Happy Birthday, Sophie Hartley Page 2

  “And a lot hot in the summer,” said Thad.

  “I’m buying a fan for the summer,” Nora told him, “and Mom’s getting me an electric blanket for the winter. So there.”

  “But the attic smells,” said Sophie.

  The Hartleys’ attic was divided into two rooms. A steep and narrow set of stairs led up to a small landing between them. Years earlier, Mrs. Hartley had found Nora and Sophie up there, dividing the mothballs they’d discovered in a garment bag the way they divided their Halloween candy. “They look like candy, but they smell yucky,” Sophie had been saying. “You eat one, Sophie, and see what it tastes like,” Nora said.

  “Off-limits from now on,” their mother had told them grimly as she followed them down the stairs. “You’d eat the lavender sachet from my underwear drawer if I didn’t keep an eye on you.”

  “What does lavender taste like?” said Sophie.

  Mr. Hartley had put a lock on the attic door that night.

  Now here was Nora, moving out of their perfectly good bedroom, a bedroom they’d shared for their entire lives, to live in that smelly place. Not only that, but judging from the look on Nora’s face, she could hardly wait.

  A person would have to be very eager to have a room of her own to move up to the attic, Sophie thought indignantly. Either that, or desperate to get away from someone.

  “I’m not the one who snores,” Sophie said.

  “Dad snores so loud it makes my Legos rattle,” said John.

  Mrs. Hartley stood up and started stacking plates. “This isn’t about you, Sophie,” she said. “This is about Nora being almost fourteen and needing some privacy. You two have done a wonderful job of sharing a room all these years. It has nothing to do with you whatsoever. Does it, Nora?”

  “Of course not,” Nora said obediently. She gave Sophie a kind, condescending smile. “If you get lonely, you can come up and visit. Just make sure you knock first.”

  Knock on her own sister’s door? Nora and their mother had obviously been talking about this behind her back for weeks. Happily plotting and planning how Nora could get her own space, far away from her bratty sister, without once asking Sophie how she felt.

  No one else in the family seemed to care about how she felt, either.

  Mrs. Hartley was telling Mr. Hartley he’d have to set up the bed that had been leaning against the wall of the attic, and telling Thad that she’d need his help in moving the boxes out of the room that was going to be Nora’s and into the storage room across the landing.

  John was bouncing up and down in his chair, yelling, “I can carry boxes, too! I’m strong!” while Maura shouted, “Me! Me!” as if even she wanted to be a part of it.

  “…and the bed a pale, pale blue,” Nora said to no one in particular. “I found a picture of exactly what I want in a magazine. I’ll go get it.”

  She jumped up from the table without clearing her plate, which wasn’t allowed, but no one stopped her. “I’m going to paint everything else white!” she shouted from the stairs. “The walls, the floor, everything! All white!”

  Everyone was acting as if it was such exciting news, and no one was interested in the exciting news Sophie hadn’t told them yet. Fine. Sophie stood up and, with great dignity that no one seemed to appreciate, put her plate and glass into the dishwasher and closed it none too gently. If Nora could make her own plans, then so could she. None of them would have anything to do with her gorilla, if that’s how they felt.

  Especially Nora. Sophie had planned on letting Nora have the fun of feeding it and changing its diapers.

  Not anymore.

  It would be just the two of them: Sophie and her baby gorilla in their own room. She might even put a sign on the door that said NO HUMANS ALLOWED.

  “If we all work together on Saturday morning, it won’t take any time at all,” Mrs. Hartley said briskly as she lifted Maura out of her highchair. “Sophie, if you help, you’ll have your new room to yourself by lunchtime.”

  “Sorry, but I’m busy on Saturday morning,” Sophie said, and went straight to the phone to invite herself to Alice’s house for a sleepover on Friday.

  “I love the color white,” Nora said dreamily as she came into their room after her shower. “The whole room white, with carefully selected accents of color.” She sighed a contented sigh.

  “Hmph,” said Sophie.

