Sophie Gets Real

by Nancy N. Rue

  “Thomas wasn’t with them,” Dr. Peter went on. “And when the other disciples told him they’d seen Jesus, he wasn’t having any of it. He said unless he saw the nail holes in Jesus’ hands and put his finger in them, he wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Gross,” Gill the Wheatie said.

  “Now it’s eight days later, and the disciples are all hanging out again. Thomas is there too, so pretend you’re him.”

  Sophie automatically closed her eyes. Okay. She could be Thomas. All bristly and annoyed because he didn’t see any evidence of Jesus anywhere. Sophie felt the fingers of fear. It wasn’t really that hard to imagine right now, and that in itself was scary.

  “ ‘Though the doors were locked,’ ” Dr. Peter read, “ ‘Jesus came and stood among them, and said, “Peace be with you!” ’ ”

  Sophie/Thomas looked up sharply. How did this intruder get in? The door was locked. Fear clutched his heart.

  “ ‘Then he said to Thomas — ’ ”

  Sophie/Thomas gasped. He’s speaking to me! he thought. He clutched at the front of his robe. This couldn’t be — Jesus was dead. He’d left them — abandoned them.

  “ ‘Put your finger here; see my hands.’ ”

  Sophie/Thomas shuddered from head to foot. But he couldn’t deny this man with the kind eyes who looked so much like his Jesus. Slowly he pressed his finger into the palm of the man’s hand.It sank into a hollow, jagged hole. Thomas jerked back.

  “ ‘Reach out your hand and put it into my side.’ ”

  Sophie/Thomas didn’t want to, but something invisible seemed to push his fingers forward, until he could feel the gash where the Roman soldier had pierced Jesus with his sword —

  “It’s you!” Sophie/Thomas cried. “My Lord and my God!”

  Sophie’s eyes flew open. She’d almost forgotten Dr. Peter was reading. He looked at her over the top of his Bible.

  “ ‘Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” ’ ”

  Maggie raised her hand. “I get it.”

  “Then tell me,” Gill said.

  “That guy should’ve believed it when his friends told him Jesus was alive again,” Maggie said. “He shouldn’t have made Jesus prove it to him.”

  “What’s that got to do with Sophie being mad at God, though?” Fiona said.

  Sophie squirmed. It had felt so good for a moment there, to feel like she was Thomas really seeing Jesus. If only Jesus had stayed in her mind long enough for her to ask him why he seemed so far away lately, why he was giving her so many things to deal with that couldn’t be fixed.

  “Good question,” Dr. Peter said. “If what Maggie just said is true, then Sophie shouldn’t have so many doubts.”

  Sophie felt her eyes start in alarm, but Dr. Peter put his hand up. “It is true that we need the kind of faith that believes without seeing. But most of us don’t have that right away and all the time, and it’s okay.”

  Maggie looked up from the paper where, as usual, she was taking notes. “It is?”

  “Sure. Faith is alive — it’s something that grows stronger over time. We grow at different rates too. Don’t we all need to see and hear God for ourselves?”

  As Dr. Peter looked around the room, Sophie stayed very still.

  Dr. Peter went on in his it’s-going-to-be-all-right voice. “Jesus knew that poor Thomas didn’t have a whole lot of imagination. Back at the Last Supper, when Jesus said the disciples knew where he was going and someday they’d join him, Thomas disagreed. He said he personally had no idea where Jesus was going, and he sure didn’t know the way to get there.”

  “He was a bit thick, that one,” Darbie said.

  Sophie sat up straighter in her beanbag.

  “He just took everything very literally,” Dr. Peter said.

  “Like Maggie,” Fiona said. “No offense, Mags.”

  “No need to be offended.” Dr. Peter grinned at Maggie. “Thomas gave Jesus the opportunity to say that he was the way. All they had to do was follow Jesus, even if they didn’t know where. That’s the whole reason we’re here studying him, right? So we can follow?”

  “But I don’t know where he is right now,” Sophie said. “Everything is so — wrong.”

  “I felt that way when I first got leukemia,” Kitty said.

  Dr. Peter nodded. “But even before you went into remission, God gave you what you needed to get you through.”

