Sophie Hartley and the Facts of Life (7 page)

“Yeah, right. Like I'm wearing Maura's pajamas these days,” Nora hissed, plucking at the clown material in the middle of the pile.

“I mean, I'm supposed to put them in the footlocker in the storage room. Maura's too big for them.”

“The storage room is over there,” Nora said in a deadly quiet voice. She pointed.

“I know where the storage room is,” Sophie said with as much dignity as she could muster.

“Omigod!” Nora slapped her hands over her face. “You're wearing shoes!”

Nora was right. In her haste to find the book, Sophie had ignored both Nora's ironclad rule about no shoes
and
the basket Nora had left at the bottom of the stairs where visitors were meant to leave theirs. Sophie saw the long black marks from her rubber soles on the white floor near the door and picked up speed.

“Shhh, I'm going. Don't yell. Remember Dad.” She scurried into the storage room across the hall and dumped the clothes on the floor as Nora watched. Slipping off her shoes, Sophie waved them in the air. “Happy now?” she said, and escaped quickly down the steps.

“If you scratched the stairs, I'm going to kill you!” Nora hissed after her. She must have spotted the scuff mark on her floor, because Sophie heard a gasp, followed by a stifled shriek.

Sophie ran as fast as she could on tiptoe down the hall and into her room. She closed the door and leaned with her back against it for a moment before leaping across the room to lie on her bed and rest her head on Patsy's stomach.

Patsy's comforting purr reminded her of the “Om” they'd listened to on a CD at the end of yoga. Sophie lay still, feeling her heart slow down, until Patsy struggled to get out from under the weight of Sophie's head. Then Sophie moved over and stared at the ceiling.

All of this near-death-by-sister drama because of a movie.

A dumb movie, a movie that embarrassed everyone before anyone had even seen it. And now she, Sophie, was holding a meeting about it when she still didn't know anything.

Why did P-U-berty feel so embarrassing? Even thinking about saying it that way didn't help much anymore. Maybe if she said it three times fast.

Puberty, puberty, puberty.

Yuck.

 

“Good going, Dad.” Thad sniffed appreciatively as he came into the kitchen after practice. “That smells like something we can actually eat.”

Mr. Hartley had taken his meat loaf out of the oven. Now he was taking out the baked potatoes, one by one, wearing Mrs. Hartley's flowered oven mitts. “I used your mother's recipe,” he said. “Since John set the table and the girls got the rest of it ready, you can take cleanup.”

“Yeah, okay.” Thad turned on the tap to wash his hands. “How's your foot? You're not limping anymore.”

“Much better,” Mr. Hartley said. “I'm beginning to think Mom planned the whole thing so she'd be free to go to Chicago.”

Maura was sitting on the floor, patting Patsy. At the mention of Mrs. Hartley, she took her thumb out of her mouth and said, “Mommy?”

“Mommy will be home soon,” Nora told her. “I hope.”

Mr. Hartley had kept Maura home from daycare for the afternoon and let her play with pieces of wood in the sawdust while he'd cleaned up his workshop. She had the happy, slightly dazed look of a toddler who could easily fall asleep sitting up.

When John had arrived home from school, he'd complained it was no fair that Maura had gotten to stay home for part of the day and he hadn't, so Mr. Hartley had promised he'd give him a surprise after dinner. John was seated at the table now, systematically biting off the ends of the french fries on his plate before lining them up in a neat row.

“It would be nice if you waited for the rest of us, John,” said Mr. Hartley. He lifted Maura into her highchair as Sophie put a glass of milk at each place. Nora finished tossing the salad and put it in the middle of the table.

“I have to put my spit on them or Thad will steal them,” John said.

“Nice, Thad,” Mr. Hartley said as he sat down.

“I'm teaching him important survival skills, right, John?” Thad said. “That's what older brothers are for.”

“I thought they were to annoy their younger sister,” Nora said.

“I'm glad you said that, Nora,” Mr. Hartley said pleasantly as he picked up his fork. “I thought we'd try something new in the way of conversation tonight.”

Uh-oh. Sophie and Nora looked at each other. This had to have something to do with them.

