Sophie's Stormy Summer

by Nancy N. Rue

  There was a special process to make a Corn Flakes production come together. Sophie always took care of Step One, which was to discover the perfect characters and the most excellent mission from one of her daydreams.

  Step Two was Fiona’s job, which was to do the necessary research to make it totally real. She had already checked that one off.

  Step Three: As they talked about the production — the characters, script, setting, and props — notes were made in the Treasure Book. No one but Maggie did that, and nobody else touched the gel pens.

  They were now on Step Four: deciding what the story would be. That was Sophie’s favorite part, because they didn’t just sit at a table and write it — how boring would that be? They chose their characters and played out the story until it told itself, and Maggie wrote it down as they went, usually with Fiona making sure she got it all in there. At that point Kitty was always starting to nag Maggie about her favorite part, the costumes Maggie and her mom would make for the film. But, of course, Kitty wasn’t there. Nobody else brought it up.

  For practice, they dried out the ends of the old bread that Mama usually saved for the birds and gnawed on them while they hid between the garage and the line of azalea bushes. Maggie said, as she chewed, that she didn’t think it had to be that real.

  Then they barricaded themselves behind the boxes and trunks in the attic to hide from the Nazis, until even their shorts were soaked with sweat and Mama made them come out and drink about three gallons of water.

  By then it was time for Step Five: defining roles and casting the extra parts.

  They gathered in Sophie’s room, with Maggie sitting at Sophie’s desk ready to fill in the names next to the roles, which she had written neatly on a page in the book. Sophie figured it probably took Maggie ten minutes to print each one precisely.

  “We need Nazis,” Maggie said.

  “I don’t think I can be one of those,” Darbie said from her place on her tummy at the end of the bed. “They’re absolute blaggards.”

  “I’ll do it,” Maggie said. “But I’ll have to change my name.

  I don’t think a Nazi can be called Marguerite.”

  Fiona plopped onto one of the cushions against the wall in the library corner of Sophie’s room. “I’ll be one too, even though they were evil and heinous and killed over six million Jews. Six million! Do you have any idea how many that is?”

  “Can the Nazis in our movie get what they deserve?” Darbie said, kicking her feet back and forth. “Can’t we reef them?”

  “We can do anything we want,” Sophie said. “That’s why I love making movies.” She sat up straight in the middle of her bed and wafted a hand in the air. “Sofia can lead her mother to safety while the brave and bold Daphne takes them down.”

  Maggie frowned. “That means we have to change the script. It’ll mess it all up.”

  “We’ll ad-lib,” Fiona said. “You know — make it up when we get to that part.”

  Maggie gave a grunt and made a note of that. “Next is Sofia’s mother. Who’s gonna play her?”

  “Willoughby can when she comes back,” Sophie said.

  “What about Kitty?”

  They all looked at Fiona.

  “Kitty can’t.” Maggie’s words were thudding harder than usual.

  Fiona rolled her eyes. “My mother always gives the worst possible scenario when she talks to patients’ families, so if something bad happens they can’t come back and say she didn’t warn them. She told me that herself.” She picked up another cushion and hugged it. “It isn’t going to be that long until Kitty will be home. Go ahead and make her the mother — Danielle.”

  “But you don’t know — ” Maggie started to say. Someone tapped on the door.

  Mama poked her curly head inside the room.

  “I was just wondering if anybody wanted to go see Kitty with me tomorrow. She can have visitors now.”

  The Corn Flakes wriggled, squealing, into a group hug, and even Maggie smiled. Mama suggested they put together a basket of things Kitty might enjoy — which meant a major trip to the store and a complete raid of the house. By the time they were finished, Mama’s huge basket was bulging with markers, very cool paper, CDs for the portable player Lacie put in there on loan, hair thingies, a stuffed kitten that purred when you squeezed it, and a kit for making jewelry that Sophie had gotten for her birthday. Kitty had gone nuts over it at Sophie’s party.

