Sophie’s World

by Nancy Rue

  Antoinette LaCroix peeked from inside the carriage, her face half hidden by the hood of her cloak. All around her colonists hurried to and fro, calling to each other in English. She could understand them, but how she longed to hear her native French.

  “Hey!”

  Something smacked Sophie on the top of the head. She blinked at Maggie, who was holding her map rolled up like a billy club.

  “Come on,” Maggie said. “You’re supposed to stay with the group.” She dragged Sophie forward by the wrist to where the group stood on tiptoes at a cemetery wall.

  “This is Bruton Parish Church!” Vic said. “We’ll visit here on our way back too!”

  “Will we get to look at the graves?” Maggie said.

  “Gross!” B.J. said. “Who wants to look at dead people?”

  “Tombstones here date back to the 1600s!” Vic said, walking backward and beckoning the group with both hands. Sophie felt a delighted shiver.

  Next they stopped in front of the courthouse. A man in a sweeping waistcoat and white silk stockings emerged through the tall wooden doors and shouted, “Nathaniel Buttonwick! Appear before the judge, or you will forfeit your recognizance!”

  “What?” B.J. and Kitty said together.

  Sophie didn’t have any idea what recognizance meant either, but she loved the sound of it. Outside the courthouse two guards pushed a man’s head through a hole in a wooden contraption and lowered a wooden railing over the man’s wrists.

  “In the stocks till sundown!” one guard shouted.

  “He has to stand there until dark?” Sophie said.

  “It’s not real,” Maggie said.

  Antoinette was appalled. She had never seen such treatment, not in the gentle place from whence she came. Had it been a mistake to come to the colonies? But Antoinette shook her head until her tresses tossed against her face. She must find her mission.

  Sophie wished she had a costume—like that little girl she saw across the street pushing a rolling hoop with a stick. She had on a white puffy cap and an apron-covered dress down to her ankles and white stockings that Sophie longed to feel on her own legs. A boy chased after her, trying to knock over her hoop.

  I guess boys have always been annoying, Sophie thought. She caught up with Vic in time to hear that the powder magazine—an eight-sided brick building with a roof like a pointy hat—had once stored the cannons and guns and ammunition of Colonial Williamsburg’s small army.

  Sophie wanted to skip as they passed through an opening in the fence. A man with a big barrel chest suddenly blocked their path and bellowed, “Halt!”

  “What?” B.J. and Kitty said.

  “It’s not real,” Maggie said again, although she looked up at the giant of a man with reluctant respect in her eyes.

  The man’s tan shirt was the size of a pup tent, and the white scarf tied around his massive head framed a snarling face. Sophie swallowed hard.

  “Fall in!” he shouted.

  Colton fell to the ground, sending Eddie into a fit of boy-howls.

  “That means fall into a straight line!”

  The rest of them scrambled into place. The big man picked Colton up by his backpack and set him down on his feet next to Sophie.

  “Hey, dude!” Colton said.

  “You will call me Sergeant! Let me hear it!”

  “Yes, Sergeant!” Sophie cried out.

  Eddie went into convulsions of laughter. Colton said, “Yes, Sergeant,” in a mousy voice.

  “You—and you—fall out!” the sergeant roared.

  Eddie and Colton were banished to a blue wagon full of long poles, where the sergeant told them to stay until further notice. When Chaperone Mom started to march over to them, the sergeant yelled, “You! Fall in!”

  “Oh, no, I’m the chaperone!” she said.

  “We need every able-bodied individual! We are no longer a small militia—we are part of the Colonial Army! If Lafayette and his troops do not arrive in time, it will be us against the Redcoats!”

  Lafayette? Sophie thought. That sounds like a French name.

  “Eyes left! Eyes front! Eyes left!” the sergeant commanded. When he said, “Pick up your arms!” the group scurried for the blue wagon and got their “guns”—long sticks almost twice as tall as Sophie. The sergeant told Eddie and Colton that he would give them one last chance, and they grabbed their sticks to line up with the rest.

