by Nancy N. Rue
But even that was forgotten the minute they arrived in Smithfield.
“This is a beautiful little town!” Mama said.
“Isn’t it precious?” Darbie’s aunt Emily said.
Sophie didn’t think precious was exactly the right word for the old courthouse that stood on the street like a wise judge — and the country store with two bent men playing checkers out front — and the ice cream parlor where she was sure they still made ice cream the old-fashioned way, whatever that was.
“It’s nostalgic,” said Fiona. She emerged from hiding and pressed her face to the car window between Sophie’s and Darbie’s.
“Look at these gorgeous Victorian homes,” Mama said. “It makes you want to wear a bustle, doesn’t it?”
“You’ll see houses from the Federal and Georgian periods as well,” Miss Odetta Clide said as if she were reading from a textbook. “A few Colonial. This town is over 250 years old. It was the peanut capital of the world at one time.” Miss Odetta parked the Expedition and turned stiffly to the backseat. “A lady listens, Fiona,” she said. “She learns.”
Fiona moaned — although not loud enough for Miss Odetta Clide to catch her. Sophie couldn’t even imagine how many demerits that would be worth.
But after they parked and started down Main Street, past the bakery and the antique stores and the houses with their wide porches, Sophie found herself sidling closer to Miss Odetta to hear what she was saying.
“British merchants started settling here in about 1752,” she said in her brisk-for-an-older-lady voice. “Brought in by the sea captains up the Pagan River.”
“Look at those roses,” Mama said.
They stopped to look up at a house with thick white columns on its porch.
“Now this one is Civil War era,” Miss Odetta said. “Might have been owned by a steamboat captain. They brought their boats up the river too, after the war, trying to build things up again.”
“Would their wives have waited for them on that porch?” Sophie said.
Miss Odetta Clide squinted down at her as if she’d just noticed Sophie was there. “It would be safe to say they might have. The reason they built the porches so deep was to accommodate the women’s dresses. A hoopskirt could reach from the front door to the railing. And the women were even more extravagant in the Victorian period. You need only look at their homes.”
She clipped around the corner with everyone right behind her. Miss Odetta stopped in front of a pale blue house that had towers and turrets like a castle, stained-glass windows, and trim that reminded Sophie of a fancy gingerbread house.
“This is Victorian,” Miss Odetta said. “The ladies who first lived in this place wore the bustles Mrs. LaCroix spoke of, and corsets pulled so tight they could barely draw breath.”
“Why would they want to do that?” Maggie said. “Sounds brutal.”
“That is precisely what THEIR daughters said. In the 1920s they threw away the corsets and replaced them with short dresses that had everyone scandalized. No one had ever seen a woman’s legs in public before.”
“What’s ‘scandalized’ mean?” Sophie whispered to Fiona.
“It’s like shocked right out of their Sketchers,” Fiona whispered back.
Miss Odetta turned from the Victorian mansion to gaze down at the Corn Flakes. Sophie tugged at her sundress to make it look longer.
“I understand we are looking at party dresses today.”
“Mama and I are just getting ideas,” Sophie said. “Ma’am.” She wondered if Fiona’s friends could get demerits slapped on them too.
“Smithfield is the place to do that. You will see every kind of garment from a Colonial ball gown to a Roaring Twenties flapper dress. The possibilities are endless.”
They visited the Isle of Wight Museum, which was set up in a country store from the early 1900s. There were displays of cheese wheels and thread and shoes and cake boxes and washboards. They followed Miss Odetta to some sassy dresses that hung on the wall.
“The forerunners of the miniskirt,” Miss Odetta said. “Vintage 1921.”
Some had fringe, others sequins, and still others were draped with feather boas that must have left some poor ostrich naked. All of them were straight, falling from the shoulders to the knees in one long line. They didn’t do much for Sophie’s imagination.
But Darbie ran right up to them, arms outstretched — until Miss Odetta told her a lady didn’t touch antiques. Still, Darbie stood there with her hands clenched behind her back, the sequins sparkling in her eyes.
