Saving Sophia (4 page)

…She loves me not

A few minutes later, Miss Sackbutt comes to find us. She's wearing a peachy-pink wetsuit. It's loose over the top and stretched to capacity around her bum. I didn't know such things existed, and I wondered what particularly mean shop assistant sold it to her.

“Girls, pop into your cossies, slip on some tracksuits and we'll have a go at the assault course. I gather the mud is nice and sticky!”

Was this the swimming Sophia was talking about?

Before long, we're lying in mud at the bottom of
a wall being cajoled by a man in a tracksuit. We've climbed a net, swum a canal and crawled through concrete tubes with worms all over the ceiling. It was disgusting.

We've never done the wall before; last year I suppose we were all too small. I watch as Ned and Ollie charge at it, their fingers just brushing the top, but their feet skidding off the sides. Tracksuit man thinks it's hilarious; I'd think it was pretty funny if I didn't have to do it.

It occurs to me that there's a much better way of getting over the top: Emily Cravitz used it in
No Sleep Till Cairo,
when she and Bab-el-Mar were escaping from the assassins. But I'm completely exhausted, and rather than tell anyone, I lie down and rest my hair in the mud. I dream of the shower afterwards, the lovely feeling as the hot water cuts through the dirt and leaves clean trails of skin behind. I'm imagining crisp white sheets, and shepherd's pie. Warm beds, cocoa.

In my head, I'm in a luxury hotel with fluffy white towels and views over perfectly mown lawns. If I close my eyes a little tighter I can even smell the cocoa.

“Come on, Lottie – let's do this wall.” It's Sophia.
She's remarkably un-muddy, and she reaches her hand out to help me up. “I bet you know how to, don't you? You'll have worked it out.”

No one's climbed it. Ned's bruised his knees trying. “You won't make it, Lottie,” he sneers. “You're rubbish at this sort of thing.”

I'm too tired to thump him. Instead, I make a cup with my hands. “Put your foot there, Sophia – I'll hoist you up.” She clambers lightly to the top of the wall and sits astride it. I don't think she's going to be strong enough to pull me up, so I look around for the next person. Sarah-Jane? No. Emily? She's crying into Miss Sackbutt's wetsuit. Ned? Yuk. But it'll have to be, so I cup my hands.

“Result, sis!” And he pulls himself to the top. Simultaneously, he and Sophia lean down and grab my arms, lifting me easily until I teeter for a moment on the top and have to jump down the other side or fall.

It actually feels rather good. “Well done, Lottie – clever girl – co-operation is always the best way,” calls Miss Sackbutt from the other side of the wall.

I look up at Sophia. She and Ned are holding hands while he lowers her from the wall.

Poo.

We're supposed to go for showers straight afterwards, but I wait for everyone to finish before I go into the shower block. I don't want anyone to see me naked. The floor is a pool of cold muddy water and I have to tiptoe to the cubicle, hang my towel on the hook and hope that it doesn't slip to the ground. I turn the shower to full power and look up. There's a slug sliding over the pale blue ceiling, right above my head. It's brown and spotty, a leopard slug like the ones in the kitchen at home.

Lovely.

The hot water streams over my hair, and the steam rises and for a few minutes I can't actually see the slug and can pretend that I'm not at scummy Bream Lodge, I'm actually in a fabulous villa in the Caribbean, meeting James Bond before going on a top secret mission. I could possibly be the double agent in
Silvergun,
the one where the Russian spy actually gets shot into space, the code tattooed on his forehead.

The moment I turn off the shower, the secret mission fades and I find myself standing in a puddle on a cold concrete floor with a slug over my head.

There's a note on my bed from Miss Sackbutt.

Oh no – this is why I hate coming to Bream.

I run through the camp, up a slight hill, and arrive panting at the bottom of a rope ladder where everyone's already lined up. We did this last year – or, at least, lots of people did it last year. I got halfway up the ladder before coming down again.