“In the interest of family harmony,” Mr. Hartley went on, “and also out of respect for your mother, we're going to practice talking pleasantly to one another for the entire meal.”

“‘Pleasantly'?” Nora said.

“All the way through dessert?” said Sophie.

“What does Mom have to do with it?” said Thad.

“You guys are wearing her down, Thad,” Mr. Hartley said. “The way you talk to one another is ridiculous. You snipe at one another, you insult one another . . . I haven't heard one of you say something nice or supportive to another since I got home.”

“But . . .” Sophie started.

“No buts, Sophie. And it's no good trying to blame the other guy,” Mr. Hartley said. “You're all guilty.”

Sophie slowly closed her mouth.

“Nice try, LMS,” Nora said under her breath.

“That's exactly what I mean, Nora.”

Nora looked down at her plate.

“No wonder your mother is worn out,” Mr. Hartley said. “I would be too if I had to listen to you all the time.”

It was weird, hearing their dad talk like this. He was saying what their mother always said, but it sounded different when he said it. Everybody was not only listening to him, but
hearing
him—Sophie could tell. Nora and Thad weren't jumping in and saying something sarcastic, the way they normally would have.

“So here's the deal,” their dad said. “From now on, if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything.”

Nothing but nice? That could lead to a very quiet dinner.

“Only tonight, right?” Nora said. “You can't mean forever.”

“Let's see how it goes,” said Mr. Hartley. He sounded a lot more cheerful about the idea than everybody else at the table looked. “Not bad, if I do say so myself,” he said, eating a bite of meat loaf.

They silently watched him chew. Mr. Hartley took another bite and smiled. When it looked as if no one else was going to say anything, Sophie said, “It's delicious, Dad.”

She didn't care if Nora glared at her. It
was
delicious. Besides, it was the only nice thing Sophie could think of to say. Every time she started to think, all that came into her mind was how on earth she was going to steal Nora's book without getting killed. Now it was someone else's turn.

Sophie glanced around the table. She could practically hear the gears in everyone's brain working. Dinner was starting to feel like third-grade Spanish. Ms. Brioso had come to their classroom twice a week. She'd taught them how to count and say things such as “Hello” and “How are you?” and “My name is . . .”

One day she announced they were going to speak Spanish for the entire lesson. No English. Ms. Brioso said she would start.

“Hola,”
she'd said.
“¿Cómo está usted?”

There was a long silence. Kids looked around uneasily, hoping someone else was going to answer. Finally, a voice said,
“Bueno.”

Another silence. Then another voice:
“Bueno, bueno.”

When a third voice said,
“Bueno, bueno, bueno,”
and all of the kids started to laugh, they went back to speaking English.

Now Thad was the first one to break the silence at the table.

“Did you speak to Mom today?” he said.

“I did,” said Mr. Hartley. “She said she's having a good time but that she's doing a lot of sitting around, listening to people say the same things over and over again.”

“It sounds like school,” said Nora. “That's not negative about anyone in the family,” she added quickly when Mr. Hartley looked at her.

“How was your day, Thad?” said Mr. Hartley.

“Emily dumped me yesterday, so I was bummed for a bit,” Thad said.

“Who's Emily?”

Ordinarily, Nora would have said, “Thad's stuck-up girlfriend.” Instead, she told her dad, “Thad's girlfriend.”

“Ex-girlfriend,” Thad said.

“I thought you were going out with someone called Mia,” said Mr. Hartley.

“That was last month. What?” Nora protested when Thad looked at her. “I didn't say anything negative. Dad wanted to know who Emily was.”

“Well, I'm sorry Emily dumped you,” said Mr. Hartley.

“Yeah. It's really inconvenient.” Thad shrugged. “Now I have to find someone else to take to a party on Friday night.”

“I'm going to a party on Friday night too.” Nora's words came out in a rush. “Ian Bishop asked me. His mother's driving us.”

“Is this an official date?” her dad said.

“I guess so.” Nora sounded surprised and pleased. “His mom's picking up a few other kids on the way, but I'm the only one Ian asked.”

“I know Ian Bishop,” said Thad.

“You do?” said Nora.

“He was at the soccer camp where I assisted last summer,” Thad said. “He plays the sax, right?”

“Right.”

