Sophie’s World (6 page)

“You know what, Sophie?” Dr. Peter said. “There are probably some reasons for that—some of them good, some of them maybe not so good. I’m going to get right on that, though, okay?”

Sophie sat in the waiting room while Dr. Peter talked to her parents. She swung her legs and wished she knew what they were saying in there.

Madame LaCroix nodded gracefully as the great Dr. Pierre LaTopp described Antoinette’s rare creative abilities. But Monsieur LaCroix sat in the corner with his arms folded across his chest and scowled. Antoinette knew what he was thinking. “Ridiculous!” But Antoinette did not despair. She knew the great doctor would make him understand. After all, Papa was proud of her. Secretly so proud.

Sophie let the dream-air puff from her lips.
I just want to be understood
, she thought.
Why can’t I have that?

Suddenly Sophie remembered thinking those words before. She had prayed the same thing in Bruton Parish Church.
Wow!
she thought with a jerk.
It happened! I have Fiona. That must be because of God!

But what if Daddy and Mama won’t let me keep Fiona after they talk to Dr. Peter because she’s a dreamer like me?
Sophie swung her legs harder.
What if they won’t even let me keep Dr. Peter after he says he won’t make me change?

That would be heinous
, she thought.
Because I think he might understand me too.

Madame LaCroix came to her, holding out both hands, tears glistening in her eyes.

“I am so sorry, my precious daughter. How could I ever have asked you to give up your dreams?” Antoinette closed her eyes, fighting back her own sobs. Now—could she even dare to hope that Papa would feel the same way?

“You catching a nap, Soph?” her father asked.

Sophie opened her eyes to see Daddy standing over her.

“Do I get to keep Fiona as my friend?”

He looked completely confused. “Who’s Fiona?”

Sophie took a deep breath. “I know Dr. Peter told you I can keep doing my stories, and you hate that, and you’re going to make me stop, and Fiona won’t play with me anymore, and she’s the only friend I have, and if I have to give her up I’ll curl up and die a miserable death.”

Her dad stared. “Soph, that is the most bizarre train of logic I’ve ever heard. Does that actually make sense to you?”

“Darlin’,” Mama said. “I’m so happy you have a friend and that she’s somebody you feel comfortable with.” She looked at Daddy. “We never said you couldn’t play with your friends.”

“As long as you don’t—” But Daddy stopped when Mama nudged him with her elbow. Sophie felt her hands going clammy. She had never seen them disagree about one of the kids.

“We want to make a deal with you.” Daddy put on what Sophie knew was his game face. “Dr. Topping thinks it would be a good idea for you to record your stories with a video camera. You can act them out and record them—instead of dreaming them up during class. At least that way, you’re getting something practical out of it. It won’t hurt to learn how to use a camera.”

“You mean like a movie director?” Sophie said.

“Sure,” Mama said. “I think it sounds fun.”

Sophie’s thoughts swirled toward her like stars in hyper-space. She put her hand up to her forehead to slow them down.

“We don’t have a video camera,” she said. “I don’t even know how to turn one on.”

“That’s where the deal comes in,” Daddy said. He rubbed his hands together. “I will get you a camera—and I’ll show you how to use it. Then you and Viola—”

“I think it’s ‘Fiona,’” Mama said.

“You two can create films with it if—and this is where your part of the deal comes in—”

I knew it
, Sophie thought. She held her breath.

“If, starting with your next progress report, you have at least a C for the week in every subject. I know that you can do a lot better than that—”

“But it’s a start,” Mama said.

“That’s our offer,” he said. “What do you say, Soph?”

Daddy stood there then, arms folded, while Sophie fended off the shooting stars. The video camera had
huge
possibilities. But all C’s? In less than two weeks? She felt so far behind already, there was no way she could catch up. Besides—she wasn’t sure she knew
how
to make good grades.

