Sophie Steps Up

by Nancy N. Rue

  Lacie rolled onto her back and watched Sophie for a minute.

  “I’m sorry,” she said suddenly. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like you were a total loser. I’m the loser at this point — I HATE this!”

  She hauled herself off the bed and threw herself out of Sophie’s room and into her own. Sophie could hear her crying through the wall.

  It was the first time Sophie had ever thought she knew just how Lacie felt.

  But I haven’t time to go to her, Colleen O’Bravo thought. I have Darbie to think about now — and she’s hurting worse than Lacie, she is. And there’s the problem of the project too. I’m thinking it’s time we went to the Master.

  But Sophie had only just gotten Jesus’ kind eyes into view when she heard the front door open. Mama was talking to someone, and it obviously wasn’t Zeke. Her voice, trailing up the stairwell, was low and sad.

  “Sophie?” she said. “Come on down — we have company.”

  By the time Sophie got downstairs, Mama was already in the family room — with Darbie and a lady who had her arm around Darbie so tightly she had to be her “ma.”

  “Shall I warm up the tea?” Mama said.

  The lady looked at Darbie, who was staring at the floor and shaking her head. The second Sophie set her foot on the family room carpet, Darbie let go with a flood of tears that made no sound.

  “Did I do something to hurt her feelings?” Sophie said to Darbie’s ma.

  “No, honey,” the lady said. She didn’t talk like Darbie at all. She sounded like someone who had been born and raised right there in Poquoson. She looked that way too, with her blonde hair flipped up everywhere and her frosty lipstick put on so perfectly it didn’t go outside the lines of her lips.

  Sophie looked at Mama for some magic words. Mama patted the sofa beside her and hugged Sophie’s arm when she sat down.

  “Darbie’s pretty upset, but it isn’t at you,” Mama said. “Mrs. O’Grady is going to explain why.”

  “You can call me Aunt Emily,” the lady said. She pronounced “aunt” like “ont. ont.” “That’s what Darbie calls me.”

  Sophie had at least twenty-five questions raising their hands in her head, but she just nodded. She was afraid any word from her would start Darbie shaking again.

  “I don’t know how much you know about the Troubles in Northern Ireland,” Aunt Emily said.

  Sophie told her what she’d learned from the book, and Aunt Emily gave Mama a wide-eyed look. Even Darbie glanced up before she lowered her wet eyelashes toward the floor again.

  “Sophie wanted to know everything she could about Darbie,” Mama said.

  “Then you’ll understand Darbie’s story, Sophie,” Aunt Emily said. “Darbie’s father — that would be my husband’s brother — was very involved in trying to stop the fighting in Belfast in the 1980s. He was killed right after Darbie was born, just before the cease-fire was declared.” She ran a manicured hand up and down Darbie’s back. “He would have been so happy to see a move toward the peace he worked so hard for. There is still violence, but it was progress, and it had his fingerprints on it.”

  I bet Darbie doesn’t even remember her dad, Sophie thought. As much as Daddy drove her nuts sometimes, she couldn’t imagine never even knowing him.

  “Darbie’s mother carried on his work,” Aunt Emily went on. “She helped start the Women’s Coalition, which was very important in reaching the Belfast Agreement of 1998.” Aunt Emily squeezed Darbie against her. “She was quite a lady, your mother, wasn’t she?”

  For the first time, Darbie lifted her face. Darbie was so close to Aunt Emily, Sophie was sure she probably went cross-eyed as she looked at her, but it seemed to stop her lips from trembling. She didn’t move as Aunt Emily almost whispered the rest.

  “And then, just six months ago, Darbie’s mother died in a car accident. After growing up poor and without a father in the midst of so much violence, I think that was the hardest thing of all.” She pulled Darbie’s face into her chest and looked over her head at Sophie and Mama. “Harder than anything a little girl should have to go through.”

  Mama slipped her hand into Sophie’s, and Sophie could feel her crying right down to her fingertips.

  “My husband and I went to Northern Ireland and brought Darbie back here to live with us,” Aunt Emily said. “I’ve been homeschooling her, and now that she has her bearings a little bit we thought it would be good for her to be in public school so she can make some friends.”

