Criss Cross, Double Cross

by Norma Charles

  “I guess so. There’s nothing else to do,” Sophie grumbled. “Can we at least go play outside for a while?”

  “I’d rather you looked after him in here. You know what a wanderer he is.”

  “But it’s too hot and stuffy inside. If I take him out, I’ll watch him every single minute. I promise.”

  Zephram started twiddling the high keys on the piano with his fat little fingers.

  “Okay,” Maman said, ruffling his curly hair. “But don’t let him out of your sight. Not for a second.”

  “I won’t. Come on, Zephie.” Sophie led him to the front door.

  “Maybe you’d better take him to the backyard,” Maman called after them.

  “Okay, Maman.” Sophie held her little brother’s hand as they went outside, down the steps, and around the side of the house to the backyard. Zephram padded beside her with bare feet on the sandy path. He wore a blue romper, a sort of long shirt that fastened between his legs. His mop of curly blond hair reflected back the golden sunlight.

  Sophie could hear Maman practising the old familiar hymns on the piano. She hummed along, swinging Zephram’s hand. He looked up at her and giggled, his chubby cheeks dimpling. She wanted to be mad at him and everyone else in the world, but when he grinned up at her, she grinned back.

  She picked a buttercup from the edge of the path. “Let’s see if you like butter.” She held the buttercup under his round chin and it shone yellow. “Yep, you love butter.”

  “Love butter,” he said, nodding solemnly.

  A huge old cherry tree with gnarled grey bark took up most of one side of the backyard. It was even hotter out here, since it was on the south side of the house. Even in the dappled shade under the cherry tree, it was hot. Sophie rubbed her feet on the grass and it tickled her toes.

  “Cherry,” Zephram said, picking up a red cherry that had fallen. He put it into his mouth.

  “Don’t forget to spit out the seed,” Sophie told him, which he did along with pink spit bubbles that dribbled down his chin in a pink stream.

  “More cherry!” he demanded. “More cherry!”

  They searched through the grass and found a couple more that he popped into his mouth. Sophie followed her little brother past the chicken pen, and the hens clucked at them.

  “Here, chickie, chickie,” Zephram said, poking some grass through the wire of the chicken pen. He chewed on a long piece of grass himself as he wandered to the back fence.

  Sophie helped him climb the fence boards so they could see over the top. “Hang on tight now,” she told him.

  Someone was coming down the lane. It was Elizabeth Proctor again, riding her shiny new bicycle with the fat balloon tires. She stopped in front of them.

  “Hi, Sophie.”

  “Hi. I thought you had to go home.”

  “I did, but my mother said I could ride around on my bike this afternoon. Is that your little brother?”

  “Yes. His name’s Zephram.”

  “Zephram?” Elizabeth screwed up her nose. “What kind of a name is that?”

  “It was my uncle’s name. He was a real hero in the war. His airplane got shot down and everything.” Sophie ruffled her brother’s curly hair. Elizabeth must see how cute he was. Everybody always did.

  “He’s sure got a dirty face. If he were my brother, I’d wash it. And comb his messy hair, too.” Elizabeth turned on her bike and rode away, the sun reflecting off the back fender.

  Sophie lifted her little brother from the fence and gave him an extra-special hug. He was the cutest kid around. Dirty face and all.

  “Let’s go find some more cherries,” she said brightly. They wandered back to the cherry tree, and as they searched in the long grass for more cherries, Sophie thought about what a stuck-up person Elizabeth was. Then she thought about her friend Marcie back in Montreal. She hadn’t had a letter from her for weeks. Maybe she would write her this afternoon.

  “Cherry, cherry, cherry,” Zephram chanted.

  His voice was coming from above Sophie’s head! She looked up to see the bottoms of his feet disappearing into the branches of the cherry tree.

  “Oh, Zephie,” she squealed, “come down here! Come down right this second!”

  “Cherry,” he said, pulling himself onto a higher branch.

  Sophie clambered after him, but he just giggled. He thought it was a game, so he climbed even higher to where the branches were thinner and bent under his weight.

