by Nancy N. Rue
Simon/Sophie was shouting orders until his throat went hoarse, telling the other fishermen to grab on and get the catch to shore. He had never seen so many fish, all silvery and slithery and flipping over and under one another. He hadn’t known there were that many in the whole lake — maybe even in the whole ocean.
“ ‘When Simon Peter saw this,’ ” Sophie read, “ ‘he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” ’ ”
Don’t send him away! Sophie wanted to shout — until she remembered she was supposed to be him. She held her breath as she read on.
“ ‘Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.’ ”
Sophie closed the Bible on her lap, but she kept her eyes closed. The sun turned the darkness behind her eyelids red.
I would’ve gone too, she thought. I imagine Jesus’ eyes all the time, and I’d go anywhere if I could see him in PERSON. Simon was right there WITH him, for real — of course he went.
Who wanted a fishing business anyway? She was supposed to do whatever Jesus told her to do. Would it really be that hard? Obviously he’d give her everything she needed to do it. Simon had enough fish there to sell and keep his family going for a couple of years.
“Okay!” Sophie said. “I’m getting it.”
“Hey, Soph,” Lacie called from her room. “Are you hogging the phone again?”
“No!” Sophie said.
“Then who are you talking to?”
“Dr. Peter,” Sophie said.
“Oh — naturally — silly me.”
Sophie waited for Lacie to yell to Mama that Sophie was finally losing it, but she didn’t.
I totally get it, Sophie told Dr. Peter, in her mind this time. I’m not gonna wait and do a bunch of other stuff if Jesus says to follow him right now.
Something told Sophie to imagine Simon again, standing there with all the fish he’d ever imagined he could catch, and then some. She imagined how he felt when Jesus said, “Okay, now leave it all here and come with me.”
And Simon did.
Yikes! Sophie thought. I wonder how HIS kids felt when they found out he’d just LEFT. What were THEY supposed to do with all those fish?
She put the Bible away and plopped down in the middle of the bed where all the clothes she’d planned to put away were piled. She stuck her swimsuit bottoms on her head, just because.
What would Dr. Peter say if she could talk to him?
Sophie grunted. That was easy. He’d tell her to ask Jesus to show her what it meant, and then wait.
I’m sick of waiting, she grumbled to herself.
But she did it anyway. And she prayed.
Whatever I’m supposed to do for Kitty, I’ll do it, she told his kind eyes, even if I have to leave — well, not fish, because I don’t even have any — but I’ll leave everything you want me to if it’ll help Kitty.
She kind of hoped he’d ask her to leave middle school before it even started or run away from the Corn Pops or something like that, but that wasn’t much of a sacrifice. Okay, so it wasn’t a sacrifice at all.
Besides, how was that going to help Kitty? Sophie decided it was a good thing she didn’t have to figure out what would help her on her own, because nobody was telling her what Kitty needed. Nobody was saying anything about Kitty.
The day was promising to drag itself right into a pit when Mama poked her head in the doorway to hand her the phone. She looked straight at the swimsuit bottoms on Sophie’s head but she didn’t say anything.
When Sophie heard Willoughby’s voice on the other end of the phone line, she squealed.
Willoughby was there in ten minutes. Sophie remembered to pull off her headdress before Willoughby arrived. Then it took twenty more minutes to fill her in on everything that had happened while she was away. The more Sophie told her, the bigger Willoughby’s hazel eyes grew, but everything else on her seemed to be shrinking. By the time Sophie was finished, even Willoughby’s short, nut-brown curls were drooping.
“I can’t BELIEVE this is happening to Kitty. I bet she’s crying every minute.” Willoughby nodded wisely. “She’s always been a crier — and a whiner — but I love her anyway.”
“We ALL do,” Sophie said. “It’s driving me nuts not being able to do anything to help her. I just sit here.”
