Queen Sophie Hartley (7 page)

“What good can a doctor do if it already
happened?” said Sophie. “It's too late to fix it, isn't it?”

“Ha! You can say that again.” Sophie wasn't sure, but it looked as if Dr. Holt thought Sophie had said something funny. “I'm called a doctor because I studied so much about it,” Dr. Holt went on. “I taught English history to girls in a boarding school for almost forty years.”

“Oh.”

“You might have enjoyed it,” said Dr. Holt. “I told them stories about kings and queens—”

“Queens?” Sophie's head shot up. “Queens . . . who wore tiaras?”

“You like that idea, do you?” Dr. Holt smiled, as if she was actually glad she'd pleased Sophie; it changed her whole face. Sophie found herself smiling back.

“English history is full of queens who wore tiaras,” said Dr. Holt. “I could tell you about a girl who became queen when she wasn't much older than you are.”

“Really?” said Sophie.

“Queen Victoria. She was crowned queen of
England when she was only eighteen years old.”

“Oh.” Sophie couldn't help but sound disappointed. “That's much older than me.”

“She was a princess when she was thirteen,” said Dr. Holt. “Is that close enough?”

“It's better,” Sophie admitted. Then, “Did she wear a tiara?”

“
Did
she? You've never seen so many diamonds.”

“Ohhh...” Sophie had never heard anything so wonderful in her whole life. She pictured a young princess of thirteen wearing a magnificent tiara sparkling with diamonds.
Real
diamonds.

“Did she wear it all day, every day?” she asked reverently.

“She had to. She was the queen.”

“Except when she was riding, right?”

“Riding?” That seemed to stump Dr. Holt. She leaned back in her chair and rubbed her chin. “Well, she rode horses a lot. I should think she wore it even when she was riding.”

“I don't see how she could have,” Sophie
said practically. “I rode. All you do is bounce up and down from the minute you get on the horse until the minute you get off. It's awful. You'd have to tie a tiara down with string.”

“String? On a queen?” said Dr. Holt. “You mean a gold chain, don't you?”

“Of course,” breathed Sophie. She was carried away by the very thought of it. The gold, the diamonds. “Oh, I hope I meet a queen someday,” she said wistfully.

“You'll have learn how to curtsy first,” said Dr. Holt. “Queens don't shake hands with commoners.”

“What's a commoner?”

“You are. I am. Anyone who's not a member of the royal family is considered a commoner.”

“That doesn't sound like a very nice thing to call us,” said Sophie.

“That's neither here nor there,” Dr. Holt said firmly. “If you want to meet a queen, you'll have to learn how to curtsy.”

“But how?” said Sophie. “I don't know anyone who knows how to curtsy.”

“I do.”

“You
do?
” Sophie said. Dr. Holt was getting more and more amazing all the time. She couldn't imagine anyone as stiff as Dr. Holt curtsying. Or letting anyone call her a commoner. Not even a queen.

“I can teach you, too,” said Dr. Holt. Then before Sophie could say another word, she added, “But I'm warning you, it's hard work. There's a lot more to curtsying than just bobbing up and down.”

“That's all right,” Sophie said rashly, thinking that her mother would fall over dead in a faint if she could hear. “I love hard work.”

And hard work it was. Sophie was so eager to start that Dr. Holt agreed they could put the gardening to one side for a while. Sophie didn't even mind the way Dr. Holt sat barking orders at her. She tried to follow her instructions very carefully. If she could get it right and meet a queen, Sophie was confident the tiara wouldn't be far behind.

It was much more complicated than she'd thought. There were a ton of things she had to remember. Back straight, arms out, head up, toes pointing straight ahead. The hardest part was keeping her balance. The first few tries,
every time Sophie got halfway into a curtsy, she fell over.

“It's not a bob, the way all you young people seem to think it is these days,” Dr. Holt said unsympathetically as Sophie collapsed into another heap on the grass. “A real curtsy is a dignified, elegant movement. You
lower
your body to the ground. You don't drop it.”

