Sophie's World

by Nancy N. Rue

  “Why did you tell him you’re fine?” Sophie whispered to her. “What did they do to you?”

  Kitty’s face was smudged with dirt on both cheeks, except where tears had left their trails on the way down her face.

  “Please don’t tell anybody,” she whispered. “Please.”

  “But why?”

  “Because!” Kitty rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands, leaving them smeared with dirt.

  Sophie grabbed one of Kitty’s dirty hands. “What happened?” “You have to promise you won’t tell anybody else—and you can’t tell Julia and them that I told you either.”

  Kitty hung her head until all Sophie could see was the top of her ponytail. “I had to crawl on the ground. They told me that if I crawled across the playground on my hands and knees, they would take me back into their group.”

  “What?”

  “And then after I did it, they laughed and said they were only joking. They never wanted me back in their group at all!”

  Kitty shook her head so hard, Sophie was afraid she was going to break her neck.

  “Stop!” Sophie said. “They aren’t even worth it! They’re just—cruel. They’re evil—they’re heinous!”

  A whistle echoed across the playground. Sophie whirled around—but it was only Mr. Denton. Mama was standing next to him with Zeke, waving at her.

  “I’m coming!” Sophie called to her. She turned back to Kitty.

  “Please don’t tell anybody,” Kitty said. Her eyes were pleading. “If you do, they’ll find out about it—they know everything—and they’ll do worse to me.”

  Sophie didn’t know what to say, and Dr. Peter had told her to wait if she didn’t know.

  When she got home, Sophie went straight to her room. Her stomach was tying itself into a knot as she sat cross-legged on the bed.

  “Jesus?” she whispered. “I saw two people get really hurt today. I think I have to do something about it. I’m just going to ask you what to do, and then I’m going to wait until I know. Because somebody has to do something. And I think it’s supposed to be me. Is that why I’m feeling so sick?” She swallowed hard. “Or is it because I was hurting somebody else myself?”

  Sophie kept her eyes closed and waited. Just as always, there was no answer she could hear from Jesus. She wiped her wet face. “It’s wrong,” she whispered.

  After she somehow got through dinner, Sophie called Fiona.

  “There’s something we have to do,” Sophie said when she had Fiona on the line. “But you have to promise not to tell a single other person, or Kitty is going down.”

  “Kitty?” Fiona said. “Do we care about Kitty?”

  “Yes,” Sophie said. “We do.”

  Sophie told Fiona everything she had witnessed on the playground.

  “So what are you saying we should do?” said Fiona.

  “I think we should rescue Kitty.”

  “What?”

  “And I thought about something else,” Sophie said. “What the Corn Pops did to Kitty is no different from what we did to Maggie.”

  “It wasn’t like we just stopped being her friends! We were never her friends!” Fiona’s voice was winding up. “She pushed herself right on us. She was making us pay her back for something she did for us, and we paid her back. We’re done.”

  “I just don’t like the way we did it,” Sophie said.

  “It was youridea!”

  “I know. And that’s why I think we should tell her why we got mad at her and give her one more chance.”

  “No,” Fiona said. “And you know what else? I’m not helping Kitty either. Has she ever once been nice to us?”

  “I don’t think that makes any difference,” Sophie said. “We should do the right thing.”

  “You do the ‘right thing,’” Fiona said. “Not me!”

  Suddenly there was a click in Sophie’s ear. Fiona had hung up.

  Sophie flung the phone onto its cradle and climbed the stairs in a blur. But when she tossed her glasses onto the bedside table and threw herself face down on her bed, her chest was pulled in so tightly she couldn’t cry. She could only lie there with hurt all around her until a knock sounded at her door.

  “It’s seven thirty,” Daddy said. “You only have an hour and a half before lights out. Did you get your homework done?”

  She really wished he would go away. She was afraid she was going to either throw up or cry, and she would have to explain either one. Dr. Peter had told her Daddy might understand if she just talked to him calmly—but now just wasn’t the time to try that.

  “I’m about to, Daddy.”

  “Okay. Well, let’s get it done.” Daddy opened the door a crack. “You want to keep that camera, right?”

