me a hand. Wow, that was a close one.”

  Ginette shrugged.

  “But we made it,” Sophie said. “The rocks aren’t so steep here. We could climb across it now.”

  She tried standing on the rocks, but her knees shook so badly that she had to hold on to a nearby root for support. Cold water streamed down her trembling legs. She wrung out the hem of her nightgown again and took a deep breath. “Let’s go.” Still shaking, she led the way, scrabbling over the rocks, trying to find a path that wouldn’t be too hard on Ginette’s bare feet. They both shivered violently. The rain and wind still blew strongly enough to pull the hood off Sophie’s wet hair.

  She climbed around one big rock that jutted out sharply. The other side of the rock seemed to fall away quite abruptly as if there was a large hollow in the rock face. Sophie followed the contours, feeling the edge with her fingertips, and suddenly the wind stopped. She opened her eyes as widely as she could and gazed straight ahead, but saw only darkness.

  “A cave!” she said, waving her hands around. “Hey, Ginette, we’ve found a cave!”

  “Cave?”

  “Come on over here, out of the wind. See? It’s a lot warmer in here.” Saying it was warm was stretching the truth a bit, but away from the wind, the rain, and the crashing waves, it actually was. She crouched on a level floor strewn with small rocks and pebbles. Ginette crept in behind her.

  Sophie sighed. “So nice and dry in here out of the rain. I wish we had some matches. A campfire would be heavenly.”

  Ginette nodded. “Yes, campfire. Very nice.”

  “I bet we’ll have one at camp after we get back. This rain can’t keep up forever. It has to stop sometime. Let’s just rest here for a few minutes.”

  “Rest. Yes. Rest good,” Ginette said. Shivering made her teeth chatter. Even her voice was shaking. She rubbed her arms and hugged her knees.

  Sophie leaned back against a round rock, stretched out her legs, and took a deep breath. In the quiet of the cave the sound of the crashing waves was muffled, and she could barely hear the wind in the trees. It was almost cozy.

  “You tell me now about Star Girl,” Ginette said.

  “Well, she’s the bravest and strongest person you could ever meet. She’s always saving people and catching crooks.”

  “Save people. That is good,” Ginette said, nodding. “You tell me about it.”

  “In her latest comic a couple of families go on a picnic at a park near a lake one Sunday afternoon. The kids and the parents are having lots of fun playing all kinds of games, but you know something’s going to happen. Then, just as they’re about to eat their picnic under a giant old maple tree, there’s a big earthquake and the tree starts to fall. Star Girl appears from nowhere, with her Star Girl cape flapping in the breeze. She zooms under the tree, pushes it back the other way, and saves all those people from being crushed. Single-handed. And before they can even say thank you, she flies into the sky and disappears.”

  “I would like to see Star Girl,” Ginette said.

  “Me, too. She is so brave and so strong. Always helping people. I want to be just like her. I saw a movie about her once. It was so great! Hey, I’ve got some comics in my suitcase that I’ll show you when we get back to camp.” She sighed as she remembered. “Another thing I did have was a Star Girl Super Bounce Ball. I sent away for it, and it’s so special. Red with a yellow star. But I lost it when we got to camp. Remember when we first arrived and I fell in the water off the boat near the dock?”

  “I remember,” Ginette said. “But why your ball so special?”

  “Well, for one thing, it’s a super bouncer. It can bounce as high as a house’s roof even. Once I bounced it and it went right onto our roof, so I had to climb up a ladder and rescue it. When I have it in my pocket, it makes me think about Star Girl and how brave and strong she is. And it helps me feel brave and strong, too. You know?”

  It was too dark to see if Ginette nodded, but Sophie thought she did. “Your Star Girl ball like my dreidel?”

  “Something like that.”

  “My papa, he very brave all the time. I think he the most brave one, even as brave as your Star Girl, maybe?”

  Sophie nodded.

  “And he always happy. Singing, make jokes, even when bad soldiers come and we hide under floor. Be like little mice, comme les petits souris, he tell us.”

  “Why did he join the army?”

