Sophie Hartley, On Strike

by Stephanie Greene

  She tossed and turned, finally getting herself so tangled up in her sheets that she had to get out of bed and unwind her nightgown from around her neck before she strangled herself. Then she got back into bed again and sighed.

  If anyone was about to crack, it was Nora. Sophie couldn’t blame her. It was certainly beginning to look as if nothing was going to happen.

  Then Thad found out what they were doing, and things did.

  Chapter Six

  The kitchen smelled.

  Not of good things, like cakes baking and onions frying, but of garbage. Sophie sat down at the table to do her math homework after school, anyway. Doing it upstairs would have been giving in.

  Sophie always did her homework in the kitchen. Usually, her mother was cooking dinner or making herself a cup of tea after work. Sophie was glad to have her around in case she needed help. She often asked her mother questions she already knew the answer to just so they could talk.

  Talking to her mother made her feel good.

  Today, though, Sophie was relieved that Mrs. Hartley had dropped her off and gone to pick up John; it would have been impossible for Sophie to sit there pretending. She was breathing through her mouth and hurrying to finish her homework so she could go and sit in a better-smelling room when someone came in through the back door.

  It was Thad. Sophie heard him whistling as he hurled his backpack and books on the bench in the mudroom. She hunched over her paper and scribbled like mad so Thad would see how hard she was working and go straight upstairs without noticing the smell.

  Or talking to her. She especially didn’t want him to stop and talk to her.

  “Holy cow,” Thad said as he came through the door. “What stinks?”

  Sophie peered up through her hair as Thad gave a few experimental sniffs. He yanked open the door under the sink and promptly shut it again. “Whose week is it to empty the garbage?” he asked.

  Sophie looked back down at her paper.

  “I don’t know why you haven’t passed out,” he said sympathetically. He walked over to the refrigerator and ran his finger down the list. Then his voice changed. “Sophie!” he said. “It’s your week! Get that thing out of here!”

  “What thing?” Sophie asked, looking up with wide eyes.

  Thad took a step closer. “Is that cotton?” he asked incredulously.

  At first, all Sophie could pull out were wispy threads. She panicked, thinking she was about to shove the cotton balls she’d stuffed into her nose all the way up to her brain. Then she got a good hold on them and yanked them out.

  “You are such a weirdo,” Thad said admiringly.

  Sophie shoved the soggy balls into her pocket and stood up. She picked up her book, her paper, and her pencil, and announced as haughtily as she could, “I’m going someplace quiet so I can concentrate.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whooooooa.” Thad slipped around in front of her to block her escape route and pointed back over her shoulder. “Sophie,” he said, “empty the garbage.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Sure, you can,” Thad said patiently. “You open the door . . . you take out the garbage can . . .”

  “We’re on strike.”

  That stopped Thad cold.

  “You are?”

  Sophie nodded. She tried to give Thad her Leader-of-the-Pack stare, but with her nose crinkling as the horrible smell wafted up around them, she felt more like a pug than a Great Dane.

  Luckily, Thad couldn’t stand the smell, either, because he suddenly said, “Wait a minute,” and yanked open the door under the sink again. He pulled out the garbage can and ran outside to dump it into one of the large cans next to the back porch.

  In the meantime, Sophie took out the spray that was supposed to make a room smell like a field of wildflowers and sprayed it lavishly around the kitchen. She aimed a shot toward the ceiling and lifted her face to it, imagining she was walking through a mist as the drops tingled against her skin.

  The mist smelled better than the kitchen, but not by much.

  “That’s enough!” Thad yelled as he came back into the room. He grabbed the can away from her. “What’re you trying to do, kill us?”

  Sophie sat down and crossed her arms over her chest, prepared to resist Thad’s interrogation. The room smelled both sweet and rotten. She didn’t see how they would be able to ignore it when they sat down for dinner.

  “Who’s ‘we’?” asked Thad, sitting down across from her.

  He sounded so interested, Sophie was torn.

