Queen Sophie Hartley

by Stephanie Greene

  Sophie went into the bathroom, ran a washcloth over her face, and then rubbed a bit of toothpaste on her teeth in case her mother said “Did you brush your teeth?” and made Sophie breathe into her face. By the time she finally slipped under the covers with her horse book, she was feeling very cheerful.

  Helping Dr. Holt with her garden would be fun, she decided. She liked dirt and she liked worms. Last summer Dad had paid her five cents per worm to use as bait when he went fishing. This year she might be able to charge more.

  Besides, she thought, growing more and more enthusiastic about the idea, lots of times old people gave children candy and good things to eat when they were grateful. If being kind meant getting food, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to be, after all. Maybe she would start being kind to strangers on the street so presents would start arriving in the mail.

  Nicest of all, she thought as she snuggled down under the covers, was that since she was good at it already, she wouldn’t have to practice very hard. Not like the painful stretching she’d had to do every week at that horrible ballet. Or the way she’d had to grip so tightly with her knees when she rode a horse that her legs were left feeling sore.

  Sophie sighed happily. It was lovely being so good at something that came naturally to her. She could hardly wait to start being kind.

  Chapter Three

  “Who’s that girl?” Mrs. Hartley asked as she pulled the car into line behind the others dropping children off at school. Mrs. Hartley was a bit of an authority on the children at Sophie’s school, having sent Thad and Nora there and now Sophie and John. She used to be on the PTSA and had run the spring fair four years in a row. She didn’t do much of that now that she was working, but she still seemed to know who everyone was.

  John scooted over Sophie as soon as she opened her door, and ran up the path with a quick wave over his shoulder for his mother. Sophie looked at the tall girl with the long dark braid standing by herself next to the fence. The girl was pinching her nose again and again as if she were about to sneeze.

  “Her name’s Heather,” Sophie said. “She’s new.”

  “She looks lonely, standing off to the side like that,” said Mrs. Hartley.

  “No one likes her,” said Sophie as she struggled with the straps of her backpack. “She says we all smell.”

  “What a strange thing to say,” her mother said. “I imagine it’s because she’s homesick.”

  “She says Mrs. Hackle’s class smells like a farmyard.”

  “Oh, Sophie, really. The things you say,” her mother said impatiently. “Hurry up or you’ll be late.” Sophie kissed her mother over the back of the seat and got out. “You be kind to her, do you hear me?” Mrs. Hartley called after her.

  “Oh, no,” wailed Sophie. “Do I have to?”

  “Ask her if she wants to walk into the school with you,” her mother instructed. “Look at her, poor child, waiting for someone to talk to her.” She pulled away from the curb, leaving Sophie on the sidewalk with a heavy heart.

  Sophie looked at Heather. Heather’s nose was pointed into the air as she stared out over the heads of the children rushing past her. If she was looking around, it was only because she was hoping something better would come along, Sophie thought sourly. Something that didn’t smell bad.

  Sophie sighed as she trudged across the sidewalk. She wished her mother would believe her. Heather had told them they all smelled. She was from California. She told them all that everyone in her family was a vegetarian and that people who ate meat smelled. She claimed she could tell what anyone had eaten for dinner by the way they smelled the next morning.

  The first week she was in their class, Heather had kept inching her desk to get as far away from the others as she could until she was sitting at the edge of the room by herself. She shouldn’t have bothered; by the end of the week no one wanted to sit next to her, anyway. Sophie was thinking about all of this as she slowly walked up to her. She could hear Heather’s high voice as she got closer. “Chicken . . . hamburger...”

  Heather pinched her nose especially hard as a pack of third-grade boys ran past. “Eeeuuuw . . . bacon.”

  Sophie thought about the hamburger with fried onions she’d had for dinner last night and, with a feeling of doom, said, “Hi, Heather.”

  Heather looked at her. For a few seconds her beady brown eyes bored into Sophie’s without blinking, as if she was trying to look down inside the long tunnel to Sophie’s stomach and see what was there. At last she gave a small sniff. Then another sniff. Sophie found she was holding her breath to see what Heather was going to say.

