Sophie’s Secret (13 page)

“What’s up, Mr. D.?” Julia said.

Mr. Denton picked up the binder and let it drop again.

All four sets of Corn Pop eyes went to Maggie. She didn’t even flinch.

“I understand you are responsible for this,” Mr. Denton said.

“Us?” B.J. said. “Are our names on it or something?”

“No, but your handwriting is. I’ve graded enough of your papers to know it when I see it.”

“We didn’t—” Anne-Stuart started to say.

But Julia stopped her with the tiniest shake of thick hair. “We aren’t the only ones, Mr. Denton,” she said. “We would never have thought of doing a Slam Book if they hadn’t started it first.” She tossed the hair at Sophie and Fiona.

“I don’t even know what a Slam Book is!” Kitty wailed.

“She’s still such a whiner,” Sophie heard Willoughby mutter to Anne-Stuart.

“What do you mean, ‘they started it’?” Mr. Denton said. “You’re saying there’s another one of these floating around?”

“Yes,” Julia said. She swept her eyes over the Corn Pops, who all nodded like a panel of judges. “It’s purple and they treat it like it’s the Bible or something.”

“We saw them passing it around to each other,” Anne-Stuart said, “and Willoughby said it was a Slam Book.”

Willoughby looked a little stricken, until B.J. nudged her with an elbow.

“Didn’t you tell your mom about it and she said it sounded like the Slam Books she and her friends used to keep when she was a kid?”

Willoughby gave a poodle-like yip, which Sophie assumed was a “yes.”

“That explanation is supposed to clear this up for me?” Mr. Denton said. “You THOUGHT these girls had a Slam Book, so you felt like you needed to start one too?”

The Corn Pops looked at Julia. Sophie could almost see her fighting under her own skin to somehow come out still being the poster girl. It was almost sad.

“You know what?” Julia said. Her eyes suddenly sparkled with tears. “Ever since we got in trouble for the way we treated Kitty, everybody has been thinking that these girls—” She passed a hand over Fiona and Sophie’s heads. “They think these girls are the greatest thing, like, ever—and we’re the bad girls all of a sudden.” She waved her fingers in front of her eyes, as if she were trying to dry up the tears that Sophie wasn’t sure were really there to begin with. “We just thought that if we did what they were doing, everybody would think we were all wonderful too.”

Sophie looked at Fiona. There was an OH PUH-LEEZE plastered all over her face.

“No, Julia,” Mr. Denton said. “You thought if you could EXPOSE what they were doing, everybody would think they were worse than you are. Wasn’t that really the plan?”

“They are!” B.J. said.

While Julia and the others were busy glaring at her, Mr. Denton turned to the Corn Flakes. “Do you have this purple notebook they’re talking about?” he said.

“Yes,” Sophie said.

“Is it a Slam Book?”

“No,” Fiona said.

“May I see it?”

Fiona and Kitty both looked at Sophie. Something began to cave in Sophie’s chest.

“It’s not here at school,” she said.

“That’s convenient,” B.J. said.

Mr. Denton sliced her off with a look.

“Where is it?” he said.

“At my house,” Sophie said.

“Well, the sooner you can get it here, the sooner we can get this whole thing straightened out.”

“Can’t you just trust us?” Fiona said.

“That wouldn’t be fair at ALL,” Julia said. She looked expectantly at Anne-Stuart.

“That’s right,” Anne-Stuart said. “If you read ours, then I think you should read theirs.”

“Make her call her mom to bring it over here,” B.J. said.

Mr. Denton delivered a glare that should have melted B.J. down like candle wax. “I think I can handle this without your help.”

“My mom’s not home,” Sophie said.

“Also convenient,” B.J. muttered.

Sophie looked her squarely in the eyes, so hard that Willoughby shrank back against Julia.

“But my father is home,” Sophie said. “I’ll call him and maybe he’ll bring it over.”

Sophie could feel Fiona staring at her. Sophie herself couldn’t believe she had just said that. But there it was, and she followed Mr. Denton to the office where they let her call her house. “Daddy?” she said when he answered.

“What’s wrong, Sophie?” he said. “Are you sick?”

