Happy Birthday, Sophie Hartley

by Stephanie Greene

  “I’ll continue to feed you information as I get it,” Brendan said.

  “Fine.” Sophie slapped her book on her desk. And for Destiny to call herself and Jenna “we”?

  “We” had been Sophie, Alice, and Jenna since the first grade. Why hadn’t Jenna corrected her?

  “Don’t worry,” Alice said on the bus on the way home. “Destiny always makes friends with someone and then tries to turn them against their other friends. Jenna won’t let her.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Sophie said.

  “Why?”

  “Jenna’s growing a ponytail.”

  “No way!”

  Sophie nodded. “It may not look like a ponytail yet,” she said, “but that’s what it is.” She and Alice looked at each other somberly. Jenna—who had been cutting her hair with nail scissors for as long as they had known her. Sophie told Alice that she had spotted a clip on either side of Jenna’s head.

  “Clips?” Alice said, as if all hope were lost. “Jenna?”

  “Purple clips. They matched Destiny’s ponytail bow.”

  “No.”

  “Next thing you know,” Sophie said, “it’ll be a ponytail.”

  Alice was too shocked to speak. It confirmed Sophie’s worst fears.

  Sophie was lying on her stomach in her room, drawing, when Nora appeared and stood in the doorway.

  “When are you going to come up and see my room?” Nora said.

  “I’m busy now,” said Sophie. She put down her green pencil and picked up a charcoal gray one. She didn’t have to look up to know that Nora was examining her room with ruthless eyes.

  “When are you going to do something about decorating your room?” Nora said when her inspection was finished.

  “When I want to.”

  Nora didn’t say anything for a minute. Then, “Does Mom know you painted the window?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Other than that, it’s pretty depressing.”

  “I like it this way.”

  Another silence.

  “I can’t believe you honestly think you stand a chance of getting a gorilla for your birthday,” Nora said. “It’s pitiful.”

  “Don’t look!” Sophie shouted. She sprawled flat to cover her drawing of a baby gorilla in diapers lying on a twin bed. “It’s none of your business!”

  “You’re almost ten,” Nora said. “Don’t you think it’s a little childish to go around believing you can have things like gorillas?” She made a rude noise in her throat in case Sophie had any doubts. “To say nothing of unrealistic.”

  “You’re almost fourteen,” Sophie mimicked, knowing it drove Nora nuts. “Don’t you think it’s kind of childish to go around believing you can make cheerleading when there are a thousand other girls trying out?”

  Nora had been practicing her jumps and cheers for weeks. She said she’d given up ballet because she liked cheerleading better, but Sophie thought it was because Nora wanted to be popular when she got to high school.

  “That’s all you know,” Nora said, blushing. “I’m one of the best on our squad.”

  “What’s happening?” said Thad. He stuck his head into Sophie’s room and looked back and forth between them. “Could it be I hear dissension in the ranks?”

  “Sophie’s so immature, she thinks she’s getting a gorilla for her birthday,” said Nora.

  “And Nora’s so immature, she thinks she’s going to make cheerleading,” said Sophie.

  “You’re both out to lunch.” Thad laughed his superior high school laugh. It always made both Sophie and Nora want to bop him over the head. “You, a cheerleader, Nora? Cheerleaders are babes. And Soph, a gorilla? That’s far-out even for you.”

  “Listen to you,” Nora said. “Mr. Authority.”

  “It’s my double-digit birthday, you know,” Sophie told him.

  “Sorry to have to tell you, little sister, but the only digits worth celebrating are one and six,” said Thad. “Besides, gorillas are expensive. Times are tight. You don’t want to take money away from my car, do you?”

  “Now look who’s out to lunch,” Nora said. “A car? Get real, Thad.”

  “Yeah,” said Sophie. “We already have a car.”

  Thad and Nora were immediately united against her.

  “Let me impart a bit of big-brotherly knowledge to you,” Thad said heavily. “A beat-up van with one hundred and fifty-six thousand miles on it, and a cracker-encrusted car seat in the back, is not a car. Not when you’re in high school and very possibly next year’s co-captain of the soccer team.”