  “Fried onions,” Heather announced.

  “You can tell,” said Sophie, impressed. Heather wasn’t making it up. She actually could tell what someone had eaten by their smell! Sophie was filled with envy. It was much more impressive than being able to guess someone’s age the way the man at the carnival did when the Hartley family went last summer. Sophie was still indignant that she’d spent two quarters, checking to see if he could guess her weight right two times in a row even after she’d eaten a hot dog, some onion rings, and popcorn.

  But then Heather said, “Wait a minute,” and Sophie was filled with doubt again. The tip of Heather’s nose was quivering like a bird dog’s on the scent of quail. She gave a few more sniffs and then lowered the boom.

  “There’s something else,” she said ominously.

  From the sudden pinched expression on Heather’s face, Sophie could tell she didn’t like the “something else” one bit. Sophie took a deep breath and held it, hoping to trap her hamburger smell inside.

  “Sophie! Come on!” someone yelled. Sophie’s gaze darted over Heather’s shoulder. Her best friend, Jenna, was standing on the front steps. Her freckles stood out in bright spots on her face the way they always did when she was mad. Sophie’s other best friend, Alice, was next to her. Alice stamped her foot and gave an impatient little gesture for Sophie to join them. Now.

  Sophie swallowed. She and Jenna and Alice had been best friends since the first day of school, when they discovered they were going to be in the same Daisy troop. They had agreed that they could never have secrets from one another and that they would walk into Mrs. Hackle’s class together every day. The first one to arrive always waited for the other two, no matter how late it got.

  Not only that, but talking to Heather was going against their number one rule: No snobs.

  Sophie wasn’t exactly sure what a snob was. She didn’t think Jenna and Alice were, either. What they did know was who was a snob. Meredith Armstrong was a snob because she got to leave school early on Fridays to go to her beach house. So was Destiny Fabrey, who was always bragging about reading on a fifth-grade level.

  Then there was Tyson Thomas. His father drove him to school every day in a fancy car. That definitely made Tyson a snob. Therefore, Heather, Sophie thought rapidly, who said they all smelled like animals, must be a snob, too. Judging from the expression on Jenna’s and Alice’s faces, Sophie could tell they couldn’t believe she was talking to Heather.

  Sophie looked back at Heather rather desperately. She would have loved to tell her she had to go, but she didn’t dare breathe in Heather’s direction. On the other hand, if she didn’t breathe soon, she was going to fall over dead any second. Her head was getting lighter and lighter.

  “It must have been that boy who walked by,” Heather said finally with a little shake of her head. Sophie’s shoulders sagged with relief as she let out a burst of air. Wait till she told Jenna and Alice about her close call. They could laugh about it at lunch.

  Sophie was about to go and join them when Heather put an end to her plans.

  “I guess you’re not as bad as all the others,” she said, making it clear from the way she looked Sophie up and down that she was a mere baby step ahead, if that. “You can eat lunch with me today.”

  “You’re not,” said Jenna.

  “How could you?” asked Alice.

  They huddled around Sophie as
she pulled her lunch bag out of her cubbyhole, whispering to her in low, fierce voices. Jenna was mad, but Alice was hurt, Sophie could tell. Alice got hurt feelings easily, while Jenna, who had three brothers and a hide as thick as a buffalo, got mad. Right now, though, they were clearly united against her.

  “I was being kind,” Sophie protested.

  “Kind?” said Jenna. “To a snob?”

  “My mother told me I had to,” Sophie said. “She said more people should be kind.”

  “That’s because she’s a nurse,” Alice said. “Nurses are paid to be kind.”

  “I bet even they aren’t kind to patients who are snobs,” agreed Jenna.

  “If you have a job that says you have to be kind, that’s one thing,” Alice said. “But, like, I’m going to be a hairdresser. You don’t expect me to be kind to hair, do you?”

  She and Jenna laughed in such a way they might almost have been laughing at Sophie.

