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 yelled, 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.
“I didn’t think...they’d...notice me,” she puffed hard. “They weren’t even looking.”
“Next time, if there is a next time, you’ll have to wait up here. Agreed?” He sounded so mad at her that she could barely look at him.
She nodded meekly. “Agreed.”
Delivering Arthur’s papers wasn’t all that much fun, especially since Arthur was so grouchy and it was one of the hottest days of the summer. Sophie had to remind herself that every delivery was one cent closer to getting her very own bike. They weren’t even half finished the route and her feet were sore and she was so thirsty that her tongue felt permanently glued to the roof of her mouth. She pulled at her blouse. It was stuck to her sweaty back. This was a tough way to earn money.
One of their last deliveries was down on Brunette Street at LeBlanc’s Barbershop where everyone in the family got haircuts. Monsieur LeBlanc told Arthur he would be going on a holiday for the next few weeks and wouldn’t need the paper.
Just past the barbershop, the road narrowed as it went over a Bailey bridge. There were no cars coming, so Sophie and Arthur stopped on the bridge and looked at the stream bubbling in the shade between mossy rocks and shiny green ferns. Sweat trickled down Sophie’s face.
“Let’s go into the water and cool off, Artie!”
He shook his head. “We can’t. The five-o’clock whistle at the mill went a long time ago, so it must be almost six o’clock now. Mom will have supper ready, and you know how she hates anyone being late.”
“Oh, please, Artie, just a quick dip. I don’t think I can make it all the way back up the hill, I’m so hot.”
Arthur was still shaking his head. “What about my bike?”
“You could leave it here beside the bridge.”
“What if somebody steals it?”
“No one will steal it. We can watch it. We’ll just be down there, not that far away. Please.”
He looked longingly at the cool water splashing under the bridge. “Okay, I guess so. But only a quick dip.”
While he stashed his bike in a dusty bush beside the bridge railing, Sophie slid down the steep bank, hanging on to roots and weeds.
“Watch out for the rocks, Artie,” she called over her shoulder as she pulled off her shoes in the shade under the bridge. “They’re really slippery.” She stepped from the soft, muddy bank into the cool water. It swirled around her ankles and she wiggled her toes. Wow! That felt good. It smelled good, too. Fresh and woodsy and cool. She splashed the water into her face and hair and it trickled down her sweaty back. “You’ll love it,” she said, grinning at Arthur. “It’s so cool!”
He took off his hat and glasses and carefully set them on a dry rock. As he bent over the stream to splash some water into his face, a movement at the top of the bank near the bridge caught Sophie’s eye. She pushed dripping hair out of her eyes to get a better look. It looked like the boy from the paper shack who had teased her brother. The boy leaned over the bush where Arthur had stashed his bike. Sophie gasped and held her breath. He was taking Arthur’s bike!
“Artie!” she squealed. “That guy’s stealing your bike!”
Arthur fumbled for his glasses. “What?”
“Hey, you!” Sophie screamed. “Leave that bike alone!” She flew up the bank, clutching roots and vines, her bare toes digging into the soft earth. “You leave that bike alone, you thief! How dare you!” she yelled her loudest. She’d beat him into a pulp. “Get away, you! That’s my brother’s bike!”
The boy glanced over his shoulder and dropped the bike. He took off and raced down Brunette Street in a cloud of dust. By the time Sophie got to the bridge, he had rounded the corner and she could barely see him, but she shook her fist and yelled at his back, anyway.
Panting hard to catch her breath, she picked up Arthur’s bike from the gravel road and wiped the dust off the seat. It looked okay. Nothing appeared to be broken that she could see.
Soon
