Sophie’s Secret (6 page)

S
ophie wanted to go straight up to her room when they got home and start digging into Jesus’ past. But Mama made her come to the table for chicken casserole, which felt like cardboard in her mouth as she listened to Lacie go on and on about—what else?—Aunt Bailey and how she and Lacie had emailed each other six times already.

“Did you know she played sports in middle school and high school too, just like me?” Lacie said.

“Really?” Daddy said. “My brother never mentioned that to me.”

“She did,” Lacie said. “And she was good—especially in basketball—”

“Well, isn’t that special?” Mama pushed back her chair and picked up the still-almost-full muffin basket. “We need more bread,” she said, and she disappeared into the kitchen.

“I didn’t even get one yet!” Zeke wailed.

Sophie stuck hers on his plate.

“Is Mom still mad at you because Aunt Bailey and Uncle Preston came here for Thanksgiving instead of us going to see Grandpa?” Lacie said to Daddy.

“Where did you get that idea?” Daddy said. He touched Lacie lightly on the nose and added, “Pass the salad dressing, would you?”

“Oh, come on,” Lacie said. “She’s been all tense since before they even came. All snappin’ at me.” Lacie lowered her voice as if she and Daddy were in on some kind of conspiracy. “I think she’s a little jealous because Aunt Bailey and I got along so good.”

Oh, for Pete’s sake!
Sophie thought.
Mama isn’t some Corn Pop. Who CARES about Aunt Bailey?

SHE certainly didn’t. What she cared about was getting up to her room so she could start digging. She stuffed a couple of forkfuls of asparagus into her mouth, chewed furiously, and said, with her cheeks still packed, “I’m full. Can I be excused?”

Daddy nodded absently. He looked like what Lacie was saying was the most fascinating thing since the sports page.

Up in her room, Sophie pulled her Bible off the shelf and then settled herself precisely on her bed. This was going to be like using documental evidence, so she carefully arranged a sharpened pencil, with only a few teeth marks in it, her ideas notebook turned to a fresh page and, after some thought, her magnifying glass, just in case she needed to look VERY closely.

Then, with the anticipation of a new discovery coursing through her veins, Dr. Demetria Diggerty turned each page as if it were a fine piece of onion skin, until she reached the gospel of Luke, chapter 2, verse 41. She held her breath —

Sophie stopped, breath still sucked in. Maybe she shouldn’t dig as Dr. Diggerty.

If it was really going to help with the Daddy problem, she should probably do this as Sophie.

Still, she reached up on the headboard for her cap and set it in archaeological position on her head before she began to read.

It was the story about Jesus at age twelve going with his parents to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. Sophie had heard the story before—probably about a bajillion times in Sunday school—but this time she tried to picture it as she read.

She could see Jesus finding the teachers in their long beards and fancy robes, sitting around on the stone floors of the magnificent temple. Jesus hanging out with them instead of going out partying with everyone else. And asking questions that echoed through the halls, impressing the sandals off of all the learned men.

She paused for a long time over the line,
Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.

“That’s what I’M talkin’ about,” Sophie whispered.

She dug back in and read more and imagined Mary and Joseph bursting into the temple all scarlet-faced and chewing Jesus out because he had worried them sick. She could almost hear Mary saying that they had been looking all over for him—only it sounded more like Daddy’s voice in her mind. Jesus’ voice was clear and strong as he asked them why they were even worried about him when they should have known he’d be in his Father’s house.

And then she got to the line that left no space for anything else:
But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

Sophie closed the Bible and hugged it to her chest, her eyes closed so the picture of a frustrated twelve-year-old Jesus wouldn’t go away. She imagined it for a long time—his confusion that they didn’t know who he really was, the stirrings of anger he must have felt because they were mad at him for doing something that was only wrong to THEM. Again and again she could almost see his face as his parents looked at him, shaking their heads.
They did not understand what he was saying to them.

“Wow,” Sophie whispered. “I think I know exactly how you felt.”

There was a tap on the door, and there was no time for Sophie to grab for her backpack and get out her homework before it opened and Mama came in. Sophie knew her face was as give-away guilty as Zeke’s was whenever Mama caught him spitting mouthfuls of broccoli into his napkin.

