Sophie Steps Up Read online

  Two

  Sophie could hardly keep her mind on math and science in Mrs. Utley’s classes that afternoon, and for once it wasn’t because she was imagining herself as Antoinette the French heroine, or Dr. Demetria Diggerty the archaeologist, or Astronaut Stella Stratos. All she could think about was what on earth the Corn Flakes were going to do with one under-trained ballerina and a piano player who could only clunk out some old song about a dog.

  She was trying to picture how they could get Fiona’s talent for using big words in there when she heard Fiona coughing.

  That was the signal that Sophie was in danger of being caught flitting into Sophie World instead of multiplying numbers with decimals. When she looked up, Fiona was jerking her head toward the Corn Pops.

  They had their math books open, but their pencils were scrawling out the notes they were passing to each other.

  Probably more ideas for their “spectacular dance,” Sophie thought. I’m really glad I’m going to see Dr. Peter today. I know he can help.

  Dr. Peter was Sophie’s therapist — her sister, Lacie, still said he was her psychiatrist, even though he wasn’t — and one of her favorite people in the galaxy. He was the one who had made it so she could have her camera and make better grades and have real friends. If it weren’t for him, Sophie knew she would still be thinking Daddy didn’t love her as much as he did Lacie and Zeke.

  Mama was in front of the school in the Suburban to pick her up after her last class and take her to Hampton, where Dr. Peter had his office. As usual, Sophie’s five-year-old brother, Zeke, was in the backseat yacking his head off.

  “I liked it better when we went to Dr. Peter every week,” he said to Sophie, instead of hello.

  “We?” Mama said. She gave Sophie her gentle grin, which Sophie always figured was a lot like her own. Mama was small and elfish like her too, and her hair would be brown if she didn’t streak it so it caught the light. “You never had a session with Dr. Peter, Zeke!”

  “He’s talking about the ice cream,” Sophie said. “He knows you’ll take him to Dairy Queen while you’re waiting for me.”

  “Only now it’s way too long between times,” Zeke said. He puckered his forehead so that he looked like a miniature of Daddy. Except Daddy didn’t wear his dark hair sticking up everywhere.

  “Two weeks is not a long time,” Mama said to him.

  Sometimes it is, Sophie thought. Even back when they had first switched from twice a week to once a week, Sophie had felt like it was forever from one Dr. Peter visit to another. Now that she went only twice a month, she could store up so many things to talk to him about there was hardly time to spill it all out in the one hour they had.

  But today I’m gonna talk about one thing, she told herself as Mama pulled up to the building, and that’s the showcase.

  As always, Dr. Peter was waiting for her at the front counter with his blue eyes twinkling behind his glasses and his mouth in a watermelon slice of a smile. Sophie loved those things about him — and the short, curly hair stiff with gel, and the faded freckles that danced on his face. She also liked it that he wasn’t as tall as a lot of adults, especially Daddy, who towered over everybody. Daddy was getting better about not looking down at her, but Dr. Peter never had.

  “Your shirt has four-leaf clovers on it!” Sophie said as she followed him back to the room where they always talked.

  “St. Patrick’s Day isn’t far away,” he said. “I’ll be celebrating it all month.”

  “Why?” Sophie said. She settled herself on the window seat and selected one of the pillows shaped like a face. She always tried to pick one that had an expression to match what she was feeling. With the one wearing stern eyebrows and a straight yarn mouth firmly in her arms, she was ready.

  “Because I’m Irish,” Dr. Peter said. “And proud of it.” He popped his eyes at Sophie. “Don’t tell me you don’t like corned beef and cabbage!”

  “Yucko-poohy!” Sophie said. “No offense.”

  “None taken. Now . . .” He nodded at the pillow. “Do you want to tell me why you chose Mr. Determined to hold today?”

  “Because I AM determined,” Sophie said. “Do you want me to tell you why?”

  Dr. Peter grinned. “Do I have a choice?”

  Sophie plunged into the story, using different voices for the Flakes and the Pops and Miss Blythe, complete with her finger-making commas and question marks in the air. When she was finished she was out of breath. So was Dr. Peter.

