Читать книгу Criss Cross, Double Cross - Norma Charles - Страница 6

After a delicious pickle-and-boulettes sandwich on fresh homemade bread and another tall glass of lemonade, Sophie went out to the front gate and swung back and forth on the bottom rung. The hinges squeaked in a lonely way. She looked up and down the empty road. No one was out. Her next-door neighbour, Jake, must still be away on holidays with his family. Her three older brothers were busy in the backyard working on their bikes. She had no one to play with. If only she were still living in Montreal, she would be playing with best friend, Marcie. With Marcie around she was never lonely.

The gate rung dug into Sophie’s bare feet so she jumped off. She found a pointed stick and drew ovals for a marble game in the hard-packed earth beside the fence. She tried to remember where she had put her bag of marbles.

“Hi, Sophie. What are you up to now?”

It was Elizabeth Proctor again, but this time without her dog. She was riding a brand-new shimmering red bicycle with big, fat balloon tires. Attached to the handlebars was a fancy wicker basket with a paper grocery bag in it.

“Wow! Where did you get the new bike?” Sophie hopped around and stroked the bike’s shiny back fender. “Can I have a ride?”

Elizabeth tossed back her hair and shook her head. “Sorry. No one can ride it but me because it’s brand-new. My daddy got it for me in the States when we were on our vacation in California. Have you ever seen such a beautiful bicycle in your whole entire life?”

“It’s a beauty, all right. Can’t I ride it just to the end of the road and back? I promise I won’t wreck it or anything.” Sophie was so excited her mouth was watering.

“No, I’m not allowed to lend it to anyone. Sorry.” Elizabeth smoothed her hair back over her shoulders again and patted her hair ribbon. She didn’t look the least bit sorry. “I’ve got to go back home now. My mother’s waiting for these groceries. Bye. See you later.” She mounted her bicycle again, thrust her nose in the air, and pedalled down the path as smoothly as a fancy figure skater on ice.

“Stuck-up!” Sophie muttered. “She’s nothing but a dirty rotten stuck-up!” She stormed along the front path and almost bumped into Joseph, her oldest brother. He was rushing down the steps with a towel around his shoulders.

“Where are you going, Joe?”

“Swimming at Deer Lake,” he said, grabbing his bike from the front-porch railing.

“Swimming! Can I come?”

“Nosiree,” Joseph said, wheeling his bike past her. “For one thing, you don’t have a bike. And even if you did, you could never keep up with us.”

“Could so!” Sophie shouted after him. “I could ride like the wind if I had a bike my size and you gave me half a chance!”

“Hey, Joe. You guys coming or not?” his friend, Gerald, called from down the street.

“We’re coming! We’re coming! Hold your pants!” Henri, Sophie’s second-oldest brother, yelled. He was pushing his bike around the side of the house. His baseball cap was on sideways and his freckled cheeks were already red from the heat of the day.

Sophie’s third brother, Arthur, scrambled along the path and out the swinging gate. “See you later, kiddo,” he said, twiddling his fingers at Sophie. He scrunched down his Jughead hat, jumped on his bike, and pedalled furiously to catch up with his older brothers.

Sophie ran out to the gate and watched them ride away in a cloud of dust.

“They’re so lucky,” she grumbled to herself. “They get to spend the whole afternoon swimming at Deer Lake. It’s just not fair.” She swung on the gate again. “Just because they’re older. And boys.”

Even Arthur, who was only twelve, had managed to earn enough money with his new paper route to buy a good secondhand bike from Cap’s Bicycles in Sapperton.

Sophie was saving for a bike, too, but so far all she had in her piggy bank was $1.73, mostly in nickels and dimes. And there was no bike in the whole world she could buy for a measly $1.73.

She slammed the gate shut, walked down the path and up the steps to the front door, and banged into the house. “Maman!”

“I’m in the living room.” Sophie’s mother was sitting on the piano bench, flipping though a thick music book. She wore a cool cotton dress sprayed with pink flowers.

“Maman, I really, really, need a bicycle. Everyone in the whole world has a bicycle but me. Could you buy me one? Please?”

Her mother shook her head. “I’m sorry, Sophie. It takes all our money just to buy food and clothes for you and your brothers.”

“It’s not fair!” Sophie cried. She knew her mother would say that, but she had to try. Papa had a good engineering job now since the family had moved from Montreal a few months ago, yet there was still never enough money for extras.

“Could you please look after Zephram until his nap time while I practise these hymns on the piano?” Maman asked. Sophie’s little two-year-old brother was playing with his blocks under the piano bench, smacking them together.

“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 train 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!”