by Nancy N. Rue
And then suddenly, Jesus was right there next to him, reaching out for Simon Peter’s ankle. Simon Peter said to him,
“Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
That’s what I wanna know! Sophie/Luke thought. He pulled the edges of his dirty robe over the tips of his toes.
Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
I sure hope so, thought Sophie/Luke. Right now his mind felt like a bowl of pudding.
“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”
Tell him, Peter! Sophie/Luke wanted to cry out. Tell him we’re not worthy to have our Master touch our filthy feet! After all, if anyone could change Jesus’ mind, it was Peter. He was the biggest and the strongest.
Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “Not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
Let me just jump right into the bowl! Sophie/Luke thought. That’s how much help I need right now!
Sophie stopped and scanned down the page with her finger. When was she going to get to the part where the answer to the showcase problem was?
She stopped at verse 12. When he had finished washing their feet he put on his clothes and returned to his place. Sophie/Luke watched his every move. The answer was sure to come right from the Master’s lips.
“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”
Sophie blinked and let her “mustache” drop to her shoulder. That was all Dr. Peter had said to read. But what did any of that have to do with the major catastrophe she was in the middle of?
She tried to picture herself taking a bowl and pitcher to school tomorrow and breaking it out in arts class and washing Kitty’s and Fiona’s and Darbie’s feet. Miss Blythe might think it was artistic genius, but the Corn Pops — not to mention Darbie — would roll their eyes right up into their brains.
I would so do it, Jesus, Sophie thought. I totally would. Only, I just don’t get how it’s going to help us come up with an idea and keep me out of trouble.
There was a shriek from next door, which popped the image of Jesus out of Sophie’s head like a pin in a bubble. It was Lacie, begging for mercy.
“PLEASE don’t make me drop softball!” she was practically screaming. “I have to play — I have to — Coach was gonna pick me as team captain.”
Mama’s voice murmured something and Daddy’s muttered something back and Lacie went into a new burst of hysterical tears. Sophie figured there must be a flood in that room by now.
This could go on forever, Sophie thought as she threw herself back against her pillows. So much for Mama and Daddy helping me with my problem.
She closed her eyes and let Colleen in, tossing her red ringlets and assuring Sophie that everything would turn out, it just would.
But as Sophie donned her green top hat, she thought again of Dr. Peter.
She needed him, and she needed him now.
Six
The next three days were so foot-stomping frustrating, Sophie wanted to pitch a fit about every other minute. But Lacie was doing enough of that for both of them.
Whenever Mama and Daddy weren’t both dealing with Lacie, they were talking to each other about Lacie. Or they were on the phone discussing with other people the whole church youth group “situation.”
What about MY situation? Sophie wanted to scream more than once.
One of those times was Monday, when right in front of everybody before school on the playground, the Pops acted out the whole arm scene they had witnessed the Flakes doing on the stage that one morning. They didn’t use names, but everybody knew, because there wasn’t a kid gathered there who didn’t turn and gape at the Corn Flakes or laugh so hard they were spewing spit, like the Fruit Loops did.
“Those boys could be a little more obnoxious,” Fiona muttered to Sophie, “but I don’t know how.”
And then, during arts class, while the Corn Flakes continued to scribble down ideas and crumple them up and feel lamer by the minute, the Pops got to go to the stage and practice their dance.
“Like they really need to practice,” Maggie told the Corn Flakes after class. “I watched them rehearse all weekend — and you want to know what?”
“No,” Fiona said. “But tell us anyway.”
Maggie pulled her head forward, and so did Sophie, Kitty, and Fiona. “Their parents are spending so much money on fabric for the costumes,” she whispered. “I’m not supposed to tell you what they’re going to look like, but they’re expensive.”
Right on cue, Kitty whimpered.
By Tuesday, the Corn Flake group still hadn’t come up with an idea, and Darbie had grown more and more “disdainful,” as Fiona put it.
“Does that mean she thinks we’re absurd and stupid and lame?” Sophie said before school.
“Pretty much.”
“I don’t like her,” Kitty whispered — even though they were huddled in a far corner of the school yard and Darbie wasn’t even outside. “I don’t like her at all.”
“Yeah, but we’re stuck with her,” Fiona said. She wiggled her eyebrows. “As soon as the showcase is over though, whammo — she’s out of here. We don’t ever even have to talk to her again.”
Sophie toyed with the string on her hooded sweatshirt.
“What, Soph?” Fiona said. “Don’t tell me you want to be friends with her! She acts like we have head lice or something. She’s as bad as the Corn Pops.”
“Only she treats them the same way she does us,” Sophie said.
“I even saw her blow Harley and them off,” Kitty said. “She just doesn’t like anybody.”
“I don’t get it,” Sophie said.
Fiona pulled a splinter of wood off the fence and poked it at the ground. “We don’t have to ‘get it.’ If she doesn’t want to be friends with anybody, then what are we supposed to do?”
Wash her feet, Sophie thought.
She put her hand over her mouth, just in case she had said it out loud, but neither Kitty nor Fiona was looking at her like she suddenly had three nostrils, so she figured she was safe. That thought had been pretty crazy, even for her.