  While Nora was in the bathroom, Sophie had spent the time trying to decide whether she would look emotional or indifferent when Nora said something nostalgic about their last night together in their room.

  She was bound to say something. Even Nora would have to say something.

  But all she did as she pulled back her covers and slid under them was give a little shiver and say, “This room is so frenetic, it gives me a headache.”

  Sophie didn’t know what frenetic meant, but it couldn’t be very nostalgic if it gave Nora a headache. “Since when?” she said, frowning.

  “Since forever.”

  Sophie got under her covers, too. “Not even you can keep a white floor clean.”

  “I’m making a ‘no shoes’ rule.” Nora lay flat on her back with her covers folded neatly under her chin. “Everyone has to leave their shoes at the bottom of the stairs.”

  “You can forget about me visiting, then,” Sophie said grumpily. “White’s not even a color. My art teacher said white’s the absence of color. Who wants to live in a room without color?”

  “Not you, that’s for sure.”

  Nora had made no secret of how she felt about the way Sophie mixed reds and purples and oranges and yellows together. And patterns. “Stripes with checks?” she had cried last week when Sophie pulled on her new tights. “Are you nuts?”

  “What about your bedspread?” Sophie said. “It has a million colors.”

  “I know. Unfortunately, I bought it when I was still a child,” Nora said, sighing regretfully. “It simply won’t fit into my new décor. You can have it when I’ve saved enough to buy a white one.”

  Sophie had been admiring Nora’s paisley bedspread for months. Now she wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. “No thanks,” she said. She turned off her light. “It won’t fit into my new décor, either.”

  “Trust me, Sophie. You don’t have a décor.”

  “I do, too,” said Sophie. “I left it in my cubby at school.”

  Nora’s insulting snort was the only thing close to a nostalgic word that either of them uttered on their last night of sharing a room.

  THREE

  Mrs. Hartley took Maura and John along when she and Nora went shopping for Nora’s room the following afternoon. There was nobody to say goodbye to Sophie when she got into Jenna’s father’s car for the ride to Alice’s house.

  Sophie was glad she hadn’t told Jenna and Alice about it at school. She wanted to do it during their sleepover so they’d have the whole night to make her feel better.

  At least she’d get some sympathy from her friends.

  She had decided not to tell them about her gorilla until she’d cleared it with her mother. Just in case. At least, that was her plan. But the whole way over to Alice’s house, all Jenna talked about was lacrosse.

  Lacrosse, lacrosse, lacrosse. It was the only thing Jenna ever talked about since she’d started playing last summer. Sophie was sick of it.

  Jenna went on and on for the entire ride like a how-to video. How you had to pass, throw, and scoop up the ball! How the stick was called the crosse. How it really hurt when you got hit. How boys were allowed to raise their sticks above their heads but girls weren’t, and how girls under the age of ten weren’t allowed to check with their sticks.

  “That means hit,“Jenna explained, even though Sophie was trying to show how bored she was by looking out the window and not talking.

  When they got to Alice’s house, Jenna was still complaining about how unfair it was to have different rules for girls. She stopped only long enough to say goodbye to her father and go into the house.


  While they followed Alice up the stairs, Jenna started bragging about a goal she’d scored at her last game, and Sophie couldn’t take it another minute.

  “That’s not so great,” she said. “I’m getting a baby gorilla for my birthday.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Jenna.

  “That’s not very nice, Jenna,” Alice said, closing her bedroom door as the girls dumped their things on the floor. “If Sophie says it’s true, it’s true.”

  “I’ve never heard of a kid having a pet gorilla before,” Jenna said.

  “So? You haven’t heard of everything in the world,” said Sophie.

  “It’s so exciting, Sophie.” Alice settled back against the bank of pillows on her bed and smoothed her bedspread out around her. “What are you going to call it?”

  “Patsy.”

  Sophie had been harboring the name in her heart ever since she saw a photograph in one of her books of the tiny, wrinkled face of a newborn gorilla. It looked like a Patsy.

  “That’s so sweet,” Alice said, sighing.