  “But God won’t cure my baby sister,” Sophie said. “Once you have Down syndrome, you always have it. There’s no remission, either.”

  All eyes were once again on Dr. Peter.

  “All I can say, from my own experience,” he said in a thick voice, “is that when God isn’t giving you what you’re asking him for, he usually has something else — something better — in mind.”

  Something better? Sophie felt like arguing. But she pinched her lips tight. What could be better than Hope being cured of Down syndrome?

  Fiona raised one eyebrow. “Didn’t Jesus basically tell Thomas he needed to believe without seeing? And we have to too, right?”

  “Yes, but there’s something else.” Dr. Peter scooted to the edge of his beanbag so he could look right into Sophie’s eyes. “It’s fine — even good — to have doubts about what God’s doing at certain times. One Christian writer I really like — a man named Frederick Buechner — said, ‘Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith.’ ”

  “Ewww!” Willoughby said. The poodle was back.

  Dr. Peter grinned. “Just like ants get you moving, doubts keep your faith stirred up and moving.”

  “I don’t like ants,” Sophie said. She could almost feel them on her, making her itch, like she’d been doing for days.

  “And you don’t like doubts, either, do you?” Dr. Peter’s voice was soft. “Nobody ever said having faith was always going to be a picnic.”

  Fiona grinned. “My Boppa always says, ‘What’s a picnic without ants?’ ”

  Dr. Peter smiled an almost-sad smile at Sophie. “It’s okay to ask questions, Loodle. As long as you don’t stop trying to find the answers.”

  Eight

  When class was over and Darbie’s aunt Emily brought in cheese, crackers, and juice boxes, everyone leaped for them as if big weights had been removed from their shoulders.

  Everyone except Sophie. It was true — she didn’t feel quite so itchy now. She was just sad. Squeezy cheese from a can wasn’t going to cheer her up.

  Dr. Peter leaned on the wall next to her. “This is very hard stuff, isn’t it, Loodle?”

  “I don’t know what to do.” Sophie shifted her shoulders. “I keep praying and asking . . .”

  “Why don’t you do what you always do? Make a movie.”

  Sophie pulled her chin in. “We tried to make a movie with Brooke, but it didn’t help her. Besides, everybody hated doing it.”

  “I was thinking of a video record of your baby sister’s first weeks. Not a Film Club production — just a Sophie movie.”

  “How would I do that?” Sophie said. Hope couldn’t exactly follow a script.

  “Just film her doing her baby-thing.” Dr. Peter grinned down at her. “You’re not really Thomas — you do have an imagination. That makes it easier for you to accept things on faith. I know you will eventually, once you get your questions answered.”

  The fear fingers took another grab at Sophie’s heart. Making a movie was supposed to take her mind off things she didn’t want to think about.

  She shook her head. “I don’t really think a movie about Hope will help.”

  “Aw, Loodle,” Dr. Peter said. “I think she’s the perfect place to find God’s answers.”

  Sophie wasn’t sure about that. But Dr. Peter had never sent her in the wrong direction before. With those icy fingers still trying to get a hold on her, she took out her camera that night after supper and went in search of her baby sister.

  Hope was asleep in her crib. S
ophie focused on the little face, which was turned to the side as she lay on her back. Sophie thought her eyes looked normal when they were closed. But the little tongue was, as always, poking out from between her lips. She made funny little squeaky sounds as she breathed.

  After about a minute, Sophie turned the camera off.

  “You need to do something,” she whispered to the baby.

  “Don’t you dare wake her up.” Lacie padded across the thick carpet and leaned over the crib to straighten Hope’s blanket.

  “What are you doing, anyway?”

  “Making a movie,” Sophie said.

  “About Hope?” Lacie said.

  “Yeah. I think it’s gonna be kinda boring.”

  “You should tell Mama and Daddy you’re doing it. They’ll be super relieved.”

  “Why?”

  Lacie gave the baby a soft pat before she turned to Sophie, arms folded. “They’re worried that you aren’t bonding with her. With you making a movie about her, at least they’ll stop thinking you’re jealous of her or something.”

  “Jealous?” That was one of the few bad feelings she didn’t have about Hope.

  “You have to admit it’s pretty weird,” Lacie said. “You were all over Zeke when he was born, but you don’t even want to hold Hope.”

