Cherry Ames, Ski Nurse Mystery by Helen Wells

Author:Helen Wells
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer Publishing Company
Published: 2008-03-12T04:00:00+00:00

Early Sunday morning Toni vanished. As usual and as per his postcard to Marco.

Cherry and Val were unsurprised and ready, equipped with skis, poles, and Val’s binoculars. They promptly followed Toni. This was according to the plan they had agreed upon.

Since Cherry’s visit to Rosalia the day before yesterday, she and Val had had a long, searching talk. Val was angry at what she had seen and deduced so far.

“The impudence of Toni,” Val said, “to deceive me and my father, and still live in our house!”

Toni had recovered fairly well. Though his strained shoulder still was sore, he could handle his ski poles. Cherry felt sure he would keep his appointment with Marco. But where? Not necessarily at the garage in Rosalia. And for what purpose? Val had been the one to propose that he and Cherry follow Toni—on skis.

“Toni takes his skis and poles with him when he starts out every Sunday. So we’ll have to travel on skis, too. Are you willing to make the trip, Cherry?” Val had asked her. “It won’t be easy.”

“You know I want to go with you.”

The trip on skis, in the silent white wilderness, was longer than any Cherry had ever undertaken. Crossing snow valleys, skiing down long, empty slopes was difficult enough without the strain of keeping judicious distances behind Toni. He must not see them! Yet they must not for more than a minute lose sight of his diminished figure schussing at unchecked speed downhill, flying along in his red sweater, a moving red dot in the sun and snow.

Toni bobbed in and out of view, especially at ski-lift stations. To get up these mountains, in order to ski down, the skiers rode the ski lifts. These were open seats with a metal bar that the attendant snapped shut across your waist. The chairs hung suspended from a continuously moving steel cable.

“Don’t look down,” Val called to Cherry from his chair.

A great rocky chasm yawned below them. Her feet, heavy in boots and skis, dangled in midair as the ski chairs inched steeply upward on the cable.

Across Mont d’Argent and Mont Vert, and now to Il Guardiano’s summit, Val and Cherry followed Toni. For five tense minutes Val thought they had lost him. He came into view again far below, among granite mountains. They stopped on a plateau of snow to watch where Toni would go next. Val squatted and used his binoculars.

“He’s heading toward Rosalia,” Val said. “Just as we expected.”

“I noticed a funicular railway outside Rosalia,” Cherry said.

“Good. That means Marco can easily come up into the mountains to meet Toni in some lonely place. Ready now? Down we go!”

Down they skied, following Toni diagonally down the steep south wall of Il Guardiano Mountain. Somewhere on this wild, deserted slope they must be crossing the border. Cherry’s left ski grazed rock. Wasn’t the snow cover growing spotty? The wind always blew the snow off in areas like this one.

Val, ahead of her, signaled, “Watch it! Careful!” They dared not call out in this echoing silence.

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