VALENTINE NICHOLAS HAD HIS SKI SCHOOL IN TWO places—in a small wooden building in the village, and on the mountain. Cherry was to have a ski lesson first in the village, then up on the snowy slope.
They had met at breakfast surrounded by Papa and Mama Nicholas and their dozen international guests, in the sunny dining room.
“Where were you last evening? I looked for you,” Val asked. Cherry admitted that she had fallen asleep soon after supper. Val said, “I know. This high, thin mountain air can make you sleepy at first.”
‘Well, besides the thin air,” Cherry said, “I was tired out from a—from the strain of something that happened at the hospital yesterday.” She wanted to tell Val about the incident, and he seemed interested to hear.
But not here and now; they had to go to work. Cherry’s holiday would start at noon. Val said he would be instructing at his ski school in the village all morning. “I’ll wait for you there and give you a lesson then, if you like.”
“Oh, fine. But I didn’t bring my skis or poles,” Cherry replied. “Clumsy to carry when traveling.”
“My father keeps spare skis and poles for our guests. We’ll lend you some,” Val reassured her.
“Thanks very much. Anyway,” Cherry added, grinning, her black eyes sparkling, “I did bring my ski boots.”
“How good a skier are you, Cherry?”
“Fair. Fair to good but out of practice. I’m very good at leaving my sitzmark.”
Val smiled and asked, “Can you wedeln? That means wag.” Cherry looked at him, surprised. “I see you can’t,” he said. “I’ll teach you. It’s a fast, graceful way to ski.”
“With a name like wag?”
Val smiled again and stood up from the table. Cherry realized he was huskier than she had thought from quick first impressions. He was four or five inches taller than she was, built solidly as a rock, blue-eyed with light-brown hair.
Shortly after Val had left, Papa Nicholas came over and led her to a large hall closet, opening the door with a flourish.
“Here, Miss Cherry, all kinds, all sizes of skis and poles. Val said you would need some. I beg your pardon that the closet is a little untidy.” Papa Nicholas picked up suntan oil and a knitted ski mask.
“We need an extra boy here to help us,” he said to Cherry. “Maybe,” he mumbled, “someone like Toni, only my wife doesn’t like him. Now then, Miss Nurse! How tall are you? Let us find you just the right length in skis and poles—”
Val’s father, like many in the high mountain countries, had learned to ski soon after he learned to walk. He was so enthusiastic about skiing that it took Cherry ten minutes, and Mrs. Nicholas’s amused help, to break away from him. She walked quick-step to the small hospital.
Dr. Portman had Cherry assist him as he checked over Mr. Raymond, yesterday’s patient who had collapsed on the slope. The man was in no danger; a good night’s sleep and the doctor’s reassurance had helped him. Cherry made the patient more comfortable. Then she helped Dr. Portman take care of a man who came in with a very bad cold. When they finished, at about eleven o’clock, Dr. Portman said she was excused for the rest of the beautiful day.
“Go outdoors, Cherry,” the doctor said. “Go up on our Mont d’Argent. Or try Mont Vert, that’s the next peak.”
“Thank you, Doctor!” Cherry said. “You know I came here expecting to work a full day every day except Sunday.”
“I know you did,” Dr. Portman said. “Some days we do work intensively. As a rule, though, there isn’t a great deal of nursing you can do for a ski doctor. Not like medical cases. So you are going to have plenty of free time for skiing. And romancing,” he teased her.
“Well, uh, and when do you go skiing, Doctor?”
“Every chance I get—while you stay here. Fair enough?”
So Cherry walked back toward the Chateau Nicholas, to change out of her white uniform and into ski clothes. Along the picturesque main street, she admired Eagle Peak’s attractive shops.