  Darbie turned her head and glanced at Sophie. Her eyes looked ashamed.

  “She told me you have tried to include her,” Aunt Emily said, “but it’s so hard for her to trust people.”

  “Well, not only that,” Mama said. “For heaven’s sake, she hasn’t lived the life the girls here have lived. No wonder she thought their group was ‘little-girlish.’ ”

  Aunt Emily nodded and went on into something Sophie didn’t hear. Sophie could see so clearly in her mind Darbie locking all the doors and windows twenty times to keep out the people who hated her mother — and boiling the water for corned beef and cabbage while she waited for her ma to come home from her Coalition meeting, afraid to go out because she might be hit with a brick.

  And praying that she wasn’t riddled with bullets, the way her father was. If her mother was killed too, she wouldn’t have anybody. Nobody to protect her from bombs and broken bottles being thrown. She could hear Darbie praying, “Jesus, please don’t let them take my ma too — ”

  “Honey, are you all right?”

  Sophie looked up at Aunt Emily through a blur of tears.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I just wanted you to understand — ”

  “I do!” Sophie said. “And I hate it for her! I hate it for you, Darbie.”

  And then there was nothing else to say.

  Not until Darbie slowly lifted herself out of her aunt’s arms and shoved the tears from her cheeks with stiff fingers.

  “I hate to cry,” Darbie said. “I never cry.” She whipped her face to meet Aunt Emily’s. “But you were right — it feels good!”

  After that, Darbie sobbed and sobbed, so hard that Mama and Sophie went into the kitchen to warm up the tea so she and Aunt Emily could be alone.

  Mama stroked Sophie’s cheek. “She says this is the first time she’s seen Darbie cry since her mama died. This is a good thing.”

  “Is it okay if I tell Fiona and Kitty and Maggie?” Sophie said.

  “I think you should ask Darbie,” Mama said.

  “I hope she says yes — because then they’d understand why she doesn’t want to be friends with anybody here — why she . . . like . . . doesn’t trust anybody.” She gnawed at her lower lip. “Especially Fiona.”

  Mama poured hot water from the microwave into the teapot and looked at Sophie through the steam. “You know what, Soph? I think you’ve figured out what Darbie’s parents were trying to do. They just wanted people to understand so they would stop fighting.” She set down the water and folded her arms on the counter to look into Sophie’s eyes. “Have you decided on anything for the showcase yet?”

  Sophie shook her head. She’d forgotten all about that.

  “What about helping all the kids understand about Darbie — if she approves it. Y’all are so good at acting things out.”

  “You would ask Miss Blythe to let us do a movie?” Sophie said.

  Mama smiled her wispy smile and picked up the tea tray. “Who says you have to act it out on film?” she said.

  Sophie trailed behind her to the family room, wailing out questions.

  “But we never did it live before! What if we mess up? What if Kitty forgets her lines? She always forgets her lines!”

  Mama turned to her just as they got to the door. “For heaven’s sake, Dream Girl — use your imagination.”

  Darbie had stopped crying when they went in, and she was blowing her nose on a shamrock-covered paper napkin. She stuffed it into her pocket when she saw Sophie. “Do you
think I’m completely gone in the head?” Darbie said.

  “How about no!” Sophie said. “I think you’re amazing — and not just like you’re a specimen under a microscope.”

  “Excuse me?” Aunt Emily said.

  “So if you hate this idea for our showcase, just tell me,”

  Sophie said. “I can take it.”

  “Carry on, then,” Darbie said.

  Sophie glanced at Mama, got the nod, and told Darbie about the idea.

  “It wouldn’t be like using you,” she said when she was almost out of breath. “It would be so other kids could understand.”

  Darbie leaned forward, her now-puffy eyes drilling into Sophie. “Would it get those ridiculous popettes to stop acting the maggot with me?” she said.

  “The Corn Pops?” Sophie could feel a smile forming, because she was pretty sure what “acting the maggot” meant. “It might,” she said.

  “Then I say we stop foostering about and do it,” Darbie said.

  She stuck out her hand, and Sophie shook it. Darbie’s fingers were hard and firm, like a grown-up’s. It made Sophie feel sad for the little girl she never got to be.