  Nora had said they shouldn’t tell Thad about the strike because he was every bit as much the enemy as their parents. She’d also said that Thad wouldn’t notice that anything was different, anyway, because he was such a slob.

  She’d been right about that part, Sophie had to admit. But she liked Thad. The trouble with thinking of him as the enemy was that it meant practically everyone in the family was the enemy.

  Sophie was getting lonely.

  “Come on, Soph,” he said. “What’s up?”

  Sophie knew she shouldn’t tell him; she knew it would end badly. But if she didn’t talk to somebody, she was going to burst. She could always tell Nora that Thad had tortured her. With room freshener.

  It had made her dizzy and she’d told him everything.

  “Nora and me,” she said.

  “No kidding.” Thad whistled. “Do Mom and Dad know?”

  Sophie nodded.

  “What’d they say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Thad sat back. “Since when do Mom and Dad say nothing?”

  “Since we went on strike.”

  Her parents hadn’t said much of anything to her since she’d told them about it, Sophie realized glumly. Her father had gone out on the road again two days later, and her mother was so tired and grumpy, Sophie had been steering clear of her.

  She even missed her mother’s fake laugh.

  “What do you mean, you’re on strike?” Thad said. “I haven’t noticed anything.”

  “We stopped doing our jobs.”

  “Nora, too?”

  Sophie nodded.

  “You mean to tell me, she stopped scrubbing our bathroom floor?”

  Another nod.

  “No cleaning the grout with a toothbrush?”

  Sophie looked back at him, mute.

  “Wow.” Thad was clearly impressed. “You two must really be mad about something. What’re you protesting?”

  Sophie sighed. She wished their friendly conversation didn’t have to turn ugly. “You,” she said.

  “Me?” Thad didn’t sound mad, he sounded amazed.

  “John, too.”

  “Holy cow. What’d we do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Sophie,” Thad said reasonably, “you’re not making sense here.”

  “Yes, she is. She just does a lousy job of explaining.” Nora staggered into the room and dumped a huge pile of books on the kitchen table. “What did I say about not telling?” she said to Sophie.

  “She didn’t have to tell me, Nora,” said Thad. “In case you haven’t noticed, it stinks in here.”

  “Fake wildflowers,” Nora said with a professional sniff, “and rotting meat. You two are so lame.” She went over to the sink and threw open the window above it, then switched on the fan over the stove. “How can you sit there and not do anything about it?”

  “We didn’t just sit here—” Sophie began, but Thad held up his hand to silence her.

  “You explain it if you’re so superior,” he said to Nora. “What’d John and I do?”

  “Nothing. Just like Sophie said.” Nora had taken out a bottle of ammonia and was pouring it into a shallow bowl, which she plunked down in the middle of the table. “Mom made a big deal of coming up with a Hartley Family Job List to make things equal, and you continue to do nothing.”

  “What do you mean?” Thad protested. “Who mows the lawn? Who drags the garbage cans out to the sidewalk?”

>   “You love mowing the lawn,” Nora pointed out. “And the garbage cans are too heavy for us.”

  “Yeah, well, getting down on my hands and knees and scrubbing the bathroom floor is too menial for me,” said Thad.

  “Menial?” Nora said, bristling.

  “What does ‘menial’ mean?” asked Sophie, looking from one to the other.

  Thad ignored her. “You’re nuts, the way you clean everything all the time,” he said. “Why should John and I have to suffer?”

  “Suffer?” Nora’s voice went up an octave. “I’m cleaning your lousy hairs and dirt, and hanging up your wet towels so we won’t all die from mildew inhalation, and you’re suffering?”

  “If it means it hurts your knees, it’s too menial for me, too,” Sophie declared.

  “The more I think about it, the more unfair it is.” Thad stood up and pushed in his chair. “I’m going on strike, too.”

  “Only you would go on strike against yourself,” said Nora.

  “You can’t have two strikes in one family,” Sophie said firmly, vainly hoping they’d listen to her for a change. Neither of them even looked at her. They were too busy glaring at each other.

