Sophie's Stormy Summer

by Nancy N. Rue

  “Um, Soph?” Lacie leaned forward so far the chair almost tipped over. “They told me to say I don’t know — which is good, because I don’t.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Kip. And Dr. Peter.”

  “Dr. Peter! MY Dr. Peter?”

  Lacie looked like she had a gas pain. “Yeah. He came into the high school room and talked to Kip and then Kip AND me, and they said — well, what I already told you.”

  Sophie felt her eyes narrow. “Did you just apologize because they said you had to?”

  “No! I’m totally serious! I’m the one who decided to say I was sorry. They just said to make sure you knew — ”

  “Got it.” Sophie twisted a strand of her hair around a finger as she thought.

  “You aren’t going to do that mustache thing, are you?” Lacie said.

  “No,” Sophie said. “I only do that when I’m confused. I’m just thinking — ”

  “Uh-oh.” Lacie grinned and settled back in the chair. If Sophie hadn’t known better from past experience, she would have thought Lacie was actually relieved that Sophie didn’t storm out of the room.

  “I was thinking that if we’re not going to figure out why Kitty got sick,” Sophie said, “then we have to ask Jesus what to do to help her and listen to what he says and do what he tells us.”

  Lacie was nodding, the way teachers nodded when it looked like a kid was getting some big math concept. “How do YOU talk to Jesus?” she said.

  “I imagine him.”

  “Go figure.”

  “But I don’t put words in his mouth.”

  “Right. I have a hard time just sitting there praying, so I write him letters in my journal — WHICH is hidden.”

  “I’m not gonna go looking for it, if that’s what you mean,” Sophie said.

  Lacie looked startled. “I didn’t mean you. I was talking about Zeke. He gets some really bad ideas from Rory.”

  “Oh,” Sophie said. “Yeah.”

  It was suddenly as if she had run out of things to say. Usually, if she wasn’t in an argument with Lacie, they didn’t talk this much.

  “I don’t want to boss you around or anything,” Lacie said finally.

  “You don’t?”

  “No. This is just a suggestion. Are y’all still doing a film about the Jews running from the Nazis?”

  “Yeah,” Sophie said carefully.

  “Well, while you’re planning this film, maybe really think about the Jews — they had to have total faith or they would have just gone nuts with the fear. So I’m thinking that could kind of help you with the Kitty thing — I don’t know. Just a thought.”

  “Oh,” Sophie said. “Thanks.”

  She climbed out of the chair and went for the door. Lacie twirled her chair around to face her. “Whatever you want me to do for Kitty, just let me know, okay? I’d hate it if it was one of my best friends.”

  “Thanks,” Sophie said. And she left in what could only be called a state of shock.

  Darbie’s aunt Emily called that afternoon to invite them over for a cookout. Mama said she could hear Darbie shouting in the background that the rest of the Corn Flakes and their parents were going to be there.

  “Let me see,” Daddy said to Mama when they got in the car, “do I have everything I need for an afternoon with the Corn Flakes? Earplugs. Tranquilizers. Are the Buntings’ two little ones going to be there?”

  “No,” Mama said. “Just Fiona. We’re dropping Z-Boy off to stay with Genevieve.”

  “Oh, then I didn’t have to pack the shin guards after all.”

  “Da-dee,” Sophie said.

  “What? What did I say?”

  Sophie had everything she needed for an afternoon with the Corn Flakes, which was a mind full of the film. She’d called Maggie to make sure she was bringing the Treasure Book and plenty of gel pens.

  Darbie, Fiona, and Maggie had a quilt spread out on the grass down by the Poquoson River where Darbie lived with her aunt Emily and uncle Patrick. They were fully equipped with assorted bags of chips, a small cooler full of every juice and soda made and, of course, the Treasure Book. Maggie already had the pen poised for action.

  “We totally HAVE to do this film!” Sophie called out as she ran toward them. She slid to a stop on the quilt, narrowly missing Darbie’s grape juice box. “You’re not gonna believe this, but Lacie gave me the idea.”

  “No way,” Maggie said, as if that were a fact.