“I ADORE these!” she said. “Aren’t they just CLASS?”
“And just a little out of our price range, Darbie honey,” Aunt Emily said.
Senora LaQuita put her hand on Aunt Emily’s arm. “I can design this for Darbie,” she said, trilling the “r” in the way Sophie loved.
Darbie looked at her aunt, biting her lower lip.
“I don’t know what to say,” Aunt Emily said. “That’s such a nice offer.”
“Say yes,” Maggie said. “My mother wouldn’t offer if she didn’t mean it.”
“Well — if that’s what you want, Darbie.”
“I do! These were MADE for me!”
“That’s one, then,” Miss Odetta said. “Shall we continue?”
From there it was decided by the Corn Flakes that they would each choose a dress from the time period that, as Fiona put it, “spoke to them.” It was just what secret agents would do to conceal their identities from an enemy mob like the Fruit Loops, Sophie was sure.
As they twirled and giggled and squealed through the antique shops and the art galleries, Maggie decided she liked the dresses the Victorian girls wore. Fiona went for a Civil War look with ruffles and a full skirt. Miss Odetta Clide nixed a hoopskirt, but she agreed that they could use Fiona’s dress money to have Maggie’s mom design one for her.
When Sophie stood for five minutes in front of a painting of a Colonial family, gazing at the young girl in the gold dress with lace around the scoop neck and sleeves that flared out deliciously at the elbows, Mama whispered to her, “I’ll see what I can do, Dream Girl.”
When they got back to Poquoson, it was too hard to go their separate ways, and they wanted to share their news with Kitty so she wouldn’t be left out. Their faces were long as they pulled into Fiona’s driveway.
Boppa met them and told Miss Odetta Clide she might need to go inside and do some damage control, since he had been with Fiona’s little brother and sister all day. When she was gone, Boppa said, “These girls are going to go into mourning if we don’t let them have a sleepover tonight. What do you say, ladies? I’ll make them go to bed early.”
Mama smiled. “So you’re afraid of her too, huh, Boppa?”
Within the hour, the Corn Flakes had returned with pajamas and sleeping bags and Kitty, and they were busily writing down script ideas when they heard a knock at Fiona’s bedroom door. They were afraid it was Miss Odetta telling them to turn out the light. But it was Boppa, smiling his soft smile and wiggling his dark caterpillar eyebrows and running his hand over the top of his bald head.
“Anybody up for some dancing lessons?” he said.
“Dancing lessons, Boppa?” Fiona said as they all skittered after him down the hall to the door that led out to the deck.
“I hear you’re going to a dance. You’ve got the dresses taken care of — now you need to learn how to dance.”
Boppa had the picnic table scooted out of the way with a boom box on it, and there was a string of white lights twinkling in the May night.
“I know you kids THINK you know how to dance,” he said.
“I don’t,” Maggie said.
“But I’m going to teach you some real dances. We’re going to start with the bop.”
“I like that word!” Kitty said, giggling. “I want to bop!”
“Come on then,” Boppa said. He poked the play button and held out his hand to Kitty. She plunked hers right into it just as a man on the CD sta
rted singing about a hound dog.
“I know this song!” Kitty squealed. “My grandma taught me how to play it on the piano!”
“This is Elvis Presley, ladies,” Boppa said. “The King of Rock ’n’ Roll. Come on — grab a partner.”
Before the song was over, Sophie and Fiona had the bop down, and Darbie and Maggie, while they were still slamming into each other at times, were getting close.
After that Boppa taught them to waltz and then cha-cha. The waltz was Sophie’s favorite — she could imagine herself in the gold dress with the flared sleeves, sweeping across the floor — but she was doing more stumbling than sweeping.
“Help me, Boppa!” she said, after she stepped on Fiona’s foot for the thirtieth time and Fiona refused to be her partner until her bruises healed.
“Miss Odetta Clide, do you waltz?”
They all looked up to see Miss Odetta in the doorway, arms folded. “Of course I waltz. Every well-trained lady knows how to waltz.”
“Then please do me the honor of helping me with a demonstration.”