  “I’ve held her,” Sophie said.

  Lacie just looked at her.

  “I’ll take some footage of you covering her up with the blanket and stuff,” Sophie said.

  As Sophie focused in, Lacie lifted the blanket and let it float back down over baby Hope’s little pink self.

  “What’s that red thing in there?” Sophie said, still filming.

  Lacie pulled a plastic figure out from under the blanket. “What else?” she said. “Spider-Man.”

  Friday, Brooke was back in PE class, and Sophie felt a wave of sadness when she saw her in the locker room. But when the Flakes reported to the gym for roll check, Brooke herself looked pretty happy. The Pops appeared to be teaching her a cheer.

  “I haven’t seen them do a routine since they got kicked off the squad,” Fiona said.

  Brooke stood between Cassie and Anne-Stuart. Julia was in front of them, demonstrating a hip swivel. Sophie had definitely never seen Willoughby or any of the other GMMS cheerleaders do that, and Brooke wasn’t quite getting the hang of it. She looked like she was stirring a giant pot of sand.

  “You have to move your rear end,” Cassie said.

  “You’re doing fine, Brookie,” Julia said. “It’s the words that are important.”

  “Brookie?” Fiona said under her breath. “This is definitely suspicious.”

  Sophie had to agree. Julia was having far too much fun for a jilted ex-cheerleader passing her skills on to a girl with no rhythm and even less coordination. Brooke’s hips actually appeared to go in two different directions.

  At the blast of Coach Yates’s whistle, everyone but Brooke fell into line. She remained with her back to Coach, still swirling her hips.

  “If you’re not where you’re supposed to be when I get there, Singletary,” Coach Yates yelled, “I’m counting you absent.”

  “I’m here!” Brooke yelled back. When she turned to run toward her place, Sophie saw her face for the first time. She had on so much eye shadow, Sophie wasn’t sure how she kept her eyelids open.

  “Why’s she wearing all that makeup?” Maggie said.

  “Because we gave her a makeover.” Julia flipped her hair over her shoulder. “We’re trying to help her fit in.”

  “You are?” Willoughby said. Sophie could see her stifling a shriek.

  “We aren’t a clique,” Anne-Stuart said. “We try to include new people.”

  Cassie narrowed her eyes at Sophie. “Not like some people we know.”

  Sophie put her hand on Fiona’s shoulder. She could almost hear her best friend’s teeth grinding.

  When they got to their volleyball court, Coach Yates came over. “Another team is short a person, and they requested you, Brooke.” She nodded her too-tight ponytail toward the Pops/Loops court.

  Brooke let out a whoop and attempted a cartwheel in that direction. Although it looked more like somebody falling out of bed, the Corn Pops clapped.

  “Okay — now I’m not just suspicious,” Fiona said to Sophie. “I’ve moved on to dead certain. Something’s going on.”

  Whatever it was, Sophie watched it continue through the PE period. The Corn Pops adjusted Brooke’s braid and redid her lipstick every time the ball went out of bounds. When Tod told her she stunk at volleyball, Julia said it didn’t matter because she looked “too cute” on the court. Tod sent a lot of death stares Brooke’s way, but Julia shot him down with a few of her own.

  “They’re setting somebody up for something,” Willoughby said. “So everybody watch your back.”

  Sophie nodded. That was definitely something they didn’t have to see to believe.

  In the locker room, Brooke dragged her clothes to the Corn Pops’ corner, but they dressed her in an outfit they appeared to have brought from home, complete with a skimpy orange shrug that tied in the front and a matching purse with giant sequins on it. To Sophie she looked like a sparkly pumpkin. As Brooke strutted out of the locker room, several sequins fell off and left a trail behind her.

  Sophie had a fidgety feeling inside. She really should go after Brooke and tell her the Corn Pops didn’t invite girls like her into their group without an evil reason.

  But Brooke was surrounded by Pops, smiling like Queen Julia herself. Was Project Brooke over for the Flakes? Sophie wondered. Could anybody ever really save her?

  Sophie couldn’t answer that question. Not yet, anyway. But Dr. Peter had said not to stop looking for the answers.

