The joker! Hilde knew her father had always been a sly one, but today he had really taken her by surprise! Instead of tying the card on the package, he had written it into the book.
But poor Sophie! She must have been totally confused!
Why would a father send a birthday card to Sophie’s address when it was quite obviously intended to go somewhere else? What kind of father would cheat his own daughter of a birthday card by purposely sending it astray? How could it be “the easiest way”? And above all, how was she supposed to trace this Hilde person?
No, how could she?
Hilde turned a couple of pages and began to read the second chapter, “The Top Hat.” She soon came to the long letter which a mysterious person had written to Sophie.
Being interested in why we are here is not a “casual” interest like collecting stamps. People who ask such questions are taking part in a debate that has gone on as long as man has lived on this planet.
“Sophie was completely exhausted.” So was Hilde. Not only had Dad written a book for her fifteenth birthday, he had written a strange and wonderful book.
To summarize briefly: A white rabbit is pulled out of a top hat. Because it is an extremely large rabbit, the trick takes many billions of years. All mortals are born at the very tip of the rabbit’s fine hairs, where they are in a position to wonder at the impossibility of the trick. But as they grow older they work themselves ever deeper into the fur. And there they stay . . .
Sophie was not the only one who felt she had been on the point of finding herself a comfortable place deep down in the rabbit’s fur. Today was Hilde’s fifteenth birthday, and she had the feeling it was time to decide which way she would choose to crawl.
She read about the Greek natural philosophers. Hilde knew that her father was interested in philosophy. He had written an article in the newspaper proposing that philosophy should be a regular school subject. It was called “Why should philosophy be part of the school curriculum?” He had even raised the issue at a PTA meeting in Hilde’s class. Hilde had found it acutely embarrassing.
She looked at the clock. It was seven-thirty. It would probably be half an hour before her mother came up with the breakfast tray, thank goodness, because right now she was engrossed in Sophie and all the philosophical questions. She read the chapter called “Democritus.” First of all, Sophie got a question to think about: Why is Lego the most ingenious toy in the world? Then she found a large brown envelope in the mailbox:
Democritus agreed with his predecessors that transformations in nature could not be due to the fact that anything actually “changed.” He therefore assumed that everything was built up of tiny invisible blocks, each of which was eternal and immutable. Democritus called these smallest units atoms.
Hilde was indignant when Sophie found the red silk scarf under her bed. So that was where it was! But how could a scarf just disappear into a story? It had to be someplace...
The chapter on Socrates began with Sophie reading “something about the Norwegian UN battalion in Lebanon” in the newspaper. Typical Dad! He was so concerned that people in Norway were not interested enough in the UN forces’ peacekeeping task. If nobody else was, then Sophie would have to be. In that way he could write it into his story and get some sort of attention from the media.
She had to smile as she read the P.P.S. in the philosophy teacher’s letter to Sophie:
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.
Hilde heard her mother’s footsteps on the stairs. Before she knocked on the door, Hilde had begun to read about Sophie’s discovery of the video of Athens in her secret den.
“Happy birthday ...” Her mother had begun to sing halfway up the stairs.
“Come in,” said Hilde, in the middle of the passage where the philosophy teacher was talking directly to Sophie from the Acropolis. He looked almost exactly like Hilde’s father—with a “black, well-trimmed beard” and a blue beret.
“Happy birthday, Hilde!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Hilde?”
“Just put it there.”
“Aren’t you going to ... ?”
“You can see I’m reading.”
“Imagine, you’re fifteen!”
“Have you ever been to Athens, Mom?”
“No, why do you ask?”
“It’s so amazing that those old temples are still standing. They are actually 2,500 years old. The biggest one is called the Virgin’s Place, by the way.”
“Have you opened your present from Dad?”
“What present?”
“You must look up now, Hilde. You’re in a complete daze.”
Hilde let the large ring binder slide down onto her lap.
Her mother stood leaning over the bed with the tray. On it were lighted candles, buttered rolls with shrimp salad, and a soda. There was also a small package. Her mother stood awkwardly holding the tray with both hands, with a flag under one arm.
“Oh, thanks a lot, Mom. It’s sweet of you, but I’m really busy.”
“You don’t have to go to school till one o’clock.”
Not until now did Hilde remember where she was, and her mother put the tray down on the bedside table.
“Sorry, Mom. I was completely absorbed in this.”
“What is it he has written, Hilde? I’ve been just as mystified as you. It’s been impossible to get a sensible word out of him for months.”
For some reason Hilde felt embarrassed. “Oh, it’s just a story.”
“A story?”
“Yes, a story. And a history of philosophy. Or something like that.”
“Aren’t you going to open the package from me?”
Hilde didn’t want to be unfair, so she opened her mother’s present right away. It was a gold bracelet.
“It’s lovely, Mom! Thank you very much!”
Hilde got out of bed and gave her mother a hug.
They sat talking for a while.
Then Hilde said, “I have to get back to the book, Mom. Right now he’s standing on top of the Acropolis.”
“Who is?”
“I’ve no idea. Neither has Sophie. That’s the whole point.”
“Well, I have to get to work. Don’t forget to eat something. Your dress is on a hanger downstairs.”
Finally her mother disappeared down the stairs. So did Sophie’s philosophy teacher; he walked down the steps from the Acropolis and stood on the Areopagos rock before appearing a little later in the old square of Athens.
Hilde shivered when the old buildings suddenly rose from the ruins. One of her father’s pet ideas had been to let all the United Nations countries collaborate in reconstructing an exact copy of the Athenian square. It would be the forum for philosophical discussion and also for disarmament talks. He felt that a giant project like that would forge world unity. “We have, after all, succeeded in building oil rigs and moon rockets.”
Then she read about Plato. “The soul yearns to fly home on the wings of love to the world of ideas. It longs to be freed from the chains of the body ...”
Sophie had crawled through the hedge and followed Hermes, but the dog had escaped her. After having read about Plato, she had gone farther into the woods and come upon the red cabin by the little lake. Inside hung a painting of Bjerkely. From the description it was clearly meant to be Hilde’s Bjerkely. But there was also a portrait of a man named Berkeley. “How odd!”
Hilde laid the heavy ring binder aside on the bed and went over to her bookshelf and looked him up in the three-volume encyclopedia she had been given on her fourteenth birthday. Here he was—Berkeley!
Berkeley, George, 1685-1753, Eng. Philos., Bishop of Cloyne. Denied existence of a material world beyond the
