Sophie’s World (13 page)

“Are you ever for real?” Maggie said. “Or is everything a big act to you?”

“This
is
real,” Sophie said. “We thought you were
way
bossy when we were making our film, and we didn’t like it. But we should have told you the truth.” She had to stop and take a deep breath. “I want you to be a Corn Flake again, and I’ll even help you remember not to be pushy. We can do the secret handshake—and we have a very important film to do. This one—”

But she stopped, because Maggie was shaking her head.

“Why not?” Sophie said.

“Because you just want the costumes,” Maggie said. “My mother thinks you just used me, and she said if I start being friends with you again she’ll ground me. Face it: Fiona dumped you and joined the Corn Pops, so now you need a friend.” Maggie opened her book again. “It isn’t going to be me,” she said, and then she glued her eyes to the page and shut Sophie out.

But not before Sophie saw the title on the cover:
The Story of the Marquis de Lafayette.

She wants to be friends—I know she does
, Sophie thought as she moved back to her table, her feet like a pair of concrete buckets.
But we hurt her feelings so bad that even her mom hates us now.

Suddenly Sophie knew something else too. Once you hurt somebody, you have to take the consequences. She looked over at Kitty, her literature book open and her eyes wistfully watching the people who had made her crawl across the playground like a dog.

I want the Corn Pops to know that too
, Sophie thought.
I have to find a way. Even if I have to do it alone.

As soon as she could at lunchtime, Sophie fled from the building. She couldn’t bear to go to the monkey bars.
It’s bad enough that Fiona doesn’t want to be with me
, she thought miserably.
But I never, ever thought she would be a Corn Pop
.

But she had a mission. Sophie plopped into a swing and pored over her social studies book to find out what Lafayette and George Washington had done in their rescue of America. It wasn’t
exactly
the same thing, although she found some inspiring ideas—like the patriots digging trenches called “redoubts” to hide in and trapping the British “handsomely in a pudding bag.”

Sophie closed her eyes several times and imagined Jesus when the planning got too lonely. He was always looking at her with kind eyes, but sad ones too—as if he understood that even though what she was doing was right, he knew it wasn’t fun for her without Fiona.
I’ll just have to go back to pretending on this plan
, Sophie said to him in a prayer. Daddy wouldn’t like it, but she couldn’t help thinking Jesus did.

This plan just might work. It had to.

After school, Sophie couldn’t wait to get to Dr. Peter’s window seat.

“Sophie-lophie-loodle!” he sang out. “I can tell you’ve got something on your mind today.” Dr. Peter was barely seated before she was pouring out the whole Maggie and Kitty and Fiona story. Dr. Peter listened and nodded. There was no twinkle at all.

“Can I just tell you how proud I am of you?” he said.

“I feel wretched,” Sophie said.

“Well, look at you. You went to Jesus. You asked what to do. You waited. He showed you—and you did it.”

Sophie shook her head.

“No?” Dr. Peter said.

“Yes. But I’m still not sure
how
he showed me. I want to know in case he does it again.”

Dr. Peter spread out his fingers and counted on them as he talked. “Showing number one: you never go out on the playground after school, but the day you did, there were the Corn Pops giving Kitty the worst time ever. Didn’t that turn you around completely?”

Sophie nodded.

Dr. Peter started on another finger. “Your prayer showed you later that you had to get with Fiona and apologize to Maggie. None of that has worked out the way you want—yet. But you did the right thing. And besides that—” His eyes twinkled as he went to finger number three. “You had a substitute so you could talk to Maggie.”

“But what
about
Maggie?” Sophie said. “She still hates me.”

“I think Maggie is still choosing. Otherwise, why the continued interest in Lafayette? Just because
you
take the opportunity Jesus gives you doesn’t mean everybody does. You can’t decide for another person. You can only give them the chance.”

“So—let me get this straight,” she said.

“Okay.” Dr. Peter wiggled all his fingers, telling her to bring it on.