  “Way. She even invited me to her ROOM.” Sophie whipped out the Post-It note from her pocket.

  “Let me see that,” Fiona said. She took the paper and studied Lacie’s handwriting. “She’s up to something, guaranteed.”

  “And maybe she isn’t,” Darbie said. “Maybe she’s just decided to stop running your life.”

  “Anything’s possible, I guess,” Fiona said.

  “Not that,” Maggie said.

  Darbie peered over Fiona’s shoulder at the note. “So what idea did she give you?”

  Sophie got up on her knees. “She said our film could be about the Jewish people having FAITH because that was the only way they got through all the horrible stuff that was happening — just like we have to for Kitty.”

  Darbie pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged her legs.

  “Something’s wrong,” Maggie said.

  “I think that’s a class idea — if OUR Jews get to escape.”

  “Of course they will,” Fiona said. “They won’t be part of the ones that got killed.”

  “How’d they kill them?” Maggie said.

  “Do we have to go there?” Fiona said. “Some of them got away — Genevieve even said so. Let’s concentrate on that.” She leaned back on straight arms. “If we’re doing this film sort of about faith and all that, God has to take care of them, right?”

  “Then why didn’t he take care of ALL of them?” Maggie said.

  Sophie’s stomach went into a square knot. “We can’t ask ‘Why,’ because we don’t know,” she said. “We have to ask ‘What next?’ ”

  “That’s what my mum always taught me,” Darbie said. “When they threw eggs at me in the street because I was Catholic — ”

  “They threw EGGS at you?” Fiona said. “That’s just heinous.”

  “What’s that other word for heinous?” Maggie said.

  “Devastating,” Fiona said.

  “Instead of asking why God let them do that,” Darbie went on, “my mum told me we had to figure out how I was going to behave with love.”

  Darbie sank her chin onto her knees. They all got quiet.

  “Does it make you sad to think about your mom?” Sophie said.

  Darbie nodded like she couldn’t talk just then.

  “Okay — enough with the sadness,” Fiona said. She took one last slurp from her soda can and stood up. “Let’s get to work.”

  When they took off for the house, Sophie followed at an I-don’t-want-to walk. All of a sudden she wasn’t so excited about this film anymore.

  Maybe believing that God was somehow there wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Darbie was still devastated about her mum. Kitty was still having an operation on top of everything else.

  Maybe it was just too hard.

  Six

  Maggie and her mom left the next morning to visit relatives in Miami. Sophie could imagine Senora LaQuita dragging Maggie to the car, because she didn’t want to leave with Kitty so sick. But her mother did promise she would help them make costumes for their film when they returned, just like always. Sophie tried to act as though that was great news.

  After breakfast, Sophie went outside and hid behind the azalea bushes by the garage and tried to imagine she was hiding from certain discovery.

  Sofia was glad she hadn’t brought her mother this far, that she had left her in the safe house where the sympathetic Frenchman — who had a mustache and wore a blue silk scarf around his neck — said he would keep her mother from harm. “But you must be back before dawn,” he had to
ld Sofia.

  With danger crawling up her spine like icy fingers, Sofia crept carefully along the wall. She must stay out of the light — she couldn’t make a shadow. The Nazis were just across the street, standing guard outside the very building where her father was hiding beneath the floorboards.

  I have no choice, she thought. I have to find a way to sneak in there and beg Papa to come with us. We have people who will help us escape to America. She crept along a few more inches, and then a few more, each step slower than the last. But what if they catch me?she thought. What if they drag me off to a concentration camp?

  In spite of the perspiration that had formed like little beads across her upper lip, Sofia shivered. She didn’t know what could happen in those camps, and she was afraid to find out. Whatever it was, she did know it was heinous. Worse than heinous.Devastating. And to avoid this kind of fate for herself and her family, Sofia would risk her life —

  “Soph?”

  It was Mama’s voice, but it took Sophie a few seconds to realize she was calling from her Loom Room above the garage. Mama’s voice came from the upper window.

  “Fiona called. She wants you to come over. I told her I’d take you.”