  Sophie nodded.

  “Now that you’re on track, I want to see some steady improvement. Let’s make that the rule starting next week.”

  He ran his hand over her hair and left, whistling. Sophie felt as if a steamroller had just knocked her down. She couldn’t do her homework. She couldn’t even think about how she was going to rescue Kitty all by herself, or even how she was going to apologize to Maggie.

  All she could think about was never being friends with Fiona again. Never having lunch together, never meeting on the stage behind the curtains with homemade breakfast burritos, never hanging out on the monkey bars and planning brilliant films.

  She finally snapped off the light and crawled under the covers. Is everything going to go back to the way it was before Fiona?she asked Jesus. If you love me, why would you let that happen? Help me get her back, please.

  Just one more thing, she said to the kind-eyed man in her mind. I won’t crawl in the dirt for Fiona, okay? Please don’t let her ask me to do that.

  And then she started to cry.

  The next morning, being-scared nausea swept over Sophie as she walked through the school hallway alone.

  What am I supposed to do now? she thought. Fiona isn’t waiting for me backstage. I can’t go there by myself. She put her hand to her mouth. I wouldn’t be able to bear it!

  Instead, she turned toward the language arts room. Maybe Mr. Denton would let her come inside and sit. Although what she was going to do or think about or dream up, even she couldn’t imagine.

  Sophie hadn’t taken more than two steps when a skinny figure was beside her, sniffling.

  “You’ve been crying,” Anne-Stuart said in her clogged-up voice.

  Sophie tried to ignore her and set her sights on Mr. Denton’s door.

  “Is it about Fiona?” she said. “She’s been crying too. Julia’s trying to help.”

  Anne-Stuart pointed a shiny-nailed finger. Sophie nearly tripped on the carpet. Fiona was against the wall, across from the language arts room, and Willoughby and B.J. stood in front of her, leaning in as if Fiona were giving them the ultimate secret to popularity. But it was Julia who astounded Sophie the most. She was standing next to Fiona—with her arm around her. And Fiona wasn’t even flinching.

  Thirteen

  Sophie pushed open Mr. Denton’s door and made her way to her table. She sank down into her chair, her backpack thudding the floor beside her. She put her head on her arms and tried to let Antoinette take over and push away the heinous sight of Fiona joining the Corn Pops.

  Antoinette sat down beside her and pulled the black velvet cloak around both of them. “I’m so sorry, my gentle friend, ” she said, “but I am not your answer. The good doctor, the brilliant doctor—he gave you the answer. You must follow that now.”

  Sophie squeezed her eyes tighter. You’re leaving me too, ntoinette? NO—come back! But Antoinette didn’t, and Sophie felt more alone than she ever had. Maybe if she called Mama and told her she was really in trouble, they could go to Dr. Peter right this minute. He could tell her what to do. And then Sophie knew something: he already had told her what to do. With her eyes squeezed shut against the hot tears, she prayed.

  The kind face was there in her mind—the Jesus face she always im
agined. Not Antoinette’s face. Not Fiona’s face. Just Jesus’. And he had already shown her what to do. If I have to do it on my own—then please will you help me?

  The bell rang, jangling her face up from her arms. The room filled with jabbering students followed by a substitute teacher. Sophie couldn’t look to see whether Fiona would sit with the Corn Pops. Instead, she looked for Maggie.

  I have to tell her I’m sorry, Sophie thought. She didn’t know anything else at the moment, but she knew that.

  As Sophie watched, Maggie settled herself into a corner and opened a book. Sophie glanced around and realized that on the board the sub had written: THIS IS A FREE READING DAY.

  This is my chance, Sophie thought. But what if I apologize and Maggie just yells at me? And then she could almost hear Dr. Peter in her head: She gets in your face anyway. What have you got to lose if you talk calmly and honestly to her? You’ll never know unless you try. Sophie wove her way through people who weren’t reading. Maggie slammed her book shut just as Sophie sat down next to her.

  “Hi,” Sophie said. “What are you reading?”

  “What do you care?” Maggie said.