Boppa held out his hand to Miss Odetta. Kitty giggled. Maggie blinked like an owl. Fiona slithered down onto the picnic table bench.
But when Miss Odetta Clide slid her hand into his and placed the other one on his arm and they began to move in a smooth one-two-three, one-two-three across the deck, all mouths fell open. “That is class,” Darbie whispered.
Boppa and Miss Odetta were floating, looking directly into each other’s eyes like they didn’t even have to be aware of the feet that carried them in swooping circles across the ballroom floor.
Agent Shadow lifted her eyes from the skirt of her golden dress to the face of the Unknown Dancer and let him take her hand. Gracefully they swished past the awestruck crowd. “I must remember to keep my mind on the mission at hand,” she told herself. But just then, she couldn’t remember what it was.
Five
For Sophie, time spun in a waltz of its own after their dancing lesson.
On Sunday, Dr. Peter reminded the girls that their Bible study would start Tuesday. Sophie felt a twinge again — the kind she used to feel when she forgot a homework assignment.
I’m going to read my Bible and pray every night from now on, she thought.
But Sunday night there was homework, and Monday after school she went fabric shopping with Mama. When Sophie headed for the pattern books at Jo-Ann Fabrics & Crafts, Mama said, “We won’t be needing those, Dream Girl. Senora LaQuita told me she would teach me how to design my own patterns.” She gave Sophie a wispy Mama-smile. “It’s time I learned anyway. Who knows, maybe I can whip up something like they sell at Rave for Lacie.”
“Anybody can make Band-Aids, Mama,” Sophie said.
They found gold taffeta and brown shimmering lace, and Sophie was so thrilled she barely noticed the Fruit Loops or the Corn Pops all day Tuesday.
What did get her attention was Kitty.
Kitty giggled a lot that morning, more than usual, and it was a different kind of giggling. She laughed when things weren’t even funny — like when Gill lost a filling out of her tooth, right into the burrito Maggie gave her from her lunch. Kitty’s voice was shrill, and the laughter didn’t get to her eyes.
When they went out to the playground during the second half of lunch period to rehearse for their film, Fiona put her hands on her almost-hips and said, “All right, Kitty, you’re hiding something. What is it?”
Kitty’s eyes got as big as cereal bowls. “How did you know?”
It’s a good thing Kitty doesn’t try to be a REAL secret agent, Sophie thought.
“Because you’ve been acting mental all day,” Darbie said.
Kitty sank down to the ground and leaned against the fence, knees pulled into her chest. “You’re all going to be mad at me when I tell you — and you’re probably gonna kick me out of the Corn Flakes — but I never wanted to agree to that pack thing anyway.”
“What pack thing?” Maggie said.
Sophie nodded. “You mean the ‘pact’? About the boys?”
“Yes,” Kitty said. “I hate the Fruit Loops, but I like other boys — nice boys — and I found one. And you can’t make me not go to the dance with him!”
She burst into the tears Sophie had been expecting. Maggie reached into her backpack and handed Kitty a tissue.
“You don’t mean some boy asked you?” Darbie said.
“And you said yes?” Fiona said.
Kitty nodded as she blubbered into the wadded-up tissue.
“I’m scandalized,” Fiona said.
Sophie sat down next to Kitty. “Who is he?” she said.
“Nathan Coffey,” she said, although from the other side of the tissue it sounded at first like “make some toffee.”
“Which one is he again?” Darbie said.
“Curly hair. Braces,” Fiona said. “Wears a Redskins hat.”
“Remember I told you his dad is in my dad’s squadron,” Kitty said. “We even went camping with them last summer.” She looked up, face streaming and miserable. “I didn’t know I had a crush on him before.”
Maggie said, “How can you have a crush on somebody and not even know it?”
“All right, let’s not all go off our nut here,” Darbie said. She sat down and pulled Fiona with her. Maggie squatted beside them.
“You’re not in love with Nathan, Kitty,” Fiona said, her face serious and sage.
“We’re going together,” Kitty said. She poked her chin into the tops of her knees.
“Where are you going?” Maggie said.