  Sophie appealed to Jenna. “But you’re going to be a vet,” she said. “You’re going to be kind to animals, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not going to eat lunch with them,” Jenna said.

  That made them all laugh, even Sophie; they were immediately friends again. They jostled against one another for a while, saying funny things. First Jenna said, “Wouldn’t you like some moooore?” which made them laugh and then Sophie said, “Have another quacker,” which made them laugh even harder. It was all feeling very normal until Heather arrived. She stood there clutching her denim lunch bag tightly against her chest with both hands and not smiling until they stopped laughing, one by one.

  When they were finally quiet, staring back at her, Heather looked at Sophie, and only at Sophie, and said, “Are you coming or not?”

  Then she gave a quick glance at Alice and Jenna and sniffed.

  It was a tiny sniff and she only did it once. But it was enough.

  Before Sophie could decide, Jenna snatched her lunch box out of her cubby and said, “Come on, Alice. We don’t want to eat lunch with two snobs.”

  “But—” said Sophie.

  Jenna spun on her heels and stomped off. Alice gave Sophie one last, tragic look and followed her.

  “Let them go,” Heather said with a satisfied little smile. “I have tons to tell you that I don’t want them to hear.”

  Sophie followed Heather into lunch with a sinking heart.

  “Basically, we never eat things with faces,” said Heather. She snapped the lid back on the container that had held cucumber and bean sprouts and tomatoes and small white cubes that she told Sophie were tofu. She carefully wiped her fork on a napkin and slid it into the bag and then took out an apple. All the while she did this, she kept shooting meaningful glances at Sophie’s sandwich. It was an egg salad sandwich; Sophie was enjoying it very much. Her mother had put relish in it, so it was crunchy and smooth at the same time.

  “Faces?” said Sophie. She couldn’t imagine what Heather was talking about. Heather had spent all lunch period telling her about meat and digestion and cruelty to animals. Sophie must have started to daydream because she didn’t remember how the subject of faces had come up.

  “Like your sandwich,” Heather said. “I could never eat that.”

  Sophie held out her sandwich and looked at it with surprise. “Egg salad doesn’t have a face,” she said.

  “Oh, no?” Heather pinched her lips together and smiled a mean little smile, as if she knew something Sophie didn’t. For a second, Sophie had the unkind thought that Heather’s face looked like a prune. Then Heather said, “What do you think those eggs would have become if someone hadn’t killed them for a sandwich?” and Sophie suddenly was seeing the two pale yellow chicks the Hartley children had gotten for Easter a few years ago.

  The Easter bunny had left a large straw basket on the steps outside the back door. The minute John pulled off the cloth that covered it, the chicks had started chirping like mad. Sophie had fallen in love with them immediately. She couldn’t believe how soft they were. Or how ticklish their tiny beaks felt on her hand when they pecked for food.

  Of course, within a surprisingly short time those beaks didn’t feel so funny anymore; they hurt. Almost overnight, sweet chicks were replaced by scrawny chickens that stank up the mudroom, where they were kept. It turned out that one of the chicks was a rooster. When it started running after the children, pecking at their ankles, Mr. Hartley had given the chickens to a local farmer. But as Sophie sat staring at the yellow filling between two slices of white bread in her hands, she could hear their plaintive peeps loud and clear.

  “Oh,” she said in a faint voice. She slowly lowered her sandwich to the table. “I guess I’m not hungry anymore.”

  “I didn’t think you would be,” said Heather.

  If Sophie wasn’t mistaken, Heather sounded glad.

  Chapter Four

  “You look a little peaked,” her mother said when Sophie opened the car door and slid into the front seat. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Being kind is too hard,” said Sophie, slumping down.

  “Most things worth doing are,” her mother said brightly as she pulled out into the traffic. “John’s going to play at Trevor’s this afternoon. How did it go with the new girl?”

  “I ate lunch with her.”

  “Good girl,” said Mrs. Hartley. “Don’t you feel better for having been nice to her?”

  “No.”

  Mrs. Hartley laughed and started to hum along with the music on the radio while Sophie stared at the dashboard and thought about the subject she’d been brooding about since lunch. As much as she hated to admit it, Heather had started her thinking. She was beginning to think her parents had been trying to pull the wool over her eyes her entire life.