  “When bad soldiers come to our village, he take Maman and baby Selina and me to the country. A farm. Then he go away to fight. But he tell me always be brave and look after Maman and Selina. So we hide in barn for many weeks. No food, just animal food. And we always be so quiet, juste comme les petits souris. Like Papa tell us. But one night bad soldiers come and find us, Maman and Selina and me. They march us to concentration camp. Maman go with other ladies, but she tell me be brave and look after Selina, stay with her always. I promise. So I all the time stay with her.”

  Sophie couldn’t begin to imagine the terrible things that had happened to this little girl. She felt so tired that she could hardly keep her eyes open. She sighed deeply and curled into a ball. Whoosh! Something suddenly whizzed by her face. She gasped, her heart thudding. Then it was gone. High-pitched screeches shot out from the darkness above her head. Giant mosquitoes? Moths? A tiny bird maybe? A second later another flew past her head. Then she knew!

  “Bats!” she squealed, leaping up. “This is a bat cave!” She grabbed Ginette’s arm and dived out of the cave onto the wet rocks.

  “Bats?” Ginette called out to her. “What bats?”

  “Souris,” Sophie said, trying to remember the French word for bat. “It’s like un souris but has, you know, wings.” She flapped her elbows.

  “Ooh! Chauve-souris!” Ginette squealed, ducking her head and hurrying past Sophie.

  Scrambling onto the rocks, they squinted back into the dark cave. Several bats flitted in and out of the opening. Sophie pulled on her hood and tied it tightly under her chin. “Well, that settles it,” she said. “Let’s get out of here!”

  Ginette hesitated, then followed Sophie as they struggled along the cliffs toward the camp. Sophie knew the camp couldn’t be that far away, but it was dark and wet and windy and she was exhausted and numb with cold. She felt like curling up right there on the rocks and falling asleep, but she knew they had to keep moving. She didn’t dare stop for even a short rest now. If they stopped, she knew they wouldn’t be able to get going again.

  “Come on, Star Girl, come on,” she muttered to herself, forcing one foot in front of the other. “Come on.” They stumbled around another point of land that jutted into the sea, and Sophie gaped in disbelief. “Look!” she cried, grasping Ginette’s arm. “That’s it! That’s the dock! Boats! There are the boats! We’re here! We made it! Yippee!”

  TWELVE

  Ginette stared at the camp uncertainly and nervously rubbed her hands together.

  “We’re going to make it,” Sophie said, almost dancing around her. “We will! We just have to get over this next little bit of rocks and we’ll be there! We’ll be back at camp!”

  Ginette crouched on a rock. “No go,” she moaned, shaking her head.

  “What do you mean, ’no go’? You have to go.”

  Ginette continued shaking her head and moaning, her hands over her ears.

  “Look, it’s still dark enough that I bet we could sneak right back into our beds and no one will even know we were gone.”

  Ginette looked up at Sophie, blinking hard. Sophie didn’t know what to do. They were so close to camp, and yet Ginette wouldn’t move. She was shivering har
d.

  “It will be so nice and warm in your bunk,” Sophie coaxed, patting her arm. “Nice dry warm clothes. Nice warm blankets.”

  But Ginette still shook her head.

  “What are you afraid of?” Sophie asked.

  “They come,” Ginette mumbled. “They come in night and, and, and...” She looked defeated.

  Sophie stood firm. “Not here. No one will come in the night and take you anywhere. I’m your buddy, and I promise nothing bad will happen to you. I’ll stick to you like glue every minute. Wherever you go, I’ll go. Think of your little sister. You’ve got to get that dreidel thing to her, remember? And I’ll help you do that. I promise.”

  Ginette continued gazing up at Sophie. “You promise? You promise me?” she whispered.

  “Yes, I promise. Cross my heart. Come on. Let’s go before we freeze solid to these rocks.”

  As Sophie climbed up over the last bank of rocks and down into the bay, she turned back. Ginette was moving slowly, but at least she was following her. Sophie breathed a big sigh of relief.

  The outlines of the tall flagpole and the buildings under the dark evergreen trees were barely visible. The sky was definitely lighter. It would soon be morning.

  “The trick now will be to sneak back into the cabin without waking anyone,” Sophie whispered.

