Lost in the Wilderness - The Forest of Evergreen Book 1 (9 page)

“Jericho? So, you’ve been mentioning him to your sister, huh?” Grandma Lucy delved Sophia, even more penetratingly.

Sophia flushed severely and acted as if she never heard a thing. The name Jericho was always poison ivy to her grandma. Thus, she fared better to just stay, close-mouthed.

“Okay, enough with that guy! And who’s that guy anyway, huh?” Alex protested.
 

“He’s no one,” replied Grandma Lucy and guzzled a glass of water.

The moment Sophia heard it, she asked herself why her grandmother never liked Jericho, and mulled over the fact that if Grandma Lucy already knew that he had now a profession, as a doctor, just like what grandma had always wanted for every male member of the family… What, then, would Grandma Lucy think of Jericho, now?

“Here’s the barbecue!” Bea announced delightedly as she neared them.

“I super-like barbecue, Auntie Bea. I’m glad you had them prepared,” admitted Nadine, extending both hands to grab one stick of it.

“So, you call her auntie too?” Alex asked, just to provoke his sister, a bit.

“Why? Is it prohibited to call her auntie too? Is that word exclusive for Sophie?” Nadine retorted, always in a childish way.

The Vabuerettis laughed at Nadine’s behavior, and her humor had caught everyone’s attention, including Sophie’s.

Throughout the chattering after the meal, Philippe’s eyes were entirely engrossed by the lake. He missed it so much so he offered his family a swim.

“Dad, I am really glad you thought of that.” Alex released his boredom, waiting for his father to finally ask it.

“Honey, see to it that you don’t go to the deep part!” Elizabeth warned them uneasily.

“Wow! Dad, teach me how to swim. Please, Dad! Please!” Nadine begged, hopping at where she was standing. Finally, she was on the mode to learn swimming again, after her drowning incident that caused everyone trauma.

“Okay, honey! Yes, I will.”

Nadine laughed her excitement away and looked at Sophia. “Dad, how about Sophie?” She wanted her sister to join them but she knew her sister’s fear of deep waters too. Grandma Lucy once told them that Sophia almost drowned in the lake when she was nine.

“Sweetie, your sister is also afraid of deep waters, okay?” Grandma Lucy intruded.

Sophia overheard it and flung a heavy sigh. At the back of her mind, she had already overcome it, and she overcame it with Jericho’s support.

They watched the three swim in the lake, and Sophia took photos of them.
 

Taking a brief look at Sophia, Elizabeth noticed her pulling face, as she focused the camera to her father and siblings.
 

“Hey, are you all right?” Elizabeth approached her across the dock.

“Mom, I am fine! I am! I am, Mom!” Sophia asserted so she could not take everyone’s joyfulness away.

“Are you sure?” Elizabeth flippantly confirmed as she caressed Sophia’s hair.

Sophia nodded, giving her mother a strained smile. Then she continued taking photographs to escape the clashes of her own mixed emotions.

When she finally took a lot of photos, she craved to rest her legs when, unexpectedly, she saw the huge blue stone in front of the lake house that was naturally square in shape. It was still the same where it was located, still surrounded with peanut grasses. She paced towards it and remembered the day when she was sitting there with Jericho.
 

It was Mother’s Day at their school but she made up her mind to skip the program. She was so downhearted that she was the only student whose mother was not there to attend it, so she swept her sadness away by agreeing to Jericho’s invitation to the lake house. That day, he waited for her outside their school with his assembled cab. It was an Italian scooter with a trunk welded with metal tubes at its side, supported by another wheel, making it a tricycle. There was a rectangular wooden plaque that served as a seat. Jericho was fond of inventing so he was able to pull them altogether. He thought of it as a means of taking Sophia to the lake house for it was, somehow, a one-and-a-half-hour trip from the town proper, and he did not want them to walk, nor to hitchhike with deer hunters.

Crystal clear, Sophia unearthed all these memories and smiled, a smile between sadness and joy. Her smile widened when she further remembered how Jericho spread a blanket onto the grasses for them to sit on, and he served her wafers and a can of soda.

At that memory, she could scarcely impede her tears from flowing. She needed to wipe them; she did not want to be seen crying by her family, so she hurried inside the lake house to pacify herself.