  “Left flank!” the sergeant cried, and he showed them how to stand their guns along their left legs. Then he taught them how to “load,” how to shift from “flank” to “shoulder,” how to “make ready” and “present” in one smooth motion, and to “make fire” only when he commanded. At those words, everyone screamed, “Boom!”

  Antoinette had never held a weapon before in her life, but if this was what it took to fulfill her mission, then she could do it.

  “Make ready!” the sergeant cried.

  With her musket firmly in her hands, Antoinette dropped to her knee, waiting for the commands to present and fire.

  “You! You there, soldier!”

  Sophie looked into the sergeant’s face and clung to her stick. “Yes, Sergeant?” she said.

  “You’re a fine soldier. You shame the whole lot of them. You can fight in my company anytime.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Sophie said.

  Afterward, Sophie floated happily down the street with the Patriots. She was now a part of Colonial Williamsburg—one of its finest soldiers.

  “Hey, pipsqueak,” Colton said to her.

  Sophie glared at him. “That’s Corporal Pipsqueak to you, Private.”

  “What’s she talking about?” Eddie said.

  “Nothing,” Colton said. “She’s whacked.”

  But right by Vic’s elbow, with Maggie walking up her calves, Sophie felt anything but whacked as she made Williamsburg her own.

  Inside the houses and shops, every detail swept her back across the centuries: a powdered wig on a dressing table, a quill pen in a china holder, and a four-poster bed with mosquito netting draped down its sides. I want that in MY bedroom, Sophie thought.

  The formal English gardens with clipped hedges helped her picture Antoinette waiting among the flowers for the delivery of a secret message. And the little brick pathways covered in ivy leading down from the streets were custom-made for Antoinette’s getaways.

  She loved it all, including the sign above the jeweler’s that said, “Engraving. Watch-Making. Done in the Beft Manner.”

  “Beft?” Sophie said.

  Of course, B.J. said, “What?”

  “Best,” Maggie told her.

  Sophie decided to start writing all of her S ’s that way from now on. She felt certain that Lafayette, whoever he was, had made his S ’s just like that.

  When they stopped to have a picnic in the Market Square, Sophie inched close to Vic.

  “Could you tell me about Lafayette?” she said.

  “The Marquis de Lafayette was a young French nobleman,” Vic said. “Red-headed, very short, and small-boned. He was only nineteen years old when he bought a ship and left France secretly to help the Colonists. Without him, the patriots might not have won the war, and we wouldn’t be free today.”

  “He bought a whole ship?” Colton said. “He must’ve had cash.”

  “Lafayette used his wealth to help the American colonies because he believed in fairness,” Vic said. “All his life he stood against anything that was more evil than good.”

  “So did he make it to Williamsburg in time?” Sophie said. “The sergeant said if he didn’t get here with his troops, the militia would be on its own.”

  Vic gave her his big watermelon smile. “You were paying attention!”

  “I was too!” B.J. muttered to Kitty. They gave Sophie identical narrow-eyed stares.

  “So did he get here in time?” Sophie said.

  “He did! But there was almost disaster.”

  Sophie felt the flutter in her chest. Disaster always had possibili
ties.

  “Lafayette moved his advance units to about ten miles north of here. Someone gave him false information—that most of the British Army had already crossed the James River. So he decided to move closer to Jamestown and attack whatever enemy troops remained.”

  “But the whole British Army was still there!” Sophie said.

  “So did the Brits waste him?” Colton said.

  “No,” Vic said. “He learned about the trap and marched straight to Yorktown, where the war was won.”

  “Who told him about the trap?” Maggie said.

  But Sophie didn’t listen to the answer.

  From her hiding place in the Market Square, Antoinette held her breath until the British Loyalists moved on. She didn’t breathe from the time she heard their secret plans until she was sure they had gone into the Raleigh Tavern. Then she gathered up her skirts and ran for the carriage house. She had to reach the Marquis de Lafayette with the news—before he marched right into the British trap.

  “Hey! Sophie!”

  “What?” Sophie said.

  She shook off the hand that Maggie had wrapped around her backpack strap.

  “Fine,” Maggie said. Her eyes narrowed into fudge-colored slits. “I won’t tell you that everybody else is going shopping.” She put up her hands. “You’re way too high-maintenance.”