Sheer willpower got her past the display of sports clothes and then the fragrant chocolate shop. She paused before a display of magnificent Swiss watches. Some were unbelievably thin and tiny, some cost hundreds of dollars. All of them—said a Swiss woman who was window-shopping—were the finest watches in the world, made under exacting government standards and inspection. One watch that told the time, date, and the day of week reminded Cherry of that odd man she and Marie had befriended in Lugano. What had become of Jacob Lenk? He had been wearing a similar watch.
“Speaking of time,” Cherry said to the Swiss woman, “excuse me—” and sprinted off.
A little later, clomping along in her ski boots and carrying the borrowed skis and poles on her shoulder, she knocked on the door of Val’s ski school.
Val opened the door. The instant he did so, a swarm of very small children in ski clothes burst out, squealing, jumping, some hanging onto a short, dark young man and shouting, “Toni! Toni!” Behind them came parents and nursemaids. Cherry was surrounded. Someone cried, “Toni Rubberlegs!”
“My snow bunnies,” Val said to her. “Come in. We have just finished this morning’s class lessons, and now it’s your turn—What?” Val turned as the other boy called to him. “Excuse me, Cherry…. No, I’m sorry, I can’t let you do that,” Val called back. “See you later on Mont d’Argent, Toni. Hm? I don’t know yet which run—I’ll have to see what this girl can or can’t do.”
“Can or can’t do what?” Cherry asked.
“What you can do on skis in soft or hard snow, or difficult or easy runs. Oh, maybe you mean what Toni can’t do? He wants to be a ski instructor at my school. I have two other boys teaching here. Toni is a wonderful skier, but he isn’t trained and certified to teach. So he isn’t entitled to wear our red jacket.” Val touched his sleeve with its official yellow stripes. “You’ll notice he wears only a red sweater. It’s too bad. I’m sorry about Toni.”
“The children like him,” Cherry said.
“Yes. He clowns for them on skis. Everybody likes Toni. Except my mother! For no reason! She says she distrusts him. It’s not fair, and it’s not like her, either.” Val flushed under his rosy tan. “I should not talk like this.”
“I’d rather talk about Val and his snow bunnies,” Cherry said.
Val smiled admiringly at this attractive, lively girl, with sparkling dark eyes and rosy cheeks. He said, “I will talk about me if you will tell about you. Agreed? And while we get acquainted, you must stand on one foot for as long as you can.”
Cherry tucked up one foot. “I feel like a stork. What for? Limbering before skiing?”
“Yes. Now tell me everything about you.” The young man started packing away the equipment that the children had used.
“Well, I lost a tooth when I was five. My worst subject in school was mathematics—my twin brother Charlie was great at it. Now he’s an engineer, an aviation engineer. Oh yes, home is a small town, Hilton, Illinois, and Charlie and I have just about the best parents anywhere.”
“Except mine,” Val said. “My brothers and sisters would say so, too. Yes, younger than I am. Away at school. What else about you?”
“Hm! Well,” said Cherry, wobbling on one foot, “I like children and nursing most. And I hate tomatoes and—and liars.”
“I hate tomatoes and liars, too,” Val said. “Stand on your other foot now, Cherry. Yes, I know it’s not easy in heavy ski boots…. What were you going to tell me this morning—about something yesterday at your hospital?”
They sat down on a bench. Cherry asked Val if anyone was around to overhear. No one, he said. The other two ski instructors were teaching students up on the slopes.
So Cherry told him about Harry Hendrix, his red sports car, the gun, her own fingerprints left on it—and the cut on the man’s left hand caused by some sharp metal object.
“A broken ski could cut like that,” Val said. “You’ve noticed the steel edges of skis?”
“Of course that could be it!” Cherry said.
“Have you any idea where the man came from?” Val asked.
“No, and no idea where he was going next.” She shrugged. “Well, he’s gone. For good, I hope.”
Val got up. He pulled her up off the bench, too, saying, “Would you rather go back to the chateau for a hot lunch, or ride up Mont d’Argent with me and eat sandwiches out in the sun? Cook always gives me enough for two or three people.”