“How can I be dignified if I don't even know what it means?” Sophie grumbled, getting to her feet.

“Believe me,” said Dr. Holt, “you'll know what it means when you get it right.”

Unfortunately, Sophie's body didn't want to lower, it wanted to drop. No matter how hard she tried. “You're wobbling,” said Dr. Holt. “That's because you're leaning forward too much.”

“I can't help it,” Sophie wailed as she fell onto the grass for what felt like the thousandth time. She lay on her back and looked up at the sky, discouraged. “When I get the back right, you tell me my legs are wrong.
When I get the legs right, you tell me my arms wrong.”

“You're not giving up, are you?”

Sophie heard the challenge in Dr. Holt's voice. She thought that maybe her life would be easier if she wanted a baseball cap, say, instead of a tiara.

But she didn't.

“No,” she said resignedly.

“Then stand up and try it again.”

Sophie sighed and stood up.

“Slowly now,” Dr. Holt told her. “Remember: You've just walked down a long red carpet; you're standing in front of the queen; she's up on her throne wearing an ermine cloak and a magnificent tiara.”

Sophie didn't know what ermine was, but it sounded romantic. She stood up straighter.

“Good. Now, right foot forward . . . that's right. Have some dignity. Chin held high . . . hands out to the sides holding your magnificent silk gown . . . no smiling, Sophie. The queen doesn't like it.”

Sophie frowned obediently.

“You don't have to look as if you're mad at her,” said Dr. Holt. “That's better. Now, carefully . . . carefully! Back straight . . . Slowly
lower
your body until your left knee almost touches the ground. That's it. Now hold just a moment, and come back up.”

Wobbling only the tiniest bit, Sophie made it back up into a standing position.

“Now you're cooking!” said Dr. Holt. She looked as if she would have jumped up out of her chair if she'd been able to. “It took you long enough, but you look pretty good.”

Sophie was beaming. “Pretty good” from Dr. Holt was like “Bravo!” from anyone else. She'd done it. It was funny how much more a compliment meant when the person giving it to you was usually a grouch.

After that, she didn't want to stop curtsying. The more she practiced, the steadier she got. Her favorite part was the slow dip of her head she had to make when her knee was touching the ground. The tiny nod that said, “Your Majesty.”

It made Sophie feel elegant. She could
almost hear the queen saying back, “Sophie.”

She practiced it so many more times that Dr. Holt started to get a little grouchy again, so Sophie went back to gardening. She could hardly wait to get home and practice in front of the mirror. She wasn't going to tell anyone in her family about it until she could do it perfectly. Especially Nora.

She would use a book on her head. She'd hate it if her tiara slipped down over her nose in front of the queen.

 

As soon as she had helped with the dishes after dinner, Sophie ran up to her room and shut the door. She took off her sneakers and put on her velvet shoes and then, because she didn't own an ermine cloak, slipped her nightgown over her head and tied a towel around her neck before placing the book on her head. But no matter how slowly she moved, the book kept slipping off and thumping on the floor, so Sophie took it off in case the noise made anyone come up to see what she was doing.

She soon discovered that if she watched
herself in the mirror while she curtsied, she wobbled too much, especially when her knee was near the floor. So she lined her stuffed animals up in a row on her bed and curtsied to them. They didn't clap or show any signs of appreciation, though, so Sophie began to wish there was someone in her family she could curtsy to without being laughed at.

When she heard her mother say good night to John in his room across the hall, she knew it was eight o'clock. The Hartley children went to bed at half-hour intervals, starting with Maura, who went at seven-thirty. That meant Sophie had half an hour more to practice before her mother came up to check on her.

Sophie opened her door a crack to see whether John's door was still open. It was. The minute he saw her, John scrambled out of bed and scooted over to lie on his stomach next to his door. Sophie often entertained him from her doorway at night when he was supposed to be asleep. He was a very good audience.

“Now, imagine you're the queen,” Sophie instructed him.

“Boys can't be the queen,” said John.

“The king, then.”

“Off with her head!” John shouted in a loud whisper, waving his arm as if he were brandishing a sword.