“I don’t know if I can
do
that,” she said. “I’ll
try
—”

“You’re not stupid, Soph,” Daddy said. “Anybody who can remember whole scenes of dialogue from a movie can retain enough facts to pass a sixth-grade history test.”

“We’ll help you any way we can,” Mama said.

“That’s a no-brainer.” Daddy chuckled. “You have a scientist living right in your house. Science and math should be a snap for you with me around.”

I hate science and math
, Sophie wanted to say.
I hate school, period. And it hates me!

“I guess I can try,” she said.

“You’re going to have to do more than try,” Daddy said. “We’ll have to see all C’s on the next progress report.” He pretended he was hitting a golf ball.

Antoinette moaned. There was yet another obstacle. But with a tilt of her brave French chin, she stiffened her lips and spoke aloud —

“Okay. It’s a deal.”

Six

I
t was raining the next morning—Tuesday—so Sophie went straight to the secret backstage place. She—and Antoinette—were wailing inside themselves.

“Antoinette! You look vexed.”

Sophie squinted through the dusty dimness to find Fiona perched on top of a pile of old stage curtains.

“Does ‘vexed’ mean depressed?” Sophie said, climbing up beside her.

“More like distressed beyond words.”

“Then I am.”

“Uh-oh. Your psychiatrist was a total weirdo, right?”

Sophie shook her head so hard she stirred up dust in little gray clouds. “No! He was brilliant. He even said I shouldn’t give up making up stories and pretending them.”

Fiona’s eyes widened. “So what’s the problem?”

“It’s totally heinous,” Sophie said. And then she told Fiona all about the “deal.”

“We could make
amazing
films—
brilliant
films,” Fiona said.

“If
I can pull a C in everything by
seven days
from now, which
isn’t
going to happen.”

“Why not? It’s not like you’re in classes for slow kids.”

“I
should
be!” Sophie could feel tears threatening, but Fiona had a gleam in her gray eyes.

“What?” Sophie said.

“I’m an experienced tutor. Did it all the time in my old school.”

“You could help me?” Sophie said.

“Hello?” Fiona’s heart-shaped mouth formed a pink grin. “I’m your best friend, right?”

“But the teachers aren’t going to let you sit next to me and help me the whole time. Especially Ms. Quelling.”

“You mean Ms. Cruelling,” Fiona said. “We’ll just have to figure it out.”

Fiona slid down from the pile of curtains, dug around in her backpack, and climbed back up with a spiral notebook with purple sparkles on the cover.

“This is my Idea Book,” she said. She pulled a matching purple gel pen out of the spirals and folded the cover back with a professional air. “You miss stuff because you daydream in class, right?”

“Right,” Sophie said, sagging again.

“So when you start drifting off, I’ll make a signal—like smacking the desk.”

Fiona demonstrated, raising dust from the pile of curtains. Sophie coughed.

“That’s it!” Fiona said. “Coughing!”

“You mean, if you see me going off, you could just, like, clear your throat—”

“Brilliant!” Fiona said. “And then if that didn’t get your attention, I could go on to a dry cough, like I had something in my throat.”

“And if
that
didn’t do it, you like bring up a hairball!”

By the time the bell rang, they had formulated an entire code.

Sophie managed to pay attention with an occasional hack from Fiona during language arts and social studies. In computer class, Ms. Yaconovich had made Sophie sit next to her desk since the first week of school, but Ms. Y wandered around the room a lot, pulling the Pops off the Internet.

Nothing bored Sophie more than moving paragraphs around, especially with what Fiona called mundane topics, like the amount of gold there was in Fort Knox.

But no matter how mundane, Antoinette had a job to do. And if her commanding officer wanted her to spy on the treasurer to preserve the colony’s gold, then she must. The treasurer could be a Loyalist, and their precious savings could wind up in British hands. She peered into the tiny Treasury window.

A shadow fell across the beam of moonlight. Pulling her cloak around her, she ducked beneath the footbridge to avoid being seen.

“Your friend’s got bronchitis or something,” Maggie said.

