Sophie Steps Up

by Nancy N. Rue

  “I’ll be in one boat with the two little ones,” Ethel was shouting, “and Mr. Bunting will be in the other one with the rest of you.” She sized Sophie up with her eyes. “You’re little, so that boat can handle it.”

  “I’m not so sure the other one can handle HER,” Fiona whispered to Sophie.

  “Everybody put on a life jacket,” Ethel shouted next.

  Darbie opened her mouth just as Ethel shoved a blue puffy thing at her chest.

  “I don’t think you argue with her,” Kitty whispered.

  By the time Boppa joined them with the picnic baskets, the girls were all strapped into their jackets. Sophie’s was so big even over her sweatshirt, she could barely see where she was going. Ethel was still trying to wrestle the two little ones into theirs.

  “Any of you ever rowed a boat before?” Boppa said to the girls.

  Darbie’s hand shot up. Fiona raised hers too.

  “When was that?” Boppa said to her.

  “That one summer,” Fiona said. “We went up to that lake place in Michigan. You weren’t there.”

  “You get back here, Izzy, before you fall in and get soaked!”

  Ethel thundered past them with Rory under one arm.

  Boppa pointed down to one of the boats.

  “Get aboard,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” Then he took off after Ethel, just in time to catch Rory kicking himself free.

  “I’d throw both of those little blaggards into the drink,” Darbie said as she led the way down the ladder.

  “Don’t you mean black guards?” Fiona said. “I think that’s the way it’s spelled.”

  Darbie shrugged. “Then maybe you shouldn’t think.”

  Kitty gave one of her I’m-about-to-cry giggles. “Boppa said to get in the boat.”

  It took a few minutes to sort out the seating arrangements. Fiona said she should be in front so she could be captain, and Darbie should be at the other end to take orders. After Darbie was in her place at the back of the boat, she smirked and said Fiona could sit up in the bow if she wanted to, but if she expected to help row she had to sit there next to Darbie in the middle.

  “I know,” Fiona said. “I was just checking to be sure YOU knew.”

  “Right,” Darbie said.

  Sophie and Kitty sat in the stern — without oars — and Fiona told them to get on their knees and lean against the seat since that was the right way to do it.

  “It would be if we were canoeing,” Darbie said. “In this boat, you can sit on your bum.”

  “I have a ‘bum’?” Kitty said.

  “I think that’s her word for bottom,” Sophie said. She added that to her mental treasury of Colleen words.

  Darbie nodded at the two oars which were attached to the boat through big metal clamps. Darbie called them oarlocks. “You’re going to have to row precisely in time with me,” she said to Fiona, “unless you fancy turning around in circles.”

  Sophie saw a smile escape from Darbie’s dark eyes.

  She’s making fun of Fiona, Colleen O’Bravo thought. I will speak to her about that, I will, when we’re alone. Then she settled on her bum and waited for the adventure to begin.

  But that didn’t promise to happen any time soon. Up on the dock, Ethel was holding Izzy between her knees as she tried to poke her arms through the life jacket holes. Boppa was working on Rory, and both kids were screaming, and Fiona’s eyes were practically rolling right out of her head and into the water.

  “She’s got one done, so she does,” Darbie said.

  Boppa grabbed Izzy as she wriggled away from Ethel and held her by the back of the life jacket with one hand and Rory with the other. He was wrinkling his caterpillar eyebrows from Ethel to the boat and back again.

  “He knows somebody’s going to drown,” Fiona said. “So much for this adventure.”

  “Could you drown here?” Kitty said. She pulled herself closer to Sophie. “How deep is it?”

  “It’s not but a meter or two deep right here,” Darbie said.

  “How do you know?” Fiona said.

  “Because I live on the water. My kinfolk are fishermen,” Darbie shot back.

  “We don’t talk in meters.”

  “Everybody else in the whole world does.”

  “Fiona.”

  Boppa was squatting on the dock, looking down at them.