“He's a good guy.”

“I know! Isn't he great?”

Sophie couldn't remember the last time Nora had looked or sounded as happy.

“Where's the party and what time does it end?” Mr. Hartley asked.

“You're getting pretty good at this,” Sophie told him.

“At Sammy Brown's house,” Nora told him. “Mom knows Sammy from our old ballet carpool. Her parents will be there. And it ends at ten o'clock. Ian's mom will bring me home.”

“That sounds all right, then.” Mr. Hartley polished off his baked potato and put his fork and knife on his plate. “How about you, Sophie? I suppose you have a date for Friday night too?”

“I'm never getting involved with that dumb boy-girl stuff,” Sophie said.

“Don't be so sure of that,” said Nora.

“I've been learning yoga,” Sophie said. “I like it a lot. I'm good at it, too. A person can use their brain to control their whole body.”

“Even her mouth?” said Mr. Hartley.

“Wait a minute,” Nora said. “Isn't that negative?”

“Not at all,” said Mr. Hartley. “I was just commenting on an interesting fact.”

“Yeah, right . . .”

“They're talking about having the football team do yoga,” said Thad. “Maybe you can show me a few moves.”

“They're called poses.”

“I have my own news,” Mr. Hartley announced. “I invited Mrs. Dubowski to dinner Thursday night.”

The young, good-looking Mrs. Dubowski?
thought Sophie. Without their mother home?

“You mean, like a date?” she said.

“No, Sophie, not like a date,” said Mr. Hartley. “She dropped Maura off at lunchtime, and we started talking about food because I was fixing dinner. Mrs. Dubowski said she was making stuffed cabbage, so I told her that my mother used to make stuffed cabbage all the time when I was young and that I love it. She said she'd make enough for the whole family and drop it off on Thursday, so I invited her to stay and enjoy it with us.”

“I want peanut butter,” said John.

“Does Mom know?” said Sophie.

“What's to know?” Nora said, rolling her eyes.

“Relax, Soph,” said Thad. “If Mrs. Dubowski tries anything, Dad'll have five chaperones here to protect him.”

They all laughed.

“Protect him from what?” said John.

“Nothing, John,” said Mr. Hartley. “Your brother's being a wise guy. Eat up.”

They finished the meal listening to John tell a long story about how he and Trevor had built a fort in the playground during recess and were having a really fun time playing war, but then this boy Jeffrey came along and tried to knock it down, so Trevor and John had done their tae kwon do on him and they'd all ended up being sent to the principal's office.

“Way to go, defending your territory,” said Thad.

“That wasn't so bad, now, was it?” Mr. Hartley asked when dinner was finished. “Wait. Before everyone gets up, I want each of you to say something nice about the meal.”

There was a short silence. Then Thad said, “The food was good.”

“The food
was
good,” said Nora.

“The food was
very
good,” said Sophie.

“The food was very, very, very—”

“Okay, John. We get the picture.” Mr. Hartley laughed. “I guess I asked for that. You did a fine job, all of you.”

“Whew!” Nora said while they were clearing the table. “I don't know if I can take the pressure of too many more dinners like this. I'm exhausted.”

“I may have to go a few rounds with the punching bag after being so nice,” said Thad. He snatched the last two french fries off John's plate as he stood up.

“Hey, you big bully!” John shouted.

“PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE!”

Everybody looked at Maura in astonishment.

“Way to go, Maura!” said Thad.

“That's what the mouse says in the book!” Sophie cried. “It worked! I did it! I taught her how to talk!”

“Now tell him to back off!” John coached. “Say, ‘Back off!' real loud.”

“What's going on?” Mr. Hartley asked as they all clustered around Maura's highchair.

“That's the longest sentence Maura has ever said,” Nora told him.

“Wonderful. Just what this family needs,” her dad said. “Another talker.”

Maura was pleased by all the attention. Thad and John high-fived her a few times, and then Nora lifted her out of her highchair and carried her upstairs to put her to bed. Mr. Hartley took John upstairs to show him his surprise, while Sophie swiped halfheartedly at the table with a sponge and Thad finished loading the dishwasher. When Sophie went into the family room to use the computer, she could hear John shouting and laughing in the bathroom.