  “Whew!” he said. “That was some fast storytelling.”

  “I wanted plenty of time for us to discuss what I’m going to do,” Sophie said.

  Dr. Peter peered over the top of his glasses. Sophie did the same back with hers.

  “What YOU are going to do?” he said. “Don’t all the Corn Flakes have to decide?”

  “We all have to agree,” Sophie said. “But they expect me to come up with the best ideas because — well, that’s the way it always is.” She shrugged. “I’m not smarter — I’ve just had more practice thinking things up. And besides, I have to keep everybody from fighting. You know how they are.”

  Dr. Peter nodded soberly. Sophie had told him all about the problems the Corn Flakes had had in the past with Maggie being bossy and Kitty being afraid of her and Fiona being jealous of her because Sophie had gotten to like Maggie. It was Dr. Peter who had helped her figure out what the Corn Flakes Girls Guidelines should be. Things like no eye rolling.

  “What’s the worst that can happen if you don’t come up with a brilliant idea for the group?” Dr. Peter said.

  “Miss Blythe will give us some lame poem to recite and everybody will laugh at us and we’ll get a bad grade and my father will take away my camera and there won’t be any more Corn Flakes Productions and the Corn Pops will win and they will throw it smack-dab into our faces for the rest of our lives!”

  Dr. Peter blinked at her behind his glasses. “All right then,” he said. “I guess I’d better give you some help.”

  Sophie let out a relief sigh that came all the way from her heels, and she sank back into the pile of pillows. Dr. Peter pulled out his Bible, the one in the case with the frog on it. That was where the answers always were.

  “How about a Jesus story?” he said.

  “How about yes!”

  “Now tell me again why we do this.”

  Sophie sat up straighter. “I can get to know Jesus better if I imagine him better, so then I’ll know what to ask him and I’ll know if the answer I think I’m getting later is really from him.”

  “You’re amazing,” Dr. Peter said. “I’m going to write down where the story is in the gospel for you to read later, because I want us to have time to talk about something else.”

  Sophie settled herself more comfortably while Dr. Peter wrote on a sticky note shaped like a shamrock.

  “There you go. It’s going to be a piece of corned beef for you to figure this one out.”

  “Don’t you mean a piece of cake?” Sophie said.

  “Nae, wee lass!” he cried in an accent Sophie had once heard from a policeman on an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. “It’s corned beef I mean and so it is! In any case — you’ll figure it out in the wink of an eye.”

  “And I’ll report back to you in two weeks.” Sophie tried to say it with the accent, but it came out sounding more like Bugs Bunny himself than the policeman.

  “Ah — that’s what I need to talk about.” Dr. Peter rubbed his hand across his lips like he was erasing his Irish accent. When he spoke again it was in his real voice, the soft version. “You are doing so well, my friend,” he said. “I wonder if you might like to try seeing me just once a month now.”

  No! Sophie wanted to shout. No — I need you! How will I ever —

  “You’ve learned so much,” Dr. Peter went on, “and you’ve come in week after week telling me all the ways you’re using everything you’ve learned. Pretty soon you’re going to be taking on clients of your own.”

  “But
I still need you!” Sophie said. “Don’t I?”

  “Do you?” Dr. Peter said. “Think about it.”

  “I guess I know how to do my best in school now,” she said slowly. “And I get along with my dad.”

  “Those are big. And do you need me to help you keep doing those things? Aren’t you doing them on your own now?”

  Sophie pulled a strand of hair under her nose, like a mustache. “I am,” she said finally.

  “Then be proud of yourself! I even have a reward for you.”

  Dr. Peter reached into a basket on the floor and pulled out two huge green top hats, which he popped onto their heads.

  Sophie’s hung down over her eyes.

  “Ah, you have a bit of the Irish now, you do!” he said.

  Sophie let a silvery giggle escape from her throat, but then she wilted again.

  “Talk to me,” Dr. Peter said. His face beneath the hat’s brim was serious and kind.

  “I’m afraid,” Sophie said. “What if I start messing up again?”