  Eight

  Sophie and Darbie vowed to present their idea to the Corn Flakes the next morning before school. Sophie insisted they include Maggie so she wouldn’t feel left out.

  “We Corn Flakes take care of each other’s feelings,” Sophie told Darbie.

  Fair play!” Darbie said.

  Sophie had a feeling that meant she was impressed.

  The next day was March-rainy, so they met backstage — and early, in case the Corn Pops decided to come in and rehearse.

  “They think they own the stage now,” Kitty said when they were situated on the hay bales. “Hurry up, Sophie — tell us the idea before they come.”

  “I don’t know why you couldn’t have just told us over the phone,” Fiona said. She pulled a Pop-Tart from her backpack and took a huge hunk out of it with her teeth.

  No wonder she’s grumpy this morning, Sophie thought. She hasn’t had breakfast. It was obvious there was no new nanny yet.

  While Fiona chewed sullenly, Sophie and Darbie unfolded the story of Darbie’s life in Northern Ireland and what they wanted to do with it onstage.

  “My dad said he would film it for us so we could still have a movie,” Sophie said. “This is gonna be our realest one yet.”

  She wisped a smile over at Darbie, who gave her one back.

  “We’ll get it right down to the wee details,” Darbie said.

  “Wow.”

  They all turned to look at Maggie.

  “I wish I was still in this group,” she said.

  For the first time that morning, Sophie saw Fiona’s face light up. “Does the Corn Pops’ dance stink?”

  “No. It’s way good. But I don’t have anything to do with it. I’m making the costumes by myself. Me and my mom. And all the Corn Pops do is fight all the time.” She shrugged. “Every one of them says they want to beat you guys for first prize — so you would think they would agree since they all want the same thing. But then they start yelling, and somebody is always crying.” She looked at Kitty. “Willoughby cries more than you do.”

  “All right then,” Fiona said, chin firm. “One thing we have going for us is unity. We can so beat them.”

  Sophie cut her eyes sideways at Darbie, who was studying Fiona like she was a textbook.

  “Right,” Sophie said slowly. “We’ll make everybody understand about how it’s stupid to fight over being different.” She inserted a nod. “That’s our mission.”

  “And we have only eight days to do it,” Fiona said, though Sophie had the feeling Fiona hadn’t even heard her. “We have to practice every day after school and the whole weekend.”

  “But not at your house,” Kitty said. “Remember my dad.”

  “It wouldn’t work anyway,” Fiona said. “Not without a nanny for the brats. Okay, so who doesn’t have annoying siblings running around to drive us nuts?”

  “I don’t,” Darbie said. “You can come to my house.”

  Fiona tapped her bow of a mouth with her fingertip. “Where do you live?”

  “What does that matter?” Darbie said.

  For a moment, Fiona’s eyes narrowed and nearly met at the bridge of her nose. Just as Sophie began to wriggle on top of her hay bale, Fiona shook her head. “I guess we don’t have any other choice.”

  Sophie felt as if a shadow had just passed over the stage, although it lifted some when they found Miss Blythe in the hall and told her their plan. She pressed her jangling hand to her collarbone, closed her eyes, and said, “Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.” Then she told them they had to have a script for her by Monday.

  “That is absolutely no problem,” Fiona assured her. “Sophie and I have had a plethora of experience writing scripts.”

  “What’s a ‘plethora’?” Darbie said when Miss Blythe had sailed off.

  “It means more than anybody else,” Fiona said. She didn’t have to say including you. Sophie could see it glinting in her gray eyes.

  They started work at Darbie’s house that very afternoon. After all, it was only four days until the script was due.

  Darbie’s aunt and uncle’s place was right on the Poquoson River, a rambling, two-story house made of white boards that looked as if they’d just been painted. There were four boats of different sizes moored at the dock in the backyard.

  “We aren’t going to put a boat scene in this, are we?” Kitty asked, gazing nervously out the back window as she sipped the limeade that pretty, perky Aunt Emily had fixed for them — green to put them in an Irish mood, with real lime slices hooked on the sides of the glasses.

  “We couldn’t do that on a stage, Kitty,” Sophie told her gently — before Fiona could get an eye roll in. She currently seemed to be looking for a chance to roll them around at somebody.