  As she stomped away, Sophie squinted at the rest of the Patriots gathered under a canvas souvenir shelter, pawing through toy muskets and Revolutionary flags. Sophie saw B.J. put something white on her head and make a face at Kitty.

  That’s one of those puffy caps! Sophie thought. She raced toward the tent. She ran her fingers along the three-cornered hats and white stockings and full dresses with aprons. Those, she discovered, were way too expensive, so she settled for a white cap in a bin that said “Mobcaps.”

  “Are you actually going to buy one of those?” B.J. asked.

  “B.J., be nice,” Chaperone Mom said. “She just wants a souvenir, don’t you, honey?”

  Sophie shook her head. “No. I want it for a game I’m going to act out.”

  B.J. stared with her mouth open as if Sophie had just announced she was having plastic surgery. Sophie knew that look, and she could almost hear her thirteen-year-old sister Lacie in her head:

  Sophie, you can play your little games. Just don’t tell anyone you’re doing it. Keep it to yourself or they’ll think you’re totally from Planet Weird.

  Sure enough, B.J. exchanged raised-eyebrow looks with Kitty.

  “All right, Patriots!” Vic called out. “Complete your purchases and let’s go!”

  Sophie paid for a ballpoint quill pen and her cap. She tucked the pen carefully into her backpack and placed the cap on her head. Then she followed the group toward the Capitol Building. This time Sophie didn’t hurry to catch up with Vic, because Kitty and B.J. flanked him, and Maggie hadn’t returned to drag her along. Sophie felt the cloak of sadness descend on her shoulders.

  But I haven’t the time to feel sorry for myself, Antoinette thought. I must get word to Lafayette. The fate of the militia is at stake! Glancing over both shoulders to make sure the British were nowhere in sight, Antoinette straightened her white lacy cap. She hurried down a set of stone steps and ran between the shops. It would be best to stay out of sight just in case they suspected her.

  Behind her the sound of horse-drawn carriages faded, and she hurried through a maze of hedges in a garden behind the hat shop, and then she hoisted herself over a brick wall. Antoinette stopped to catch her breath. This is a graveyard! She put her hand over her mouth.

  And so did Sophie.

  Sophie scanned the rows of tombstones. The rest of the Patriots were nowhere in sight.

  Three

  Oh no,” Sophie said to the nearest gravestone. “I’m lost.”

  Usually the idea of being lost had great possibilities. But right now, Sophie’s heart pounded. Ms. Quelling would make the eyebrow face. Mama would say, “I’m so disappointed.”

  And Daddy —

  Sophie squeezed her eyes shut. I have to find a way to get found! Straightening her mobcap, Sophie ran along a dirt path through the tombstones to a large brick building. The front door opened, and a man in a necktie led a group of grownups down the steps. Sophie hung back as the man began to speak. “Please take the time to look around the church cemetery,” he said. “You’ll find markers dating back to the early seventeenth century.”

  Oh, this is that church! Sophie thought. She remembered that the Patriots’ Group would have to pass this way to see the Governor’s Palace. I’ll just wait for them here, she decided. I hope Chaperone Mom doesn’t start yelling about how not nice I am, right here in the cemetery.

  “Welcome to Bruton Parish Church, ladies and gentlemen,” said Necktie Man to a new group near the steps. “We ask you to please keep your voices low in the church, as this is an active place of worship and there may be people praying inside.”

  Sophie hitched up her backpack and hurried to join them. Chaperone Mom might yell out here, but Mr. Necktie wouldn’t let her raise her voice in there.

  When she stepped inside, the church itself seemed to whisper, “Shhh!”

  At the end of each church pew stood a small door, so that the pews formed long narrow cubicles. Sophie slipped inside one and closed its door as Mr. Necktie filed past with his tour.

  I’ll hide here until I hear Vic, she decided. If Maggie hasn’t informed on me yet, I can just sneak right back into the group, and it’ll be just fine. She let out a long, slow breath and looked up at the pulpit where the minister probably preached his sermons. It looked like it was suspended in midair. That looks high enough for Jesus to preach from, Sophie thought.

