Sophie’s Secret (10 page)

That was all Sophie had to hear. She crept back up the stairs, clutching her math homework in her sweaty hand.

Sophie didn’t even have a chance to tell Fiona and Kitty the next morning before Maggie was suddenly there in the hallway with them.

“I know you said you didn’t want to know,” she said, without a hi or anything, “but I think you should let me tell you about the rumor that’s being spread about you.”

Sophie was sure she couldn’t carry another thing in her mind. ALL the space, God or No-God, was being taken up with the biggest worry on the planet.

“Why does she need to know it?” Fiona said.

“Because it’s getting worse,” Maggie said. “And it’s going to keep getting worse if Sophie doesn’t stop it.”

“The only reason it’s getting worse for me is because YOU keep bringing it up!” someone shouted, someone who didn’t sound like Sophie, but was. “I told you, I DON’T WANT TO KNOW. So leave me alone! Just leave me alone!”

Everyone in the hallway outside the Language Arts room stopped and stared. Even Fiona’s jaw had dropped. Kitty was whimpering.

But it was Maggie who looked the most stunned of all. She took a step backward and let the cement look take over her eyes, but not before Sophie saw the flash of hurt go through them.

“I’m sorry,” Sophie said. Her voice was already shaking.

“Too bad,” Maggie said. “Now you’re just gonna have to find out for yourself.”

She stomped into the room, passing Mr. Denton on the way.

“Everything all right out here?” he said.

“No,” somebody said. “Sophie just pitched a fit, right in Maggie’s face.”

It was Anne-Stuart reporting. Fiona groaned under her breath.

“As if she gives a rip about Maggie,” she whispered.

“Thanks for the update, Anne-Stuart,” Mr. Denton said.

He smiled at her until she gave up and went on into the room, followed by B.J. and Willoughby, who looked as if they were about to belch.

“You okay, Sophie?” Mr. Denton said when they were gone.

“Yes, sir,” Sophie lied.

The bell rang.

“Take a minute and then come on in,” he said, and he closed the classroom door.

Fiona and Sophie were left in the hall.

“You go, girl,” Fiona said.

“What?”

“Way to stand up to Maggie. She was pushing way too hard.”

“I shouldn’t have yelled at her like that.”

“Like you had a choice! If you hadn’t, she would have kept standing there poking at you until you listened to her stupid rumor. You don’t need that, and I was proud of you.”

But as Sophie trailed behind her into the classroom, she felt anything but proud. There was no place for feeling good about yourself in the Land of No God.

One thing was sure, though, she decided as the day dragged on with people—especially the Corn Pops—staring at her and whispering behind their hands. She had to ask Mama or Daddy for the truth.

And it certainly wasn’t hard to decide which one to go to. Mama might stand behind Daddy on everything he said, but at least she didn’t yell.

Sophie worked up to it all day, ignoring the whispers and stares at lunch and during classes and trying to imagine herself talking to Mama. It seemed odd to her that even though she didn’t TRY to picture Jesus as she planned her approach, his kind face kept popping up, when she least expected it.

Okay, okay,
she told him.
I’ll obey whatever they tell me. But I still think I have a right to know.

She was completely ready when she got off the bus and walked “sedately” as Fiona would put it, up to the back door. The question for Mama was already on her lips when she stepped into the kitchen and found Boppa at the sink.

“Hello, little wisp of a girl,” Boppa said to her. He was smiling his usual I’m-happy-to-see-you smile, but the eyes beneath the caterpillar eyebrows were sad.

“Where’s Mama?” she said.

Boppa put a glass of milk on the snack bar and motioned for her to sit.

“Where is she?” Sophie said. “There’s something wrong, I know it.”

“There is,” Boppa said. “Your mama went to Minneapolis. Her dad—your grandpa—is very sick. She’s gone to see him.”

“Is she coming back?” Sophie said.

“Of course she’s coming back,” Boppa said. “But she’s your grandpa’s only kid, and since there isn’t a grandma anymore, it’s up to your mama to take care of him.”

Sophie looked hopefully into Boppa’s eyes. “So am I coming to stay at your house?”

“You know, I’d really like that,” Boppa said. “But you kids are going to stay here with your dad. Your mama wants the family together.”

“Oh,” Sophie said.

And she felt the No-God space grow bigger.

Nine

L
acie was the next one to come home and find out about Mama. To Sophie’s utter AMAZEMENT, she immediately burst into tears.

“Mama can’t be gone!” she cried. “I NEED her!”

“Your dad will be home shortly,” Boppa said. He looked as if he wished Daddy would walk in the door within the next seven seconds.

“I don’t want him! He won’t understand!”

Sophie shifted from “amazed” to “absolutely flabbergasted.”