  Sophie leaned against the wall and wiped the sweat off her upper lip. She had never been relieved to have somebody interrupt a pre-film daydream before, and she called up, “Okay. Thanks.”

  Fiona’s been on the Internet since Sunday, she thought. I bet she knows ALL about how evil the Nazis were by now.

  Mama pulled the Suburban into the circular driveway at Fiona’s, which was one of the biggest homes Sophie had ever been in where somebody actually lived. Dr. Bunting and Fiona waved them over to the deck that sprawled along the whole side of their house. Sophie knew that Fiona’s mom never came home for lunch unless somebody needed stitches or had a fever of 102.

  Sophie had a sinking feeling in her chest, the kind she used to get as a little girl when she’d agree to go to somebody’s birthday party and then realized on the way there that she really didn’t want to go.

  “Hey, you two,” Dr. Bunting said to Sophie and Mama. “I came home for lunch so I could talk to Fiona, and when she said you were coming over I thought I’d catch you too.”

  Sophie could feel the sweaty-lip-thing happening again, but tiny beads of sweat also broke out on her forehead this time.

  Dr. Bunting shook hands with Mama — most of the time Mama hugged everybody — and said, “Do you want me to send in for some iced tea?”

  Mama said no to the tea. She had a little wrinkle between her eyebrows.

  “So, I want to talk with you all about Kitty,” Dr. Bunting said. “I’ve been keeping in close touch with her parents, and they want you to know that Kitty got through her operation just fine — no problems.”

  “Does she have that thing in her chest?” Sophie said.

  “Yes — it’s called, well, something big and long, but we’ll just call it a CVC.”

  “What’s the long name?” Fiona said.

  “I’ll cover that later,” her mom said. She rolled her eyes at Mama. “Soon they’ll start her on chemotherapy, which is the treatment for leukemia.”

  “They’ll put the medication in through that CVC,” Fiona said.

  “Right. The chemotherapy is a mixture of several drugs that will kill off the leukemia cells in her blood and her bone marrow.”

  “And that will make her have that remission thing?” Sophie said. Her mouth was so dry; she wished Mama had said yes to that iced tea, even though she didn’t even like the stuff.

  “We-e-ell,” Dr. Bunting said. “This is only the first round of chemotherapy. She’ll get several rounds at different times, and it usually takes a while for a patient to go into remission. All her blood counts have to return to normal so her blood can do all the good things it does for your body, including keeping you from getting infections.”

  “So it takes, what, three, four weeks?” Fiona said.

  “I wish that were the case.” Dr. Bunting sat up and folded her hands on the tabletop. “It usually takes at least a year of treatment, usually longer, for remission to occur.”

  “A YEAR?” Sophie said.

  “But that’s the worst-case scenario, right?” Fiona said.

  “No,” her mom said. “That’s the best case. For most kids, you’re looking at two years.”

  “Bless her heart,” Mama said. The little wrinkle had gone deeper.

  “Unfortunately — ” Dr. Bunting stopped and looked from Sophie to Fiona as if she were deciding whether to go into this part or not.

  Don’t tell us, Sophie wanted to say. Only please do — and don’t make it really bad.

  “With most medicine for illness, once you start taking it you start to feel a little better pretty quickly. You know, like when you take an antibiotic for an ear infection.”

  “Right,” Fiona said. “I hear a ‘but’ in there though.”

  Dr. Bunting nodded. “But with chemotherapy, you feel a whole lot worse when you take it. See, when you kill off the leukemia cells, you kill off a lot of the good ones too, so you run the risk of other infections, and you can get nauseated and vomit, and — you usually lose your hair.”

  Fiona pulled her head back. “Like, she’ll be bald?”

  “She could be. Not everybody experiences hair loss, but we always tell patients it’s a possibility so they can prepare themselves. That’s the least painful of the side effects, but it seems to be the hardest thing for people to deal with, especially girls.”

  “Does it grow back?” Sophie said. She was almost whispering.

  “Oh, yes. She may even have a thicker head of hair when it does.”

