Sophie Hartley and the Facts of Life

by Stephanie Greene

  Last night after dinner, when they’d been watching one of their favorite programs in the family room, Mr. Hartley had asked if someone would make him a sandwich. Sophie started to get up, but her mother held out her hand. “Stay,” she ordered. “Your father isn’t so wounded that he can’t fix his own snack.”

  “I don’t mind,” Sophie said.

  “Sit.”

  Sophie sat. “I don’t see why you hate the idea of having a dog so much,” she grumbled. “It would be well behaved with you around.”

  “Thank you, Sophie, but your mother’s right,” her dad said. “I can make it myself.”

  Nora snorted when Mr. Hartley made a brave show of struggling to his feet and limping into the kitchen.

  “Where do you keep your bread?” he called after a few minutes.

  “My bread?”

  Sophie and Nora exchanged glances.

  “Why is it my bread?” Mrs. Hartley shouted. “Perhaps if you made your own sandwiches more often, you’d know where we keep the bread!”

  There was silence in the family room except for the sound of the TV until Mr. Hartley reappeared in the doorway. “And where, pray tell,” he asked in

  an innocent voice, “do you keep your mayonnaise?”

  Sophie saw the mayonnaise jar tucked inside his shirt and had to cover her mouth so she wouldn’t laugh. When they were little and lost something like a sock or a shoe or a mitten, their dad would show up with the item hanging from an ear or perched on top of his head and say, “I wonder where it can be.” It always made them laugh.

  Last night, Mrs. Hartley hadn’t cracked a smile.

  “Dad?” Sophie called now as she got near her parents’ bedroom door.

  “Come in!”

  Her father was dressed and sitting on their bed. Sophie sat down beside him.

  “Was that Nora I heard running back up to her room?” he asked.

  “It’s raining,” Sophie said. “She blew dry her hair straight.”

  Her dad looked at her.

  “Nora hates her curly hair.”

  “I’m afraid she got that hair from my mother,” he said.

  Mr. Hartley’s mother had died before Sophie was born. Her dad kept a wedding picture of his mother and father on his dresser. Sophie and Nora used to prop it up when they played with their dollhouse and pretend their grandparents were the dolls’ parents. Nora had named them Mr. and Mrs. Witherspoon because she thought it sounded fancy.

  Sophie glanced at the framed photo now. It could have been Nora in the picture.

  “Nora likes to blame it on Mom,” Sophie said. “She wants to get her hair straightened, but Mom says it’s too expensive.”

  “Let me guess,” Mr. Hartley said. “Thad was the one who pointed out it was raining.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m catching on.”

  “You are,” said Sophie. “Nora argues with everyone these days.”

  “I’m afraid our Nora’s going through a prickly patch,” her dad said. “It’s her age.”

  “Does everyone fight when they’re teenagers?”

  “Not necessarily. I didn’t. But I only had one brother, your uncle Pete. He was a lot older, so I looked up to him.”

  “Like John and Thad.”

  “Exactly.” Her dad patted her knee. “Don’t worry. I don’t think you’ll be a fighter, Sophie. You’re a glass-half-full kind of person.”

  “Don’t say that around Nora. It’ll make her mad.” Sophie stood up. “Need me to tell you where Mom keeps her coffee?”

  Her dad laughed and reached out to tousle her hair, but Sophie ducked. “Don’t touch it,” she said. “I want it the way it is.”

  “It looks as if you have a family of mice in there.”

  “Close.”

  “I’m afraid yours is going to curl, too, if it’s raining,” her dad said.

  “The curlier the better,” Sophie said firmly.

  three

  Jenna and Alice were waiting for Sophie in front of the school. The three of them had been walking into the building together since they’d become best friends at the beginning of second grade.

  Jenna was holding her iridescent orange yo-yo. It was her newest hobby. She carried it everywhere.

  “Watch this,” she said as Sophie came up to them. Jenna jerked her hand back and sent the yo-yo down the string. It hovered above the pavement, spinning, until she jerked her hand again. The yo-yo sped back up the string and settled neatly into her palm.

  The girls started into the building.

  “Isn’t that cool?” Jenna said. “It’s called ‘sleeping the yo-yo.’”