  Not only that, but they managed to stuff in granola bars, juice boxes in Kitty’s favorite flavor — strawberry kiwi — and little bags of Mama’s amazing brownies.

  “THIS is class!” Darbie said the next morning as Daddy loaded the basket into the old Suburban, because nobody else could lift it alone.

  “You better get a wheelchair for this thing when you get there,” Daddy said.

  Sophie was so excited, she actually clapped her hands.

  But the closer they got to Portsmouth, the less anyone talked — except Fiona, who chattered on the way she did on those rare occasions when she was a nervous wreck.

  “I hope they let us all go into her room at the same time,” Fiona said, “because Mom said they might limit the number of visitors she can have at once, but we can always ask her sisters to leave if they’re all in there. She has like four or five. Let’s see, there’s Karen, Kayla — ”

  “Fiona,” Mama said as they pulled into the parking lot, “take a breath.”

  That was when Sophie realized she’d been holding hers.

  It felt, as Fiona put it, “disconcerting” to be in a hospital. Everything was stainless steel and too clean. So sick people won’t get sicker, Sophie thought. She was feeling a little nauseated herself. They had to have special passes to get in since it was a military hospital, and somehow that made it even more disconcerting.

  But nothing caught Sophie’s breath and held it like the sight of Kitty, sitting up in the middle of a bed that had more cords and knobs than the space modules she’d seen at NASA, where her dad worked.

  Kitty let out a little half-scream and reached out her arms for hugs — which were hard to give because there was a tube hanging from one of her arms that led to a bag of liquid stuff on a pole. Sophie didn’t want to know how it was attached to Kitty.

  They each gave her a careful squeeze and then backed off as soon as they could get free to stare at things they had seen only on TV. Except Fiona, who said, “What’s all this for?”

  “I don’t know.” Kitty giggled. “They told me, but I didn’t exactly get it.”

  “I bet I can figure it out,” Fiona said.

  Sophie was watching Kitty carefully. She didn’t look any worse than she had when she left the beach. And she wasn’t whining — yet. And she seemed ecstatic to see them, which Fiona said was the happiest you could get.

  “All right, Kitty,” Darbie said, hands on hips. “Are they decent to you here?”

  “I can have anything I want! Well, almost anything. I wanted to order a pizza, but they wouldn’t let me do that. Oh, and my nurse on the day shift is really cute.” She giggled again. “His name is Sebastian.”

  Talking about a cute boy. That’s a very hopeful sign, Sophie thought.

  Maggie, who had up till now been standing with her arms folded, taking a full survey of Kitty, said, “Do you still hurt?”

  “Not as bad. They’re giving me medicine.” She pointed to the bag on the pole.

  “What’s its name?” Sophie said.

  “I don’t know!” Kitty said.

  “It has to have a name if it’s going to live in here.” Sophie turned to the Corn Flakes. “Any suggestions?”

  “I want it to be a boy,” Kitty said.

  “Figures,” Fiona said.

  Darbie smiled her crooked-toothed smile. “I think it should be Hector.”

  “No!” Kitty wailed.

  “Percival!”

  “Maurice!”

  “NO — give it a cool name!” Kitty was whining. Definitely a good sign, in Sophie’s
opinion.

  “Joe,” Maggie said.

  They all looked at Kitty.

  “Is that cool?” she said.

  “No doubt,” Darbie said.

  “Okay. Joe.”

  Fiona picked up what looked like a remote. “This works your bed, Kitty.”

  “It does?”

  “Yeah, watch.”

  Fiona pushed a button, and the foot of the bed began to rise. She pushed another one, and the head came up. Kitty was slowly being folded into a mattress taco.

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to do that,” Maggie said.

  “I told you I can do almost anything I want here,” Kitty said. “Except be with you guys.”

  Her lower lip trembled, and Sophie could see what was coming.

  “We brought you a basket, Kitty!” she said.

  “Roll the bed down, Fiona,” Darbie said, “so we can give it to her.”

