18. Bompie and the Train. Cody writes in his log that he can’t figure Sophie out. She’s amazed by the smallest things, like a simple lobster pot, and will get close to it, observe it, and ask tons of questions about it. But Cody says that Sophie’s enthusiasm is inspiring; her fascination and excitement convinced him that maybe living the life of a lobster fisherman could actually be quite interesting. After he admits to catching a bit of Sophie’s sense of amazement and imagination about the fishing life, he says that he thinks she’s afraid of the water.
Cody then writes about another Bompie story Sophie tells. When Bompie was young, he lived near the Ohio River, where it was very deep and about a mile wide. Across the river ran a train track, and one day Bompie decided to cross the river by walking on it. When he got to the middle of the bridge, however, he heard the train coming, and when it got close, he decided to jump from the bridge into the water below. When he finally made it to the surface, he swam to shore like a madman. Arriving safely back at home, his father whipped him for getting his clothes dirty, and his mother gave him apple pie.
Though confused by Sophie’s fascination with the lobster pot and fisherman lifestyle, Cody finds her way of dreaming and imagining somewhat contagious. Sophie is beginning to influence the way Cody thinks, and he’s starting to register just how unique and peculiar she is. But now he’s picked up something crucial about her character which we’ve already known all along: she fears the water.
Following the same pattern of the last Bompie story, Bompie has another dangerous encounter with water, and faces the same reaction by his parents when he returns home. Though Cody’s not sure if Sophie’s stories are real or not, he persists in recording them down in as much detail as possible. This persistence could be read as Cody having faith that Sophie’s stories are worth listening to, whether “real” or invented.