  “I tried the yo-yo when Thad had one, but I stunk,” said Sophie.

  “The trick I’m learning now is even better,” Jenna said. “It’s called ‘walk the dog.’ Wait till you see it.”

  “You’ve got something in your hair, Sophie,” Alice said, reaching out.

  “Don’t touch it!” said Sophie. She covered the delicate gray feather she’d found on the sidewalk with her hand. “I want it there. It’s supposed to look like a bird’s nest.”

  “On purpose?” said Alice. “What’d your mom say?”

  “My mom’s bored with hair,” Sophie said as they went into the school. “Nora cries all the time about hers being curly, and Maura screams whenever Mom tries to comb hers. Mom probably wishes we were all bald.”

  “My mom says we’re at the age when we need to start thinking about hygiene,” said Alice. “If I wore a feather in my hair, she’d have a fit.”

  “What’s hygiene?” said Jenna.

  “You know, wearing deodorant and things like that,” Alice said. She blushed. “She bought me a deodorant called Summer Breeze. It smells pretty.”

  “I wish your mom would talk to some of the boys in our class,” said Jenna. “Especially after recess.”

  “You’re wearing deodorant?” Sophie said. “Let me smell.” She leaned forward, sniffing Alice like a dog. “Summer Breeze . . . I smell barbecued hot dogs.”

  “Sophie! You’re embarrassing me,” Alice said, pushing her away.

  “You get embarrassed about everything,” said Jenna. She was making the yo-yo travel up and down the string while they walked. “Next Halloween, you could wear brown and go trick-or-treating as a tree, Sophie,” she said. “And if you found a whole bird’s egg, you could put that in your nest. Or maybe a hard-boiled egg, so it wouldn’t break.”

  “Good idea,” said Sophie. “I could wear green gloves for leaves.”

  “I might go as an Olympic yo-yo champion,” Jenna said.

  “I don’t think they have yo-yos in the Olympics.”

  “They should,” Jenna said. “They have Ping-Pong.”

  “Next year, we get to go to the fifth-grade Halloween dance,” said Alice.

  Sophie and Jenna looked at her.

  “What? It’s supposed to be a lot of fun,” Alice protested.

  “More fun than getting free candy?” said Sophie.

  “Nothing’s more fun than getting free candy,” said Jenna.

  Sophie had a flashback to the night the week before when Nora had found out that a girl she knew was having a party and she, Nora, hadn’t been invited. “Take it from me. All dances and parties do is make girls cry,” she said. “Boys make them cry, too.”

  “Boys don’t cry, but girls and parties sure make them act weird,” said Jenna, who had three older brothers.

  They turned in to the hallway to Mrs. Stearns’s room. A group of girls was clustered outside one of the fifth-grade classrooms. One of them whispered something that made the rest of them shriek. Destiny, another fourth grader, broke away from the group when she spotted Sophie, Jenna, and Alice and hurried toward them.

  “Uh-oh, bad news,” Sophie said. “Either that or something mean.”

  Last year, the three of them had decided Destiny was a snob. At the beginning of fourth grade, she was nice to Jenna because they were on the same lacrosse team. But when Desti
ny wanted everyone on the team to wear a ponytail and Jenna refused, Destiny had unfriended her.

  The three of them had gone back to thinking she was a snob.

  “Darn!” Jenna said now. Her yo-yo dangled lifelessly near the floor. She stopped to wind it back up.

  “Guess what?” Destiny said breathlessly, rushing up to Sophie and Alice.

  “What?”

  Destiny looked around to make sure no one was listening. “The fifth-grade girls are going to see the movie next week,” she whispered. She stood back and slapped her hands over her mouth as if to suppress a shriek. Her eyes were huge.

  “What movie?” said Sophie.

  “You’re kidding! You don’t know about the movie?” Destiny’s hands dangled at her sides and her mouth dropped open as if Sophie had just said the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. Sophie was glad she had so much practice in not showing when she was annoyed.

  “Sophie . . .” Alice said.

  “I know about a lot of movies,” Sophie told Destiny. “Which one are they seeing?”