“No—I just need you to bring that purple notebook to me.”

“Were you supposed to turn that in or something?” His voice was starting to get brisk.

“Mr. Denton wants to see it,” she said.

Mr. Denton held out his hand. “Let me talk to him,” he said.

So Sophie gave him the phone and shrank against the counter while Mr. Denton explained the whole thing.

This better be God-space,
she thought.
Or I’m doomed.

Mr. Denton said a few “yes, sirs,” and handed the phone back to Sophie.

“Daddy?” she said.

“I’m coming over there, Sophie,” Daddy said. She could almost see his jaw muscles going into spasms. “And I am NOT happy.”

Twelve

W
hen Sophie’s father arrived, Mr. Denton, the Corn Flakes, the Corn Pops, and Maggie were waiting in the conference room in the office.

The minute Sophie saw Daddy, she knew it was all over. His face was purple-red, and his eyes were on fire, and his face was so tight, the muscles couldn’t have moved if they’d wanted to.

Before Sophie could even swallow, he spotted her at the table and came straight for her, putting his hands on her shoulders.

Sophie waited to feel his anger sizzling through his fingers. But Daddy’s big hands just swallowed her shoulders and stayed there, like pieces of armor.

It didn’t occur to her until Mr. Denton said, “Did you bring the notebook, Mr. LaCroix?” that Daddy wasn’t carrying anything.

“No, sir, I did not,” Daddy said. His voice was too quiet.

“I’d really like to see it—”

“For you to even ask to see it is an extreme invasion of my daughter’s privacy, Mr. Denton,” Daddy said.

Sophie completely stopped breathing. Fiona stared up at Daddy with her mouth hanging open.

“I was guilty of that myself when I picked it up last night,” Daddy went on. “I thought it was a project for school until you called.”

“Then it isn’t,” Mr. Denton said. His face drooped.

“No, it isn’t. But it isn’t a Slam Book, or whatever you called it, either, I can tell you that.” He squeezed Sophie’s shoulders. “Do I have your permission to tell him what IS in that book?” he said.

“Yes,” Sophie said. She was afraid to say more—in case this was just a dream and she would wake herself up.

“This Slam Book they are suspected of keeping,” Daddy said, “is a collection of personal things created by three very creative young women. It is a tribute to the history of our family. There are things in there about my own grandmother that I never knew. It has nothing to do with anyone else here.”

Sophie couldn’t see Daddy’s face, but she could tell he was looking around the table, by the way each Corn Pop was shriveling, one after another.

“If my daughter wants to show the book to you, Mr. Denton, that is her choice. If she decides not to, I will stand behind her.”

I will stand behind her.

I will stand behind her.

Suddenly there was so much God-space, it was all Sophie could do not to climb up on the table, arms spread wide, and dance in it.

Instead, she lifted up her chin. “We don’t want to turn our notebook over to you, Mr. Denton.” She turned to Fiona and Kitty. “Do we?”

“No,” Fiona said.

Even Kitty said, “No, we don’t.”

“But I do want to say something else,” Sophie said.

Mr. Denton had a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he said, “Please do.”

Between Fiona and Kitty’s questioning looks, Sophie directed her eyes at the Corn Pops. Julia was still trying to maintain the queenly air, but the rest of the hive looked withered.

“I AM seeing a therapist,” she said, “but I am NOT mentally underdeveloped and I DON’T have serious problems—even if I AM adopted.” She took a deep breath. “Because I know my dad loves me anyway.”

“Indeed he does,” Mr. Denton said. “Julia, B.J., Willoughby, Anne-Stuart—stay here. The rest of you may go on to class. Mr. LaCroix, you want to talk this out?”

Daddy nodded—sort of absently, Sophie thought—and then he knelt down in front of her.

“I’m picking you up after school,” he said. “I think we need to have a talk.”

There was no muscle-twitching. Sophie nodded solemnly.

He’s going to tell me the truth now,
she thought as she left the conference room—with Mr. Denton saying, “Well, Julia and Anne-Stuart, you realize GATE is out of the question for you now.” What Daddy was going to say wasn’t going to be what she wanted to hear—but it didn’t mater now. It really didn’t. Because Daddy had just stood up for her.