But it wouldn’t leave her alone all day Tuesday: Everybody needs at least one friend. When she herself had moved to Poquoson from Houston, all she’d wanted was one girlfriend who would understand her and not think she was whacked out — and she had prayed for that even before Dr. Peter had taught her about talking to Jesus. Then, just like in one of her own daydreams, Fiona had suddenly been there.
Sophie wasn’t sure what to do with that. But during social studies, when Ms. Quelling assigned a country project, she decided it couldn’t hurt to pick Ireland. She was the first one in line for the library.
She found one book that had information about Northern Ireland too, and she burrowed into it before the bell rang. She found out that Irish people dug up some kind of dirt called peat to use for firewood, and that the whole country had almost died out when there had been a potato famine back in 1845. That tickled up a scene for the film, but it didn’t help much when she got to arts class and Darbie demanded to know just HOW they were going to make a holy show of themselves in the showcase.
“I know we will,” she said, arms folded across her sweater. “It’s only a matter of how we’re to be mortified.”
Sophie didn’t want to wash Darbie’s feet at that point. It was one of those moments when she had the urge to clench her fists and stomp her foot and scream, “Then why don’t you think of something if you’re so smart!”
She didn’t have to. Fiona did it. Darbie told her she didn’t need to eat the head off her. Then Kitty started crying. And Miss Blythe floated over to them and assured them that the best art was born out of frustration.
Miss Blythe walked toward the Fruit Loops, calling, “Art is discipline, boys!”
Darbie scowled. “I don’t want to give birth to art, thank you very much.”
She said “much” like “mooch.” Sophie made a note to talk like that when she was being Colleen O’Bravo. At the moment, Colleen had “mooch” to be concerned about.
Would there be enough peat for the winter? Would there be a peat shortage, just as there had been a five-year potato famine those many years ago that had almost brought Ireland to ruin?Some of her own ancestors had come to America because of that — and now she was here too — and no one seemed to understand her a bit —
“You — Sophie!”
Sophie tossed Colleen’s red ringlets out of her face and stared blankly at Darbie.
“I thought you’d gone into a bit of a trance,” Darbie said. “I hope you were coming up with something.”
“She will,” Kitty said. “She always does.”
All Darbie did was grunt.
At home that night, it was impossible for Sophie to think about the showcase, much less come up with something. Lacie and Mama and Daddy were having yet another “discussion” in Lacie’s room, and Sophie had to watch Zeke in her room and try to do her homework at the same time. At least she got to read about Northern Ireland, although Zeke made even that pretty hard when he tried to climb up Sophie’s curtains like Spider-Man. Finally, she made him sit next to her on the floor and listen while she read the book out loud.
“ ‘The splitting of Ireland into the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland took place in 1921,’ ” she read.
“Was I born yet?” Zeke said.
“No. Mama and Daddy weren’t even born yet. I don’t know anybody that was born then.” Sophie patted the top of Zeke’s head. “You have to listen. We’re about to get to the good part.”
“Is Spider-Man in it?”
“No!”
Zeke’s dark eyebrows came down into upside-down Vs.
“Then how’s it going to get good?”
Sophie ran her eyes down the page. “Because they started fighting,” she said. “About absolutely EVERYTHING — for Pete’s sake — whether they were Protestant or Catholic — who liked England and who didn’t — I don’t even GET most of this stuff.”
“Who are the bad guys?”
“Who can tell?” Sophie studied the page.
“There have to be bad guys if there’s fighting. How do the good guys win if there’s no bad guys?”
“I’m getting to that.”
“Well, hurry up!” Zeke got up on his knees beside her and thumped the page with his chubby index finger.
“Okay, okay! Let’s see —people live separate from people who don’t believe like they do — like, behind cement walls and iron gates and stuff. People throw bombs over the walls — ”
Sophie stopped and sucked in a breath. Did Darbie live like that? With burned-out houses all around her, like the book said?
“Spider-Man will save ’em from bombs!” Zeke cried.
“Don’t start climbing the walls yet. There’s more.” Sophie repositioned her glasses. She felt herself frowning and ignored Zeke’s new ascent up the side of the mattress. “It got REALLY ugly way back in 1969 — I don’t even know if Mama and Daddy were born by then. People were killing each other, Zeke. The British Army had to come up there and try to stop it.”
Zeke stopped in mid-crawl across the bedspread. “You mean, like soldiers?”
“Yeah, right in front of their houses and stuff. They’re still there!”
“Not after Spider-Man gets there!”
Zeke took a leap toward the dresser, but Sophie’s mind was latched onto the image of Darbie, running past soldiers when she went to catch the bus for school. It made Sophie shiver. The door opened just after Zeke hit the floor with a five-year- old thud.
“Hey, buddy, try to save the pieces, would you?” Daddy said. “So I can repair the floor after you fall through it.” He looked at Sophie. “We’re almost done — don’t let Spider-Man get too carried away, okay?”
Colleen O’Bravo nodded, but her mind was far from the exploits of a small boy living out his daydreams. She had important things to attend to — like how to wash the feet of an Irish girl who had grown up with soldiers marching down her street, and trying to keep people from making bombs and throwing them into each other’s neighborhoods.
