Free Saving Sophia by Fleur Hitchcock Page B

leaves.
    Sophia goes over to the window and opens it. “Too far to jump,” she says. “I guess this is the end of the journey.” She looks like she’s going to cry. “But thanks so much for trying. Both of you.” She closes the window and drinks the last drops of squash from her glass.
    “If this was
The Prison on the Rock,
Sarah-Anne Wilmslow would have a rope in her bag…” I look up at Sophia; she’s staring at me as if I’m mad. “But it’s not, and we haven’t,” I finish, feeling foolish. “Actually, forget I said that. It was silly…”
    “Well,” says Ned, rummaging in his backpack. “For once, you might be right.” And he pulls out a bundle of nylon that I recognise as a chunk of Mum’s climbing rope, then throws an orange harness thing to the floor.
    “What?” says Sophia. “Where did you get that?”
    “Had it all the time,” says Ned cheerfully. “After you ran away I put it in my bag, just in case.”
    A pain of intense regret washes through me. Why didn’t I carry a climbing rope? Why couldn’t I have thought of this? Sarah-Anne Wilmslow, where are you now?
    “Well, we don’t
all
have to get away, someone needs to stay at the top, just in case, but if Sophia can, that’s the main thing.” Ned finds the middle of the rope, loops it over his shoulder and around his waist before anchoring it around the leg of the desk. “This means there’s a sliding rope and a holding rope and even if I get dragged across the floor, the desk won’t fit through the window frame,” he says in explanation.
    Sophia looks doubtfully at him. “Am I supposed to climb down without a helmet or anything?”
    Ned nods. “You have done climbing before? Haven’t you?”
    “Of course,” she says. “Loads of times, but never without a helmet.” She takes a deep breath and grabs the harness. She climbs into it, fits it around her waist and then clips one half of the sliding rope through it. She throws the holding rope out of the window. She tests the harness. “This is not how it’s meant to be,” she says, looking out to the sand below. “But…” She shrugs.
    “Ready?” asks Ned, as I help her up on to the windowsill. “Here, you’d better take my bag with all the vegetables – I’m not sure…” He glances across at me.
    “Not sure of what?” I ask.
    “Which one of us will go with her,” he mutters. “We’ll talk about it.”
    “Thanks, both of you,” Sophia says, leaning back on the ropes until Ned’s feet slide the last inch and wedge against the wall. “You’ve been great.”
    And she disappears.

Abandoned
    I watch Sophia bounce lightly down the wall and unhook herself at the bottom. She clips the harness back on to the rope and waves up at us. All I can hear are seagulls. It’s as if they’re laughing at my attempt at having a proper friend.
    “So,” says Ned. “Who’s going with her? We can’t leave her on her own, she’s clueless. But then, so are you – you haven’t the faintest idea about survival.”
    “Hang on,” I say. “We were supposed to be a team, and yet you’d leave me to face the police and Pinhead and everyone.”
    “I was simply thinking of the best way of savingSophia.” He pulls the ropes slowly back through the window.
    I breathe in but there are so many words to come out I can’t choose which one’s going first. “Saving Sophia?” I explode. “I’m supposed to be doing that! Right from the beginning you’ve just muscled in with your sad SAS stuff and your survivalist equipment and things. All that guff about sleeping under trees and tracks and hens. If it had been up to me—”
    “You could have said.”
    I turn to the empty room, as if the chairs might back me up. “I
did
say, I said a million times, but OH NO, clever Ned, he’s been listening to Mum and Dad, he knows exactly what to do, when his silly ‘Eeeew’ sister doesn’t; he can take charge, he can be a hero.”
    “Right, you’ve made your point,” says Ned,