  At lunch, Darbie had an answer of her own. “Coach Nanini pulled me out of Miss Imes’ class to talk to me,” she said.

  “I saw that,” Fiona said. “What’d he say?”

  Sophie could see Darbie trying not to smile. “He said he and some of the other teachers talked about it, and they decided Brooke had too many problems for Round Table to handle. He tried to get her some special help, but he said she won’t take it. It’s like she won’t admit she has ADHD or anything else. Anyway, I’m off the hook.”

  Fiona looked at Sophie. “So that means we’re all off the hook.”

  “Seriously, Sophie,” Darbie said. “If Brooke doesn’t want help, what are we supposed to do?”

  “I guess you’re right,” Sophie said.

  But she was squirmy inside again. As she tore her sandwich into tiny pieces, Dr. Peter’s words came back to her: Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. Just like annoying little ants got you moving, itchy doubts kept your faith stirred up and moving.

  After school, Sophie picked up her camera from Mr. Stires’ storage room. If she intended to keep asking questions, then she’d better keep looking for answers — and be ready to record them.

  Saturday morning, she took more footage of Hope sleeping, sometimes on her side, sometimes on her back. Sophie decided babies must sleep a lot because they couldn’t do much of anything else. Especially this baby.

  It surprised her then, when she was filming Mama feeding her a bottle Saturday afternoon, that Hope found Mama’s finger with her tiny ones and wrapped them around it.

  “I didn’t know she could do that!” Sophie said.

  “Isn’t it the cutest?” Mama leaned down and kissed the miniature fingers. Baby Hope still held on.

  Sophie zoomed in. It was like Hope knew that was Mama and she wasn’t letting go for anything. Could that be?

  “Come here, Soph,” Mama said.

  Sophie put the camera in one hand and sat next to her. Mama pulled her finger away from the baby.

  “Just put your pinky right in her palm,” she said. “Watch what happens.”

  Moving in slow motion, Sophie placed her little finger against Hope’s soft, warm hand. In an instant, Hope was clinging to Sophie. Almost as if she trusted her.r />
  “This is your big sister,” Mama cooed to her.

  Hope stopped sucking on the bottle and moved her eyes. They stopped as if she was looking right at Mama.

  “Hello,” Mama said in her softest wisp of a voice. “Is that my Baby Doll?”

  “Does she know you?” Sophie said.

  “She does.” Mama laughed, a little tinkle bell of a laugh. “Of course, we’ve been together a long time. You keep talking to her, and she’ll know your voice too.”

  “Are you sure?” Sophie said.

  “Very sure.” Mama looked straight at her. “Sophie, she’s a person, just like the rest of us.”

  Sophie knew her face was turning as red as Nathan’s. Mama went back to cooing at Hope, and Sophie went back to filming. Inside, though, she felt something go soft.

  While she took movies all weekend, Sophie discovered that Hope turned her head toward Lacie’s voice too, and that Zeke’s seemed to be her favorite finger to latch onto. He got her to curl her hand around a Spider-Man figure’s leg, but Daddy took it away from her.

  “You don’t know where this thing has been, Little Rookie,” he said to her. “I’m afraid to find that out myself.”

  The filming also showed Sophie that nobody had more fun with baby Hope than Daddy. The best shots she took were of the two of them. He walked around with her tucked into the crook of his arm, kind of like a football, and talked to her as if she could understand everything he said.

  Sophie was in Hope’s nursery Sunday afternoon, filming Daddy changing her diaper, when something crashed in the direction of Zeke’s room.

  “Want me to check that out?” Sophie said.

  “I’ll do it,” Daddy said. “If he’s halfway up the wall, you won’t be able to get him down anyway.”

  “What about Hope?” Sophie nodded toward the half-dressed baby on the changing table.

  “Don’t let her fall off. I’ll be right back.”

  “But how do I . . .” Her question faded as Daddy made a hasty exit. Sophie looked down at Hope. She lay very still, with only the occasional hand or foot popping up. It was so quiet in the nursery that Sophie could hear her tiny breaths.

  This was the first time she’d been alone with her when she was awake. The fear fingers curled around Sophie’s heart the way Hope’s fingers curled around somebody’s pinky. Only these squeezed hard. What do I do if she starts crying?