by Nancy Rue
You just DO that! Sophie wanted to shout at him. I should have known you would find a reason not to believe in me. You would sure let Lacie do it!
It occurred to her as she stormed up the stairs to the attic that as far as she knew, Lacie had never even been asked to be in GATE. But that didn’t help.
Dr. Demetria Diggerty rested against the closed door of the excavation site and closed her eyes. Master LaCroix was more evil than she had imagined. How was she to fight him? How was she to rise to the top of her career with him forever holding her back?
And then the famous archaeologist opened her eyes, and she lifted her chin. How? How indeed! By refusing to give up. Yes, she must obey him as long as he WAS her master. But what if he wasn’t?
Tearing off her coat and rolling up her sleeves, Dr. Diggerty headed straight for the boxes that had not yet been unearthed. There must be some important paper that would tell her what she needed to know.
The sun lowered and slowly turned the site dim, but Dr. Demetria Diggerty dug on, through box after box, poring over papers written in some ancient language too difficult to understand. It was only when in desperation she opened the last box that she found what she was looking for. The moment she read its first line, the document fell from her fingers to the floor —
Sophie stood staring at it. She could hardly see it anymore through the blur of her tears. But she knew she would never forget the only line she had read—the only line she needed to read:
Thank you for your interest in adopting a child.
Sophie couldn’t do her homework that night. She wouldn’t talk to Fiona on the phone. She told Lacie she felt sick and shouldn’t eat dinner.
“She really misses Mama,” she heard Lacie tell Daddy. “I think we should just leave her alone.”
They did—although Sophie knew she could have been surrounded by a thousand people and she still would have felt alone. She was deep into No-God space, and there was no room there for anyone else.
She got herself up and dressed early the next morning and went out to the bus stop long before it was time to, so she didn’t have to say much to Daddy. She tried to imagine what Dr. Diggerty would do, but she realized right away that she didn’t want to go there. It was Dr. Diggerty who had revealed all this in the first place. If it wasn’t for all the digging into the past, maybe Sophie would never have discovered this thing about her life.
And imagining Jesus? That was out of the question. The minute she brought him to mind, she shut him out. She was mad at him. She was mad at God.
She was pretty much mad at everybody.
The bus was at least warm, and when she got on board, she hurried, head down, to her usual seat. As always, Harley and Gill were sitting in front of her, but they didn’t turn around. They seemed to be busy with a green binder that they were both reading from. That was okay with Sophie. She didn’t want to talk anyway.
Not even Fiona could console her during the day. Sophie couldn’t even tell her what she had found. The words just wouldn’t come out of her mouth.
She was headed for the bus that afternoon when Daddy was suddenly there beside her. Sophie froze right inside her jacket.
“I can ride the bus,” she said.
”I’m taking you to see Dr. Peter,” he said.
“It’s not my day!”
“It is now,” Daddy said.
He wasn’t yelling and his face wasn’t red and his jaws weren’t twitching as he talked about nothing all the way to Hampton. But he didn’t ask her why she was sitting there chewing at her gloves and banging her feet against the front of the seat, either. He didn’t even tell her why she was going to Dr. Peter’s.
And Sophie didn’t ask.
It was even hard to talk to Dr. Peter. She wrapped her arms around one of the face pillows and squeezed it and forced herself not to tell him she had found out she was adopted.
What if he already knows? she thought.
Sophie squeezed the pillow hard. That would mean that her Dr. Peter was now lying to her too, by keeping it from her. That might be the worse thought of all.
“So,” Dr. Peter said finally. “Must be tough with just your dad at home. He says you’re having a hard time.”
Sophie nodded, but she clamped her teeth together so she wouldn’t be tempted to blurt out something.
“Wow,” he said. “I can feel that anger all the way over here.”
She glared at him.
“You mad at your father?”
“Yes,” Sophie said, teeth still clenched. “And I’m mad at God too, so I don’t even want to talk about him.”