  “Ethel is going to stay here with Izzy, and I’m going to take Rory in the other boat. Can you follow me, do you think?”

  “Absolutely,” Fiona said. She grabbed up the oar. “Untie us, Sophie!”

  “Cast off,” Darbie said.

  “WhatEVER,” Fiona said back.

  “I don’t think they like each other that much,” Kitty whispered to Sophie.

  Sophie tried to imagine she was Colleen, unwrapping the rope from the barnacled deck and pushing against the piling with her hand to send them off, but it was impossible. Darbie and Fiona were definitely not in a dream world.

  “You sure you know what you’re doing?” Darbie said to Fiona.

  “I told you, I’ve done it before,” Fiona said.

  Sophie watched Darbie push her oar backward over the water, dip it in, and pull it back.

  “In time with me!” Darbie said.

  “Why do you get to be the captain?” Fiona said.

  “Go on, then.”

  Darbie pulled her oar out of the water. Fiona pushed hers down into the water and then lifted it up. The boat went backward.

  “That’s not the way Darbie did it,” Kitty whispered to Sophie.

  It didn’t take a sailor to figure out Darbie’s was the right way. The boat was now moving in a circle.

  “You’re making a bags of doing it!” Darbie called out. “Do it like this! Forward. Now in! Now back!”

  “You got us going in circles!” Fiona shouted back.

  “No — YOU do! Now quit blathering and do what I tell you!”

  Fiona dragged her oar in the water, and the boat came to a stop. Kitty edged closer to Sophie.

  “You all right back there?” Boppa was holding Rory between his feet and watching the girls.

  “We’re fine!” Fiona said.

  Darbie gave a knot of a laugh. “We would be if you would admit you don’t know what you’re doing and listen to me!”

  “Shut up!” Fiona said. “I know what I’m doing. This is an American boat — not Irish!”

  “You’re an eejit!”

  Kitty clutched at Sophie’s jeans and started to cry. At that point, Sophie had no choice. She had to escape into Colleen O’Bravo’s world or she was going to push Darbie and Fiona and Kitty right into the shallows of the Chesapeake.

  Why are they arguing about silly things when there’s work to be done? Colleen thought. She didn’t know exactly what work it was, what incredibly important mission she’d be assigned, but she certainly wasn’t going to find out this way. Even though that angry Darbie O’Grady finally got the boat to move through the water in a straight line, her fellow crew members refused to concentrate on what their mission might be. Those two with the oars are too busy trying to both be captain, she thought with a little anger of her own. And I suppose it’s up to me as always, to step in and settle things between them so we can get on with it. She gathered her shamrock-dotted skirts up around her knees and stood up, one foot on the bench where her bum had just been. “Now see here . . .” she began. But they all screamed at her at once, even Kitty. In fact, she screamed loudest, as the boat lurched and —

  — and Sophie tumbled backward into the water with Kitty still attached to her pant leg. All she could hear was Darbie yelling, “Are you gone in the head? Sit DOWN!”

  Five

  Sunday was a bumpy day, and it got rougher with each piece of news Sophie stumbled over.

  Right after church, Kitty called, still wailing. As far as Sophie could tell, she hadn’t stopped bawling since before the boat had even dumped them out.

  “No offense, Kitty,” Sophie said, “but
are you still crying? You hardly even went under the water. You were wearing a life jacket!”

  “That’s not what’s wrong!” Kitty said. She sounded like a cat being bathed in the sink.

  Sophie sighed. “Then what is wrong?”

  “My dad said I can’t go over to Fiona’s anymore!”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because her parents didn’t watch us.”

  “Her parents never watch us. They’re not even there most of the time.”

  “Yeah. That’s what my dad said. He said I could’ve drowned, and he’s not taking any more chances.”

  Sophie nibbled at her lip. This wasn’t the time to point out that if Kitty hadn’t carried on so much when her dad had arrived to pick her up, he probably wouldn’t have thought she’d been near death.