  “I’m not striking against myself,” replied Thad. “I’m striking against you.”

  “Me?” Nora snorted. “You have a nerve.”

  “For inflicting cruel and unusual cleanliness on John and me.”

  “You are so lame.”

  The whole thing was falling apart in front of Sophie’s very eyes. What had started out as a battle over principles had deteriorated into a family squabble. Sophie was sick of it.

  “You! Can’t! Have! Two! Strikes! In! One! Family!” she shouted.

  Thad and Nora were momentarily stunned. Then Nora covered her ears and yelled, “Stop it!” and Thad said, “What do you think you’re doing, Sophie?” and snatched away the large spoon she’d been banging against a pot to emphasize each word.

  “I am trying to get a word in edgewise,” Sophie said in a dignified voice. “There can only be one strike in a family at a time. If you want to go on strike, Thad, you have to join ours.”

  “Sophie! Whose side are you on?” Nora said. “He’s the one we’re striking against!”

  “He’s only half of what we’re striking against,” Sophie said. “Mom and Dad are the bigger half. If the kids don’t stick together, we’ll never win.”

  “Halves are the same size, you dope,” Nora said impatiently.

  “Sophie’s right.” Thad slung his arm over Sophie’s shoulder and hugged her against his side so hard, she could hardly breathe. “I’m joining you, but not her,” he said, jerking his head at Nora.

  “Thad, don’t.” Sophie squirmed out from under his embrace. This was one time when she didn’t want to be his partner. “We want to get rid of the job list, don’t we?” she said pleadingly to Nora.

  “I’d rather get rid of Thad.”

  “Ditto to you,” said Thad. He held his hand up for Sophie to slap. “All for one, one for all, right, Soph?”

  “Good going, Sophie,” Nora said, after Sophie had reluctantly made her traitorous gesture and Thad had gone thundering up the stairs. “Just don’t ask me for any more advice, okay?” Nora banged the last book on the top of her considerable pile and started slowly out of the room.

  “At least now, maybe something will happen!” Sophie called.

  Nora didn’t bother to answer.

  “Something has to happen sometime, doesn’t it?” Sophie asked the empty room wistfully.

  The faint smell of garbage reassured her that it probably did.

  Chapter Seven

  “Whose week is it to set the table?” called Mrs. Hartley.

  Sophie tightened her grip on Maura’s hands. Maura had been staggering around the family room for what felt like hours, listing from side to side like a sailor on a tossing ship. Sophie’s back ached from the effort of bending over.

  She would gladly have gone on suffering for the rest of the night rather than face her mother in the kitchen. Technically, it was her week. She’d been able to avoid a confrontation so far because on Sunday night they had a barbecue and ate off paper plates. Sophie had defiantly left hers on the picnic table, but Thad crumpled them all up and practiced sinking shots with them in the garbage can.

  Then last night, Mrs. Hartley had to go to a meeting and left Thad in charge. They all ate pizza right out of the box. Their mother would have had a fit.

  “Sophie!”

  “I think Maura’s about to walk by herself!” shouted Sophie, stalling. She held her breath in the silence that followed.

  “Come set the table!”

  Sophie sighed and dumped Maura abruptly in her playpen. When Maura opened up her mouth to cry, Sophie quickly handed her a rubber giraffe to chew on.

  “We’re having hot dogs and baked beans,” her mother said when Sophie came into the kitchen. “You don’t have to bother with knives.”

  Mrs. Hartley was moving quickly between the stove, the sink, and the toaster oven. She didn’t turn around. “Be sure to put ketchup and relish on the table. Oh, and mustard. And call Nora to pour the milk, would you? It’s her week. And tell John to wash his hands.”

  Sophie didn’t move.

  “What’re you waiting for?” her mother asked, sounding slightly annoyed as she turned around. “Dinner’s ready.”

  “I can’t,” said Sophie.

  “Why not?”

  Her mother’s eyes had the wild, distracted look they got when she had too much to do and was about to say, “All I need is another pair of hands.”

