1Chapter 8

Girl Talk

Right on schedule three days later, we were boarding a plane to take us home. Ten minutes after Chip had woken up, the commotion had drawn the doctor and several nurses back into the room, where they had congratulated him on his recovery and chastised us for making him talk.

"Chip, you must not talk. You understand this? You will lose your voice forever if you speak. Please, do not make him talk!"

Dale had been adamant about a set date when Chip could start talking again. The doctor had put his foot down. "Not for at least three weeks. Not a word!" He had then given us complicated directions concerning what Chip was supposed to eat and drink for what seemed like the rest of the year, and which doctors back home he should visit, and how much exercise and excitement he should have and so on and so forth until I noticed Chip's head had lolled down on my shoulder.

I had been sitting on the bed next to him, letting the mere fact of him soothe my nerves, when he had fallen asleep again. I smiled at the recollection.

"Please fasten your safety belts," came a pleasant, clipped female voice over the intercom.

I wasn't sure how I felt about the plane ride home. I was still feeling very distant from everything and everybody except Chip, and all I could do was look at him after a while. It was almost rude to talk to a person who couldn't talk back, and I couldn't bring myself to do it.

What I wanted most was to go tinker mindlessly in my workshop for several hours. Entirely absorb myself in the one constant in my life: my inventions. I knew after five days of being silent and moody I should be ready to talk to anyone about that night, and start letting go of the feelings. And yet, I found it easier to do what I had always done: bottle them up inside, bury them so deeply that I eventually almost forgot.

I settled down in a chair on the aisle of the small mouse-sized deck of the plane and waited for the voice to tell us we were underway. Half of me wanted to sneak up to the bridge and watch the pilot and captain work. The other half of me wanted to close my eyes and think about the parts I'd need for a new Ranger Wing.

"Miss Gadget, is this seat taken, please?"

Startled, I looked up and saw Sophia and Jules standing over me, Sophia glittering in a black dress suit. "Um, no. Why are you coming with us, Sophia?" I had assumed she and Jules would be remaining in Vladivostok now that she was safe. Well, she had never really been in danger. She knew that now.

Sophia worked her way around my legs and settled herself in the chair next to me. Jules excused himself and went to the opposite side of the aisle.

"I wish to send some time with you Rescue Rangers and get to know you. You saved my life, and the lives of everyone else on that ship. I wish to find a way to thank you."

I marveled at her Russian accent. It was so dainty, so refined. "Golly, Sophia, that's awfully nice of you. But we don't need anything from you; we like to help people."

Sophia knitted her be-jeweled fingers together. "Yes, well, more people should be like you." She lowered her voice to a whisper and looked across the aisle where Chip, Dale, Monterey Jack, and Zipper were all dozing. "You are very brave people. I have made many movies, and seen many brave people do stunts. But you, you do this because of your good hearts. You many have forgotten, but I saw how brave you all are, what a team you are." Sophia looked around the plane uncertainly, and then continued. I listened whole-heartedly. After all, the praise did feel good.

"I feel almost ashamed when I think of the danger I put you in, Gadget."

"Well, he was after me, not you," I answered, trying to make small of the fact. Sophia and I had enlightened the other Rangers during one of Chip's waking spells in the hospital. But I had yet to tell them that the assassin was a hired hit-man, with a brother still out to get me.

Sophia would have none of it. "No. Something is wrong. Of all the people the assassin could have been sent after as a diversion, I should not have been it. Something is out of place. I do not like it, Gadget."

She was right, now that I thought about it. If someone, I still couldn't imagine who, wanted me dead, why on earth go after an actress in Russia whom I'd never heard of? It worked, obviously. "Whoever it was knew the Rangers would help out no matter who it was. But picking you...that is suspicious."

Across the aisle, Jules snored loudly, announcing the fact that he had fallen asleep. It knocked Sophia off of her "why me" train, and back onto her previous one. She leaned towards me again, confidentially. "I watched as Chip and Monterey Jack climbed the smokestack and rescued that little boy. I saw Monterey Jack fall and break Dale's arm, and I saw Chip fall into the smokestack. And then, he gathered the people onto the raft all by himself! And I saw how he risked his life for you to save you from the assassin." She swallowed, looking at me in awe. "You dived into the water after him!" Her eyes were wider than pennies. "And the assassin! You disposed of him!"

Her words brought the night alive for me all over again, despite my attempts to forget it. I shivered at the thought of the icy water, even though the plane was wonderfully warm. The fear I had felt as Chip and I had battled the assassin rose again in my throat, hot and nasty. Chills raced down my arms.

"I'm..I'm a Rescue Ranger. We all are," I said lamely. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say, but I wanted the topic over. "And Chip is my friend...of course I'd help him."