The thing is, it's terrifying. The ladder seems to be made of string and a few twigs and it goes straight up a telegraph pole to a small crow's nest affair at the top. It has a rope that attaches it to another telegraph pole on the other side of a ravine. From the rope hang a series of triangles – “swings”, Miss Sackbutt calls them – and beneath that, what strikes me as a ridiculously small safety net.

I wonder if Irene had to cross any tiny rope bridges when she walked across Scotland. There probably aren't any tiny rope bridges in Scotland.
They're probably all made of stone and porridge, and she would have been wearing stout brogues, not muddy second-hand trainers with sparkly bits.

And she was braver than me.

Just looking up at it makes me feel dizzy.

Tracksuit man is back, this time in a vibrant red outfit with matching red trainers.

“If you don't want to do this, I totally understand, heights aren't for everyone – but have a go, if you can.”

Ned's friend, Ollie, clambers up the ladder, swings effortlessly from one triangle to the next, and reaches the far side. He seems utterly unbothered. Ned follows, skimming through the branches, placing his foot perfectly every time. He's on the other side before I can summon up a rude comment.

The queue's getting shorter. All the boys are over; now it's just the girls.

“Come on, you lot,” shouts Ned from the other side. “Or are you scared?”

I could kill him. I really could.

Last year Sarah-Jane bottled out, but this year, although she struggles and tracksuit man has to climb to the top with her, she makes it over the
ravine, her face glowing with pleasure. Emily refuses to do it at all.

Miss Sackbutt smiles at me in a concerned way. Does she think I'm going to turn into a bawling baby or something? “Lottie?” she says. “Your turn.”

I breathe deeply and put my foot on the first rung of the ladder. So far, so good. Then I try the second. This is OK. I look across; Miss Sackbutt's head is about level with my waist. I take another breath and climb four more rungs. And then I look down.

I can see where the dye stops and the grey begins on the top of Miss Sackbutt's head. I can see the bald patch on the top of tracksuit man's head.

I don't want to do this.

I can.

I don't want to do this.

I can.

It comes with every beat of my heart, until I reach the crow's nest. And then it stops because I am simply too scared to move.

Amanda Arnott in
Say Goodbye to Life
manages to clamber over the castle roof and she's scared of heights, but – I can't. I just can't move.

“Lottie?” calls Miss Sackbutt. “Are you all right, dear?”

I shake my head. I can't even speak.

“I'll come up,” says tracksuit man.

The ladder wobbles, bending with his weight, forcing me to cling on and close my eyes, but in a second he's standing behind me, his hands on my shoulders.

“Do you want to go back down? Or go on?”

“Down,” I mutter.

“OK – that's fine – you can always decide to have another go later.”

I nod, and we come back down the ladder, stepping on to the solid ground that I find I have to sit on in order to hold myself together. I fix a smile on to my face, but I'd like to cry. Miss Sackbutt was right about the bawling baby.

“You can cross the ravine the easy way in a minute, when you've got your breath back,” says tracksuit man, pointing at a short rope bridge stretched taut over the ravine.

“Sophia?” says Mrs Sackbutt. “How about you?”

Sophia glances at me and looks away quickly. Have I become an object of pity? “Oh me, yes of course,” she says, putting her foot on the first rung.
“Shall I go up now?”

Tracksuit man nods. He looks all serious now, as if he's in the presence of greatness. In the presence of a top-flight circus gymnast.

Sophia climbs the ladder fast. Her feet fly from one rung to the next. She was born to climb high things, just like I was born not to.

She leans forward, grabs the first triangle and putting her feet on the bar, swings out towards the next.

“Bravo!” shouts Miss Sackbutt. “Well done. Keep going!”

Sophia does. She swings effortlessly over the triangles, her long black plait bouncing from her shoulder with every swing. It's rhythmical, balletic, beautiful to watch. The teachers stand below, looking up in awe.

“Bravo!” calls Miss Sackbutt again.

Sophia slips on to the crow's nest at the other end and whisks down the ladder, her feet landing lightly on the ground and completing the impression of a circus gymnast.

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…

Come on in…

“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 instead 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.