“John ...”

John quieted down and watched patiently while Sophie did a whole string of curtsies. Then he said, “It's getting a little boring,” so she got a belt from her drawer and looped it around a stuffed sheep on her bed and dragged it behind her as she marched around her room, quietly singing
Mary Had a Little Lamb
and then curtsying. She was halfway through her final curtsy when she heard footsteps on the stairs. John made a dash for his bed, and Sophie fell over sideways.

It was Nora.

“What are you doing?” she said. She stepped coldly over Sophie's body as if it were nothing more than a lumpy sack of potatoes, went over to her dresser, and picked up her hairbrush.

“Resting,” said Sophie.

“Well, go rest downstairs,” Nora said. She began brushing her hair. “I need to rehearse.”

Sophie could have argued that it was
her
time in the bedroom and that Nora had no right to tell her to leave. But she was feeling generous because of how well her curtsying was going. Besides, she thought Nora's face looked very pale.

“I'll watch you if you want,” she offered as she sat up. “I can tell you what you're doing wrong.”

“As if you'd know,” said Nora.

“But I could—”

“I don't want your help.” Nora put down her hairbrush and turned around. “You don't know anything, Sophie. Just go away and leave me alone. And you can take your babyish animals with you.” She snatched Sophie's sheep off the floor and tossed it out into the hall. “I'm sick of them.”

It was one thing for Nora to be mean to her, but to take it out on an innocent sheep? Sophie ran into the hall and picked up the sheep, cradling it in her arms as if it were
taking its last breath. When their bedroom door slammed shut behind her, she whirled around.

“I do, too, know something, Nora!” she yelled, pounding on the door a few times for good measure. “I'm better at being bad at ballet than you are, so there!”

Her storming down the stairs was anything but queenly.

 

“...and then she threw Curly against the wall.”

“Who's Curly?” said Mrs. Hartley.

“My sheep.”

“Oh, Sophie.” Mrs. Hartley's face was red from the steam that shot up from the iron when she set it down. There was a warm, friendly smell of steam and clean clothes in the kitchen. “Try to be nice to her,” her mother said. “It's only for two more days.”

“I
was
trying to be nice,” said Sophie. “She was still mean.”

“It's because she's worried,” her mother said.

“Then why doesn't she act worried?”

“Pride,” said Mrs. Hartley. “Many times, people are too proud to show how they really feel, so they act mean.”

“That's no excuse,” said Sophie. She thought about Dr. Holt. “They act mean when they're sick, too.”

“Right.”

“And homesick,” she said, thinking about Heather. “They want people to be nice to them, but then they take advantage of them. That's what
you
always say,” she said defensively, seeing the expression on her mother's face.

“You're right, I do,” said Mrs. Hartley. “My goodness. You're becoming a regular philosopher.”

“And Nora's not a prima ballerina,” Sophie said. “She's a prima donna.”

It made her feel very proud the way her mother suddenly plunked the iron on its base and stared at her through a rush of steam. “Wherever did you learn that expression?” she asked. “Are you
sure
you're the real Sophie Hartley?”

“Dr. Holt told me,” said Sophie. “She knows lots of interesting things.”

“Like what?” said Mrs. Hartley.

“Oh, history and things,” Sophie said vaguely. She wished she could tell her mother about curtsying and meeting a queen and everything, but she couldn't.

Not yet.

“So she's not just a grouchy old lady anymore,” said her mother.

“She still is, but I'm working on her.”

“Now that,” her mother said, “is something I'd like to see.”

“Bad news,” said Heather. She slid into the seat next to Sophie and looked at her mournfully.

“What?” Sophie said.

“Destiny Fabrey is catching up to you. We were both just promoted to the gold reading group, and you weren't.” Heather's mouth turned down. “That means she gets two more points.”

“Oh, no,” said Sophie, feeling her heart give a great leap into the air and fly joyously around.

“That's not all,” said Heather solemnly as
she opened her notebook. “You lost a point this morning for peanut butter.”