“I’m starting my homework,” Sophie said.

Mama cocked her head as she sat down on the end of Sophie’s bed. “Did you think I was going to yell at you or something?”

“I was doing something else besides homework—well, SCHOOL homework.”

“Honey,” Mama said, “I would never scold you for reading the Bible! Give me a big ol’ break!”

Sophie nodded and hoped Mama wasn’t reading her mind. She was still thinking,
They did not understand …

“I’ve come to make you an offer,” Mama said. “I’ve talked this over with your father and he has given his okay IF you still get your schoolwork done.”

“He’s going to let me fill in the hole instead of being grounded!” Sophie said.

Mama just blinked. “No,” she said. “He’s already filled in the hole. And he wasn’t happy about it.”

“Oh,” Sophie said. No telling how much valuable physical evidence he covered back up.

“Here is the deal,” Mama said. “If you want to pursue your archaeology, you can start by digging in the attic while you’re grounded. You know Uncle Preston brought that big trunk with him from Great-Grandma LaCroix’s estate, and I haven’t even opened it yet.” Her eyebrows twitched. “He and Aunt Bailey said they don’t want any of that ‘old junk,’ and I don’t have time to go through it right now, so why don’t you have a go at it? Maybe you could make me a detailed list of the contents. How would that be?”

“That would be incredible!” Sophie said.

“Just do it AFTER your homework is done. Maybe you shouldn’t even think about doing it until this weekend. I just wanted to tell you now so you’ll have something to look forward to.”

Sophie threw her arms around Mama’s neck—even though she wasn’t sure that was something Dr. Demetria Diggerty would do.

“You are the best mom,” she said.

“It’s nice to hear that Tinker Bell laugh again, Dream Girl,” Mama said.

When she was gone, Sophie sank back into her pillows and gazed up at her ceiling, dotted with fluorescent stars. She didn’t really see them, though. She saw herself in the attic, an important-looking clipboard on her arm, peering through a magnifying glass at a piece of china so thin and old it had to go back as far as—maybe the 1950s or something …

And then she imagined the kind eyes of Jesus, and she decided she was back in God-space.

But it was hard to stay there for the whole next three days. Mama had been right that there would be no time to go into the attic until the weekend. In the meantime, although she worked hard to keep up with her homework, it was hard without Fiona to encourage her on the phone, or Kitty to keep her spirits up with the cheesy jokes she told her on the phone when she WASN’T grounded.

Besides, being home ALL the time meant that the things that drove her nuts were constantly all around her.

Lacie was “tearing it up” in basketball, as Daddy put it. When she was chosen captain of the team, Daddy brought home a cake with a miniature basketball hoop actually standing up on it. Zeke thought that was the coolest thing ever. Sophie felt shoved out.

Zeke, of course, was adorable, and she loved reading to him and playing games with him and his little plastic cars. But the day he dismantled the coffee maker, she was flabbergasted that HE didn’t get grounded. He got a thirty-minute time-out, and Daddy explained to him how he could have hurt himself with the electricity—blah, blah, blah—but there was nowhere near the upheaval that had occurred when she dug one little hole in the backyard. She didn’t want to resent her little brother, but she didn’t feel as much like playing with him after that.

It was even hard with Mama. It wasn’t that she was getting all “yelly” as Zeke would call it. In fact, she just kept being quieter and quieter, and once Sophie thought she heard her crying in the night when she got up to go to the bathroom. Back in bed, Sophie got Jesus in her mind and begged him to fix whatever was wrong with her mom.

It felt so much better to be in God-space for those few moments that Sophie decided to try harder to stay there. When Fiona and Kitty complained during lunch the next day about Sophie’s groundation, Sophie told them the story about Jesus, and how she could relate to that because, like his parents, hers didn’t understand her purpose either.

“Huh,” Fiona said. “When it comes to LACIE’S purpose, your father is all over it.”

That was true, and it sent Sophie scurrying to Dr. Diggerty, presenting an antique basketball hoop that she had pulled out of the rubble to the evil Master LaCroix, Enemy of History.

“Of what use is a rusty old piece of sports equipment?” he said to her. “I can buy hundreds of new ones. I see no further need for your services.” Dr. Diggerty did not even lower her head. She knew he simply did not understand. She would fight for her career. She would fight to look though the lenses of the past …

She felt a hard nudge in her ribs, and she jerked her head around.