  “I’ll be right here if you need me.”

  “But how will I know if I really need you?”

  “You mean, what would be the signs?”

  She pumped her head up and down.

  “Okay — one . . .” He pulled up a stuffed finger on a pillow. “If you find yourself escaping into one of your characters when you shouldn’t be — like in school or when your dad is talking to you — and you’re doing it to hide from something painful, that would be a sign.”

  “Then I could ask Mama to call you for a session?”

  “If — and this is number two.” Dr. Peter lifted another puffy finger. “If your parents can’t help you with whatever is bothering you that makes you want to escape into Antoinette or someone.”

  Sophie could feel her eyebrows pulling together.

  “You can trust them, Sophie-Lophie-Loodle,” he said.

  At the sound of his nickname for her, Sophie thought she was going to cry. That was okay in Dr. Peter’s office, but she still blinked back the tears.

  “They’ve learned a lot from their sessions with me too,” Dr. Peter said. “And they’ve already proved that they understand you better.”

  “I know,” Sophie said. “But I’ll miss you.”

  The tears did come then, and she let them stream down her face. Dr. Peter had always told her tears would help her wash away things that hurt.

  “I’ll miss you too, Loodle,” he said. “But I’m still going to see you every month for as long as you need me.”

  “Promise?” she said.

  Dr. Peter’s face got soft and mushy. “I promise. I’ll try not to let you down.”

  And because he said that, Sophie was able to feel a little bit proud. She decided that was going to be her high at the dinner table that night.

  Every evening at supper lately, Daddy asked everyone to tell their high for the day and their low — the best thing that happened and the worst. Sophie was pretty sure he had learned that from Dr. Peter.

  “My high is that I get to go on my first youth group retreat this weekend,” Lacie burst out that night almost before they had said “Amen” to the blessing. “And my low is that I don’t have anything to wear. Mama, could we please go to the mall?”

  Lacie didn’t look at Mama when she said it, but at Daddy.

  Here we go, Sophie thought. Lacie thinks she can get Daddy to do anything she wants him to.

  Of course, it seemed to her that it kind of made sense, since Lacie was so much like Daddy. She had his dark hair and his height — she was tall for a thirteen-year-old girl. And she played every sport in the world, just like he always had, and she made straight As — which Daddy still would if they gave grades at NASA, the space center where he was a scientist. Besides that, Lacie and Daddy were both organized and practical and didn’t understand that much about being creative, not as far as Sophie could tell. What was creative about shooting a basketball into a hoop until even your hair was sweating?

  “How much is this going to cost me?” Daddy said to Lacie.

  “Nothing,” Mama said. “She has more clothes than Dillard’s as it is.”

  “Dillard’s has an apostrophe,” Zeke said.

  While Mama and Daddy and Lacie all went nuts over how intelligent Zeke was, Sophie got herself geared up to deliver her high and low. She had an idea that just might work.

  But Zeke got to go next because he was suddenly the child genius.

  “High,” he said. “I got banilla ice cream dipped in choc-lit at Dairy Queen.”

  Lacie gave a snort. “You can say ‘apostrophe’ but you can’t pronounce ‘vanilla’?”

  “What was your low, Z?” Mama said.

  Zeke frowned, his dark little eyebrows trying to hood his eyes. “I gotta wait a whole month before I get another one, because Sophie isn’t going back to Dr. Peter ’til then.”

  “He just took my high!” Sophie said.

  “But congratulations, Soph!” Daddy said. He gave a grin that was as big and square as his shoulders. “Go, girl.”

  “We’re proud of you,” Mama said.

  Lacie surveyed Sophie as she swirled her fork through her veggie stir-fry. “Then how come you’re still weird?” she said.

  Daddy made a loud buzzing sound, which meant Lacie was not playing by team rules.

  “I also had a low,” Sophie said.

  “Is it the same as your high?” Lacie said. “You totally have a crush on the guy.”

  No, Sophie wanted to say. You are my low. But instead she told them about the showcase and how Miss Blythe wouldn’t let the Corn Flakes make a film.