  Sophie squeezed her hands together. “I do care. Fiona and me, we made a huge—an immense—mistake when we wrote you that heinous letter. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  “Are you ever for real?” Maggie said. “Or is everything a big act to you?”

  “This is real,” Sophie said. “We thought you were way bossy when we were making our film, and we didn’t like it. But we should have told you the truth.” She had to stop and take a deep breath. “I want you to be a Corn Flake again, and I’ll even help you remember not to be pushy. We can do the secret handshake—and we have a very important film to do. This one—”

  But she stopped, because Maggie was shaking her head.

  “Why not?” Sophie said.

  “Because you just want the costumes,” Maggie said. “My mother thinks you just used me, and she said if I start being friends with you again she’ll ground me. Face it: Fiona dumped you and joined the Corn Pops, so now you need a friend.” Maggie opened her book again. “It isn’t going to be me,” she said, and then she glued her eyes to the page and shut Sophie out.

  But not before Sophie saw the title on the cover: The Story of the Marquis de Lafayette.

  She wants to be friends—I know she does, Sophie thought as she moved back to her table, her feet like a pair of concrete buckets. But we hurt her feelings so bad that even her mom hates us now.

  Suddenly Sophie knew something else too. Once you hurt somebody, you have to take the consequences. She looked over at Kitty, her literature book open and her eyes wistfully watching the people who had made her crawl across the playground like a dog.

  I want the Corn Pops to know that too, Sophie thought. I have to find a way. Even if I have to do it alone.

  As soon as she could at lunchtime, Sophie fled from the building. She couldn’t bear to go to the monkey bars. It’s bad enough that Fiona doesn’t want to be with me, she thought miserably. But I never, ever thought she would be a Corn Pop.

  But she had a mission. Sophie plopped into a swing and pored over her social studies book to find out what Lafayette and George Washington had done in their rescue of America. It wasn’t exactlythe same thing, although she found some inspiring ideas—like the patriots digging trenches called “redoubts” to hide in and trapping the British “handsomely in a pudding bag.”

  Sophie closed her eyes several times and imagined Jesus when the planning got too lonely. He was always looking at her with kind eyes, but sad ones too—as if he understood that even though what she was doing was right, he knew it wasn’t fun for her without Fiona. I’ll just have to go back to pretending on this plan, Sophie said to him in a prayer. Daddy wouldn’t like it, but she couldn’t help thinking Jesus did.

  This plan just might work. It had to.

  After school, Sophie couldn’t wait to get to Dr. Peter’s window seat.

  “Sophie-lophie-loodle!” he sang out. “I can tell you’ve got something on your mind today.” Dr. Peter was barely seated before she was pouring out the whole Maggie and Kitty and Fiona story. Dr. Peter listened and nodded. There was no twinkle at all.

  “Can I just tell you how proud I am of you?” he said.

  “I feel wretched,” Sophie said.

  “Well, look at you. You went to Jesus. You asked what to do. You waited. He showed you—and you did it.”

  Sophie shook her head.

  “No?” Dr. Peter said.

  “Yes. But I’m still not sure how he showed me. I want to know in case he does it again.”

  Dr. Peter spread out his fingers and counted on them as he talked. “Showing number one: you never go out on the playground after school, but the day you did, there were the Corn Pops giving Kitty the worst time ever. Didn’t that turn you around completely?”

  Sophie nodded.

  Dr. Peter started on another finger. “Your prayer showed you later that you had to get with Fiona and apologize to Maggie. None of that has worked out the way you want—yet. But you did the right thing. And besides that—” His eyes twinkled as he went to finger number three. “You had a substitute so you could talk to Maggie.”

  “But what aboutMaggie?” Sophie said. “She still hates me.”

  “I think Maggie is still choosing. Otherwise, why the continued interest in Lafayette? Just because you take the opportunity Jesus gives you doesn’t mean everybody does. You can’t decide for another person. You can only give them the chance.”

  “So—let me get this straight,” she said.

  “Okay.” Dr. Peter wiggled all his fingers, telling her to bring it on.