“I think that means they’re boyfriend and girlfriend,” Sophie said.
“And THAT means you’re breaking the Corn Flakes pact,” Fiona said.
Darbie shook her head. “You’re making a bags of it, Kitty, I’m telling ya.”
Kitty looked at Sophie with panic in her eyes. “Are you going to throw me out?”
“No!” Sophie said, before Fiona could jump in with something Sophie knew she would have to apologize for seven hundred times later.
“If she goes, I go,” Maggie said. She even stood up.
“She’s not going!” Sophie said.
Kitty flung herself at Sophie’s neck and cried until the bell rang, while Fiona and Darbie folded their arms and looked everywhere but at Kitty.
On their way to class, Fiona pulled Sophie back. “What is the point of having a pact if you can just break it and nothing happens?”
“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “But Dr. Peter will.”
Fiona’s eyebrows came together. “I thought he was going to talk about the Bible.”
“Stuff like that is in the Bible,” Sophie said.
There was another Jesus-twinge. I’m coming back, she prayed. Honest, I am.
It was so much easier to remember to talk to Jesus when Dr. Peter was around. And just as Sophie had expected, he had the Bible study room fixed up so that everybody said some form of “Wow!” when they walked in.
“Everybody” consisted of Sophie, Fiona, Darbie, and Harley and Gill from the Wheaties.
“I didn’t know you went to church here, Harley!” Sophie said.
“We don’t,” Gill said. “Not yet anyway.” She always talked for the husky Harley, who just smiled that eyes-disappearing-into-cheeks smile a lot. “Your mom told my mom about this at a PTO meeting, so she’s making me try it.”
“I don’t want anyone to come because her mom makes her,” Dr. Peter said. “But I am going to ask you to give it an honest try. Two sessions. Then if you would rather do something else with your time, I’ll tell your moms they should let you.” Dr. Peter clapped his hands together and nodded toward the beanbag chairs that were set in a circle, each one a different color. “Choose a seat, and let’s get started.”
Sophie picked the purple chair and flopped into it. Beside each beanbag was a Bible in a matching color.
“This is class,” Darbie whispered to her.
“A lady doesn’t whisper,”
Fiona said.
“I don’t know about a lady,” said Dr. Peter. “But members of this group don’t HAVE to whisper — at least not in here.”
“Define this group,” Fiona said.
“We’re going to do that over time,” Dr. Peter said. “But I will tell you this: you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t ready to get closer to God.” He wrinkled his nose so that his glasses worked their way back up closer to his sparkling eyes. “Unless your mom made you come.”
“It’s cool so far,” Gill said. Harley gave him a thumbs-up.
“You all got the packet I sent you, telling you what we’re going to be doing?”
Heads bobbed.
“So, any questions before we get started?”
“I have one,” Fiona said. She resituated herself in her hot pink beanbag. “Sophie says the Bible talks about stuff like what we’re dealing with right now with a friend of ours. I just don’t see how that could be true, since the Bible was written, like, a million years ago.”
Sophie was sure Miss Odetta Clide would say a lady didn’t talk to the Bible study teacher like that. But Dr. Peter grinned at Fiona.
“I like a challenge,” he said. “Bring it on.”
Fiona straightened up tall, and then looked at Gill and Harley. “You guys have to promise you won’t tell anybody at school about this.”
“What is said in here stays in here,” Dr. Peter said. “That’s one of the ground rules. But we aren’t here to vent about people either.”
“This isn’t venting. Here’s what happened.”
Fiona told him all about the pact and Kitty’s breaking it, with Darbie and Sophie adding details, and Harley and Gill looking as if they were hearing about the worst kind of traitor.
“So,” Fiona said when they were through, “how can the Bible tell us what to do about something that probably never happened back then?”
“The Bible is full of stories about betrayal,” Dr. Peter said. He rubbed his hands together as if he couldn’t wait to get into one.
“Oh,” Fiona said. “So what’s the answer?”
“What’s the question?” Dr. Peter said. He looked at the Wheaties. “Do you two mind if we explore that?”