  Watching her made Sophie feel guilty. It was one thing for them to go on strike against their parents. Ganging up against their mother felt a little mean. Sophie would have loved to jump in and help her.

  “The strike, remember?” she said.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

  Her mother had completely forgotten, Sophie could tell. For a split second, Sophie wished she could forget, too. That they all could, just for tonight. They could sit around the table and eat dinner like a happy family, the way they used to.

  Then her mother drew the battle line in the sand again.

  “I’ve had about as much of your silly little strike as I can take,” she said.

  Sophie’s back stiffened. “It’s not silly,” she said.

  Her mother stared at her for a minute without speaking, then turned and yanked open the cupboard door. She began pulling out dishes and crashing them on top of one another in a way she would have yelled at any of the children for doing. “Fine,” she said tersely. “We’ll have a do-it-yourself dinner, then. Go call the others.”

  The meal ended up being more of a free-for-all than a do-it-yourself.

  Thad made Nora mad by spearing three hot dogs to put on one roll. John insisted on pouring his own milk, dribbling half of it on the counter in the process. He insisted on helping himself to potato chips, too, and managed to dump almost the entire bag on his plate before Sophie could grab it from him. Chips flew all over the floor.

  She quickly got down on her hands and knees to gather them up, sneaking glances up at her mother to see if she had noticed.

  Her mother ignored it.

  Her mother ignored all of them, except for Maura, during the entire meal. She gave short, choppy answers when anyone talked to her and didn’t comment when Thad put his elbows on the table or when John blew bubbles in his milk with a straw.

  It was obvious that Thad had told John about the strike. John kept putting his hands over his mouth and jiggling his shoulders up and down to show how funny he thought it was. When their mother got up to get something from the refrigerator, Nora hissed to Thad, “For heaven’s sake, do something about him, would you?”

  Thad bopped John lightly on the head with his fork.

  It was a very short dinner.

  Mrs. Hartley finally lifted Maura out of her high chair and went over to the sink for a washcloth. “Dishwasher?” Thad m
outhed silently, looking around the table.

  Nora tapped her chest grimly.

  “Don’t do it!” John jumped up and jabbed his fork in the air like a sword. “We’re on str—” Thad clamped his hand over John’s mouth before he could finish and swept him, struggling, out of the kitchen.

  Sophie looked at the dirty plates on the table and then at Nora.

  “Go,” Nora mouthed.

  As Sophie came down the hall, John was marching back and forth in front of his bedroom with a long stick resting on his shoulder like a rifle, chanting. “Strike, strike, strike, strike. Strike, strike, strike, strike.”

  “You don’t even know what you’re striking for,” said Sophie, thinking it might be nice if she were six again and the strike was all a game.

  “For fun,” said John.

  She sat on her bed and played with her horses for a while. She combed out their tails and manes and made whinnying sounds, but her heart wasn’t in it. She couldn’t stop thinking about Nora and wondering what she was doing about the dirty dishes.

  She couldn’t leave them on the table. Their mother would have a fit. But if she put them in the dishwasher, she’d be breaking the strike. It was only a matter of time before the garbage started to smell again, too, Sophie realized gloomily, and it was getting harder and harder to find a place to sit in the family room that wasn’t covered with something.

  How could her mother go on sitting with them through dinners like the one tonight? And when he got home, what would their father do? What if their parents stopped eating with them altogether and they became one of those families where everyone ate standing up, whenever they wanted?

  Sophie thought all of her worrying must have jarred something loose in her brain because she suddenly heard clinking noises. Then Nora came into their room carrying a large plastic bag with both hands. Without a word to Sophie, or even a look, she knelt on the floor and yanked up the dust ruffle on Sophie’s bed.

  “What’re you doing?” Sophie asked.

  Nora started cramming the bag under the bed. “You don’t think I’m putting them under my bed, do you?” The job completed, Nora pulled the dust ruffle down again and stood up. “I did it this one time, but that’s it. You can figure out what to do with them tomorrow.”