  “Are you guys going to stop being my friend because I can’t go to Fiona’s?” Kitty said, winding up again.

  “Hello! You’re a Corn Flake!” Sophie said.

  That seemed to calm Kitty down for the time being.

  The next phone call was from Fiona. She wasn’t crying, as far as Sophie could tell.

  “My mom and dad fired Ethel,” she said, voice cheery. “It’s because she can’t control the brats.” Fiona gave a soft snort. “I could’ve told them that.”

  “That means another new nanny,” Sophie said. “I wish Kateesha hadn’t quit. I liked her.”

  “So did her fiancé. They went off and got married, which I think is dumb. Anyway, here’s the bad news: Boppa has to watch the two little morons until my parents get around to hiring somebody, so no more Boppa adventures for us for a while. We can’t even meet out at my house.”

  Sophie sagged against the step she was sitting on with the phone. “It’s all my fault.”

  “They didn’t terminate her because of the boat thing,” Fiona said. “That stuff happens, they said. Besides, you’re not to blame — Darbie is. She just thinks she’s the boss of us, that’s all, and she didn’t even know what she was doing.”

  “I’m the one who freaked out and stood up!” Sophie said. Gone in the head, was the way Darbie had said it.

  Fiona’s voice went down to secret level. “And I know why too. You were coming up with a new character — somebody Irish, right? What’s her name?”

  Before Sophie could answer, she heard what sounded like the Tasmanian Devil on Fiona’s end of the line.

  “I have to go help Boppa shut them up,” Fiona said. “Mom was up all night doing surgery on somebody’s stomach. She is not going to be happy if they wake her up.”

  Sophie turned off the phone and curled up miserably on the step. All she wanted to do was slip into Colleen’s world, where she wasn’t responsible for nannies getting fired and people’s dads saying they couldn’t go to other people’s houses. But as deliciously as Colleen beckoned to her with her red ringlets dancing — she had to have her hair in red ringlets — Sophie felt an old uneasy squirminess in her stomach. Colleen might be brave and determined and ready to take any risk for the cause — whatever that might be — but she could also get Sophie into a lot of trouble, and Sophie knew it. First would be the escapes into Colleen’s world — then the bad grades — then the loss of the camera.

  And she and the Corn Flakes would still end up reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb” for the stupid showcase.

  There’s only one person who can help me now, she decided as she uncurled herself from the step. I need to tell Mama and Daddy it’s time for me to go back to Dr. Peter.

  The only two good things about the day so far were that Lacie was still away on her youth group retreat and Zeke was taking a nap. Those were God signs, as far as Sophie was concerned. She never, ever had Mama and Daddy all to herself.

  She found them both in the family room, faces in the Sunday paper. When Sophie slipped onto the couch beside Mama, she folded the paper in her lap. Daddy woke up behind his.

  “I need to talk to you,” Sophie said. “Dr. Peter said I could come see him any time I started back into my old habits, and I’ve started.”

  She drew in a huge breath. Daddy tossed the paper to the floor and leaned forward in the big chair with his hands folded between his blue-jeaned knees.

  “Good job, coming to us before it got out of hand, Soph,” he said. “That’s heads-up ball.” Daddy always talked like the whole family was playing in the Super Bowl.

  “Then Mama can make me an appointment?” Sophie said. “For tomorrow?”

  Her parents did that thing they always did — looking at each other over the top of her head like they were having an entire conversation without saying a word. Kind of the way she and Fiona did sometimes.

  “You know, Dream Girl,” Mama said, “Daddy and I have been seeing Dr. Peter too, and we can probably help you with this.”

  Sophie nodded slowly. Dr. Peter had mentioned that, come to think of it. Still — she pulled a strand of hair under her nose.

  “What?” Daddy said. “Come on, give us the goods.”

  “I don’t know if you can do it like Dr. Peter,” Sophie said.

  Daddy grinned at Mama. “You have to admit, she’s honest.”