“Now what do you think I’d rather do!” Cherry said. “One more question, please. About Hendrix’s red sports car—have you seen a car like it?”
She described it—a low, miniature, squarish car, probably inexpensive, probably English-made. But Val shook his head with its mop of light-brown hair. “I see dozens of red sports cars, Cherry.”
“I’d like your advice on something else,” Cherry said, remembering Jacob Lenk. She told Val of her meeting with the stricken man. “He works for the Gold Ribbon Watch factory in the Jura region, Val. Could you arrange a long-distance phone call for me? I’d like to find out if he’s all right.”
“Glad to, after our lesson. Now, let’s enjoy the sun.”
They walked from the ski school building to the nearby lifts going up Mont d’Argent. In the shedlike terminal Val obtained a pass for Cherry so that she need not buy a ticket each time she wanted to go up and down the mountain. They waited with twenty-five or thirty young men and women, most of them carrying skis, for the big cable car to come down. Cherry was glad to see two of Dr. Portman’s patients here, a girl with her arm in a sling and a boy with his leg in a cast, chatting and laughing and enjoying themselves, anyway.
When the cable car arrived, Val and Cherry stepped into it with the others. They stood amiably squeezed in all together; the skiers spoke in several languages. Below them, the village and highways dwindled to toysize. The cable car rose steeply above treetops; then above rocky fields, up to glittering peaks where they could see clouds to snowy mountaintops and icecaps jutting above the clouds. Cherry looked straight down and wished she hadn’t.
“There’s nothing under us but a mile of open space!” she exclaimed. “Skiing in Colorado and Vermont was never like this!”
Val took her arm to steady her as the cable car paused and dangled before a wooden platform. “It’s not this steep on the side where we ski. Quick! Hop off now!”
He led her along a short ice tunnel where, with the others, they emerged onto a sunny, protected terrace. Here it was mild. Although the wind whipped the Swiss flag and blew the girls’ hair, the sun shone warmly on the picnickers reclining in deck chairs. Val explained that at this altitude—nearly a mile up—there was less atmosphere between them and the sun’s rays; the sun burned more fiercely as they came closer to it.
Val, greeting his friends, found two chairs. He handed Cherry suntan cream and the lunch to unwrap.
“There’s Toni,” he said. “He’s coming over.”
Cherry could not tell whether Val sounded pleased or a little annoyed.
“Hello. I see you have lunch, and I’m hungry,” said a lighthearted voice in back of Cherry’s chair. Toni came around and squatted down next to her. He was small and slight, a lively sprite, an elf in worn-out ski clothes. “Val, introduce me immediately to this very pretty girl.”
Toni’s face crinkled with mischief—rubberface, Cherry thought, as well as rubberlegs. Toni’s eyes, though, were shrewd.
“I’m Poni Teeter—I mean, Toni Peter.”
Val laughed at him. “I warn you, Cherry, my friend Toni Peter is a charmer. He’s always hungry, so please give him the biggest sandwich.”
Cherry handed Toni a thick sandwich. “Hello, Toni. I’m Cherry, and thank you for the compliment—your extravagant compliment.”
“Not exaggerated at all, Cherry.” Toni shook hands, then took a big bite of his sandwich, not waiting for her and Val. The boy must be ravenous, Cherry thought. He even looked hungry; his cheeks were hollow and the bones of his short, muscular body stuck out at shoulders, hips, and knees. Even his rather baggy ski clothes could not hide his being underweight. “Do you ski, Cherry?” he asked with his mouth full.
“But of course she skis,” Val said. “See her ski boots? The question is, How well does Cherry ski? Is she out of practice, or—”
“I’d like to teach her,” Toni interrupted. “Let me teach her, eh, Val? I’ll work for half fee.”
“I’m going to teach Cherry myself.” Val was firm but good-humored. “Come and watch, after we eat. Give us some pointers.”