"Of course you are a Rescue Ranger, and of course Chip is your friend." She twisted my answer. "But...you were so worried about him. And he about you! When he woke up, I had to wonder, perhaps...?" She didn't finish her sentence. She didn't need to; the look in her eyes did it for her. I'd seen the question before, unasked, in so many people's eyes. Monterey's, Tammi's, Chip's. Sometimes even my own.

"Chip is my friend."

And yet the worry must have been plain on my voice, because Sophia saw right through it to the unspoken, wavering interest below it. I didn't exactly love Chip, but I certainly cared a lot about him, and enjoyed every minute of the attention he gave me. That is, when I'm paying attention. I'll admit, I don't think I catch half of what he says sometimes because I'm busy tinkering with some machine or another.

Sophia smiled knowingly. "Ah, do not worry. You are beautiful young girl, and he is a very handsome young man." She cocked her head. "It would make me very happy indeed to see the two of you enjoying yourselves sometime. Perhaps I could arrange it?"

I felt very much wrong-footed. No one had ever tried to set me up before. "Gee, that's nice of you, Sophia, but it seems like whenever the Rescue Rangers try and relax, something always comes up." I smiled to myself. "We seem to attract trouble."

"Trouble finds you?" She giggled happily. "Then we must find a place where trouble never comes. I have a vacation home in southern France, not too far from the water. Perhaps a small party there, when you are all well? I have been meaning to have one for some time now. My friends there grow weary of my absence, and it would be the perfect place to relax after all this."

I nodded mutely. Parties were the last thing on my mind now. And yet, talking to Sophia seemed to be easing the knot my stomach had wound itself into.

Sophia seemed to realize how therapeutic she was being, because she continued talking. "Gadget, your name is so unique. Tell me about it. And tell me why I heard Dale speaking of planes and other machines you made. Tell me." She spoke enthusiastically, and rested her head on her paw attentively. Despite my inclination to see her overture for mere sympathy, I opened up and started talking.

"My dad, his name was Geegaw Hackwrench, was a pilot, and he taught me to build things. I'm an inventor."

"So it was you who made this 'Ranger Wing' that I heard about?"

"Yes. I made it out of spare parts I found in the dumpster back home. It's really a nice plane, a step up from the Ranger Plane at least. Except when it rains. When it's raining I'm not sure which one I wish we had! You see, the Wing handles better, but the engine takes on water, whereas the Plane doesn't. The Plane will float even if you crash it in water, but the Wing will sink like a rock. Of course, my absolute favorite has to be the Gyrotank! I made the Gyromobile when we were working on a case a while ago. Bubbles, the bad guy, sabotaged it-" Jules snored loudly again, "-and so I thought it didn't work, you know? But then I found out he had sabotaged it and that it really did work, and..."

I must have carried on about all the different 'Ranger' things I had built for at least half an hour. By that time, we were well underway, and I had warmed up considerably to Sophia. The fact that she didn't interrupt my ranting, coupled with the fact that we had just undergone a terrible ordeal together, I started thinking of her as something like a sister. We became good friends on the way home, and she promised again and again to have a party for us, just as soon as Chip was feeling up to it.

Mentioning Chip again was probably all in the plan, because as soon as she had said this, I was in another corner, trying to fight my way out of saying I liked him. Sophia seemed obsessed with the idea of us making a cute couple.

But after being around only boys for so long, never having another girl to turn to, I found myself opening up more and more. After a few minutes of whispering about not liking Chip, I found it easier, after making quite certain he was still out cold, to start telling her things.

"I don't know for sure if he likes me, Sophia. Or if I like him."

"Tell me, how does he act around you?"

I already had this figured out for the most part. I was convinced Chip liked me, but I was shy about it. I mean, why would someone like me? I wasn't sure how much I liked him, though. So just for giggles, I told Sophia about the way Chip would look at me, how he would fight with Dale over who got to do things with me, and about the morning five days ago when I had woken up to find myself asleep on his shoulder.

"You did! How wonderful! Does he know?"

I swallowed, knowing my face was bright pink. "Yes."

Sophia smiled and giggled, muffling the sound with her paw. "And what did he say, dear?"

"Not much, really. He seemed really surprised and stared at me. But..." I told her how he had been smiling when I woke up.

"NO!" Sophia was in raptures for the rest of the flight. I barely registered half of what she said, but I was keenly aware of a change taking place inside of me. Sophia was definitely warping my judgement concerning Chip, but she was certainly making him a lot more fun to talk about. I felt different, the longer we whispered together. I felt needed...and as though I had finally found and unlocked the feminine part of me I didn't know I had. It was amazing.

And so was Sophia. It occurred to me, at some point in our conversation, that I should be the one comforting her. After all, she was the one who's perfect life had been shattered by this false assassination. Not the other way around. It had been terrible, and the feelings of horror were real, but I was street-wise, wasn't I? I'd been around the block, and had plenty of experience in fights and loss and desperate situations, and yet, I was the one who needed counseling. Odd, the way things work.