  “Sophie . . .” Alice tugged at Sophie’s sleeve.

  “What?!”

  Alice looked as if she were ready to die of embarrassment. Her face and neck were bright red. “It’s not that kind,” she whispered.

  “See?” Destiny said with a flick of her hair. “Even Alice knows.”

  It took all of Sophie’s self-control to pretend she hadn’t noticed that Destiny was insulting both her and Alice and to say calmly, “So, what kind is it?”

  “It’s about . . . you know . . .” Alice fluttered her hands nervously up and down in front of her chest and stomach. “Your body.”

  “What about it?”

  “You know . . . how it changes and everything.”

  “Oh.” Sophie suddenly thought about the book Mrs. Hartley had bought for Nora a few years ago. As soon as she’d gotten it, Nora had started acting secretive and private, even undressing in the bathroom when she’d always changed in front of Sophie before. Nora had told Sophie the book was about “your body,” in the same kind of voice Alice had just used, and said that Sophie was too young to look at it. Whenever her friends came for a sleepover, Nora said they had “girl business” to discuss and locked Sophie out of their room. Sophie had pressed her ear to the keyhole many times, but all she’d ever heard was whispering and giggling.

  The way Alice was blushing and squirming now, giggling wasn’t far behind.

  “We don’t care about that stuff,” Sophie told Destiny.

  “Alice does.” Destiny looked pointedly at Alice and said, “Hailey’s older sister saw the movie last year and said it was disgusting.”

  “If it’s a disgusting movie, my brothers have probably seen it.” Jenna slipped the yo-yo into her pocket as she joined them. “That’s the only kind of movie they like to watch.”

  “Your brothers saw the movie?” Destiny clapped her hands over her mouth again and then shrieked, “That is so embarrassing! Wait till I tell Hailey!”

  She rushed over to a dark-haired girl who was wearing the same exact headband Destiny wore and grabbed her hands.

  “Why is that so embarrassing?” Jenna said as they continued down the hall.

  “Destiny was talking about the movie the fifth-grade girls are watching next week,” Sophie said. “Boys don’t watch it.”

  “It’s about poo-berty,” Alice whispered excitedly.

  “My brothers joke about that all the time, except they say pew-berty,” said Jenna.

  “I hate that word,” said Sophie.

  “It’s too embarrassing to say out loud,” said Alice.

  “If you ask me, it should be P-U-berty.” Sophie pinched her nose shut. “I’m sick of the whole thing.”

  “You sound so funny.” Alice giggled. She pinched her nose, too, and said, “P-U-berty.”

  “You can say that again,” Jenna said. “P-U- berty.”

  They burst out laughing. It was a relief, saying it that way. It made the idea feel funny instead of embarrassing.

  “I have an idea.” Sophie halted when they got near their classroom. “Only the three of us will say it like that. Every time anyone else says it the other way, or even talks about it, we’ll look at one another and remember it.”

  “Right. And raise our eyebrows the way Mrs. Stearns does, but we won’t say a word,” Jenna added. “It’ll be our secret signal.”

  She raised her eyebrows until they almost disappeared under her bangs. Sophie raised hers, too. Alice tried, but all that happened was that her eyes opened wide while her eyebrows moved so close together, they were almost touching. Sophie and Jenna laughed harder.

  “Sounds like an interesting conversation,” Mrs. Stearns said as she swept past them on her way into their classroom. “Time to come in, ladies.”

  The girls trooped in, giggling, behind their teacher. Sophie covered her mouth with her hands and wiggled excitedly. “‘Your brothers saw the mooooo-vie?’” she mimicked. “Destiny’s so ridiculous. She acts like she’s so much older than us.”

  “She is older than us,” Jenna said. “When we played lacrosse, Destiny thought she should be the captain because she’s supposed to be in the fifth grade. She said it wasn’t fair her parents kept her back in kindergarten.”

  “Not fair to us, you mean,” said Sophie.

  “Boys and girls,” called Mrs. Stearns. “Before we go to lunch, I have an announcement.”

  Several of the boys slammed their books shut and stood up, ready to bolt at the sound of their teacher’s voice. Mrs. Stearns shook her head at them and said, “Stay seated for a minute, please.”