“When Jesus ‘shows’ me something, it isn’t like
boom
—there it is! It’s more like he gives me an opportunity, and then I decide whether to take it or not.”

“Exactly,” Dr. Peter said. “That’s how it works.”

Sophie tickled her nose with her hair. “But what I still don’t get is, if Jesus loves me so much—”

“Okay, there’s your hang-up,” Dr. Peter said.

“Where?”

“That ‘if.’ When you say ‘
If
God loves me—
if
Jesus loves me,’ that means you have some doubt. As long as you have that ‘if,’ you’re going to doubt the opportunities that Jesus puts right in front of you. I’m sure that bums him out.” Dr. Peter leaned forward. “God loves you. There is no ‘if,’ Loodle. That’s why he sent Jesus to show us the way—he loves you
that
much. He’s our Father—and you know how much a father loves his kids.”

Sophie looked down at the ends of her hair.

“What?” Dr. Peter said. “You don’t think your father loves you?”

“I know he loves me,” Sophie said. “But I don’t think he loves me
that
way.”

“Tell me some more.”

“He would love me more if I did even better in school,” she said slowly. “And if I played sports and joined all these clubs. I do think he loves me more than he did when we moved here. But it’s never going to be enough, because—”

Dr. Peter’s voice went down to an almost whisper. “Why, Sophie?”

Sophie squeezed her eyes shut tight. “Can I tell you something I’ve never told anybody else in the entire galaxy?”

“If you want to.”

“I think my father loves Lacie more than he loves me.”

“Sophie,” Dr. Peter said, “do you remember when I told you that I would never tell anyone anything you said in here without asking your permission?”

Sophie nodded.

“I’m asking permission now to share this with your father.”

“But he’ll get mad at me!”

Dr. Peter smiled at her. “We’ll never know that, will we, unless we try.” Dr. Peter said there was one more thing.

“The key to everything is knowing that God loves you, and he shows you that love through Jesus. If you really want to believe that, you need to get to know Jesus better—not just in your imagination, but from who he is.” He rubbed his hands together. “How did you learn more about Lafayette so you could start a good Kitty Rescue Plan?”

“From our social studies book,” Sophie said.

“Okay—God has a book too.”

“The Bible.”

“Brilliant! Next time, we’ll start reading the Bible and getting to know Jesus’ plans too. But for now, you just focus on your plan to rescue Kitty.” He stood up and grinned at her. “I know this is hard, Sophie-lophie, but you go for it. I’m so proud of you.”

That—and her talks to Jesus—carried Sophie through another evening without a phone call from Fiona. In fact, the next morning as she stepped inside the school building, she was ready for Scene One.

Kitty sat on a bench, looking painfully alone, staring at the literature book that Sophie could tell she wasn’t reading. On the other side of the hall, the Corn Pops were standing in front of the trophy case, comparing new sweaters with their backs very deliberately to Kitty. At least Fiona wasn’t with them.

Sophie headed straight for Kitty. “Come with me, would you?” she whispered to her.

Getting her away was like peeling a sticker off a mirror, but Sophie managed to drag her through the double doors and into the hall in front of the office where nobody hung out. By then Kitty was barely breathing.

“You didn’t tell anybody, did you?” she said. “I told you not to tell!”

“It’s not about that,” Sophie said. “I just want to tell
you
something.” She took Kitty’s hand, Antoinette-style. “Those girls out there—you don’t need them. They’re mean to you.”

Kitty whimpered. “I know. But I’m so mixed up!”

“Why?”

Kitty pulled in air that sounded ragged. “I knew they could be sort of mean. Like when they got jealous of you and Fiona doing good in class, they
looked
for ways to get you in trouble. Like they swore you made up the coughing code so you could cheat, even though they didn’t know for sure. I got really scared then about saying stuff about people that wasn’t exactly true, and that’s when they decided to dump me.” Kitty shuddered. “Then I saw how mean they can
really
be, and I just want them to leave me alone now. Only—” She put her hand over her mouth and mumbled into it. “I just don’t want to be all by myself.”