  Darbie led them to a paneled room that was lined with books and had a telescope in the window — since, as she put it, her bedroom was in a “desperate condition.” Sophie made a note to herself to include as many of Darbie’s expressions as possible in the script. I’ve already learned most of Fiona’s words, she thought. Now I have all this new vocabulary.

  Fiona opened the Treasure Book and whipped out a pen. “Since Maggie isn’t here, I’ll write everything down. I think we should start the film — oops, play — where Darbie’s a baby — ”

  “A little thing,” Sophie put in.

  “ — and her father gets killed. Darbie could play her own mom and be holding a baby doll. Izzy has like a hundred of them — ”

  “But how will they know why my father was killed?” Darbie said.

  “You mean background,” Fiona said. She wafted the pen in the air with a flourish. “We’ll just put that in the program for people to read. It would be too boring to tell it.”

  “Not the way Sophie does it,” Darbie said.

  Sophie was beginning to like the way Darbie pronounced her name — Soophie. She decided to ask Fiona and Kitty later to say it that way from now on.

  “Tell them the way you told it to my aunt yesterday,” Darbie said to Sophie.

  “That’s not how you do a play though,” Fiona said. She tapped her chin with the end of the gel pen as if she were waiting for Darbie to get that so they could move on.

  Sophie cocked her head at Fiona. “But somebody could be telling that at the front of the stage while Darbie’s father was walking along, and then other people could come out and jump him — you know, like, what’s that called?”

  “You mean pantomime?” One side of Fiona’s lip lifted.

  “Then there aren’t any lines to learn!” Kitty said. She took a happy slurp out of her limeade until the straw grumbled at the bottom of the glass.

  “Why not do the whole lot of it that way?” Darbie said to Sophie. “We might take our turns narrating and the rest could be in pantomime.”

  “No offense, Darbie,” Fiona said. “But
we don’t do our films that way.”

  “But this isn’t the flicks,” Darbie said.

  “Does that mean movies?” Kitty said.

  “Yes.”

  “I like that. Let’s start calling our movies the ‘flicks’!”

  “Would you please stay on task?” Fiona snapped at her, pen jittering on the table. “Now we only have three and a half days to get this done.”

  “All the more reason to do it in narration and pantomime,” Darbie said.

  Fiona looked at Sophie, shaking her head. “Explain it to her, would you, Soph? You’re, like, the only one she understands.”

  Sophie reached for the end of her hair to make a mustache, and then tossed it over her shoulder. “I like the idea,” she said. “I can just see it in my mind.”

  “Well, the rest of us can’t,” Fiona said.

  “I can,” Kitty said. “Darbie, do you think you have any more of that limeade stuff?”

  “Kit-teee!” Fiona said.

  “This is a class idea!” Darbie said. “I’ll fetch us some more to drink.”

  When Kitty had skipped off after Darbie, Fiona stared hard at Sophie.

  “Why are you letting her be the boss of everything?” Fiona said. “You’re the director, and she’s usurping your authority.”

  Okay, so that was one Sophie hadn’t heard before. “I don’t think I AM the director this time,” Sophie said. “This is Darbie’s story, so she knows more about it than we do.”

  Fiona yanked her hair out of her face. “She has never made a film before — or done any acting at all, I bet. You have to take control if she starts to mess this up, Sophie — or we’ll never beat the Corn Pops.”

  “She won’t make a bags of it! And besides, that’s not why — ”

  “Come here, you guys!” Kitty squealed from down the hall. “Darbie’s got posters we can use and everything! This is going to be way cool!”

  It WAS cool. Darbie’s uncle had signs that had actually been on walls during “the Troubles” — saying things like “Disband the RUC,” whatever that meant. There was so much Sophie still didn’t understand about the Troubles. They also had pictures of Darbie’s old school and house in Northern Ireland so they could set up the stage exactly the way it was for each scene. Fiona argued that it would take too much time changing furniture every other minute, but Sophie and Darbie figured out a way to use the same few chairs and one table for every scene and just change things like flowers in a vase or a pile of schoolbooks. Aunt Emily told them she was impressed. She said she did some theater when she was in college, and that’s exactly what they used to do.