After all, the great Irish doctor had given her the secret coded message. She had to treat her the way the Master, Jesus, had treated his friends.
When she woke up the next morning, Sophie knew exactly how she was going to do that. When she asked her mother, Mama’s eyes got all soft the way they did every Mother’s Day when the three kids lined up with their made-in-school presents.
“I’ll have everything ready,” she said. She hugged the Ireland book Sophie handed to her. “Thanks for the information.”
At school, Sophie told the Corn Flakes and Darbie that they had to meet at her house after school and come to a final decision, before Miss Blythe slapped “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” on them Thursday. Fiona cornered Sophie at their lockers in the back of Mr. Denton’s room and whispered, “You can’t keep stuff from your best friend. I know you too well.
What’s really going to happen at your house?”
Sophie pulled some hair under her nose.
“Now I know something’s going on!” Fiona’s eyes drooped. “How come you’re keeping this a secret from me?”
“I just want it to be a surprise,” Sophie said. Besides, she added to herself, you might try to talk me out of it.
And when she saw Fiona slit her eyes toward Darbie as she slid into her seat in the classroom, Sophie knew she was right. This had to happen for more than just one reason.
The day dragged on like it was hauling three backpacks’ worth of homework behind it — but finally they were all piling into the LaCroix’s Suburban after sixth period and Mama was making sure everybody had called home for permission.
“I talked to your mom personally,” Mama said to Darbie.
“She’s not my ma,” Darbie said between her teeth.
“Who is she?” Kitty said.
“Can you ever lay off?” Darbie said.
Sophie decided that qualified as eating the head off Kitty.
“How was everyone’s day?” Mama sang out.
“Getting worse by the minute,” Fiona whispered to Sophie. “This better be good.”
It looked like it was going to be. The instant the group got to Sophie’s family room, Sophie knew Mama had read the Ireland book cover to cover. There was a green tablecloth on the big square coffee table along with a white teapot with shamrocks on it, and a stack of tea bags all labeled Irish Breakfast Tea. Beside a plate of cloud-shaped biscuits was a vase full of tinted-green carnations and clover. Mama even had music playing that made Sophie want to dance the way they’d seen Darbie do for the Corn Pops.
“Welcome, Darbie,” Mama said. “Sophie wanted to give you an Irish-American party. This might not be exactly the way it was in your home, but — ”
“I love this!” Kitty said, with a Kitty-squeal. “Can I pour the tea?”
“Okay — I have to admit — this is pretty cool,” Fiona said. Her eyes lit up like birthday-candle flames. “Let’s all pick Irish names! I bet Sophie already has hers.”
“Colleen O’Bravo,” Sophie said. She smiled at Darbie. “Does that sound Irish?”
“No,” Darbie said. “It sounds like some little-girlish thing you fancied out of the air.” She looked at the tea things Mama had set up. “This isn’t anything like Northern Ireland.”
“Hello! Rude!” Fiona said.
But before Fiona could finish the step she started to take toward Darbie, Sophie was wedged between them, so close to Darbie she could see her nose hairs.
“It is little-girlish, Darbie!” Sophie said. “Because we are little girls — and all we’re trying to do is make you feel like you have friends because that’s what we do.”
“Well, perhaps you are little girls,” Da
rbie said. “But I am not. I never had a chance to be a little girl — and I don’t even know HOW!”
Her eyes flashed down at Sophie just long enough for Sophie to see tears. And then Darbie turned and ran, slamming the front door behind her.
Seven
Mama sorted things out as only Mama could do. Within five minutes, Kitty’s mom was picking her and Fiona up and taking them home, and Mama was on her way out to the Suburban with Darbie, who was shaking like a puppy.
“I just want to go home is all,” she kept saying. “Please — let me go home.”
It was way too hard to stay in the family room with the untouched Irish Breakfast Tea. Sophie flung herself facedown across her bed and was just starting to get Colleen O’Bravo into focus when Lacie threw herself down beside Sophie.
“How do you stand it when you get grounded?” she moaned.
Sophie frowned into the purple bedspread. “I just do.”
“They aren’t making me quit softball, but they grounded me for ten days! I’m already bored out of my skull!”
“It’s not that bad,” Sophie said. She brought her head up and rested it on her hand. “It gives me more time to come up with ideas for movies.”
Lacie lifted her face, and Sophie expected an eye roll, but instead Lacie peered closely at her. “You know something?” she said. “Since you started making those films all the time, you hardly ever get grounded anymore. Weird.”
“Yeah,” Sophie said. “But I can’t do a film right now, and I’m scared I’m going to get in trouble again.”
“You don’t even know what trouble is,” Lacie said. She propped herself up on her elbows. “Not only did I get grounded for what happened at the retreat, but it’ll probably get our youth leader in trouble too. Daddy’s going to a meeting at church about it tonight. He says we might change churches if they don’t start being more about God — but I love that church! That’s where all my friends are!” She turned stormy eyes on Sophie. “I liked it better when you were the one getting in trouble all the time.”
At least you’re getting Mama and Daddy to yourself, Sophie thought. I’m the one who needs them right now — not you!