  “No, Zephie! Stop! Don’t go any higher. You’re going to fall and break your neck!”

  Then she heard Maman from the back porch. “Sophie! Zephram! Where are you? Oh, no! Not up in the tree! Hold on tight, mes enfants! Don’t fall! You’ll break your necks!”

  She ran under the tree branches and held out her skirt as if to catch them if they fell. Sophie stared down at her mother, then back up at Zephram. She knew she had to get to him before he crawled any farther. The branch was so thin that it could snap under his weight at any moment.

  Suddenly he seemed to realize the danger. “Fall?” he said, his voice quavering, his eyes huge.

  “Come on, Star Girl,” Sophie muttered to herself as she cautiously eased herself up to where she could reach him. “Hold on tight, Zephie! I’m coming to get you.” She clutched a branch with one hand and leaned way over. “Got you!” she said, grabbing the back of his romper with her free hand.

  “Hold on there!” Maman cried. “I’ll get the ladder.”

  As her mother raced across the backyard to the chicken pen, Sophie held her brother’s romper in such a tight grasp that her hand throbbed, but she didn’t dare let go.

  He stared down at her, his eyes filling with tears. “Fall,” he whimpered. “Fall down.”

  “No, you won’t fall, Zephie. I’ve got you really tight.” But she wasn’t sure how long she could hold on to him. Or hold herself on to the tree, for that matter. She didn’t dare look down. She stared straight ahead at the fluttering green leaves.

  Maman dragged the ladder across the yard and frantically set it up under the tree, leaning it against the branch just below Zephram’s legs. She gingerly climbed the ladder and reached into the branches for her little boy. “Pass him down to me, Sophie.”

  Before Sophie could pull her brother loose, he leaped at his mother, squealing, “Maman, Maman!”

  “Oof!” Maman grunted as he descended upon her. The ladder lurched and swayed. For a second Sophie thought it was going to topple, but Maman managed to grasp a branch to steady herself. “There now. There now, mon petit.” She took a deep breath and shifted Zephram under her arm, holding him like a football. “We’ll just go back down the ladder.” When she stepped onto the grass, she put Zephram down and gave a great sigh of relief, wiping her face, shiny with perspiration.

  Sophie swung out of the tree like Star Girl and landed at her mother’s feet.

  Maman shook her head, her hands on her hips as she looked at Sophie. “I don’t know where my children get it. You two must be part monkey. Always climbing, climbing...”

  “Sorry, Maman. I was watching Zephram every minute. Really I was. I don’t know how he got up that tree so fast.”

  Raising her eyebrows, Maman gave Sophie a cross look. Then she carried Zephram inside the house for his afternoon nap. Sophie trailed behind her.

  After Zephram was safe in bed, Maman went back into the living room to continue practising the piano. “Monsieur le Curé said that the regular organist will be away on Sunday, so he asked me to play at High Mass,” she said. “The music has to be perfect.”

  Sophie took a pile of her Star Girl comics out to the shady front steps to read. She’d write a letter to Marcie later. It was much too hot to do it now, even in the shade. She raked her fingers through her curly hair and wiped the sweat from the back of her neck. She thought about how lucky her brothers were, diving and swimming in the beautiful cool, clear water at Deer Lake.

  She opened her favourite Star Girl comic. It was the one where Star Girl saves a tr
ain loaded with vacationers from crashing over a cliff by flagging down the engineer with her star-studded cape in the nick of time. That was what she needed! A star-studded cape. Then she could rescue somebody, too.

  A boy appeared at the front gate. “Hey, Sophie, want to play?” It was her next-door neighbour, Jake. He had red hair and freckles like her brother, Henri.

  “Sure thing,” Sophie said, dropping her comics on the top step. “I thought you were gone away on holidays.”

  “We got back last night. We were on Vancouver Island looking for a new house in Port Alberni where my dad got a new job at the mill.”

  Sophie’s stomach lurched. “You’re moving away from Maillardville?”

  “Not until the end of the summer.”

  That was a couple of weeks away, so Sophie wouldn’t have to worry yet about losing her friend. “So what do you want to do?”