  “When Jesus ‘shows’ me something, it isn’t like boom—there it is! It’s more like he gives me an opportunity, and then I decide whether to take it or not.”

  “Exactly,” Dr. Peter said. “That’s how it works.”

  Sophie tickled her nose with her hair. “But what I still don’t get is, if Jesus loves me so much—”

  “Okay, there’s your hang-up,” Dr. Peter said.

  “Where?”

  “That ‘if.’ When you say ‘If God loves me—if Jesus loves me,’ that means you have some doubt. As long as you have that ‘if,’ you’re going to doubt the opportunities that Jesus puts right in front of you. I’m sure that bums him out.” Dr. Peter leaned forward. “God loves you. There is no ‘if,’ Loodle. That’s why he sent Jesus to show us the way—he loves you that much. He’s our Father—and you know how much a father loves his kids.”

  Sophie looked down at the ends of her hair.

  “What?” Dr. Peter said. “You don’t think your father loves you?”

  “I know he loves me,” Sophie said. “But I don’t think he loves me that way.”

  “Tell me some more.”

  “He would love me more if I did even better in school,” she said slowly. “And if I played sports and joined all these clubs. I do think he loves me more than he did when we moved here. But it’s never going to be enough, because—”

  Dr. Peter’s voice went down to an almost whisper. “Why, Sophie?”

  Sophie squeezed her eyes shut tight. “Can I tell you something I’ve never told anybody else in the entire galaxy?”

  “If you want to.”

  “I think my father loves Lacie more than he loves me.”

  “Sophie,” Dr. Peter said, “do you remember when I told you that I would never tell anyone anything you said in here without asking your permission?”

  Sophie nodded.

  “I’m asking permission now to share this with your father.”

  “But he’ll get mad at me!”

  Dr. Peter smiled at her. “We’ll never know that, will we, unless we try.” Dr. Peter said there was one more thing.

  “The key to everything is knowing that God loves you, and he shows you that love through Jesus. If you really want to believe that, you need to get to know Jesus better—n
ot just in your imagination, but from who he is.” He rubbed his hands together. “How did you learn more about Lafayette so you could start a good Kitty Rescue Plan?”

  “From our social studies book,” Sophie said.

  “Okay—God has a book too.”

  “The Bible.”

  “Brilliant! Next time, we’ll start reading the Bible and getting to know Jesus’ plans too. But for now, you just focus on your plan to rescue Kitty.” He stood up and grinned at her. “I know this is hard, Sophie-lophie, but you go for it. I’m so proud of you.”

  That—and her talks to Jesus—carried Sophie through another evening without a phone call from Fiona. In fact, the next morning as she stepped inside the school building, she was ready for Scene One.

  Kitty sat on a bench, looking painfully alone, staring at the literature book that Sophie could tell she wasn’t reading. On the other side of the hall, the Corn Pops were standing in front of the trophy case, comparing new sweaters with their backs very deliberately to Kitty. At least Fiona wasn’t with them.

  Sophie headed straight for Kitty. “Come with me, would you?” she whispered to her.

  Getting her away was like peeling a sticker off a mirror, but Sophie managed to drag her through the double doors and into the hall in front of the office where nobody hung out. By then Kitty was barely breathing.

  “You didn’t tell anybody, did you?” she said. “I told you not to tell!”

  “It’s not about that,” Sophie said. “I just want to tell you something.” She took Kitty’s hand, Antoinette-style. “Those girls out there—you don’t need them. They’re mean to you.”

  Kitty whimpered. “I know. But I’m so mixed up!”

  “Why?”

  Kitty pulled in air that sounded ragged. “I knew they could be sort of mean. Like when they got jealous of you and Fiona doing good in class, they looked for ways to get you in trouble. Like they swore you made up the coughing code so you could cheat, even though they didn’t know for sure. I got really scared then about saying stuff about people that wasn’t exactly true, and that’s when they decided to dump me.” Kitty shuddered. “Then I saw how mean they can really be, and I just want them to leave me alone now. Only—” She put her hand over her mouth and mumbled into it. “I just don’t want to be all by myself.”