  “And not when you’re in the eighth grade and being picked up from parties at night,” Nora added.

  “You don’t go to parties at night,” Sophie said.

  “I will soon.”

  “Dream on, Nora,” Thad said, heading for his room.

  “Dream on about your car,” Nora called, flouncing off toward the attic stairs.

  “Get out of my room, both of you!” Sophie shouted.

  It felt good, slamming the door. Now Sophie understood why Nora liked doing it so much.

  After dinner John came into her room and they each sat on a bed and tossed a beanbag back and forth. Without Nora telling them to stop, it got boring. Sophie added pillows to the mix to liven it up. She and John started jumping from one bed to the other while trying to catch the pillows and the beanbag in midair. Mrs. Hartley was the one who finally put an end to it.

  “Honestly, Sophie,” she grumbled as she shooed John out the door. “You’re getting too old for this kind of nonsense.” She sniffed. “Do I smell feet?”

  “How am I supposed to walk without them,” Sophie muttered.

  “Just look at this mess,” her mother said, casting an unhappy eye over the disheveled beds and crumpled pillows on the floor as she left. “Is this how you want to live?”

  Sophie firmly shut her door and looked around her room. Very nice, she decided defiantly. Yes, it was the way she wanted to live. She might even leave the pillows on the floor and make it look like a harem. Just because Nora wanted her own room to be perfect didn’t mean Sophie had to want the same thing.

  She could be interested in anything she wanted to, too. Studying animals was a lot more interesting than hitting with something called a crosse or caring whether a boy called you or not.

  Feeling free and independent, Sophie went and took a bath.

  A group of kids surrounded her at recess the next day.

  “Where are you going to get it?” one boy said.

  “A zoo.”

  “What’re you going to feed it?” a girl asked.

  Sophie had read that mother gorillas chewed up their babies’ food for them before spitting it into their mouths. That wasn’t passionate, that was disgusting. “It’ll drink from a bottle,” she said.

  “How about bananas?” someone suggested.

  Heads nodded. Bananas sounded right for a gorilla.

  “What’re you going to do with it when it grows up?” said a loud voice. Everyone turned around.

  Destiny was standing at the back of the crowd, leaning on her lacrosse stick. Jenna was next to her. She had her lacrosse stick, too.

  Sophie frowned. What kind of question was that? No one ever thought about what they were going to do with a pet when it grew up.

  “She’s going to give it back, of course.”

  Everyone looked at Brendan.

  “Obviously,” he said, clutching a blue notebook to his chest, “when you have an animal that’s going to be as tall as a grown man and have an arm span of up to eight feet, you have to let it go into the wild or to a zoo.”

  Good old Mr. Notebook.

  “Obviously,” Sophie agreed. “You don’t think I’m going to keep a three-hundred-pound gorilla in my room, do you?”

  Everyone laughed except Destiny.

  “Some people will do anything to make friends,” Destiny said. She flicked her ponytail. “Come on, Jenna.”

  Befor
e she followed, Jenna shrugged at Sophie and raised her stick to show that she had to get to practice.

  “What did Destiny mean by ‘some people will do anything to make friends’?” Sophie asked Jenna later when they got back to their classroom.

  “Don’t get mad at me,” Jenna said. “I didn’t say it.”

  “You were standing there,” Sophie said.

  “So? Standing isn’t saying.”

  “It almost is.”

  “But it’s not.”

  “You two, don’t fight,” said Alice.

  It wasn’t her fault that everyone was getting so excited, Sophie thought, dragging her backpack up the driveway. All she’d wanted was a pet.

  A warm and cuddly baby gorilla that she could hold in her arms and play with without having it yell “Mine! Mine!” like Maura or tell Sophie how childish she was all the time.

  This was all Jenna’s fault. If she hadn’t blabbed to Destiny, no one would be making a big deal about it or expecting Sophie to bring it to school. Now Destiny was dying to prove Sophie was a liar.

  If her mother said no now, Sophie would never live it down.