  “Want to play marbles?”

  “I forget where I put mine. How about hopscotch? You can go first.”

  “Sure.”

  They drew the hopscotch squares with sharp sticks in the dried dirt path in front of the hedge. Jake found a piece of white china for his marker, and Sophie found a grey speckled rock that was flat enough not to roll away when she threw it.

  “Look,” she said, showing Jake. “This rock has a wishing ring.” A narrow white band went right around the whole rock.

  “So make a wish, why don’t you?”

  Sophie shut her eyes. Now that she didn’t have to wish for a friend to play with, she wished hard for her very own bicycle, one with balloon tires and shiny fenders. “Okay,” she said, opening her eyes. “Let’s play. You’re first, remember.”

  Jake stood on one foot and hopped through the squares. Before he had finished his turn, Elizabeth Proctor rode up on her shiny new bicycle. Again! Four times in one day! It was as if she were haunting Sophie or something.

  “Wow!” Jake squeaked. “Love your new bike!” His eyes shone as he stared at Elizabeth. Sophie’s stomach felt very tight. Jake was her friend, not Elizabeth’s.

  “Thanks, Jake,” Elizabeth purred, batting her eyelashes at him. “Can I play with you?”

  For a second Sophie thought Jake might go off and play with Elizabeth and she would have no friend to play with. She grabbed her stick and scratched a big, deep cross into the dirt beside their hopscotch squares.

  “Criss cross, double cross,” Sophie chanted at Elizabeth. “Nobody else can play with us. If they do, we’ll take their shoe and beat them till they’re black and blue. Criss cross, double cross.”

  She stuck her hands on her hips and glared at Elizabeth with her angry Star Girl stare.

  “Humph!” Elizabeth sniffed, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. “Who’d want to play with you two dimwits, anyway?” She flicked back her hair, got on her bike, and rode away, her nose even higher in the air than usual.

  “Gosh,” Jake said. “She sure does look mad.”

  “I don’t care,” Sophie said. “She’s nothing but a mean old snob.” But she didn’t feel very good about what she had done. She was the one who had been mean.

  “Yeah,” Jake said, “but what a beaut of a bike!”

  3

  The following morning Sophie went next door to Jake’s house to play, but no one was home. Jake must have gone out somewhere with his family. Sophie sighed and dragged herself back to sit alone on the front porch. It was going to be another hot, muggy day, and again she had no one to play with.

  She picked up one of her Star Girl comics and flipped through it. Star Girl was never lonely. She always had wonderful adventures, with people to rescue and bad guys to capture. That was what Sophie needed—a really exciting adventure. But she didn’t know a single person who needed rescuing. Even Jake’s cat, Gigi, was nowhere to be seen. She sighed again. Maybe if she had a cape, it would help.

  Sophie went around to the back of the house and into the basement. A pile of boxes they still hadn’t unpacked sat against a wall. She rummaged through the boxes until she came to one filled with curtain fabric. The fabric was rumpled and smelled like mothballs. A few months ago she had used a piece for a Star Girl cape and had tried to fly off the chickencoop roof. It really hadn’t worked, so she and Jake had made it into a gigantic kite.

  She pulled a piece of fabric out of the box. It was quite small, about the size of a large bath towel. Too small, really, to be used for any of the windows in their new house. It felt light and silky. She tied it around her shoulders. It was cool and settled around her comfortably. The fabric was white, like Star Girl’s cape, but didn’t have any stars attached to it. Would it work, anyway? She went back outside and around to the front porch to take a closer look at Star Girl’s cape in her comics.

  Arthur came outside and flopped onto the steps beside her. Sophie pulled off her cape and sat on it. She didn’t want Arthur to see it and laugh at her.

  He didn’t notice it, though. He sighed as he stretched his long, tanned legs and wiggled his bare toes. He was wearing his Jughead hat. He always wore that hat, except when he was sleeping or having a bath. It was covered with so many medals and badges now that it was hard to see the original brown colour.