  “You can help me take care of it,” Sophie told her. “Not everyone’s going to be allowed to.” She gave a meaningful look at Jenna, who was on her hands and knees spreading a comforter over her sleeping bag on the floor between Alice’s twin beds.

  “I can’t believe your mother said yes,” Jenna said without looking up. “Your mother never says yes.”

  “She does, too,” said Sophie.

  “Not about pets, she doesn’t.” Jenna sat back on her heels. With her thin face and dark eyebrows, she looked strict. “You’ve wanted a pet your whole life, and she’s never let you.”

  Jenna was right.

  The Hartley children had begged for one kind of pet or another for years. Every time one of them had asked, they’d been met with the same response: “And who’s going to feed the dog (or newt or guinea pig or cat)?” Mrs. Hartley would say. And before anyone could answer, she’d say, “Me.”

  There was always a flurry of protest at this remark, and rash promises made, which Mrs. Hartley ignored.

  “And who’s going to clean its cage (or litter box or the messes it made in the yard)?” she’d continue. “Me.”

  Mr. Hartley was no better.

  “What this family doesn’t need is another mouth to feed” was all he ever said.

  “It’s not our fault there are too many of us,” Sophie once protested.

  “Don’t blame me, blame your mother,” Mr. Hartley said cheerfully. “I told her we should stop with Thad.”

  The rest of them had given up. Sophie couldn’t. She wanted a pet more than anything. Something warm and soft that she could hold and take care of, that would love her more than anyone else.

  Even in a family as big as hers, Sophie sometimes felt as if there was a huge space in her heart that wasn’t being used. Something she could call her own might fill it.

  But it was one thing for her to make it sound as if her mother was unfair and another thing for someone outside her family to do that, so Sophie said, “Well, she did this time, Jenna, so there.”

  “You two, don’t argue,” said Alice. “I bet it’s because it’s Sophie’s double-digit birthday.”

  “The double-digit birthday is very important,“Jenna grudgingly agreed.

  Sophie was the last one of them to turn ten. She’d been hearing about the special birthday presents they got for their tenth birthdays for months. Jenna’s parents had sent her to a two-week sleepover lacrosse camp during the summer. Jenna bragged that it was “very expensive.”

  Alice’s mother, who was studying to be an interior decorator, had let Alice buy whatever she wanted for her bedroom. Alice picked pink and green curtains with matching bedspreads and canopies for her twin beds, a round rug covered with pink roses and green leaves, and lots and lots of pillows.

  Unfortunately, Sophie didn’t think turning ten was going to work nearly as well for her.

  For one thing, she wasn’t an only child like Alice. And with Maura and Nora, being a girl wasn’t as special as it was for Jenna, who had three brothers.

  Plus, Mr. and Mrs. Hartley always talked about how expensive it was having to buy presents for two birthdays in a row. Thad’s birthday was a week after Sophie’s. He was expecting big things this year.

  He was turning sixteen.

  He’d been bellowing about turning sixteen since the day he turned fifteen.

  “Sweet Sixteen!” he’d holler at the drop of a hat. “It’s the Big One!”

  But it was all too complicated to explain to Jenna and Alice, so Sophie agreed she was probably getting her gorilla because she was turning ten.

  “I’ve still never heard of anyone having one,” Jenna said. “Where’s it going to sleep?”

  Sophie was happy to change the subject. “In my room,” she said, turning down the ends of her mouth. “Nora’s leaving me.”

  “What do you mean?” said Alice.

  “She’s moving up to the attic.”

  “Great! It’s about time!” said Jenna.

  “Jenna doesn’t mean it’s good that Nora’s leaving you,” Alice said quickly when she saw Sophie’s face. “She just means—”

  “Yes, I do,” Jenna interrupted. “Nora’s been bossing you around for years, Sophie.”

  “You’ll love having your own room,” Alice told her. “Really.”