Harley was poking her. “She wants to say somethin’ to ya,” she said.

Sophie looked across the table at Maggie. Her face was set like cement.

“Maggie!” Sophie said. “You’re sitting with us!”

“I’m only here to tell you something important.” Maggie said.

“So dish,” Fiona said. She leaned in on her elbow, chin in hand.

Maggie slanted her eyes at the Wheaties and the Corn Flakes, and then she pointed her eyes at Sophie. “There’s a rumor going around about you.”

“Let me guess who’s spreading it,” Fiona said. She glared past Maggie at the Corn Pops, who currently had their heads all bent over something on their table.

“That’s right,” Maggie said.

“I bet it’s bad if they’re spreading it,” Kitty said. “No, I KNOW it’s bad!”

“You know what?” Sophie said to Maggie. “I don’t want to hear it.”

Maggie gave her an open-eyed look. “You don’t?”

“Nope. If it’s a rumor, then it isn’t true, so what do I care?”

“Sophie’s right,” Fiona said. She folded her arms across her chest. “It stops here.”

“That’s fine with me,” Maggie said. She shoved her chair back and slung her lunch bag strap over her shoulder. “I just thought you’d want to know.”

“Thanks,” Sophie said.

“But no thanks,” Fiona said.

Sophie felt a pang as Maggie trudged heavily away. Maybe if she had listened to what Maggie had to say, she would have stayed and they could have made things up to her —

But Harley banged her on the back and told her she rocked, and Sophie decided maybe that was just as good. Meanwhile, Kitty was gazing, wide-eyed, at Fiona.

“What?” Fiona said. “Do I have a booger hanging out of my nose or something?”

“You stood up for Sophie,” Kitty said.

“Of course I did. We’re Corn Flakes. We do that for each other.”

“Oh,” Kitty said.

That was Friday, the last school day before Sophie’s grounding period was over.

“I’m gonna be so glad when Monday comes,” Fiona told her as they were cramming their books into their lockers after school. “If we don’t start playing again, I think I’m going to go into cardiac arrest.”

Sophie knew that had something to do with dying, which didn’t cheer her up much. “We only get to play if I improve at least a point in everything on my progress report Monday.”

“You’re going to, so quit stressing out. We need to be thinking about WHAT we’re going to play—”

But Sophie suddenly had it. She had just emptied her backpack into her locker—because there was no homework over the weekend. That meant she could devote all her time to the excavation of the attic. What if —

“We could all three of us do our archaeology in my attic!” Sophie said. “This could be so cool—and my mother already said it was okay so we don’t have to worry about my father yelling at us—well, me.”

“Fabulous,” Fiona said. Her eyes took on her deep, intrigued look. “You could develop a plan over the weekend so we can start Monday—”

“No—Tuesday. I have to wait ’til my dad gets home Monday to get off groundation.”

“Okay—Tuesday. I’m going to work on Boppa for some actual hard hats like the archaeologists wear. He’ll want to get out of the house anyway. We have a new nanny for Rory and Isabella, and she has so many rules, she’s even starting to tell Boppa what to do!”

Boppa was Fiona’s grandfather, who was like a mom and a dad to Fiona and her little brother and sister because her parents were WAY busy people and weren’t around much. Sophie was sure Fiona would show up with something close to real-thing hats. Boppa didn’t say no to her very often.

So Sophie went home that day with a lighter heart, and she started in on the attic right away, ball cap on backwards and notebook in hand. It wasn’t an actual clipboard, but a pencil tucked behind her ear made her feel more professional.

Grandma Too was the name Lacie had given their great-grandma as a little kid when she realized she had a grandma—their father’s mom—and HER mother was another grandma too.

Once Sophie opened Grandma Too’s trunk, the rest of the world ceased to exist. Inside were treasures like she never would have found in the backyard, she was sure, and her disappointment at not being able to use the trenching technique slowly faded.

There was a pair of Grandma Too’s underwear, paper-thin and yellowed and as big as the shorts Lacie wore to play basketball in. The tag pinned to them with a rusty safety pin said she had worn them on her wedding day, in 1939.