Lara Bergen: Sophie the Chatterbox

Sometimes Sophie forgot that Aunt Maggie didn’t hear well.

“No, Aunt Maggie.” Sophie sighed. “It’s just me. Sophie,” she said.

She would wait until Aunt Maggie got there to make her new name clear.

“Ah, Sophie. How are you, dear?” Aunt Maggie asked.

“Well …,” Sophie began.

“That’s nice, dear,” said Aunt Maggie. “Is your mother there?”

Sophie thought about that for a second.

“Yes,” she said finally. “And no.”

“What’s that?” said Aunt Maggie. “I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t get that. Was that a yes? Or a no?”

“Both,” Sophie said, as loudly as she could, into the phone. “Yes, because my mom is here. And no, because she told me to say she’s not. But I can’t lie. Because I am honest!”

Sophie turned to smile at her mom. Her mom did not smile back.

Oops.

“Um, I don’t think you want to talk to my mom, anyway,” Sophie went on. “She looks a little mad. And her hands are in the lasagna. And the house is a big mess. And she still has to clean it before you get here. And —”

Just then, Sophie’s mom took the phone.

“Are you going to ask Aunt Maggie what her problem is?” Sophie asked.

Quickly, Sophie’s mom put her hand over the phone. “Why don’t you go do your homework, Sophie?” she said.

“Do I have to?” Sophie asked. Honestly, she did not want to. Her homework was a word find. Those were almost as boring as surveying.

“Yes!” her mom said.

Sophie sighed. She headed to her room. On the way, her sister, Hayley, stopped her. She was in the playroom with Max, their little brother.

Hayley was in fifth grade. But she acted like she was grown up.

Max was two. And he acted like that, pretty much.

Just then, he was running a toy front loader over Hayley’s foot.

“Sophie! There you are! I’ve been waiting for you. Mom asked me to watch Max for her. But now it’s your turn,” Hayley said.

Sophie shrugged. “I can’t,” she said. She was happy to be honest this time! “Mom told me to do my homework.”

Hayley rolled her eyes. “You can do both, like I did,” she said. “I have to call Sam right now and ask him what to do for homework.”

Sophie frowned. She was confused. She knew who Sam was. He was Dean’s big brother. And he was the boy Hayley like -liked.

Sophie knew this because Hayley wrote Sam’s name all over her notebooks. And she tried to walk by him all the time in school.

“But you just said you already did your homework,” Sophie said.

Hayley made a face. “That’s not really why I’m calling him,” she said. And with that, she lifted Max’s truck off her foot and left the room.

Sophie sat down and tried to do her word find. But doing homework with Max was hard.

It was not because he talked a lot. In fact, he did not talk at all. (Which was weird, Sophie thought.) But he made a lot of other noises. Noises like BANG! and CRASH! and BOOM! and WHOMP!

Sophie was glad when she finally heard another sound.

BEEP-BEEP! Aunt Maggie’s car horn!

“Come on, Max,” Sophie said. “Aunt Maggie’s here. Let’s see what she brought.”

Sophie’s Great-aunt Maggie never came empty-handed. She always came with stuff. It was all stuff from her big, old house. And it was all stuff that Sophie’s mom called junk.

That day, she had two bags when she walked in the door. Sophie could see them under her shawl. The shawl was as big as Sophie’s bedspread. Aunt Maggie always wore it instead of a coat.

Aunt Maggie set down the bags. “Hello, darling children!” She wrapped Sophie and Max up in a hug in her shawl.

Her shawl smelled a lot like perfume. And a little like wet dog.

Then Aunt Maggie reached into a bag and pulled out a glass bowl. It was full of match-books.

Wow! Sophie hoped it was for her. She had never had matches before!

But Aunt Maggie handed it to Max.

“Maximilian, dear! Look what I have for you!” she said.

Sophie stepped back. Matches? And a glass bowl? For Max? She did not think that was a very good idea.

Max reached up to grab the bowl, but Sophie’s mom swooped in.

“Maybe I should take that, Aunt Maggie,” she said.

Aunt Maggie grinned and nodded. “If you like it that much, it’s yours!” she said.

Then she pulled out a plant. It looked pretty dead.

“Here, Maxy. Give this a little water. It will grow like wild,” Aunt Maggie said.

Max grabbed it happily and dumped it onto the floor. He sat down in the dirt. Then he scooped some up and ate it.

Sophie looked at her mom. She had put the glass bowl on a table. Now her head was in her hands.

Aunt Maggie was already reaching back into her bags. Two more things came out.

One was a big book. It looked old and had two words, “LATIN GRAMMAR,” on the cover.

The other was a pin. It was shaped like a big bug. And it was covered, almost, with jewels. (Some had fallen off the bottom.)

Still, it was the best thing Aunt Maggie had ever brought, by far!

Sophie was glad she had not gotten the matches. She wanted the bug pin very, very much.

But Aunt Maggie handed the book to Sophie.

“Sophie-Olive, darling, what do you think?” she asked.

Sophie thought hard for a minute. She was Sophie the Honest. She had to tell the truth.

“I think … I would like that bug pin a lot more,” Sophie said.

Sophie hoped Aunt Maggie’s feelings were not hurt. But Aunt Maggie didn’t look hurt. She looked like she hadn’t heard Sophie.

“What’s that?” she asked with one hand behind her ear.

“I said, I think I would like that bug pin!” Sophie said again, a little more loudly.

“You mean this broach?” said Aunt Maggie.

Broach? Was that like a roach? Sophie wondered.

“I guess so,” Sophie said. “But it looks like a ladybug to me.”

Aunt Maggie smiled. “Well, if there’s one thing I like, it’s a girl who’s honest. It’s yours!” she said.

She pinned the broach to Sophie’s shirt.

“Thank you!” Sophie said. She felt as sparkly as the ladybug … or broach … or whatever.

“I guess I’ll be giving this book to Hayley,” said Aunt Maggie. “I wonder where she is….”

She shrugged and put the book down. Then she pulled out something else. It was orange and shaped like a pumpkin. Sophie was pretty sure it was a lamp. And she was very sure it was broken.

Aunt Maggie gave it a pat. “This is for your dad. He can fix it up. It will be fun! I hate to throw things out, don’t you?” she said.

Sophie looked up from her pin.

“Oh, we like to throw stuff out,” she told Aunt Maggie. “Mom throws out most of the stuff you give us. And my dad can’t fix anything. And Hayley is in her room. She’s trying to get a boyfriend by telling him lies about her homework.”

“Sophie!” her mom said. She was shaking her head.

“Sophie!” said Hayley. She had just walked in.

Why did everyone look so mad?

“Aunt Maggie!” said Sophie’s dad. He had just walked in, too. “I didn’t know you were coming. This is a surprise! And mmm … smells good! What’s for dinner?” he asked.

“Don’t ask, Dad,” Sophie told him. “It’s lasagna. And it’s a surprise, too.”

By the next day, Sophie had learned a lot about being honest.