  No more putting it off, she decided as she went into the house. She was going talk to her mother about it the second Mrs. Hartley got home from work.

  To make sure the conversation went well, Sophie did everything she was supposed to do, and more.

  First she finished her homework. Then she made cherry Jell-O with canned fruit cocktail at the bottom, a family favorite.

  After that, she set the table. To make it look extra special, she decided to fold the napkins into animal shapes, the way they’d folded paper in art class. She was working on the swan’s neck when the mudroom door opened and her mother walked in, carrying Maura.

  Sophie came to attention like a soldier standing for inspection. “Wait till you hear the great idea I have,” she said.

  “Please. No great ideas tonight,” her mother said, putting Maura down, sounding tired. “I have to fix dinner, finish writing my reports, and be back at the office in time for a seven-thirty meeting.”

  “But-”

  Sophie was interrupted by the sound of feet pounding down the stairs. “Can Tara and Kate spend the night on Friday?” Nora cried, rushing into the room. “Please, Mom? Cheerleading tryouts are in three weeks, and we haven’t decided what to wear to the dance yet! We have so much to talk about!”

  “Nora!” Sophie protested. “I was here first!”

  “Please, Mom?” Nora said.

  “It’s fine with me.” Mrs. Hartley was busy wrestling Maura’s arms out of her jacket. “But if there’s any more leaping around, rattling the ceiling, your father will make you move back to your old room.”

  “Anything but that!”

  “Is that my perfume?” Mrs. Hartley called after Nora as she ran for the phone.

  “Yes! And it’s stale!” Nora yelled indignantly.

  “No fair,” said Sophie. She frowned at Maura, who had dragged her favorite pots and pans out of the cupboard and was banging them together. Even her baby sister got to do what she wanted. “Nora’s having another sleepover, and I haven’t had one yet.”

  Her mother was rummaging through the refrigerator. “Why don’t you invite Alice andJenna?” she said. She took out a package of hamburger meat, sniffed it, and put it on the counter along with an onion. “It might inspire you to clean your room.”

  “Jenna’s parents won’t let her spend the night anymore until lacrosse season’s over,” Sophie said. “She has a game almost every weekend. All Jenna talks about is lacrosse.”

  “Jenna has always liked sports,” her mother said, dabbing at her eyes while she chopped the onion. “Invite Alice, then. You two can still have fun.”

  Nothing was turning out right. Sophie’s napkin looked more like an elephant with a swollen trunk than a swan.

  She wadded it up and put a fork on it to hold it down. “Jenna said girls who play lacrosse have an easier time getting into a good college,” she said.

  “It’s a bit early to be talking about college,” said Mrs. Hartley.

  “I’ll never get into a good college,” Sophie said sulkily.

  “I suggest you worry about graduating from elementary school first.”

  “I don’t even want to go to college. I’m going to stay here with you and Dad.”

  “Fine.” Mrs. Hartley dumped the onion and meat mixture into a meatloaf pan and patted it down with her hands. “You can take care of us when we’re old and grouchy.”

  “You’re already grouchy,” said Sophie.

  “And with good reason.”

  The racket Maura was making had reached a high level. Mrs. Hartley slid the loaf pan into the oven and shut the door. “Put Maura in her stroller and take her for a walk to the corner and back,” she said. “It’ll be good practice for when you have to push Dad and me around in wheelchairs.”

  “Do I have to?”

  ‘A little fresh air will do you a world of good.”

  ***

  Pushing Maura along the sidewalk did make Sophie feel better. Everything Maura saw delighted her. She reared up in the stroller with her arms outstretched, crying, “Burd, burd,” at every robin she spotted in the grass. She laughed at every leaf that spiraled down through the air.

  John was in the yard when they got back. He and Sophie raked a pile of leaves; then Sophie dropped Maura into it and jumped in after her. John followed.

  When they went inside, disheveled and covered with leaf dust, their mother didn’t even yell. She was in a good mood because her office had canceled her meeting. Sophie decided it would be safe to bring up her idea at dinner, after all.

  Then, as they were getting ready to sit down, her father came through the door and ruined her plans.