“Sophie?”

Sophie turned around to see Kitty, hanging next to the water fountain.

“We have to get to class,” Sophie said.

“I just wanted to tell you something.”

“Okay,” Sophie said, “but hurry.”

Kitty latched both hands around Sophie’s arm. “I have to tell you that all this time I’ve been staying with you and Fiona and pretending to be a Corn Flake because I didn’t want to be by myself. But now I really want to be one.” She clung harder to Sophie’s arm. “I’m proud to be one.”

Sophie could feel her wisp of a smile floating onto her face. They had Kitty now, and it was for real. Now, if only Maggie —

“Oh, I’m supposed to give you this.”

Kitty dug her hand into the pocket of her embroidered jeans and pulled out a bright pink piece of paper. For a second it made Sophie shiver, until she opened it and saw the same neat printing that had turned the world upside down.

I WANT TO BE A CORN FLAKE, it said.

Sophie hugged the God-space to her all afternoon. She wasn’t even afraid when she climbed into the car with Daddy. Not until he said, “We’re going over to Dr. Peter’s office.” Then she began to sink.

“I thought WE were gonna talk,” she said. “You and me.”

“We are,” Daddy said. “But that’s not something you and I do so well, Soph. So I asked Dr. Peter if we could talk over there. He won’t be with us—he’ll just be around in case we need him.”

Dr. Peter showed them both into a small room Sophie hadn’t been in before. It had a couple of beanbag chairs, and Daddy folded his big self into one of them, and Sophie curled up in the other.

“I have to say this first,” Daddy said. “Sophie Rae, you are not adopted. You are Mama’s and my biological kid.”

“I AM?” Sophie said. “Are you SURE?”

Daddy’s eyebrows went into upside-down V’s. “Yes, I’m sure! I was there to see you come into the world. I was the first one to hold you.”

Sophie was shaking her head. “Then why aren’t there any pictures of me when I was a baby?”

“See, Soph this is the part I never wanted to tell you.” He suddenly looked very lost. Sophie was pretty sure she knew the feeling.

He scratched both sides of his head. “Before Mama even got to hold you, the doctors took you off to Neonatal Intensive Care. You were so sick, we didn’t think you were going to make it through the first day.”

“You thought I was going to DIE?”

“They told us you might. You were born two and a half months before you were supposed to be. You were so small and you had so many things wrong with you—you had to fight for your little life.”

Sophie sank back into the beanbag and let that information settle itself into her mind. “We almost lost you four or five times before you were even two years old,” Daddy said. “We were so wrapped up in keeping you alive, we didn’t even think about taking pictures.” He let his head sag for a minute. “I didn’t want to take your picture that way. I was afraid that if you lived you would see those photographs and you would always think of yourself as a sick kid. You were a fighter, and THAT’s how I wanted you to see yourself.”

“When did I get better?” Sophie said.

“Right after you turned two, you seemed to turn a corner. We knew you were going to make it then.”

“So that’s why I’m underdeveloped,” Sophie said.

“The doctors say you’ll catch up. Besides, your Mama is just a little bitty thing.”

Daddy resituated himself on the beanbag, his long legs sprawled on the floor. “I’m still not clear on how you ever got the idea that you were adopted in the first place.”

“I saw that paper.”

“What paper?”

“The letter to you and Mama—it said ‘Thank you for your interest in adopting a child.’ ”

“Okay, no more attic for you,” Daddy said.

“What did it mean?” Sophie said.

Daddy looked up at the ceiling, as if he were visiting a memory of something he hadn’t been to in a long time. “When you were about four and we really knew you were going to be okay, things were going so well for our family that Mama and I decided we wanted to have another kid to share all that with. Only—it didn’t happen right away.” Daddy shuffled his feet a little. “Anyway, we started looking into adopting and then, bingo, we found out Zeke was on his way.”

Sophie’s insides were so shaky, she was sure her voice would be too when she said, “So Zeke IS my little brother, and Lacie’s my sister, and you and Mama are my parents—”