Willoughby got up from Sophie’s bed and crossed to the dresser where she picked up Sophie’s brush. She perched on the pile of pillows behind Sophie and went to work, pulling the brush through Sophie’s hair.
“Everybody wants to do my hair all of a sudden,” Sophie said.
“That’s because your hair is super thick,” Willoughby said. “I KNOW it’s gotten thicker while I was gone.”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Yuh-huh! If there’s anything I know, it’s hair. My aunt’s a stylist. She owns her own shop.”
“Are you serious?”
“She goes to hair shows all the time and comes back with all these killer styles she can do. Too bad I have such lame hair.”
“I like your hair!” Sophie said.
“Julia and them never thought so. They were always calling me ‘Poodle’ and some other names I won’t even tell you.”
Sophie tried to turn to look at Willoughby, but she had a firm grip on Sophie’s hair so she couldn’t move her head.
“And they were supposed to be your friends?” Sophie said.
“They just kept me around so they could pick on me,” Willoughby said. “Only I never saw that until you guys came along. Being a Corn Flake has, like, saved my life.” She giggled. “I love that name — the Corn Flakes. I’m gonna put your hair in all small braids and then put them up in a bun. It’ll be cool.”
Sophie settled in for what sounded like it was going to take all afternoon. She couldn’t help thinking about what the Bible was telling her to do. Arranging her next words carefully, she said, “Do you go to church?”
“We used to when I was little, before my parents got divorced,” Willoughby said. “Then my dad stopped taking us because he said he could barely get us all out the door for school five days a week, much less on Sundays too.”
“You live with your dad all the time?” Sophie said.
“Yeah, my mom left town,” Willoughby said — as if she were merely pointing out that someone had left the room. “You have any bobby pins?”
“I have clips in that box on my dresser,” Sophie said.
“Hold this.” Willoughby handed her the end of a long, thin braid and stretched for the dresser.
“Do you still believe in God?” Sophie said when she was back to the job.
“Are you kidding me? I pray every night. Tonight I’m gonna pray for Kitty, like, big-time.” And then Willoughby giggled, for no apparent reason, which was one of the things she did a lot. Sophie always thought it was the way a poodle might laugh — but she didn’t say it. She didn’t want Willoughby to think she was like the Corn Pops.
“I’m praying for her too,” Sophie said. “I just want to know what she needs so I can do it for her.”
“Why don’t you ask her?” Willoughby said. Sophie could tell she had several of the clips pressed between her lips.
“She’s having her chemotherapy right now, so she’s probably really sick. Mama says Dr. Bunting — you know, Fiona’s mom — will let us know when it’s okay to call her. Except I promised Fiona I wouldn’t really listen to her mom, because she always tells us the worst thing that could happen.”
“So we could write Kitty a letter,” Willoughby said. “This is going to be so cute.”
“The letter?” Sophie said.
“No, your hair.” Willoughby giggled again.
“You mean, just write to her and ask her to, like, make a list of everything she needs?”
“Why not? My dad always says — ” Willoughby made her voice go low and man-like — “ ‘How are you ever going to find out any
thing if you don’t ask questions?’ ” She went back to her own bubbling tone. “That’s why I always ask so many.
Julia hated that. She was always telling me to shut up.”
“Stop for a second while I get some paper,” Sophie said.
She wrote the letter to Kitty while Willoughby finished her hair creation. When they took the letter downstairs to show Mama, she stopped the mixer and stared at Sophie.
“Oh, my Dream Girl,” she said. “You look so grown up.”
Her eyes turned down at the corners, and for a moment Sophie was afraid she was going to start crying, right in front of Willoughby. She got even more afraid when Mama read their letter, and her eyes got all swimmy.
When Mama finished it though, Sophie saw her swallow a couple of times before she looked up at them. No tears.
“So — can I have a stamp so we can send it to her?” Sophie said.
Mama shook her head, and Sophie’s heart started a downward plunge.
“Let’s not send it,” Mama said.