  “Bummer,” Daddy said.

  “It’s a total suppression of our creative gifts!” Sophie said, Fiona-like.

  Lacie looked at Daddy. “What did she just say?”

  “So, Daddy,” Sophie said, “could you and Mama please talk to Miss Blythe and tell her that we’re really good at making films and they aren’t lame — ”

  Lacie grunted.

  “ — and it’s what we’re going to do our whole lives so we should be allowed to — ”

  She stopped, because Daddy was pointing his fork at her. “Nice try, Soph,” he said. “But it sounds like Miss Blythe knows what she’s doing. I’m sure you and your crowd can come up with something else.”

  “I told you that you would be more well-rounded,” Lacie said to her, “if you didn’t spend all your time pretending you’re Hannah Montana or somebody.”

  “Lacie,” Mama said, “did you miss the part where Sophie already has a mother?”

  Any other time, Sophie would have taken a minute to enjoy the fact that for once Lacie was the one getting in trouble. But right now she was staring at Daddy, watching her great idea dissolve in the discussion-over look on his face.

  “Do you want to brainstorm together?” Mama said to Sophie.

  Sophie shook her head.

  She was missing Dr. Peter already.

  Three

  When Sophie got to school the next morning, she headed for the cafeteria. That was where the Corn Flakes met before classes when it was bad weather or they had something very private to discuss. It was their secret planning place — on the stage behind the closed curtains, way back in the corner where scenery from past performances lurked in the darkness.

  As Sophie slipped behind the curtain, which was more dust than velvet, she spotted the shadowy Corn Flakes hunched together on hay bales left over from the second grade’s Barnyard Showcase. She felt like she was wearing cement shoes as she trudged toward them, because she didn’t have a scathingly brilliant idea. She didn’t even have a lame one.

  Maggie already had the Corn Flakes’ Treasure Book out, as well as the peach gel pen. She definitely hadn’t used up all its ink at their last meeting.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” Fiona said before Sophie could even find a spot to sit on a bale of hay. “We should have our own auditions. We can each present our idea like we’re performing
it. That way we really see what it could look like.”

  Maggie wrote that down in neat, steady cursive, while Kitty’s voice spiraled up into a whine Sophie was sure only dogs could hear.

  “I don’t know how to do that!” she said. “You’re making it hard, Fiona.”

  Sophie could tell Fiona wanted to roll her eyes, but it was a Corn Flake rule that they weren’t allowed to make each other — or anybody else — feel like they were dumb.

  Kitty gave a nervous giggle. “Okay — well — mine’s a thing my sisters and I used to do — ”

  “Show us,” Fiona said.

  “Okay — one of us sits on a chair like we’re getting our hair fixed so whoever it is has a sheet on — only your hands are tied behind your back . . .” She demonstrated. “And then somebody else gets behind that person, but under the sheet with only their arms sticking out — ”

  She fumbled with her arms for a minute and then directed Fiona to get behind her.

  “So Fiona’s the arms and you’re everything else,” Sophie said.

  “Right, and then one of us that’s left tells the girl in front to do different stuff like put on lipstick or comb her hair.” Kitty’s words were now coming out in giggle-bubbles. “Only it’s the one behind with arms that does it, so — ”

  “Tell us to do something,” Fiona said.

  “Get down so you can’t see what you’re doing,” Kitty said. “That’s the best part.”

  Kitty was giggling so hard, Sophie had to laugh herself.

  “Brush your teeth,” Sophie said.

  “She doesn’t have a toothbrush,” Maggie said.

  “Pretend.”

  Fiona grabbed an imaginary toothbrush and went after Kitty’s teeth, landing halfway up her nostrils. Kitty let out a shriek.

  “Pick your nose,” Maggie said.

  “No!” Kitty cried — but she leaned her face forward to poke out the little china-nose, and Fiona stuck a finger right into Kitty’s ear.

  Even Maggie was laughing now — a chuckle that came from somewhere down deep. “Feed yourself a banana,” she said.

  “Wash your hands first!” Sophie said.