Dr. Peter picked up a face pillow, the one with the wart on the end of its nose. “She’s so mad at God, she isn’t even speaking to him.”
Sophie chewed at her lip and banged her feet against the front of the window seat.
“That’s what it’s like when you love somebody,” Dr. Peter said to the pillow. “You can get so mad at ’em, you can’t even talk to them.”
“I don’t love Daddy right now!” Sophie said.
She chomped down with her teeth again, but not so hard this time. Maybe it would be okay to tell Dr. Peter SOME of it. “I got recommended for GATE,” she said, “only HE won’t sign the permission paper because he says I’m not ready. He doesn’t even know anything about me!”
“Ouch,” Dr. Peter said. “That does hurt.”
“I know,” Sophie said, “and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s fine,” Dr. Peter said. “Then why don’t I talk for a minute?”
Sophie slouched back against the pillows and watched him form his words in his eyes.
“You say you’re mad at Jesus right now, so let me tell you about somebody else. You remember John the Baptist, the one who baptized Jesus?”
“His cousin,” Sophie said, before she clamped her mouth shut again.
“Right. John gathered friends around him, friends like you have, and, just like you, he picked them very carefully.” The eyes sparkled. “Not just any old person can be a Corn Flake, right? You have to have imagination and not be all about yourself and be willing to take risks.”
Sophie just nodded.
“Now, I want you to try to imagine yourself sitting down with John as one of his Corn Flakes. And I want you to think of him saying these words to you. You ready?”
“Sure,” Sophie said. It couldn’t hurt, even if it didn’t help.
“John’s friends were asking him if he was upset because suddenly a bunch of people were going to Jesus to be baptized, instead of to him. They wanted to know what was up with that. John was their main man!” Dr. Peter rubbed his palms together. “John told them Jesus was God’s Son—the Real Deal—and whoever accepted and trusted the Son got in on everything—a complete life here and a forever life after they left the earth.”
Sophie didn’t see how this applied to her.
“But—” Dr. Peter said, holding up a finger, “he also told them that the person who avoids and distrusts the Son is in the dark and doesn’t see life. To that person, God is just an angry darkness.”
Dr. Peter gave Sophie a smile that reminded her of the kind eyes she’d seen in her mind so many times. She fought back the tears that were making her throat tight.
“You’ve already learned that God loves you, Loodle,” he said. “Now that you know that, it’s your job to love him, always, with all your heart, no matter what happens. It’s okay to be angry with him, but you can’t stop loving him. If you do, all you have is angry darkness.”
“No-God space,” Sophie said.
Dr. Peter nodded and sat back. Sophie pulled some hair into a moustache under her nose and blinked her eyes hard so she wouldn’t cry those tears. Dr. Peter tilted his head at her.
“I haven’t seen you do that in a long time, Loodle,” he said. “And I think we need to do something about it.”
“Like what?” Sophie said.
“Like talk to Jesus, first of all, no matter how mad you are
at him. AND talk to your dad, no matter how angry you are with HIM. He needs to at least know how important this GATE program is to you.” He wrinkled his glasses up his nose as he watched her. “I would be willing to bet that you didn’t try very hard to discuss this with him.”
“No,” Sophie said. “I went to the attic and turned into Dr. Diggerty.”
Dr. Peter grinned. “I love that honesty, Loodle. Okay, so if you can, be that honest with your father too. Tell him how you feel.” He looked at the face pillow again. “What has she got to lose?” he said.
Ten
Sophie thought about that for halfway home in the car with Daddy before she decided Dr. Peter was right. She didn’t have anything else to lose.
She wriggled sideways in her seat belt and said, “I really want to be in the GATE program, and I know I can do it because I’m making all A’s and B’s now and I never ever did that before in my whole life.”
She hated it that her voice was high-pitched and shaky, so she stopped. She straightened back around and stared at gray Hampton as it turned into Poquoson. There. She had been honest.