“But Mo-om — ”
“Let’s take it over to her house. This is the kind of thing her parents will want to deliver right into her hands.”
Nine
Before Mama took Sophie and Willoughby over to the Munfords’ that night, Lacie wrote a Bible verse on paper for Kitty and decorated it, even though Sophie told her Kitty had never read the Bible. Zeke made a picture to put in the envelope too. It was a purple dinosaur, which was Zeke’s specialty at the moment, but he assured Sophie that Kitty was really going to like it.
Armed with a fat packet, they drove to Kitty’s house. Sophie had never been there before, and she didn’t expect what she saw when they walked in the back door.
“This is a zoo,” Willoughby whispered to her.
Four of Kitty’s five older sisters were there, and Sophie wouldn’t have been surprised if the other one was just lost in the chaos.
There were dishes overflowing the sink and nothing in the drawers or cabinets, which Sophie could tell because they all were hanging open. Clothes were piled up on the dining room table, although it was hard to say whether they all were clean, dirty, or some of both. The tangle of plants in the bay window looked like there was a drought going on.
Three of the girls — Sophie knew their names all started with K, but she didn’t have a clue who was who — were lounging in the living room watching Oprah and passing around an almost-empty bag of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips. When the fourth K, who let Mama and Sophie and Darbie in, said, “We’ve got company,” the rest of them startled up from their seats, and one of them even said, “It’s not Dad, is it?”
When they saw that it wasn’t, they assumed their previous positions and went back to Oprah.
“We’re supposed to have the place cleaned up and dinner started before the Colonel gets home,” said the girl who let them in.
Sophie had heard Kitty talk about her dad as “the Colonel.” She’d also told them he’d had his promotion for six months before she learned that it wasn’t spelled K-E-R-N-E-L.
“And you are?” Mama said to the sister who was actually speaking to them.
“I’m Kandy,” she said.
“Nice to meet you, Kandy,” Mama said. “The girls have written a letter to Kitty, and we thought someone could deliver it when they go to the hospital.”
“Sure,” Kandy said. “Kelly’s going tomorrow — she can take it. Kelly! I’m putting this on the table! Take it to Kitty!”
“Uh-huh,” Kelly said. She never took her eyes away from the television.
Sophie watched with horror as Kandy stuck their letter under a pair of jeans that was hanging off the end of the dining room table.
Mama watched her, and Sophie prayed that God would come down and sweep up the envelope and stick it back into Mama’s hand — or at least that Mama would think of retrieving it herself.
Instead, Mama stepped farther into the living room and planted herself in front of the TV. Three pairs of glazed eyes came into focus on her.
“Ladies,” Mama said in her soft voice, “I have met your father, and I have to say that I personally wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end if he walked through that door right now.”
“He’d definitely bust a blood vessel,” said the K-girl in the reclining chair. “But we don’t even know where to start. Mom does everything around here — ”
“And now that she’s at the hospital with Kitty all the time — ” The one on the floor spread out her hands and shrugged.
“It just so happens that I know how to do this kind of thing,” Mama said. She gave them her wispy smile. “So what do you say we get to it? I’ll give the orders.”
They all looked at her as if she couldn’t order them out of a wet paper sack, but Sophie knew better. Within five minutes Mama had Kandy and Karen folding laundry, Kelly doing dishes, and Kayla helping her mix up a meat loaf. Mama even unearthed thirteen-year-old Kendra from a back bedroom and got her to start vacuuming. She sent Sophie and Willoughby into the living room to pick up all the clutter and dump it into a laundry basket.
Make that three laundry baskets.
“My dad would ground us forever if we let our house get this messy,” Willoughby said, “and I’ve got two brothers.”
By the time Colonel Munford got home, dinner was on the table instead of the laundry, which was neatly tucked into drawers, and the living room and kitchen were ready for military inspection — if he didn’t look too close. Which he didn’t.