“You don’t have to be alone,” Sophie said. “They’re not the only girls in the galaxy. You can be my friend.”

Kitty looked at her, and then darted her eyes away. “No offense,” she said. “You’re really nice, but I want to be with the popular girls. I was way popular at my last school. Now I don’t know if I’ll ever be popular again.”

“You don’t have to be popular to have fun,” Sophie said. “I have a
lot
of fun when I’m with—well, I have fun.”

Kitty didn’t look at her this time. “But everybody thinks you—and Fiona—are weird.” She burst into tears. “I don’t want to be weird!”

Sophie knew that at this point Fiona would be telling Kitty that
she
was the one who was weird. Sophie actually considered it too, but instead she said, “There are four other girls in our class besides us and the Pops—”

“They’re the soccer players. I can’t—”

“Okay. Well,” Sophie said, “if you ever decide you don’t mind being with weird people, come see me, and I’ll be your friend. But in the meantime, I can still help stop Julia and those other girls from being mean to you. It won’t make them be friends with you, but at least they’ll leave you alone.”

Kitty shook her ponytail sadly. “Nobody can stop them, because everybody thinks they’re wonderful. I told you, even the teachers wouldn’t believe me.”

“They would if they
saw
them being mean to you.”

“Unh-uh. They never do anything mean when teachers are watching.”

“Leave that to me,” Sophie said. “Just come out to the playground after school.”

“But that’s when they do mean stuff to me!” Kitty said. “They know the teacher on duty doesn’t get out there until way after the bell.”

“Trust me,” Sophie said. “Please. All you have to do is, when they start to do something to you,
run
over to where I’m playing. They’ll follow you, and I’ll do the rest. Mr. Denton will have seen what he needs to see already. I promise you.”

“I don’t know,” Kitty said. “I can’t even stand it when they
start
with me!”

Kitty bolted for the girls’ restroom. Sophie watched her for a minute and then trudged the hall to the language arts room. She could almost hear Dr. Peter saying, “You’ve given her an opportunity. Now it’s her choice.”

Fourteen

S
cene Two didn’t go the way Sophie hoped it would either. She went up to Mr. Denton at the end of language arts and asked him if he could come out to the playground
right
after school.

“As soon as the bell rings, if that’s feasible,” she said.

“Actually, I’m not on duty today,” he said. He folded his arms and smiled, something he didn’t do very often. “Too bad too. You’ve got me intrigued.”

Sophie squinted her eyes. “Who
is
on duty today? Mrs. Utley?”

Mr. Denton shook his head. “Ms. Quelling is the victim today.”

“Oh,” Sophie said.

She could feel herself wilting as she turned away.

“Something I can help you with?”

Sophie looked at Mr. Denton in surprise. He was giving her a kind look. That was why she said, “Do you pray?”

“I’ve been known to,” he said.

“Then please pray for me today. I need it.”

“You are a fascinating child, Sophie LaCroix,” Mr. Denton said. “You have my prayers.”

Sophie felt a little better after that, especially as Scene Three of the plan unfolded. Out on the playground after lunch, she was able to dig a trench—her “redoubt.”

I think the actual ditches the soldiers dug were deeper than this
, Sophie thought as she worked. But she really didn’t want anybody to break a leg. She disguised the trench with some branches and then gave a big sigh. This would have been brilliant with Fiona. There would have been so much more to it—they were such a good team.

“Were
,” Sophie said to herself.

Before she could start crying, she headed back toward the school building. Near the back door, the Corn Pops were all gathered, watching Anne-Stuart French braid Julia’s hair. Fiona was nowhere to be seen. They stopped their conversation and put on identical freeze-dried smiles as Sophie started to pass.

“Hey,” Julia said.

Sophie had to look twice to realize Julia was talking to her.