She felt under the bed with one hand. Yes--there lay the letter that had come during the night. It wasn't only a dream.
She had definitely seen the philosopher! And what's more, with her own eyes she had seen him take her letter!
She crouched down on the floor and pulled out all the typewritten pages from under the bed. But what was that? Right by the wall there was something red. A scarf, perhaps?
Sophie edged herself in under the bed and pulled out a red silk scarf. It wasn't hers, that was for sure!
She examined it more closely and gasped when she saw HILDE written in ink along the seam.
Hilde! But who was Hilde? How could their paths keep crossing like this?
Socrateswisest is she who knows she does not know
Sophie put on a summer dress and hurried down to the kitchen. Her mother was standing by the kitchen table. Sophie decided not to say anything about the silk scarf.
"Did you bring in the newspaper?" she asked.
Her mother turned.
"Would you get it for me?"
Sophie was out of the door in a flash, down the gravel path to the mailbox.
Only the newspaper. She couldn't expect an answer so soon, she supposed. On the front page of the paper she read something about the Norwegian UN battalion in Lebanon.
The UN battalion ... wasn't that the postmark on the card from Hilde's father? But the postage stamp had been Norwegian. Maybe the Norwegian UN soldiers had their own post office with them.
"You've become very interested in the newspaper," said her mother drily when Sophie returned to the kitchen.
Luckily her mother said no more about mailboxes and stuff, either during breakfast or later on that day. When she went shopping, Sophie took her letter about Fate down to the den.
She was surprised to see a little white envelope beside the cookie tin with the other letters from the philosopher. Sophie was quite sure she had not put it there.
This envelope was also wet around the edges. And it had a couple of deep holes in it, just like the one she had received yesterday.
Had the philosopher been here? Did he know about her secret hiding place? Why was the envelope wet?
All these questions made her head spin. She opened the letter and read the note:
Dear Sophie, I read your letter with great interest-- and not without some regret. I must unfortunately disappoint you with regard to the invitation. We shall meet one day, but it will probably be quite a while before I can come in person to Captain's Bend.
I must add that from now on I will no longer be able to deliver the letters personally. It would be much too risky in the long run. In the future, letters will be delivered by my little messenger. On the other hand, they will be brought directly to the secret place in the garden.
You may continue to contact me whenever you feel the need. When you do, put a pink envelope out with a cookie or a lump of sugar in it. When the messenger finds it, he will bring it straight to me.
P.S. It is not pleasant to decline a young lady's invitation to coffee, but sometimes it is a matter of necessity.
P.P.S. If you should come across a red silk scarf anywhere, please take care of it. Sometimes personal property gets mixed up. Especially at school and places like that, and this is a philosophy school.
Yours, Alberto Knox
Sophie had lived for almost fifteen years, and had received quite a lot of letters in her young life, at least at Christmas and on birthdays. But this letter was the strangest one she had ever received.
It had no postage stamp. It hadn't even been put in the mailbox. It had been brought straight to Sophie's top-secret hideout in the old hedge. The fact that it was wet in the dry spring weather was also most mystifying.
The strangest thing of all was the silk scarf, of course. The philosopher must have another pupil. That was it. And this other pupil had lost a red silk scarf. Right. But how had she managed to lose it under Sophie's bed?