The Jewels of Sofia Tate by Doris Etienne

Tenth-Grade loser with curly red hair and a freckled nose, when he could have someone like Laura? Even Amy seemed to be getting along just fine without her since she had left Owen Sound.
    On impulse, Garnet decided not to go home right away and turned the corner. Perhaps a detour to a certain old lady’s house would help her feel better. She hadn’t seen Elizabeth since Sunday and desperately needed to see a friendly face.
    She was riding along the quiet, tree-lined street when, in the distance, she noticed a dark-blue BMW with tinted windows parked at the curb in front of Elizabeth’s house. As Garnet approached, the car suddenly pulled out and to her horror, seemed to be speeding straight toward her.
    â€œHey!” Garnet screamed.
    She quickly veered to the closest driveway, then braked and skidded on the sidewalk before coming to a stop. She turned her head to watch as the car swerved to the middle of the road, just missing an approaching green Mazda. The driver of the Mazda lay on the horn while the BMW steered to the right and sped around the corner.
    What an idiot
, Garnet thought. Breathless and shaking, she crossed the street to Elizabeth’s house. She dismounted the bicycle and leaned it against the side of the house. Strangely, the front door stood ajar. She ran up the stairs and pushed it wide open.
    â€œOh, no!” Garnet cried, putting a hand over her mouth.
    Elizabeth was sprawled out on the tile floor with her cane tossed to the side. Her face was turning an odd shade of blue and a goose-egg lump was beginning to form on the left side of her forehead.
    Ginger mewed and circled around Elizabeth’s limp form, her tail lashing about. The antique oriental vase thatGarnet had admired only days ago was smashed to pieces on the floor behind her, next to the grandfather clock.
    Garnet yanked off her helmet and headset and knelt down. She gently shook Elizabeth’s shoulders. “Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Can you hear me? Are you all right?”
    Her eyes fluttered briefly behind lopsided glasses, then closed again.
    Garnet’s heart pounded.
What do I do?
    She ran to the kitchen and grabbed the telephone. It was heavy and black and had holes on a disc instead of buttons to dial the number. With a trembling hand, she poked her finger into the hole for the first number: 9. It seemed to take forever for the dial to come back down. She dialled the next two numbers: 1-1.
    Waiting for the emergency response team seemed like a lifetime. Garnet removed her knapsack and sat down on the floor next to Elizabeth, placing a shaking hand on her shoulder. “You’ll be all right, Elizabeth,” she said, partly to convince herself and partly since she didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t know CPR and wished now that she had taken the time to learn it when it had been offered at school. Ginger continued to circle the floor around Elizabeth until Garnet reached for her with a free hand. She held her, seeking comfort from the warm fur, and biting back the tears that threatened. She wished the cat could talk so it could explain whathad happened in the moments before she had arrived. The sound of the approaching sirens brought Garnet to her feet.
    â€œHer name’s Elizabeth Tate,” Garnet told the paramedics as they carried in the boxes with life support equipment. She stood back as the male attendant knelt down and checked Elizabeth’s vital signs. “She was lying on the floor when I got here.”
    He nodded, then said something she did not understand to the female attendant with him. Working quickly, he undid the buttons on the top of Elizabeth’s dress and attached a monitor.
    The line on the screen was a continuous row of small waves. The woman pulled out a defibrillator and used it to shock Elizabeth’s heart back to a heartbeat. The line on the monitor suddenly jumped to life, and an intravenous tube was quickly inserted into Elizabeth’s arm and