  She looked at her mother and said, “Is meatloaf cow?”

  “Good heavens, Sophie, what kind of question is that?” her mother said.

  “Is it?” said Sophie.

  “Well, yes, I suppose in a way it is.”

  “I thought so,” said Sophie. She brooded for a while more and then said, “Is pork cow?”

  “Is pork cow?” Mrs. Hartley looked at Sophie in astonishment. “Of course not! Pork is pig!”

  “Oh.” Sophie thought for a minute. “What about steak? Is steak pig?”

  “Good grief.” For a minute it seemed that was all Mrs. Hartley could think of to say. “What do they teach you at that school?” she asked finally.

  “Well, I know one thing,” Sophie said grimly, crossing her arms tightly across her chest. “Chicken is chicken, and don’t bother trying to hide it.”

  It didn’t help her mood one bit that her mother laughed all the way down the Post Road.

  “Here we are, then,” said Mrs. Hartley. Sophie looked up as her mother pulled into the driveway of a red brick house. “There’s Dr. Holt up on the porch. She has a hard time getting around, so she uses an electric wheelchair. But don’t let it fool you. She’s as sharp as a tack.”

  “I forgot we were coming here,” Sophie said. “I don’t want to practice being kind anymore today.”

  “That’s what you always say, and then you complain you’re not good at anything,” said her mother. She opened her door and took her bag out of the back seat. “You can just pretend, then. And stop feeling sorry for yourself. Try thinking about Dr. Holt, poor woman.”

  Dr. Holt looked old, but she didn’t look poor, Sophie thought as she and her mother got closer. True, Sophie could see her pink scalp through her wispy white hair, and the stockings rolled up under her knees looked as if they hurt. But the way she was leaning forward with her hands on the arms of her chair, staring at them through thick glasses as they came up the path, was anything but frail. Her eyes were milky, yes, and huge. But what Sophie felt most was their fierceness.

  “You’re late,” she said in a surprisingly strong voice. “You said you’d be here at three. It’s ten after.”

  “I do apologize, Dr. Holt. I’m afraid I’ve been running behind
all day,” Sophie’s mother said.

  “You should plan better.”

  “I tell myself that all the time.” Mrs. Hartley laughed. “How are you feeling today?” she asked, resting her hand on Dr. Holt’s thin arm.

  “Lousy. What’d you expect?”

  Sophie waited for her mother to get mad, but she went right on acting as if Dr. Holt wasn’t being rude. She put her arm around Sophie’s shoulders and pulled her forward.

  “Dr. Holt, this is my daughter, Sophie,” Mrs. Hartley said.

  The hungry way Dr. Holt turned and peered at her reminded Sophie of a vulture.

  “Hello,” said Sophie.

  “Speak up. I can hardly hear you.”

  “I said, Hello!” shouted Sophie.

  “That’s better.” Dr. Holt settled back against her chair. “If you want to get noticed in this world, you have to learn to speak up.”

  Sophie would have loved to speak up. It would have cheered her up enormously if she could have been as rude to Dr. Holt as Dr. Holt was being to them. Why, if she could have her way, she would turn around and walk right back down those steps and go home. She wasn’t going to waste her time being kind to a mean old lady who was rude.

  As if her mother could read her thoughts, she squeezed Sophie’s shoulder gently. “I’m going to leave Sophie with you while I look in on a few other patients,” Mrs. Hartley said. “She wants to help you with your garden.”

  “She wants to, or you’re making her?” asked Dr. Holt. Then, before Mrs. Hartley could answer, she said, as if Sophie wasn’t even there, “What’s she sulking about?”

  “She’s not sulking, she’s tired. Aren’t you, Sophie?” said Mrs. Hartley. “I brought her here straight from school. We didn’t even have time to stop for a snack.”

  “She’ll live.” Dr. Holt’s watery eyes flitted up and down Sophie like a whip. “Looks like she’s got some padding on her.”