Lacie dumped her backpack on the floor and flung both hands up to her face. “I failed my English quiz!”

“You?” Sophie said.

“I read the wrong story! And if I get below a C on my progress report, Coach won’t let me play in the next game—and I’m the CAPTAIN!”

“Lacie, I think your father will understand,” Boppa said.

“No!” Lacie said. “He’ll yell! He’ll say I wasn’t responsible—”

“Not aware of your surroundings,” Sophie said.

“I KNOW! Shut UP!”

Lacie slid down the wall and sat on the floor and sobbed. That woke Zeke up from his nap, and the minute he saw Lacie crying, he started. Sophie was about to escape to the attic in search of Dr. Demetria Diggerty when Daddy walked in with a bag with Chinese writing on it.

He took one look at the two crumpled heaps on the floor, said good-bye to Boppa, and made the three of them sit up at the snack bar, containers in front of them, chopsticks in hand. He stood across from them, leaning on the stove, and said,

“Okay, one at a time. Zeke—you first—you’re the loudest.” Daddy looked at Lacie. “You think you can hold it in for five minutes?”

Lacie gave a miserable nod.

“What’s up, Z?”

“I want Mama!”

“I do too, pal,” Daddy said. “The good news is, she’ll be back.

The even better news is, this means a lot of McDonald’s.”

“Every day?” Zeke said.

“Whatever it takes,” Daddy said.

Zeke tore into his fortune cookies, and Daddy turned to Lacie.

“Next. What’s with the tears?”

Lacie poured out her story, crying all over her chow mein. Although Sophie saw Daddy’s face-muscles twitch, he just said, “No problem. I’ll talk to your teacher—we’ll get it straightened out.”

“But when? You’ll be at work all day!”

“I’m working at home in the afternoon while your mom’s gone. I’ll pick Zeke up from kindergarten and be here when you girls get home from school.” He straightened up from the stove. “I’m Mama until the real Mama gets back.”

Sophie put her chopsticks down. Fried rice suddenly tasted like sawdust.

Sure—you’re going to go stand up for Lacie with her teacher, even though her mistake was HER OWN FAULT!
she felt like yelling at him.
But you haven’t even ASKED me if I have any problems.

But Sophie decided right then he couldn’t help her anyway. He wasn’t enough Mama for that.

Which was why the next morning she practically RAN straight from the bus to Mr. Denton’s room without looking for Fiona and Kitty. She didn’t want Fiona grilling her about whether she had asked about the adoption.

Mr. Denton was grading papers when she arrived, and she tried to skip past him to go back to her locker. There was really nobody she wanted to have a conversation with. But he looked up and smiled at her.

“Sophie!” he said. “Just the person I need to talk to.”

Sophie dragged herself back to his desk. “I want to recommend you for the Gifted and Talented Program,” he said. “You know, GATE. I need for you to take this letter and application home and have your mom or dad help you fill it out, and then one of them needs to sign it.”

Sophie stared at the papers he held out to her.

“Me?” she said.

“Of course, you,” Mr. Denton said. “And Fiona. And Kitty.”

“Why?” Sophie said.

Mr. Denton leaned back in his chair with his eyebrows scrambled together. “Because you’re three of the most creative students I’ve ever had. You all need to be in GATE.” His lips twitched. “Unless you don’t WANT to, of course—”

“I do!” Sophie said. “Thank you!”

Suddenly, she could feel her chest going loose, as if some space were opening up in there. Maybe God was coming back …

When Fiona arrived she slipped into the table beside Sophie and went straight to a piece of news.

“The Corn Pops are passing a notebook around to each other,” she whispered “They’re writing in it.”

“What do you think it means?” Sophie said.

“I think it means they’re trying to be like US. Theirs isn’t purple, of course.”

“Of course,” Sophie said.

She had an open and light and good feeling, and she couldn’t wait to get home that afternoon and show Daddy the application. Maybe it didn’t even matter if he was her birth parent or not, as long as he was proud of her.

He was at the dining room table with his laptop computer and his cell phone and his electronic organizer. Zeke was at the other end of the table, chowing down on a Happy Meal.

Sophie just put the application in front of Daddy and waited for his face to beam.

But it didn’t.

He studied the form and the letter for a long time. With each minute that passed, Sophie could feel her open space closing up again. Finally, she couldn’t stand it.

“Aren’t you proud of me?” she said.

“I’m happy your teacher thinks this much of you,” he said. “And he’s right—you’re definitely creative.”

There was such a huge “but” in his voice, Sophie could almost see it.

“But, Soph,” he said, “I’m not sure you’re ready for this. I’m not convinced you have the basics down yet.”

Sophie stared at him. Her chest was closing in like something was pressing against it.

“You mean, you’re not gonna let me do it?” she said.

“I mean I need to think about it,” he said.

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.