  “In two years?” Sophie said. Kitty would be about to start high school by then. The Corn Flakes would be Lacie’s age.

  Two years of throwing up and getting infections and going around with no hair? Sophie thought. God — this is SO not fair! Why would you —

  She had to put out a mental foot and trip that thought because it was way too hard. Dr. Peter said — what did he say about that? She couldn’t even remember now. All she could see on her mind-screen was Kitty, hearing this same news in that hospital room in Portsmouth. It was a sure thing that even Sebastian the cute nurse hadn’t been able to keep her from sobbing for days.

  “Does Darbie know yet?” Sophie said.

  “I just got off the phone with her aunt before you got here,” Dr. Bunting said. “Emily’s mother has had cancer so she understands about chemotherapy. She’s going to explain it to Darbie. You two have any questions?”

  “Yes,” Fiona said. She folded her hands on the table just as her mom was doing. “What are the chances of Kitty going into remission BEFORE most people do?”

  “I have no idea, Fiona,” Dr. Bunting said. “I can’t make a guess, okay? We just have to wait and see.”

  In Fiona’s room, Sophie curled up in the overstuffed striped chair by the window. Fiona squeezed in beside her.

  “Okay,” Fiona said, “this is totally wretched. Not to mention the fact that my mother talks to me like I don’t know anything. Hello! I make straight A’s.” She got to a position where she could look straight at Sophie. “I think we have to be positive about this. Kitty COULD only need a year of chemotherapy — maybe less, which is what I know my mom is thinking, only she won’t say it because that’s the way she is. And Kitty might NOT lose her hair. And what’s a little throwing up? There are worse things.”

  Just then, Sophie couldn’t think of anything worse than the entire situation.

  “I say we just think positive and keep praying and get on with our film,” Fiona said. “I found TONS on the Internet.” She squirmed out of the chair. “I’m gonna call Darbie. There are only three of us, but we’re the brains of the Corn Flakes anyway, right?”

  But Aunt Emily said Darbie couldn’t come over and when Fiona, of course, asked her why, she said Darbie needed some quiet time.

  “Who needs quiet time in the summer?” F
iona said to Sophie. “We’ll get enough of that when we have to do homework again.”

  “Then let’s not work on the film by ourselves,” Sophie said. “We can’t leave EVERYBODY out.”

  I can’t hear anything else that’s awful today, Sophie thought.

  I think I need some quiet time too.

  Evidently, Darbie needed a lot of it, because over the next several days when Sophie called her, Aunt Emily always said Darbie couldn’t talk right then. The third day, Sophie finally found out why.

  Mama got off the phone with Aunt Emily and said Darbie had gotten really upset over the things that were happening to Kitty, and it started her thinking about her mom and all the other people she’d lost. Aunt Emily said she could get together with the Flakes again, as long as they didn’t talk about Kitty or work on their movie. She said the Holocaust was too disturbing for Darbie right now.

  “That’s okay with me!” Sophie said. “Fiona isn’t going to like it though.”

  But Aunt Emily had obviously thought of that, because she said that she and Mama would take the three girls to do some fun things until Darbie felt better.

  Her first suggestion wasn’t the most “fun” thing Sophie could think of, but at least she and Fiona could be with Darbie. The next day, they went to the mall to shop for school clothes.

  Darbie loved to shop, so that made it better. She led them on a lively journey from Old Navy to Limited Too to Gap, collecting bags full of skirts and tops and ponchos and shoes. Aunt Emily said Darbie never got to have nice clothes in Northern Ireland, so she just kept smiling and pulling out her credit card.

  Sophie and her mom usually shopped at less expensive stores, so Sophie acted as Darbie’s fashion adviser and brought things for her to try on in the dressing room. Dr. Bunting had given Fiona money, which Fiona said she was saving until they got to the bookstore.

  “They don’t have school clothes at the bookstore,” Sophie said.

  “I know,” Fiona said.

  By lunchtime, Darbie was so loaded down, Aunt Emily had to take her bags to the car while the rest of them got a table at the food court and dug into wonderfully greasy Chinese food.