  Maggie and Darbie hoisted the basket up beside Kitty, but she didn’t even get a hand into it because the Corn Flakes pulled out each item and held it up to her and explained it — all at the same time. Kitty giggled through the whole thing and said thank you about a hundred times. When she sniffed at one of the packages of brownies, Fiona said, “You want me to open it?”

  “Let’s open them all!” Darbie said. “I’m not ashamed to mooch!”

  “Not right now,” Kitty said. “I’m getting kinda tired.”

  “I’ll fix the pillows — ”

  “Let me do the bed thing — ”

  “I can hold this tube deal up for you — ”

  “You want some covers?”

  Kitty sank against the pillows and sighed. Her eyelids drooped over her eyes.

  The Corn Flakes stood on each side of the bed, looking at her.

  “Should we go?” Sophie whispered.

  “We probably should,” Darbie whispered back.

  “I have to have an operation.”

  They jumped as if Kitty had leaped off the bed.

  “They’re going to operate on me,” she said.

  “What kind of operation?” Maggie said.

  Darbie nudged her. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Kitty.”

  “They’re going to put me to sleep and put a thing in my chest. When I get better from the operation, they’ll put medicine in the chest-thing and they won’t have to keep sticking things in my arms.”

  “You’ll be asleep,” Fiona said, as if she performed surgery herself daily. “It won’t even hurt.”

  Kitty opened her eyes and looked at her, looked at all of the Corn Flakes.

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  All the way home, Sophie held back something hard that was pushing against her chest from the inside, while everyone talked about everything but Kitty. As soon as she got her bedroom door closed and flung herself across the bed, Sophie’s chest broke open and let the sobs and the tears come out.

  It wasn’t long before she felt her mother joining her on the bed and stroking her hair.

  “It’s hard, isn’t it, Dream Girl?” she said.

  “You know what, Mama?” Sophie said into the bedspread.

  “What?”

  “There’s nothing in that basket that’s going to make Kitty better.”

  Five

  Did Dr. Peter go on his vacation yet?” Sophie said the next morning on the way to church.

  Daddy grinned at Mama. “Is that the fifth time or the sixth time she’s asked us that since we got up today?”

  “Sixth,” Lacie said. “And counting.”

  Mama turned around in her seat and gave Sophie a look that knew things. “I hope he’s still around, Soph,” she said.

  What if he’s not? Sophie thought. I need him to be there! I need him, God, okay?

  It was one of those instant-answer prayers. Dr. Peter was waiting for her at the door to the Sunday school room.

  “Sophie-Lophie-Loodle,” he said.

  It was his special name for her, and it almost made her start crying again. He motioned her over to the little niche by the water fountain. Behind his glasses his usually twinkly eyes were soft, and they drooped at the corners. He ran a hand over his short, gelled curls.

  “I heard about Kitty,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too,” Sophie said.

  “How are you doing with it?”

  “Not good at all.”

  “Let me guess.” Dr. Peter wrinkled his nose to scoot up his glasses. “You’re feeling anxious and confused and you want to cry every other minute.”

  “Yes!”

  “That’s not doing ‘bad,’ ” he said. “That’s doing normal. This is a really hard thing to deal with. Of course you’re going to feel that way.”

  Sophie swallowed hard. “But is it normal to be sort of mad too?”

  “You think? I’m mad myself. A twelve-year-old suffering like that? It doesn’t seem fair.”

  “I feel madder than that. I want to know why God let this happen.” She moved a little closer to him so she could lower her voice. “Do YOU think it’s because Kitty doesn’t go to church and Bible study?”

  One of Dr. Peter’s eyebrows twitched. “Did somebody tell you that’s the reason?”

  “Lacie sorta did.”

  Dr. Peter glanced at his watch. Sophie had never seen him do that before when they were talking.