  Sometimes in church when sermons got boring, Sophie liked to imagine that Jesus himself was talking. She knew stories from Sunday school, and she’d heard people talking about what Jesus would do, so she could imagine him saying some words. But the picture she held of him in her mind felt very clear.

  His kind eyes never narrowed into slits or rolled into his head like he thought she was whacked. He had a real smile too, one that couldn’t switch into a curled-up lip. His whole face understood what it was like to imagine amazing things and act them out, even when every other girl in the galaxy was acting like she was poison ivy.

  “Jesus,” she whispered. “I don’t think you’d yell at me just because I got wrapped up with Antoinette and got lost. I think you’d understand me.” She sighed. “But Jesus—it would really help if I had just one friend here who understood me too, and we could imagine stuff together, and I wouldn’t feel so lonely all the time. Do you think I could have that, please?”

  She looked up at the pulpit again. Don’t be up there, she prayed. I wish you were here next to me and I wasn’t in trouble and you wouldn’t let them be mad at me.

  Someone cleared his throat and Mr. Necktie peered over her pew door. Only then did Sophie realize she was actually on her knees. “Miss, I didn’t want to disturb your prayer—”

  But the pew door flew open with a bang, and Ms. Quelling said in a louder-than-prayer voice, “You have some explaining to do.”

  Sophie wondered why Ms. Quelling always asked for an explanation, because she never gave her a chance to give one. Even though Sophie had to sit next to her in the front seat of the bus all the way back to Poquoson, the teacher obviously wanted Sophie to keep her explanations to herself.

  And when they got off the bus, Ms. Quelling gave Sophie’s mother her own version of the story, as if Sophie had spent the entire trip planning how to ruin everybody’s day.

  “It wasn’t like that, Mama,” Sophie said as they left the school in the Suburban.

  “I know it wasn’t,” Mama said. “I think she’s just a little upset.” She looked at Sophie with her brown-like-Sophie’s eyes. “And I can imagine she was terrified that something had happened to you.” Mama tilted her head in that elf-like way she had, her frosty curls slipping to the side. “Soph, I know y
ou didn’t do it on purpose, but we have to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

  When they pulled into the driveway of their two-story gray house, Sophie’s older sister, Lacie, was kicking a soccer ball to five-year-old Zeke in the front yard. Lacie and Zeke ran to the car. Neither of them had Sophie’s soft voice.

  “Mama, can we have the cookies now?” Zeke said.

  Lacie stared at Sophie. “What’s that thing on your head?” she said.

  Sophie ignored them, ran into the house, and flew up the shiny wooden stairs that turned a corner on their way. She hurled herself into her room, closed the door behind her, and tossed her backpack aside.

  Circling the bed, she flicked on her table lamp with the princess base and leaned against the white bookcase by the window that looked into the arms of an oak tree. Sophie wrapped her fingers around the gauzy curtains and shut her eyes.

  Antoinette pulled the mosquito netting around her shoulders. She knew it wouldn’t hide her from Governor Spotswood when he came thundering through the library door, but for now she must order her mind. How can I explain to him why I was dashing off into the woods? I can’t tell him that I was helping Lafayette! The governor is a Loyalist. They’ll put me in the stocks. Or worse —

  There was an impatient knock. Before Antoinette could say, “Come in,” the library door flew open.

  Sophie peeked one eye between the gauzy curtains as Daddy came through the door. He looked taller and more big-shouldered than ever.

  “Come in, sir,” Sophie said.

  “Sir?” Daddy said. For a second a twinkle shot through one of his blue eyes.

  “In Williamsburg, we had to call the sergeant ‘sir’—”

  The twinkle disappeared.

  “I guess Mama told you what happened,” Sophie said.

  “She did.” Daddy pulled up the pink vanity stool and sat carefully on it. “What were you thinking, Soph?”

  “I was thinking about a story I was making up,” Sophie said. “And then all of a sudden, my group was gone. I guess I got carried away.”

  He blinked and ran his hand through his thick black hair. “At least you’re honest.”

  I hope that counts when you start thinking up my punishment, Sophie thought.