  “You haven’t seen us in action,” Mama said. “We’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this.”

  “We’ve been in training.” Daddy flexed his arm muscles, and a giggle slipped out of Sophie.

  “What?” Daddy said. “What’s funny?”

  “So — you’ll really, like, help me and not just take the camera away if my grades drop?”

  “Absolutely,” Mama said.

  “All right, let’s go — bring it on,” Daddy said.

  Mama got out some lemon bars and milk, and Sophie launched into the story. By the time she got to the part about Fiona’s parents firing Ethel, she was feeling like she was talking to Dr. Peter. Mama and Daddy were listening and nodding, and they didn’t interrupt once.

  And then the front door burst open, slapping against the wall — and Lacie appeared.

  She wasn’t alone. There was a lady behind her with a face so twisted in anger, it took Sophie a minute to realize it was Lacie’s best friend Valerie’s mom. An uh-oh took shape in Sophie’s mind. Mrs. Bonningham had been a chaperone on the youth group retreat.

  Mama and Daddy must have seen the smoke coming out of the lady’s ears too, because they skipped the whole how-was-the- trip-what-are-you-doing-home-so-early thing and went straight to “What’s wrong?”

  Lacie opened her mouth, but it was Mrs. Bonningham who spewed out several paragraphs worth of stuff about Lacie being caught outside her cabin, after curfew, with a BOY.

  “We weren’t doing anything!” Lacie managed to get in. “We were just talking!” Even her freckles were pale.

  “What were you thinking?” Daddy said. His face was watermelon red.

  “Whatever it was, they were all thinking the same thing,” Mrs. Bonningham said. “Half the kids were off someplace, and most of them weren’t ‘just talking.’ ”

  Sophie didn’t even want to think about what that meant.

  Mrs. Bonningham pulled her neck up in a stiff way. “Let’s just say the whole thing was less than spiritually focused. I don’t think I heard God mentioned a single time except when they were blessing the food.”

  “It was just supposed to be fun!” Lacie wailed.

  “Well, the fun’s about to be over,” Daddy said.

  He ushered Lacie up the stairs, and Mama steered Mrs. Bonningham toward the front door. When Mama too had hurried up the steps to Lacie’s room, Sophie was left on the couch with a half-empty plate of lemon bars. They were the last thing she wanted.

  Here we go again, she thought as she trudged up to her own room. Lacie has a crisis and instantly it’s all about her. Forget about the devastation that’s happening in MY life!

  Although she was way tempted to jump with both feet into Colleen’s world and forget about her own currently miserable one, Sophie flopped down on her bed and tried to think what Dr. Peter would
tell her to do.

  Du-uh, she thought, hitting herself on the forehead with the heel of her hand. He’d say, “Have you read that Bible story, Loodle?”

  She pulled out her Bible and turned each thin page between the tips of her fingers. She always did that. It seemed more sacred that way.

  “Okay, John thirteen,” she said out loud — mostly to drown out the deep thunder of Daddy’s voice rolling out of Lacie’s room next door. She didn’t see how Zeke was sleeping through all this.

  The pages splashed softly to chapter 13, verse 1, and Sophie read.

  It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.

  Sophie stopped and closed her eyes. Dr. Peter had taught her to pretend she was somebody in the story, which was challenging this time, seeing how all the disciples were boys. Trying not to think about the Fruit Loops, Sophie changed her name to Luke and pulled her hair under her nose like a mustache. It wasn’t her favorite role, but at least she got to be with Jesus. She read on.

  The evening meal was being served . . . Jesus got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing —

  Yikes! Sophie thought. Okay, that has to be just like a jacket or something.

  Sophie got a firmer grip on the sides of the Bible and focused hard on being Luke.

  Sophie/Luke read on, scratching at his mustache.

  Jesus wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

  Sophie/Luke yanked his feet back as Jesus worked his way down the table toward him. My feet are way dirty! he thought. I’ve been running around in sandals all day! This is SO embarrassing!