  “You have to go, huh?” she said. “I didn’t mean for us to, like, have a session right now — ”

  “No, no! I’m glad you asked me. I just want to make sure I talk to somebody before Sunday school starts.” He leaned a hand on the wall, above his head, and looked at Sophie with serious eyes. “Kitty doesn’t have any control over whether she gets to come to church, so if you think God is punishing her because she doesn’t, I don’t think that’s true.” He watched the door to Sophie’s Sunday school room close and then glanced down the hall toward the high school room. “I wish I could have you come to my office tomorrow, Loodle, but I’m leaving for vacation right after church. Tell you what — ”

  He pulled a pen and a pad out of his pocket. The pad was shaped like a lily pad, and the pen, of course, had frog’s feet sticking out both sides.

  “I’m going to be gone for two weeks,” he said as he wrote. “I want you to promise me you’ll do two things while I’m away.”

  “Anything,” Sophie said. She could already feel herself getting lighter.

  “One — you’ll read this Bible story and put yourself in it. You know how.”

  “Promise.”

  “And two — you won’t stop imagining Jesus every day and listening to the answers. Do what he says, even if it hurts.”

  “If it HURTS?” Sophie said.

  “It just might mean a few sacrifices. Nothing you and God can’t handle together.” He gave her a smile, and to Sophie it looked a little wobbly. “You can do anything God asks you to do, Sophie. You’ve proved that — and I think that’s why he’s asking more from you.” He pressed the paper into her hand and whispered, “You can do it.”

  As she watched him hurry down the hall to the high school room, she sure hoped he was right. It was a heavy thing to even think about doing this without him.

  So after church, Sophie dragged a little as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom. A Post-It note was stuck to her pillow.

  Soph,

  Come to my room, K? We need to talk.

  Lace

  Sophie sniffed. SHE might need to talk to ME, but I don’t need to talk to HER.

  But how many times in the last year had Lacie invited her into the room next door? Besides, Sophie wanted to set her straight about Kitty now that she’d seen Dr. Peter and really knew what she was talking about.

  Pulling herself to her full but not very impressive height, Sophie went to Lacie’s door, all prepared to knock, but the door was already open.

  “Hey, Soph,” Lacie said from her cross-legged seat in one of her bowl-like green papasan chairs that swiveled in ci
rcles. “Wanna sit?”

  It wasn’t an order, so Sophie parked herself in the other one, legs sticking straight out above the floor, ready to take off if things got ugly.

  “You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?” Lacie said.

  “Yes,” Sophie said.

  “Well — I don’t blame you.”

  Sophie stared. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. I messed up at the beach the other day when I was talking to you about Kitty needing to be saved and all — and I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  Sophie only nodded at first, since this was so un-Lacie-like. She even studied Lacie’s freckled face for signs that she might change her mind or add a “But — ”

  “So — do you forgive me?” Lacie said.

  “Sure,” was all Sophie managed to say. This was like talking to a stranger she’d known her whole life.

  Lacie wiggled to a straighter position in the chair. “What I said wasn’t wrong, exactly; it was HOW I said it. Kip said I needed to — ”

  “Who’s Kip?”

  “Hello? My high school youth director that took us on the mission trip. He’s like Dr. Peter in your Bible study group thing.”

  Sophie wanted to correct her with the fact that there was no one like Dr. Peter, but she held back. So far, Lacie was being pretty decent.

  “Anyway, I told Kip what I told you and that you were mad at me about it, and he said that the way I presented it to you probably turned you totally off.”

  “You mean ‘has she accepted-Jesus-Christ-as-her-Savior?’ ”

  Lacie let out a husky laugh. “Is that the way I sounded?”

  “Yes.”

  “No wonder you were mad at me! See, I got so used to saying it over and over on the trip, so — well, whatever — I was TRYING to say that I really want to see Kitty know Jesus like a friend and see that he’s the Way.”

  “To getting well?”

  “To living the life he told us about in the Bible and getting to go to heaven — someday. You know, like, when she’s an old woman.”

  Sophie squirmed in the bowl-chair. “But what about now? What about her getting better so they don’t have to keep treating her and she can come home and all that?”