  “Nora tells you what to do all the time,“Jenna went on. “You know she does. When you should turn off your light, what to wear every morning…”

  “Even how your side of the room should look,” Alice said. “Remember when she wouldn’t let you use that striped bedspread you found in a garbage bag in front of the thrift shop, because she said it clashed with her new bedspread?”

  “That was so unfair,“Jenna said. She and Alice looked at one another and nodded.

  Sophie had been looking back and forth between them as if she were watching a tennis match. “She was worried it had germs,” she said when they finally stopped.

  They looked at her without commenting.

  “I’m used to having her boss me around.”

  “Then you’ll have to get unused to it,” Jenna said. Then, suspiciously, “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark.”

  “No way!”

  “Okay, then.”

  “You can paint your room whatever color you want, and decorate it and everything!” Alice said in her peacekeeping voice.

  “No more bossy Nora telling you what to do,” finished Jenna.

  It was clear that they didn’t understand.

  When they were little, Sophie and Nora had fun sharing a room. They made up funny songs and games at night. Sophie was used to the sound of Nora’s breathing and the way Nora hummed under her breath when she did her homework.

  Sophie felt safer when Nora was in the room. If she admitted that to Jenna and Alice, they’d think she was a baby.

  But it was true.

  Nora’s bed was closer to the closet than Sophie’s. Ever since their mother had read them a picture book about a boy with a monster in his closet, Sophie figured that if a monster ever came out of theirs, she could run for help while it was busy attacking Nora. With Nora gone, there would be nothing between it and Sophie except air.

  Not that she still believed in monsters, of course. There were some nights, though, like after she’d watched a scary movie, when she wasn’t sure you could totally rule them out.

  Maybe Alice and Jenna were right, Sophie thought resignedly as they went downstairs to make popcorn. Maybe having her own room wouldn’t be so bad. She wouldn’t mind yellow trim around the windows and pale green walls. And maybe a purple closet door.

  Maybe, just maybe, she was going to love her own room when she saw it.

  FOUR

  She hated it.

  From the moment she saw the sad little patches dotting the walls where Nora’s posters had been taped, and the bare mattress on Nora’s bed, Sophie hated it. It felt as if all the life had been
sucked from the room when Nora left.

  Sophie didn’t even want to go in, it looked so empty. She stood in the doorway beside her mother and said, “Nora took everything.”

  “I made sure she only took what was hers,” Mrs. Hartley said.

  Unfortunately, it appeared that almost everything that had made it lively and interesting and homey had been Nora’s.

  Her bedspread and matching pillows were gone. So were the strings of beads she’d hung from the ceiling around her desk, her desk lamp with the polka dot shade, her cheerleading pompoms, her bulletin board … gone, all gone.

  The room was an arid wasteland, and Sophie was going to have to live in it, alone, for the rest of her life.

  Well, maybe not for the rest of her life, but still.

  Nora had taken her desk, too. Four indentations in the carpet showed where it had stood. The empty space was littered with crumpled bits of paper, dust balls, stray paper clips, and an old rubber band.

  “Her bed’s still here,” her mother said with a lot more enthusiasm than the old blanket and lumpy mattress deserved. “Look on the bright side, Sophie! Think of the sleepovers you can have without Nora to disrupt them.”

  Sophie didn’t feel like looking on the bright side. “She even took the curtains,” she said. “Everyone can look in.”

  “Well, she made them.” Mrs. Hartley sighed. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you new ones.”

  Sophie opened the door to her closet and peered into its depths. “My poor, lonely clothes,” she said.

  “You did nothing but complain about Nora hogging the entire thing,” her mother said with a laugh.

  Sophie opened the top drawer of the dresser she and Nora had had to jam their clothing into. “Empty,” she said mournfully. She opened every one and slid it shut. “Empty, empty, empty.”

  “All the more room for you. Really, Sophie. You’re so dramatic.”

  When a wail sounded from downstairs, Mrs. Hartley put her arm around Sophie’s shoulders and steered her firmly from the room. “Poor Maura,” she said as Sophie followed her down the stairs. “Your father’s solution to everything, with all of you, has been to dump you in the playpen.”