Apple in the Earth
Page 35
Chapter 14
The next day, Sophie and James were in the tree house.
“I like your poster,”
“Thanks, I got it at the art museum,”
“Sonny bought me these earrings,” Sophie turned her head to the side, slipped her long shining hair behind her ear to reveal a green vine of metal.
“Bought?”
“Yeah, for me,”
“Sophie, Sonny stole that, I saw him,”
“Oh James, he just wanted to do something nice,”
“It’s about time,”
“I don’t like that drawing of your dad, it’s creepy,” James’ face turned red,
“I didn’t mean it to be, I just couldn’t remember what his eyes looked like,” Sophie put her hand on his shoulder,
“Sometimes it’s hard to remember what my uncle looked like,”
“What do you mean, I thought you said he lived nearby, right?” Sophie looked down at the boards on the floor of the tree house so that James could not see how wide her eyes became. She opened her mouth as if to catch the lie she was looking for.
“He did, but there was a big fight, and he lives with-” she looked up at James and smiled, “He lives with my grandma now. Everything is okay.”
“Sophie-”
“It was an accident, I said everything is okay,” she tried to be stern.
“He had to die-”
“What?” Sophie curled herself around her legs,
“He had to die!”
“You don’t understand- it was an accident.”
“In my nightmares, Peter from the gas station said it was weird that I would dream about being a king, because some things have to happen for someone to be king-”
“James?” He stood up and the tone of excitement rose in his voice.
“To be king, the king’s father has to die.”
“Your father? Oh I thought you meant, I mean-”
“Yeah, I think my dreams mean something; you remember those potatoes we planted in the vases?”
“I remember, mine died, so did Mr. Heckerman’s”
“Potatoes are food, but you know their stalks, their leaves are poison.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The potatoes couldn’t grow; they couldn’t make more potatoes if there weren’t the poison parts.”
“James-” he was ignoring her, he was talking to himself more than he was to her.
“If we could just do the same thing with things that happen, dig up the good parts and get rid of the rest, not even touch it.”
“You can’t fix what happened.” Sophie started going down the ladder.
“Hey, wait up,” James followed her. They walked through the woods to Mr. Heckerman’s back yard.
“What’s wrong?” Sophie slowed her walking and turned around,
“I just get so scared,”
“Of what?”
“Of everything, James, everything.” He put her arm around her like he saw adults do, the way that he was not really holding her still as much as letting her know he was there.
“You’re good, Soph- that’s all that matters. You’re good, and you try.”
“I do,” she took a breath; “I do try.”
“Sophie?”
“Yes James,” He took his arm from around her shoulder and put it in his pocket,
“Would you like to see a Vagrant shrew?”
“Well, I guess so, what is it?”
“Well, it’s like a really small mouse, with a long snout and really little eyes,” they walked into Mr. Heckerman’s house.
Inside, the shrew was busy burying itself under the packing material they put in his cage for warmth.
“Interesting creature, right?” Mr. Heckrman asked,
“Yeah, what does it eat?” Sophie looked up at him,
“Small bugs, fungus, very interesting,”
“Eww, what do you feed it?” Mr. Heckerman looked at Sophie,
“What do you think?”
“Ewww,”
“Humans have an equally, if not more, odd diet,”
“I’m not on a diet-”
“That just means what we eat usually,”
“In this context?”
“Context?” James asked, Mr. Heckerman and Sophie smiled.
“Those are interesting accessories you have in your ears, Sophie,” Mr. Heckerman said while pointing at earrings,
“Thanks, they’re ivy, it’s a gift.”
“Very interesting,” He laughed to himself.