Sophie watched Kitty’s father glance around. He said, “Good job, girls,” and leaned wearily against the wall, rubbing the top of his nearly shaved head.
“He doesn’t look so tough to me,” Willoughby whispered to Sophie.
All Sophie could do was stare. This couldn’t be the same man who had carried Kitty out of the beach house. This guy was smaller and sort of scared-looking, and he didn’t bark when he talked.
“I bet I have you to thank for this,” he said to Mama.
“They did the work,” Mama said.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
Then he didn’t say anything else. It looked like it was just too hard to move his mouth.
“How’s our Kitty?” Mama said.
He rubbed his head again. “She’s pretty sick. My wife won’t even leave her room.”
Sophie and Willoughby clenched hands.
“They brought a note for her,” Kelly said. “I’m taking it to her tomorrow.”
“That’s nice,” Colonel Munford said. “That’s really nice.”
Mama nodded, lips pressed together. Then she said, “How about if I come by tomorrow and show the girls how to keep the place going? That will be one thing off your mind.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know — but I want to.” Mama blinked several times. “I love Kitty. It’s the least I can do.”
The Colonel turned to Mama and engulfed her tiny elfin hands in his. Sophie and Willoughby mumbled their goodbyes and backed out the door before the adults could start breaking down and leave nobody knowing what to do. Sophie didn’t have much confidence in the K’s.
“How come they just sit around and don’t clean up?” Sophie said on the way home. “I don’t get that.”
“I have a theory,” Mama said. “Maybe if they just stare at the TV they won’t think about their sister. If they do something that doesn’t really require them to concentrate, they probably imagine all kinds of things.”
“I guess you don’t have to concentrate too hard when you’re dumping out the trash,” Willoughby said with the usual giggle.
“I do know one thing for sure though,” Mama said. “It’s obvious they need a lot of help, and I want to do everything I can for them.” She glanced over at Sophie in the seat next to her. “Okay — no more trying to distract you. I understand what Aunt Emily has to do for Darbie, but I’m going to let you help as much as you want to. That’s the only healthy way you’re going
to get through this.”
Sophie nodded several times. Maybe Jesus wasn’t going to ask her to do something that hard after all.
Over the next four days, everybody got focused on “Mission: Kitty.” Lacie got the high school youth group together to mow the Munfords’ lawn and wash their cars. They even had a pizza party for the five K’s.
“Ken said the girls had a great time last night,” Mama told Lacie the next morning.
“Who’s Ken?” Sophie said.
“Kitty’s father.”
Lacie stopped eating her cereal with the spoon in front of her mouth. “Please tell me their mom’s name isn’t Katie or something.”
“Michelle,” Mama said.
“That’s sad,” Sophie said. “I bet she feels left out.”
Mama grinned in Lacie’s direction “I don’t think so. Kendra told me all their middle names start with M.”
“Don’t take me there,” Lacie said.
Daddy made up a spreadsheet on his computer so the K’s would have a chore schedule. Mama spent two days helping them get rolling with it. She reported that they all fell in love with Zeke, who went with her.
“They’ll get over it,” Lacie said, and kissed Zeke on the nose.
Mama also made up a bunch of meals the K-girls could pull out of the freezer and warm up for suppers. The best part of that for Sophie and Willoughby was that she got Aunt Emily to come over and help. So they got to be with Darbie again.
After Aunt Emily made Darbie promise she would let her know if she started to get upset, Sophie, Darbie, and Willoughby escaped to Sophie’s room to decide what they could do for Kitty — since she hadn’t sent them her list yet.
“I know what I want to do for her,” Willoughby said. “I’ve wanted to do it ever since I first saw you guys out on the playground.”
“And that is … ,” Darbie said.
“I want to make a movie.”
Darbie hooked her hair behind her ears. “We can’t do the Nazis,” she said. “Aunt Emily would put me in solitary confinement!”
