“You can tell it on your deathbed so it doesn’t go to waste.”

“You can tell it on your deathbed so it doesn’t go to waste” is Sophia’s reply to Grandmother’s offer to tell Sophia’s father about a climb she was forbidden to make. The line converts a moment of danger and possible disobedience into a joke about when a story is worth telling—and who gets to keep it for later.

The Climb and the Offer

Grandmother has dropped her cane into the water, and Sophia climbs down from a channel marker to retrieve it, despite her father’s prohibition. After Sophia returns to the rock and hands over the stick, Grandmother sternly praises her climbing and bravery, noting that she could see Sophia was scared. She then asks whether she should tell Sophia’s father about what happened.

A Story Saved for Later

Sophia shrugs and answers, “I guess maybe not,” before adding, “But you can tell it on your deathbed so it doesn’t go to waste.” The deathbed makes the proposed disclosure comically remote: Grandmother need not report the climb now, but the story need not be discarded either. Sophia’s joke treats the incident as something to preserve and retell, while letting her avoid an immediate report to her father.

Grandmother accepts the suggestion with “That’s a bloody good idea.” She walks across the rock and sits beside the air mattress, just outside the violet parasol’s shade. The exchange closes not with punishment or further questioning, but with Grandmother endorsing Sophia’s playful solution. Its humor rests on the contrast between a child’s present-tense mischief and the solemn, distant prospect of a deathbed, making the phrase both a comic reprieve and a small pact over who will tell the story, and when.