“Why is this still happening?” she asked herself as she opened the main door. “I thought I have moved on.”

Then, she went straight to the sink to wash her face, and ran for her shades to cover her reddened eyes.

Elizabeth and Grandma Lucy were watching the three enjoy the water when they noticed Sophia’s sudden disappearance.

“Where’s Sophia?” Grandma Lucy asked Elizabeth.

“She’s just taking pictures a while ago. I don’t know where she went.”

They continued wondering of Sophia’s whereabouts when Sophia walked down the dock and joined her father and siblings. The moment she dove into the lake, everyone was put to a tense halt.

“Sophia, no!” Grandma Lucy yelled with bursting panic but she was surprised to see Sophia swimming as if a mermaid.

“What?” Elizabeth was solidly staggered.

“Whoa! Did you just see that?” Nadine asked her father and Alex.

“I thought she’s afraid of the water,” they all asked each other.

Sophia finally got her head above the water and fixed her hair, uncomfortable with the way they looked at her, including her mother and Grandma Lucy from the bank.

“What?” Sophia asked them.

“I thought you’re afraid of the water,” Nadine answered while being carried by Philippe on his shoulders.

“Who told you that?” Sophia contemptuously asked, still uncomfortable with their reaction. Then she got out of the water and walked through the dock dripping wet, self-questioning why it was such an issue.

Instantly, Elizabeth came to wrap her with a towel and asked when she learned to overcome her phobia.

As well, Grandma Lucy went after Elizabeth to ask the same question.

“Long time ago,” Sophia replied and grabbed her flip-flops.

Hearing it, Grandma Lucy wondered heavily and drew a sharp breath.

Sophia was already shaking badly, hence, she excused herself and rushed inside the lake house.

The setting sun was already half-hidden by the wide mountains, and the Vabuerettis decided for an early bonfire.

Sophia gathered her hair in a ponytail. The wind entering the lake house was cold so she brought out her much-loved white shawl from her suitcase.

In a while, her grandma knocked on her door, with a smile so refreshing that puzzled Sophia.

“You just surprised me today,” Grandma Lucy said. “I thought you’re still afraid of the deep water.”

A nod, along with a partial smile, manifested from Sophia, hesitant to admit that she actually overcame it with Jericho’s help. But the brief silence she shared with Grandma Lucy reminded her of the bonfire.

“Um, I guess, everyone is already outside,” Sophia said in a bowed head.

“Yes. You’re right,” Grandma Lucy agreed, and they walked together to the venue.

Everyone gathered around as soon as the fire livened up, and they cheered for Nadine to perform.
 

Nadine was always willing and vigorous for any presentation. She sang a bubbly melody and bopped some lively dance moves before them, making everyone clap in awe, even their workers who joined them at that time.

“Okay, it’s time for Sophie now!” Nadine gamely told everyone as she went back to her seat beside Elizabeth.

“What? No!” Sophia griped.

“Sophia, Sophia, Sophia!” they cheered.

“No, I don’t sing. I don’t dance!” Sophia grumbled further. “Trust me, I’m a terrible one!”
 

“I don’t think so!” Alex countered, his face appearing very teasing.

“Oh, actually Alex can sing!” Sophia struggled to avert all the attention from her. “He’s in a band and really an excellent singer. I guarantee you, your cheers will all be worth it.” Sophia strongly gave fine points about her brother, desperate enough to end her agony.

It was pretty obvious to everyone that Sophia did not want to perform and so, Nadine suggested playing
I’ll Act, You’ll Guess Game
.

“What’s that?” they wondered.

“Oh, this is how we play it. I’ll describe a word or a phrase and you’ll guess it only through my gestures within two minutes,” Nadine explained, in full hope to be understood. “Like a charade!” she added.

“Oh! Okay! I bet that’s a lot of fun!” Elizabeth agreed.

And to make everyone participate, they grouped themselves into two. Philippe, Sophia, Bea, and two Vabueretti workers composed the first group while the other one was consist of Elizabeth, Alex, Nadine, and the other two remaining Vabueretti workers. As for Grandma Lucy, she served as the mediator and the scorer at the same time.