  “Bad news about the van,” he announced, hanging his jacket on a peg in the mudroom.

  The van had been acting up for weeks. That morning, when Mrs. Hartley couldn’t get it into reverse at the daycare center, Mr. Hartley had taken it to the garage.

  “Is it the clutch?” said Mrs. Hartley.

  “I’m afraid so.” Mr. Hartley sat down heavily. “You know how expensive that is to replace. Cam said there’s no point in doing it on a car as old as this. The transmission’s probably going to go next.”

  “Yes!” Thad cried, thumping the table with his fist.

  “Thad, really,” said Mrs. Hartley.

  “I mean, that’s too bad,” said Thad.

  “I don’t think it’s too bad.” Nora sat down and put her napkin neatly in her lap. “It’s the perfect opportunity to buy a decent car for once.”

  “A decent car we can’t afford, you mean,” said Mrs. Hartley.

  “Yes, well…”

  Sophie saw her parents exchange an unhappy look. Two birthdays in a row, and now this. It was definitely not the time to say “Does this mean I can’t get my baby gorilla?”

  SIX

  It was fun having just Alice to spend the night. She admired Sophie’s window frames and raved about the idea of painting animals on the desk and dresser. She loved the idea of a purple closet door, too.

  “You’re so daring,” she told Sophie admiringly. “My mother would never let me paint anything in my room purple.” Sophie didn’t mention that her mother hadn’t stepped foot in her room since the night she and John had made such a mess of it.

  She took out some of her drawings. Alice especially liked the one Sophie had done of a rearing horse in a pasture. The one Thad said looked like roadkill on grass.

  “I love it, Sophie,” Alice said. “You’re like a real artist.”

  Sophie was so flattered, she offered to draw Alice’s picture.

  “Can you, really?” Alice immediately sat up straight and folded her hands neatly in her lap. Her parents had a family photograph taken every year for their Christmas card. If there was one thing Alice knew about, it was posing. “How does my hair look?” she asked, smoothing it down.

  “Like
normal.”

  Sophie got a book to lean on and a clean sheet of paper. She sat on her bed with her back against the wall and pulled up her knees. “It might not look exactly like you,” she warned.

  “What will it look like?” said Alice.

  “More like what I think of when I think about you,” said Sophie. She didn’t know why she drew people like this, but she always did. Sometimes people liked it. Other times they didn’t. Knowing how easily Alice got hurt feelings, Sophie wanted to make sure she was prepared.

  “It’ll be all right,” Alice said confidently. “You’re my best friend.”

  Sophie certainly hoped Alice would react the way Thad had. He wasn’t at all offended that Sophie made his neck and legs look like tree trunks. “The man’s all muscle!” he yelled when he saw it.

  Mr. Hartley didn’t get mad, either, when Sophie drew his picture and showed an open newspaper with a hairy head at the top and two legs sticking out at the bottom.

  “Aha!” he’d said, laughing. “You used art to expose my secret to a happy family life, Sophie.” He’d even winked.

  Nora and her mother had been different.

  Nora had immediately torn up the picture Sophie taped to her door on the night Nora and her friends ignored Sophie. She said Sophie had made her look like a scarecrow. “A tacky scarecrow, too,” she said. “You might wear an outfit like that, but I never would.”

  And, “Really, Sophie!” her mother cried when she saw the picture Sophie drew of her. “My nose is not that big!”

  “You smell everything,” Sophie said. “You know you do.”

  “That may be so,” Mrs. Hartley said, but she didn’t look pleased. After Sophie fixed the drawing, her mother said it was “very nice,” but Sophie had felt highly insulted when she found it rolled up under the couch a few days later.

  Having someone pose willingly for her now was exciting. “Ready?” she asked, looking up to study her subject.

  Alice was staring at her. Her face was red. It looked as if she were holding her breath. The minute Sophie looked at her, Alice looked down.

  Then she looked back up.

  “What?” said Sophie.

  Alice looked down again, then up.

  Down, up. Down…

  “What’s wrong with you?” Sophie said. “I can’t draw your picture if you keep moving your head like that.”