Sophie Hartley and the Facts of Life (12 page)

“Mom said I was gifted,” said Sophie. “So there.”

“Idiot savant is more like it.” Nora typed a bit more, then suddenly jumped as though the seat had shocked her and cried, “Omigod!” in a pleased voice. “I don't believe it!”

“What? One of your
boy
friends again?”

“It's none of your business!” Nora cried, plastering her arms and upper body across the computer screen. “Stop reading my mail!”

It wasn't as if she were holding a pair of binoculars to her eyes, Sophie thought disgustedly. Nora had been acting nuts lately. It was all because she had become boy crazy over the past few months.

She and her friends giggled and shrieked about boys so much, you would have thought they'd never seen one before. Sophie didn't understand why Nora found them so interesting. Especially after living with their brothers, John and Thad.

Boys were—well, boys were either boring or annoying, as far as Sophie could see. The boys in her class walked around flapping their arms with their hands in their armpits to make farting noises. They read joke books, too, then told dumb jokes that nobody laughed at except other boys.

“I don't see why you make such a big deal about boys,” Sophie said. “They're exactly the same as girls. You're being sexist.”

Sexist was a new word some of the girls in Sophie's class were using. It meant someone who thought boys were better than girls. The girls said boys were sexist. And here was Nora acting sexist herself.

“Right, Sophie. Exactly the same,” Nora said. “That shows how much you know, you baby.”

Sophie was about to defend herself when Maura grabbed a fistful of Sophie's hair and tried to pull herself to her feet. Sophie yelped and yanked her hair out of her sister's hands, sending Maura onto her bottom again. At that second, their mother appeared in the doorway.

It was Thursday, which meant Mrs. Hartley had started work at 7:30 in the morning, picked Maura up at daycare at 4:00 and dropped her at home, and then gone to pick up John at his tae kwon do class at 4:45. She was always tired by the time she got home on Thursdays.

“Oh, for heaven's sake, Sophie,” her mother said. She snatched Maura up before she could utter her first scream and took a quick sniff of Maura's diaper. “You're getting too old to fight with a two-year-old.”

“She pulled my hair,” Sophie said, rubbing the back of her head.

“That's because you dig in.” Her mother glanced at the pencil between Sophie's toes as she turned to leave. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Communicating with apes,” Nora told her.

“That, I can believe,” said Mrs. Hartley.

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S
TEPHANIE
G
REENE
is the author of close to two dozen books for children, including picture books, chapter books, and middle-grade novels. Her Clarion titles include the Owen Foote books and the first three books about Sophie Hartley. The recipient of the MFA degree in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College, Ms. Greene lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her husband.