“I will,” Toni said, “unless Mr. and Mrs. Girard decide to let me give them a lesson.”
Cherry suddenly noticed Val’s expression change—a flash of pity that he hid at once.
“Listen, Toni. I spoke to my father about getting you a job at our hotel as you asked me to—”
He glanced in embarrassment at Cherry. Toni, not a bit embarrassed, helped himself to another sandwich and borrowed Val’s sunglasses. Cherry excused herself. She went to speak to Dr. Portman’s two patients, then spoke to a young family who were guests at the Chateau Nicholas, and then she admired the view. When she came back to the two young men, Toni looked excited. “If he were a puppy, he’d be wagging his tail,” Cherry thought.
“Well, I am doing my best for you,” Val was saying as she rejoined them.
“Thanks, Val. I surely hope your father will hire me,” Toni said.
The three of them discussed the skis and poles Cherry had borrowed from Mr. Nicholas. At the school Val had had her try on the skis. They were a satisfactory length for a girl of her size, but Val said her ski poles were too long. She needed a shorter pair.
“Toni, stand up. Look, Cherry! You and Toni are about the same height. Will you lend her your poles for a few minutes? I want to show Cherry—”
Toni handed Cherry his two poles. They were the usual slim, hollow poles, made of lightweight metal, each equipped with a wrist strap. At the bottom, a circle of spokes called a “basket” would stop the pole from sinking into the snow.
Toni’s poles fit Cherry; from the ground they reached as high as her armpits. Val manipulated the poles with her and showed her how to use them for turning or climbing, or jumping over small ridges, or in getting up from a spill. Toni mimicked the motions Val described, and ended up clowning. Everyone around sat laughing at Mr. Rubberlegs.
“Excuse me, now,” Toni said, “I see the Girards!” Toni took back his ski poles and smoothed his hair. “Awfully glad to meet you, Cherry.”
“Wait, don’t be in such a hurry!” Val caught the boy’s arm. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
“Ah—I don’t know yet—I’ll look for you here on Mont d’Argent. Agreed?”
Toni sprinted off, still wearing Val’s sunglasses. Val shrugged and looked for a sandwich.
“None left. Toni must have eaten them all. He’s nearly starving, poor fellow,” Val said. “Come into the lodge, Cherry, and we’ll have some lunch there.”
The wooden lodge was perched precariously on a steep ledge of the mountainside. When they were seated at a table, Cherry asked:
“Forgive me for asking, Val, but there’s something I don’t understand. I can’t help wondering why Toni is nearly starving. He seems perfectly able to work and earn a living.”
“Not here at Eagle’s Peak,” Val defended him. “Because he’s not certified by the Swiss Ski School as a ski instructor, as I told you. The few lessons he gives are—you probably know this—outside the law. He has to use discretion about whom he teaches.”
“Or someone might report him?” Cherry asked.
Val bridled. He seemed annoyed that Cherry should have any doubts about his friend. For an instant Cherry was afraid she had been tactless.
“Yes. Toni is living on his wits.”
“I see. Is he a good instructor?”
“Excellent! And good company.” Cherry heard doubt in Val’s voice. “Well, he’s just right for certain pupils. If and when he can find any.”
Apparently Toni could not or would not take the required training and examinations, as did the local, hardworking ski instructors.
“Well, then,” Cherry asked, “could Toni do some other kind of work? If not in Eagle’s Peak, then in Morten?”
“Toni doesn’t want to work at anything except skiing—or do anything except ski,” Val said. “He’d rather go hungry.”
Cherry almost asked: “Isn’t that pretty spoiled and self-indulgent of Toni? Isn’t that saying Toni doesn’t want to work—just ski and enjoy himself?”