  “Boy,” he said. “Sure wish we were swimming at Deer Lake right now. It was so much fun yesterday, even though I had to leave early to do my paper route. But we can’t go back today because Joe has a special exercise with his army cadet troop and Henri is playing baseball down at Macan Park.”

  “You don’t have to rub it in,” Sophie said. “Hey, look at this!” She pointed at the back page of one of her comics. “’You’ll never be bored again when you have your very own Star Girl Super Bounce Ball with Special Super Bounce Powers.’ Look, it costs just one dollar! I’d sure love one of those.”

  “Ha!” Arthur scoffed, pushing back his hat. “You could buy one of those at Eaton’s downtown for fifty cents.”

  “Not one like this one, you couldn’t. It has Special Super Bounce Powers. It says so right here. I’ve got to have one. I’m going to send away for it right now.”

  “Thought you were saving all your money for a bike.”

  “I am. But this ball is only a dollar. Say, Arthur, how about letting me help you with your paper route today so I can make some more money?”

  “I don’t know, Sophie. Those newspapers are awfully heavy, especially on Fridays and Saturdays.”

  “But I’m really strong. Just look at this muscle.” She flexed her arm and held it in front of his face. “I could help you carry them around.”

  He looked at her, considering. “I’m getting kind of tired of doing all those papers, anyway, so tell you what. I’ll stack them into my bike carrier and wheel them around and you can deliver them to the houses.”

  “How much would you give me?”

  “Half of what I make.”

  “How much is that?”

  “Two cents a paper, so I’ll give you one cent.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much to me. How many papers do you have?”

  “Fifty-two.”

  “So you’ll give me fifty-two cents a day?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay. It’s a deal.”

  Sophie pushed her cape under her comics and ran inside to get an envelope and a stamp from Maman. Arthur helped her write the address. She felt a small tremor of excitement as she dropped the envelope into the mailbox on the corner. Soon it would be here. Soon she’d have her very own Star Girl Super Bounce Ball with Special Super Bounce Powers. And soon she’d be able to fly like Star Girl. She just had to figure out how.

  On their way to the newspaper shack that afternoon, Sophie had to run her hardest to keep up with Arthur. “Can I ride your bike, Artie?” she puffed behind him. “Can I? Can I?”

  “No. It’s way too big for you. Besides, this is a boy’s bike.”

  “So? Bet I could ride it!” she shouted to his back. “Please let me try. Please, please, plee-ease!”

  “Look!” he y
elled, stopping in the middle of the path. “You can’t ride my bike. Okay?”

  “Oh, all right,” she muttered. She kicked a rock out of the way and kept trotting after him.

  The paper shack was a small dark green building at the edge of the road. A bunch of guys were lounging around in a puddle of shade in front of the building.

  “You better wait here,” Arthur told her. “Don’t let those guys see you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just don’t!” he hissed.

  Sophie ducked behind a bush and peeked through the spiky branches. Most of the boys waiting around the shack were rough-looking and bigger than Arthur. They wore tattered jeans and dirty T-shirts. They didn’t even glance up at him when he wheeled his bike closer. Before he got there a panel truck arrived and stopped in front of the shack. One of the biggest boys opened the back doors of the truck and started tossing out stacks of newspapers, calling out numbers in a loud voice.

  “Thirty-six!” he shouted.

  “That’s mine,” Arthur said. He lifted the pile of newspapers from the ground and wedged it into his front carrier. Then he wheeled his bike back along the path. Sophie left the bushes and trotted out to meet him.

  “Hey! Looks like the French kid’s got himself a cute little helper,” yelled one of the bigger guys who was wearing a torn yellow T-shirt. “What’s the matter, Frenchie? This newspaper job too tough for you?”

  Arthur’s ears turned bright red, but he didn’t stop or even turn around. He mounted his bike and started pedalling hard up the hill, his front wheel wobbling. Sophie had to run her fastest to keep up with him. When he got to the end of the block, he turned down a narrow lane beside a deep ditch. Out of sight of the teasing boys, he stopped and waited for her. At last she caught up to him, panting like mad.

  “I told you to keep out of sight,” he growled at her. His whole face was as red as his ears, and he was panting, too.