  But as they slipped and slid down from the mossy rock face into the camp and approached the mess hall along the path, Sophie saw light shining from the big log cabin’s windows. Her stomach lurched.

  “Maybe it’s just Mrs. Carson getting a head start on breakfast,” she whispered, hopefully.

  As Sophie stepped onto the grassy area near the flagpole, though, the mess hall’s door burst open. “There you two are!” Miss Rosy cried, flying toward them.

  Sophie swallowed hard. Ginette ducked behind her and clung to the back of her jacket.

  Miss Bottomly and Mrs. Carson were on Miss Rosy’s heels. They surrounded the girls, hands on hips, faces angry.

  “We were about to call your parents!” Miss Rosy said, wringing her hands. “When I woke up and saw that you both were gone, I didn’t know what had happened to you. I was at my wit’s end! Where on earth have you been?”

  Sophie was shivering, and she felt Ginette trembling violently behind her. “It’s a long story,” she said, putting a protective arm around Ginette’s shoulders. “A really, really long story.”

  “Oh, my!” Mrs. Carson said. “The girls are soaking wet! And they’re trembling with cold. Look at the water dripping from their clothes.”

  “Right,” Miss Bottomly said. “Let’s get you out of those wet clothes and warmed up right away.”

  “My oven’s already on baking the breakfast buns, so it’ll be lovely and warm for you in the kitchen,” Mrs. Carson said. She wrapped an arm around Sophie’s shoulders and tried to hustle her toward the mess hall door.

  Sophie heard Ginette whimper behind her. “It’s all right, Ginette,” she soothed. “We’ll just get warmed up by the stove. It’ll be lovely inside.”

  Miss Rosy gently took Ginette’s hand and smiled kindly at her. “Come with me, dear.”

  Ginette let Miss Rosy lead her into the mess hall.

  Sophie had to concentrate to keep upright until she finally collapsed onto a chair in front of the big cook stove. The kitchen was blissfully warm. Her cheeks and hands tingled as the heat melted through the damp cold. The room was lit by two oil lamps, one on a big worktable, and the other suspended from the ceiling near the stove, forming a cozy corner in the dim room. She took a deep breath. The room smelled wonderful, a mixture of fresh baked bread and wood fire. Nothing could smell better.

  Miss Bottomly took charge. “Rosy, please go and get something warm and dry for the girls to wear from their suitcases.”

  When Miss Rosy was gone, Sophie thought with a start, Oh-oh, my Star Girl comics! She’ll find them in my suitcase. Then what? Will she take them away? Tell Miss Bottomly? Will they send me home in disgrace? Can this night get any worse? She tried to undo the life preserver straps from around her waist, but her numb fingers couldn’t undo the knots.

  “Let me help you,” Miss Bottomly said.

  Mrs. Carson was clucking around Ginette. “Your shoes are missing and, look, your poor little toes are all bleeding. I’ll get a bucket of warm water for your poor feet and you can take off those wet clothes.”

  Mrs. Carson looked at Ginette with kindness, but Ginette shook her head and held her sodden jacket closed in a tight fist.

  “But you have to get into something dry,” Mrs. Carson insisted.

  “I change in closet,” Ginette said, pulling the large towel out of Mrs. Carson’s hands and heading for the broom closet behind the stove. The girl winced as she walked on her bleeding feet.

  “Okay, dear. You do that.” Mrs. Carson smiled at her. “I’ll get some warm water for you, then we’ll just wait right here.”

  Sophie finally got her life preserver off. Then she struggled out of her jacket and peeled off her wet running shoes. Her bare feet were shrivelled and stained blue from the shoes’ dye. Miss Bottomly handed her a large towel, which she wrapped around herself after pulling off her clinging wet nightgown. The big towel was scratchy on her bare skin, but it was dry and blissfully warm.

  Ginette came out of the closet with the large white towel draped around her back and arms like an oversize cape. Gingerly she perched on a chair beside Sophie in front of the stove and cautiously put her feet into the pail of warm water Mrs. Carson had placed there for her. She leaned back and sighed. Her pale lips twitched into a small smile.