Sophie saw Fiona doubled over, face purple and hacking from her chest in loud gasps.

“Oh no!” Sophie cried, and flung herself past three computers to reach Fiona’s side.

“Fiona! Are you okay?”

“Yes!” Fiona hissed through her teeth. “I was using the code! I got all the way to Level Five!”

“Oops.” Sophie whispered. “My bad.”

“All right,” Ms. Y said in her dry-as-sand voice. “Back on task.”

Sophie took in a deep breath and went back to moving paragraphs around. She managed to get the assignment done before the bell rang.

“Could that have been any more boring?” she said to Fiona in the hall.

“Okay, forget it,” Fiona said. “That scene is way over.” She grabbed Sophie’s arm and steered her toward the cafeteria. “I just had the most brilliant idea.”

“For saving the militia?” Sophie said.

“This is better. Every time a new kind of video camera comes out, my dad buys it. We have like an entire attic full of old ones that still work. I bet he would just give one to you.” Her eyes danced. “And
that
means you get your dad out of your face even
sooner
.”

“He will totally say no,” Sophie said. “He always says no when it’s me. When it’s Lacie, he always says yes.”

Fiona pursed her mouth into a rosebud. “Sophie, you have to stop being so pessimistic.”

Sophie didn’t even have to ask what
that
meant.

Antoinette rescued Henriette from a gold-filled pirate ship during free time after lunch. All through health, Sophie noticed Fiona’s occasional “ahem” from her side of the room, but in math, Sophie never let her get past a Level Three bronchial spasm. By science, Fiona only had to fake pneumonia twice the whole class period. Sophie actually raised her hand to answer a question.

“That’s the first day you haven’t gone into a daze in my class,” Mrs. Utley said after the last bell rang. She smiled as she spoke in a way that made all her soft chins wiggle. “Keep it up, Sophie, and you might actually move up to a D on your next progress report.”

“Move
up
to a
D
?” Sophie wailed in the hall to Fiona. “My life is over!”

“She thinks it’ll make you work harder, just to show her she’s wrong.”

“What if she isn’t? What if I do get a D on my progress report? What if we don’t get to play together ever again?”

“What if you stop thinking up that kind of stuff and concentrate on Antoinette? We have to make a movie!”

Sophie felt herself wilting. “Do you really think I can do this?”

“I don’t think—I
know
,” Fiona said. “I’ll call you tonight,
mon amie.”
She grinned. “That means
‘
my friend.’”

Sophie watched Fiona flit toward a black SUV. When Fiona opened the car door, the woman in the driver’s seat chattered away in a foreign language to two little heads sticking up out of boosters in the middle seats.

Fiona popped her head out the window and yelled, “Call me as soon as you talk to your dad!”

But Sophie barely had a chance to say hello to Daddy when he walked in at suppertime just as the phone rang. It was a way-excited Fiona.

“He said yes!” she shouted into Sophie’s ear.

“I don’t know who that is,” Lacie said, “but she doesn’t need a telephone. Sophie, you have to help set the table. Get the knives and forks.”

Sophie cradled the phone to her neck and pulled open the silverware drawer.

“Your dad said yes?” she said.

“He said to pick out any camera you want. We’ll bring some over.”

Sophie shoved the phone closer to her lips. “I haven’t even asked my dad yet—”

Daddy looked up from a stack of mail. “What haven’t you asked me?”

“My dad wants to talk to your dad,” Fiona said. Sophie put her hand over the receiver and handed it to her father. He looked as if he had no
idea
what was going on.

But as she was dropping the last fork into place, Daddy hung up the phone and said to Mama, “Super nice guy. Very intelligent.”

“Who?” Mama said.

“Viola’s father,” said Daddy.

“Fiona!” Sophie and her mom said together.

Daddy picked up Zeke just as he was about to poke his Spider-Man action figure into the spaghetti sauce bowl. “I’m going to
buy
a video camera from him, Soph. He’s coming by next Saturday,
after
you’ve taken your tests.”