  There was a lot of grumbling as they settled back down.

  “Starting next week,” Mrs. Stearns said when the room was quiet, “the fourth grade is going to be given an alternative to your usual gym class.”

  “Video games?” Matt Majercik said hopefully.

  “Nice try, Matt.” Mrs. Stearns looked around the room. “As part of a special program, Ms. Bell, the guidance counselor, is going to teach you yoga twice a week for a month. She teaches a children’s course on the weekends.”

  “Yoga’s for girls,” David O’Neill said disgustedly.

  “No, yoga is for everyone,” said Mrs. Stearns. “Football players do yoga. It can greatly improve your balance, your coordination, and your flexibility.”

  “What’s that?” the girl behind Sophie asked.

  “Touching your toes,” said Sophie.

  “I can touch my toes—easy.” Across the aisle, Caleb lifted up his foot and touched the end of his sneaker. “See?”

  “Sophie and Caleb.” Mrs. Stearns waited for a moment before she went on. “People, it’s important to keep an open mind about this. According to Mr. Duncan, yoga is a lot of fun and not hard to do.”

  Another class groan.

  Mr. Duncan was the gym teacher. Every year at the beginning of the national physical fitness month, he told them that climbing to the ceiling while holding on to a rope in each hand was fun too.

  “Yoga helps create a feeling of inner peace and harmony,” Mrs. Stearns went on, “and can help people develop self-control.”

  Sophie could have sworn Mrs. Stearns fixed her with a beady eye when she said that part, but maybe not. Sophie knew she wasn’t the only one in her class who had a problem with self-control. Almost everyone in the fourth grade could have done with a lesson.

  “I’m going to leave this sign-up sheet on the corner of my desk,” Mrs. Stearns said, waving a piece of paper in the air. “If you want to try yoga, sign it. If you don’t, you’ll play volleyball for the next four weeks.”

  “I’m doing volleyball,” Jenna said when everyone stood up to get in line. “My brothers are the ones who should take yoga if it’s good for self-control.”

  “I don’t like all the jumping up and down you have to do in volleyball,” said Alice. “It feels like my brain’s rattling around inside my head.”

  Sophie didn’t like volle
yball, either. Ever since the time she’d gotten bonked on the head in third grade, she couldn’t help but duck when the ball came anywhere near her. It made the kids on her team mad. And since her mother had wished for one of her children to show self-control only this morning, yoga couldn’t start a minute too soon.

  Sophie was the first one to sign up.

  four

  Sophie offered to read to Maura before dinner that night. She liked reading to Maura. She got to revisit picture books she’d loved when she was little without Nora saying, “Aren’t you a little old for that?”

  Sophie was convinced she could teach Maura to talk in full sentences if she read to her enough, too. Her mother didn’t seem at all worried that Maura barely talked. She said Maura would do it in her own time. But Alyssa, a girl in Sophie’s class, had a two-year-old sister, and Alyssa said she talked nonstop.

  Right now, Sophie was reading Maura her favorite book for the third time. It was about a mouse that was afraid of the wind during a storm because it thought the wind was the voice of an invisible monster.

  When Sophie got to the end, Maura took her thumb out of her mouth long enough to say, “Again.”

  Sophie started again. She nearly had the words memorized. “‘“Please be quiet,” the tiny mouse squeaked,’” she read in a high-pitched mouse voice. Then, in a deep voice, “‘But the wind wouldn’t be quiet. It moaned and groaned. It rattled and roared.’

  “‘“YOU GREAT BIG BULLY!” the tiny mouse squeaked,’” Sophie read. “‘“WHY DON’T YOU PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE!”’”

  Sophie always shouted this line. Maura got excited every time. She bounced up and down now in Sophie’s lap and clapped her hands.

  “Come on, Maura,” Sophie said encouragingly. “You say it with me this time. ‘“You great big bully!”’”

  Maura only laughed.

  Before Sophie had to read the book all the way through for the fourth time, Mrs. Hartley called them to dinner. Sophie and Maura arrived in the kitchen with Thad and John hard on their heels. Mr. Hartley was standing at the counter, opening the lids of two boxes containing large pizzas.