But Val sympathized with Toni’s love for skiing and the mountains. He admired Toni’s nerve and daring on skis. “Toni saved my life about a month ago, near one of the high peaks. I was exploring a valley I’d never been in before…. No, not in this area. He grabbed me in time to save me from skiing down into a hidden crevasse. That’s how we met. I told him to see the Nicholases if he ever came to Eagle’s Peak.”
Cherry nodded, listening, not saying anything. Val went on:
“Living as best he can from day to day—that takes courage, too. My mother calls Toni a wanderer, a gypsy, irresponsible. But she doesn’t understand. Toni has never had a chance in life.”
“What does your father think about Toni?” Cherry asked.
“As I do. Even though we haven’t known Toni very long. Father is a skier and mountain climber, so he values Toni. Toni is no ski bum! He wants to work for my father, and—and he—”
“And you like him very much,” Cherry interrupted, laughing. “Never mind Toni! You were supposed to tell me about you.”
Val flushed slightly. “I’m just another one in the long line of Nicholas men.”
After lunch, they went out on the south slope. Up there they put on their skis. The sun on the snow was dazzling, the air mild and sparkling clean. Val had a class to teach soon but he gave Cherry half an hour of private instruction. He had her try out first on the easiest ski slope, just to be careful.
“Let’s see you take a snowplow position.” Cherry turned in her ski tips. “Good. Now show me a traverse across the hill. Skis together, bend your knees, weight on the downhill ski, poles behind you. Smooth movements, glide…don’t rush…. Good again. Now let’s see you do a sideslip, then a stem turn. You’re no beginner, girl! You’re good, very good!” Val said, after giving her a thorough workout.
“Out of practice,” Cherry said. “The rhythm of skiing is coming back to me, though.”
“Can you parallel? Not well? Come on!” Val led the way to where the intermediate markers were placed upright in the snow. They skiied downhill slowly, then faster, making a turn, then traverse, then turning in a zigzag course.
“I’m proud of you!” Val said at the bottom of the incline. “Where did you learn to ski?”
“Sugarbush, Vermont,” Cherry puffed, and sat down ingloriously in the snow. They both laughed.
During the ski lesson, Val confided to her that he felt uneasy about Toni’s teaching illegally. Toni could be subject to pressure from any dishonest person who knew that he could be arrested for teaching without being certified by the Swiss Ski School, or knew that Toni was hungry. As a friend, Val said, “I’d feel happier if he had a legitimate job with us. He’d live at the chateau with us. That way I could keep an eye on Toni, the way I’ve done with my younger brothers.”
Cherry asked—as offhandedly as she could—where Toni came from. Val admitted, “I don’t really know.”
Cherry saw how careful, how very tactful, she would have to be with Val on the touchy subject of Toni. Toni seemed willing to do illegal things—and Val, the soul of decency, trusted him and opened his home to him.
Late that afternoon Val called Cherry to the chateau’s desk telephone. “The Gold Ribbon Watch people will be on the line in a second or two,” Val said. He handed her the telephone.
“Thank you, Val. Let’s listen together, in case I get into language difficulty,” Cherry said.
A man’s voice came on in French. Cherry inquired whether Jacob Lenk worked there.
“Do you mean our new messenger?” the man said. “Ah, yes, mademoiselle, Jacob Lenk is at work here.”
“May I speak to him?”
The man hesitated. “You are calling long distance?…Who is this, please?”
“Cherry Ames. I’m a nurse who helped a little when Mr. Lenk got sick in Lugano.”
A long pause followed. Had her call been disconnected? Then the polite, suave voice said, “I am sorry but Lenk is out just now. May I take a message? I am his supervisor, Mr. Vreener, head shipping clerk at this factory. Or do you wish him to phone you back?”
“Thanks, that won’t be necessary,” Cherry said. “I just wanted to know that he is well and safe.” She hung up, feeling satisfied.
Almost too patly satisfied? she wondered, struck by Val coolly appraising her. She remembered Hendrix in the clinic, warning that several people would watch her unknown to her.
“But surely I can trust Val!”