“Then here’s the game plan,” Daddy said. “I’ll let you go into GATE, but if your grades drop even a half a point in any subject, I’m pulling you out. Can you deal with that?”
Sophie could only stare at him and nod. The minute she got home, she took the form and a pen to him, before he could change his mind.
But she still didn’t feel open and light and good again, even when she put the signed application on Mr. Denton’s desk the next morning. When she went back out into the hall to go look for Fiona and Kitty, Anne-Stuart suddenly emerged from the little knot of Corn Pops as Sophie passed and fell into step beside her.
“So you turned in your application,” she said.
“How did you know?” Sophie said.
“We saw you come in with it.”
Sophie stopped so she could look straight at the sniffly Anne-Stuart. “Are all of y’all in it?” she said.
“Just me and Julia—we got in last year, so we automatically get to apply again.”
“Oh,” Sophie said.
She tried to move on, but Anne-Stuart grabbed her sleeve.
“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up,” Anne-Stuart said. “Just because Mr. Denton picks you, doesn’t mean you’ll get in. OTHER people look at you for OTHER things.”
“What ‘other things’?” Sophie said.
“Well,” Anne-Stuart said, slowly, as if she DIDN’T already know EXACTLY what she was going to say. “They want to find out if you have a lot of problems. Not like with schoolwork, but OTHER problems.” She let go of Sophie’s sleeve and gave her shoulder a pat. “I just thought you should know that before you got too excited about getting in.”
Sophie refused to watch Anne-Stuart as she returned to the waiting Corn Pops. She held her own head high until she was around the corner and had passed through the double doors into the hall that led to the cafeteria. As soon as she knew she was out of sight, she let her shoulders drop, and she made her way somehow behind the curtains on the stage, where she sank to the floor.
She’s right, Sophie thought. I do have problems.
And Dr. Peter, it seemed, was wrong—because she didn’t even want to try to find the God-space right now.
Once again, Fiona, and even Kitty, tried to cheer her up during the day. When science class was over and Sophie was headed out for the bus, Fiona pressed the purple notebook into her hands.
“At least take this home, Demetria,” she said. “It will fill the hours.”
“I’m not Demetria,” Sophie said. “I don’t know WHO I am.”
But Fiona’s gray eyes drooped so suddenly and so far down, Sophie took the “Treasures.” She didn’t look at it on the bus, though, even when every other girl on there gathered around that same green binder she’d seen Gill and Harley with, reading as if it contained all the secrets of the universe. Nobody invited her to look at it with them, not even the Wheaties, but that was okay. She didn’t care.
Daddy made her eat McDonald’s with them before she escaped to her room that night. It seemed to her to be cruel and unusual punishment, as Fiona would have said, to have to consume rubber French fries while listening to Lacie gush to Daddy about how wonderful he had been with her English teacher.
“She’s letting me retake the quiz!” she said.
“Score,” Daddy said. And they high-fived each other.
“May I be excused?” Sophie said.
The minute she was in her room, however, she realized that she’d left her backpack downstairs.
I’m gonna wait until everybody’s off doing their thing before I go down and get it, she decided. I can’t listen to Lacie anymore.
But as she sprawled across her bed, it was hard for Sophie NOT to hear Lacie in her head—because she wanted so much to be saying things like that herself.
Daddy—thank you SO much for standing up for me!
Daddy—you are my hero.
Daddy—you’re the best. I mean, the BEST.
Sophie closed her eyes to try to shut it out. Jesus was there, before she even tried to imagine him.
He didn’t say anything—of course. Dr. Peter had told her many times that she could only imagine Jesus and talk to him and then wait for him to answer in one of the many ways he did his work.
But his eyes were different this time. They were still kind, but they were also stern—and not like Daddy-stern, just please-listen-to-me firm, the way Dr. Peter’s had been that very day.
“Okay,” Sophie whispered. “I’ll listen.”