They tossed a coin to determine which team would go first and it happened to be Philippe’s, and Sophia was assigned to do the demonstration. She went to Grandma Lucy to listen to what she would be whispering and was surprised of what she heard:
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
, her grandma’s favorite song, and it was too long for her to portray it.

“All right, timer starts now,” Grandma Lucy announced as she took a look at the wrist watch she borrowed from Alex.

Sophia held up four fingers to denote four words and moved her fourth finger.

“Fourth word!” her groupmates said.
 

Sophia nodded agreeably and started shaping in the air a rainbow.

“Mountains?!” Philippe initially guessed.

Sophia moved her head side to side indicating that her father’s guess was wrong.

“Half-circle?” Bea also guessed.

Sophia again swayed her head, the frown in her face turning deeper while their opponent group loudly teased them.

“Um, wait! Is that a rainbow?” One of the Vabueretti workers yelled asking.

Sophia joyfully nodded and the rest of the group was now getting excited.

Sophia moved her second finger, meaning they had to guess for the second word, and she symbolized the word
over
by placing her right hand over her left one, doing it again and again.

“Hand over hand?” Philippe once again guessed.

“Over?” the other Vabueretti worker guessed, and Sophia again agreed.

Bea remembered the song that Grandma Lucy always listened to. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow!” she shouted.

“Yes!” Sophia leaped for joy and so did her groupmates.

“Huh?” Nadine reacted, quite disappointed. “That was difficult but it took them just a while to guess it!”

“Okay, your turn!” Philippe challenged the opponent group.
 

Elizabeth’s group got up from their seats, pressuring themselves that they had to guess it too and they decided Nadine to do the demonstration.

“Okay,” held Nadine in a very babyish manner and went to Grandma Lucy to listen to what she would be whispering.

Grandma Lucy paused for a minute, thinking of a phrase as difficult as the first one. But she found it hard to think so she asked them to wait for a while. Then the movie
Titanic
popped in her head and she instantly whispered it to Nadine.
 

Nadine was confident. It was just one word and it would be easier for her groupmates to guess it. Then she raised her left index finger with a wide smile.

It was, of course, a delight for her groupmates that it was just one word and it would be much easier for them compared to the previous one.

Now, Nadine started to illustrate a ship in the air and repeated it twice.

“A boat?” Alex initially guessed.

Nadine conveyed it wrong by moving her head sideways, giving them an upset look. She drew it bigger for them to identify that it was a ship, a bigger one.

Aggravated, they could not still get her.
 

Now, Nadine became even more irritated and repeated highlighting a big boat in the air, doing it again and again.

Sophia already had in mind that it must be
Titanic
but she just laughed, helping herself not to slide the word out of her mouth. They had a VHS tape of it at her grandma’s and she even remembered how Bea cried at the end of the movie; too much affected she was those days!
 

Elizabeth and the rest thought even harder, frustrated that they couldn’t guess it.

For Nadine, she illustrated it over and over again.
 

“The movie 2012,” Alex guessed again.

All of a sudden, Elizabeth realized that it might be
Titanic
. “Tita—”

“Oops, time’s up!” Grandma Lucy declared.

“What? Are you sure?” Nadine’s group protested.

“But I was supposed to say Titanic,” Elizabeth shared.

“Sorry, two minutes is up already!” Philippe insisted on his mother’s behalf.

“Fine!” Nadine exhaled noisily and went back to her seat, admitting their first defeat.

“You should have spread your arms. Remember, the
I’m flying
scene of Jack and Rose in front of the ship!” Sophia made fun of her sister.

“Whatever!” Nadine fought back, her lips pouting and right eyebrow lifted up.

It was Philippe’s group again. Unfortunately for him, he was assigned to illustrate.
 

This time, Grandma Lucy already thought of something and it was the
Bible
.

Philippe exhaled noisily and started to demonstrate. He raised his left thumb and smiled.

“What?” his groupmates wondered, unsure if he was depicting one word or he was just giving them a thumbs-up sign.

“Dad, does that mean one word... or you’re just giving us a thumbs-up sign?” Sophia confirmed, holding her laugh.

“No!” Philippe defended himself and explained to everyone that the thumb was actually the first digit and that he meant one word.

“Oops! Warning!” Grandma Lucy imposed. “No talking!”