  “Here’s a warm drink for you two,” Mrs. Carson said, giving them each a steaming mug. “Hot lemon tea with lots of honey.”

  The hot sweet/sour tea warmed Sophie’s insides immediately. She sipped some more and stretched out her tingling feet, resting them on the warm chrome strip at the edge of the wood stove. Sophie wriggled her toes as glorious warmth travelled up her body to meet the warm tea in her stomach. She sighed and closed her eyes. Then Miss Bottomly cleared her throat, and Sophie blinked up at her.

  Miss Bottomly was staring down at her, her hands clasped in front of her waist, her dark eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses questioning, waiting. “Now, girls,” she said finally, clearing her throat again, “I want a full explanation. Where have you two been and what in the world were you doing?”

  Ginette peered up at Miss Bottomly with big scared eyes, cringing as if she expected Miss Bottomly to start beating her, or worse. She pulled her feet out of the bucket of warm water and retreated into her towel.

  “Well, um,” Sophie began, glancing at Ginette. How could she tell the whole story and not get Ginette into even more trouble? She decided to just plunge in and try to explain everything as well as she could.

  “Some time in the middle of the night I woke up and noticed that Ginette was gone,” she started. “She’s really worried about her little sister. You see, she can’t sleep unless she has her special, um, dreidel. Show her, Ginette.” Sophie spoke quickly, hoping the camp leader would see how important this was. “Show Miss Bottomly your dreidel thing.”

  Ginette fumbled through the folds of the big towel and fished out the wooden top by the long string around her neck. She held it out to Miss Bottomly.

  “You see,” Sophie went on, “Ginette’s little sister can’t hear very well and only speaks French. Ginette’s the only one who can really understand her, so she wanted to get back to Vancouver right away to find out what’s happened to her and make sure the little girl’s all right. And she has to give her the dreidel, too.”

  Miss Bottomly seemed puzzled. “Vancouver?” she said. “That doesn’t explain how you two were soaked to the skin and shivering so hard. Start from the very beginning, Sophie.”

  Sophie glanced at Ginette and thought her buddy nodded, so she took a deep breath and began again. “I woke up in the middle of the night. I guess Ginette woke me up when she came down from the top bunk. I thoug
ht she was just going out to the washroom, but when she didn’t come back to the cabin, I went to see where she was.” And Sophie told them the rest of the story of how she had followed Ginette in the canoe.

  “Why on earth didn’t you come and get one of the counsellors, Sophie?” Miss Bottomly asked.

  “I thought it would be too late. I thought I could catch up to Ginette in the canoe. But is she ever a fast paddler! I paddled really hard, but I couldn’t catch up to her at all.”

  “And where were you going, Ginette?” Miss Bottomly asked.

  “I...I go away, um, to Vancouver,” Ginette stammered. “Ma petite soeur...”

  “She has to get to her little sister, Miss Bottomly. You know, to give her the dreidel, and to see that she’s okay. She’s really worried about her.”

  “I see,” Miss Bottomly said. “You were planning to paddle all the way to Vancouver? Do you have any idea how far that is?”

  “First I go to Porteau,” Ginette said. “Not so far. We see Porteau from up on the hill yesterday.”

  Sophie nodded. “On our hike yesterday we looked out over Howe Sound. Miss Rosy showed us where Porteau was, and it really didn’t look that far.”

  “So, Sophie, you eventually caught up with Ginette in another canoe and brought her back?” Miss Bottomly asked.

  “Well, not exactly,” Sophie said, lowering her eyes. “I wouldn’t have caught up with her at all if a big wave hadn’t swamped her canoe and sunk it. And then when I managed to paddle to her, my canoe tipped over and we were both in the sea.”

  “Oh, my heavens!” Miss Bottomly said, her hand covering her mouth. “How did you ever get back to camp?”

  “By then we were way too far from the island, so we hung on to the canoe and kicked hard and got to a little islet, just some rocks really. We rested there for a while, then we used a log to help us get back to the island. Then we climbed along the rocks until we finally got back here. It took us forever.” Sophie inhaled deeply and let the air out through her nose.