It was strangely quiet. Even Zeke wasn’t banging on something or wailing for Mama. But Sophie didn’t hear anything.
I should listen to the Bible, she thought. That was the OTHER thing Dr. Peter kept telling her. Just that day—what was that thing about darkness? Angry darkness …
Suddenly, Sophie began to shiver. “I don’t want to be in the dark anymore,” she whispered. “It’s scary here.”
She could feel something wet trailing into each ear. “I’m sorry I thought I didn’t love you,” she whispered. But I’m so mad —
Sophie lay there for a long time after that. It got dark in her room. But it wasn’t quite so dark inside her.
After a while, there was a knock on the door, and Lacie stuck her head in and snapped on the light.
“Are you okay?” she said.
“Yes,” Sophie said. She sat up, squinting, and turned away so Lacie wouldn’t see the tears.
“I miss her too,” Lacie said.
Sophie started to face her, wanted to say, “Isn’t it heinous, Lacie?” But Lacie was already halfway out the door.
“Daddy wanted me to make sure you were doing your homework,” she said.
When Lacie was gone, Sophie hauled herself off the bed and scrubbed the tears away with her fists before she put her glasses back on.
I’m going to obey and I’m going to love, she told herself firmly as she went down the steps. No matter how mad I get.
When she got to the family room, Daddy was sitting in his chair, thumbing through a book.
It was “Treasures.”
That’s my private property! she wanted to scream at him. It’s none of your business!
She reached down, snatched up her open backpack from the floor, and tore back up the stairs. Whether Daddy saw or heard her or not, she didn’t know. The next morning, she stalked to the bus stop without the purple notebook.
You’re REALLY going to have to help me, Jesus, she prayed. Because this is MEGA-hard.
She got to school ahead of Fiona again, and she went straight to her locker. The minute she got there, she knew something was wrong. The door was already partway open.
Sophie pulled it open the rest of the way, and something fell out on her feet.
It was a green binder.
I’m not touching that, Sophie thought. I know they put it in here so they could say I stole it or something.
>
Sophie was tempted to leave it there on the floor, until she saw a bright pink Post-It Note sticking out of the pages. Someone had printed in tidy letters: SOPHIE READ THIS!
Sophie picked up the binder and stuffed it into her backpack. Without even saying hi to Mr. Denton, she hurried to the cafeteria stage, parked near a narrow opening in the curtain so she could see to read, and opened the binder.
She scanned the other pages first, and as she read, she could feel her eyes bulging.
There was a page for every girl in sixth grade, even in the other classes. The name was written at the top, and below it, each one in a different colored gel pan, other people had written comments about them. No one had signed any of the comments, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who had written most of them. Not only was there a bra size written at the top of each page, but most of the comments —except for those about the Corn Pops—were harsh and ugly and heinous.
They said Fiona thought she was all that because she had a lot of money.
They said Kitty was a whiner and a baby and was never loyal to anybody.
They said Vette and Nikki were really boys because all they talked about was cars, and no real girl would do that.
Julia got comments like she is the prettiest girl in the whole school—and the nicest.
Anne-Stuart was rewarded with—totally smart. Smarter than Fiona even THINKS she is.
B.J.—a friend you can totally count on.
By the time she had skimmed through the binder, Sophie was terrified to turn to the page marked, SOPHIE READ THIS! But there seemed to be a strange pull on her fingers as she turned to the pink Post-It Note. There was no way she couldn’t read it.
The first comment was written in ice-blue ink. Soapie LaCroix is so weerd. We all know she’s way behind diveloping— she has NO breasts at all and probly never will. But she’s behind-in-the-mind too.
In turquoise ink, someone else had picked up the theme. She has to see a shrink because she’s a syko—psycko—crazy.
The person with the green pen had written: I used to think it was totally strange that she could be such a freek and her sister Lacey at the middle school could be so totally kewl. But now it makes total sense. She’s adopted, and she’s too stoopid to know it.