Chapter 1 #2
What had gotten Sophia through her gruesome summer days cleaning the horse stalls, watering and feeding the chickens, cows, cats, and goat, collecting eggs on top of eggs, and harvesting and grinding corn for feed, was knowing that at the end of each night, she had the shiny pages of the school’s brochure waiting for her.
Against Sophia’s will, hope had seeped in, and a deep yearning had taken root.
Her whole body had begun to crave a life away from the farm.
But as the metal handle of the pail dug into the crevices of her dry palm, the reality of her life brought her back into the barn, and Sophia chided herself for being so foolish. Attending West Oak Forest Academy had been nothing more than a pipe dream.
Finished with pulling the eggs, she lifted the garden hoe hanging from the wall and scraped the roosting bars from left to right until all the waste had fallen to the ground.
While she swabbed the bars with a sponge she kept soaked in vinegar, Karl and Lu entered the barn with the chicken feed and fresh buckets of water.
The boys were fraternal twins but looked nothing alike. Karl was tall and big-boned, with skin the color of toast, and had inky eyes. Lu was short and willowy, with eyes so see-through he reminded her of a kitten.
Sophia wanted to give them the job of carrying the eggs down to the mudroom, but she didn’t trust them not to break them.
“Lu, while Karl fills the feeders, you grab the pitchfork and turn the bedding in each nest. If it looks soggy, just replace it with clean straw from the pallet.”
“Why can’t I feed the hens?” Lu whined.
“You did it yesterday,” said Karl.
“Boys, we don’t have time for arguing.”
“He started it,” said Lu.
“It was you,” said Karl.
“You have twenty minutes, so make haste. We still gotta milk the cows.” Sophia headed for the barn door and then remembered, “And don’t forget to close up all the nests so the chickens can’t get back inside.”
Sophia lugged two pails of eggs at a time to the small mudroom at the back of the farmhouse.
It was more like a shed with a refrigerator and a long aluminum prep table.
It took her several trips to get all the pails inside.
Sophia then examined each egg, checking for cracks, and then wiped them all down with a clean rag before placing them into the cartons.
Satisfied with her work, she stacked the cartons in the refrigerator. The Old Man would carry some to their local customers in town later, but the bulk of the egg production was delivered to three restaurants in Washington, D.C., on Thursdays, just in time for the weekend rush.
Next she had to milk the cows, the chore that she abhorred most. As she rounded the corner to the milking parlor, she hoped the cows were in a good mood.
Inside the parlor, she found Walter already perched on the milking stool, cleaning the cow’s udders.
“Don’t you have to water the fields?” she asked.
“I’ll do it after this. You go get ready for the first day of school.”
“You have school too, Walter.” Sophia put her hands on her hips. “Just ’cause you’re a senior don’t mean you can skip.”
He swatted at a fly in the air. “I don’t need to go on the first day. It’s more or less the same. ’Sides, I promised Unc that I’d have the milk ready for the morning pickup. He said he should have two or three hands by tomorrow, and then I’ll go.”
Not having to fool with the cows would give her time to freshen up before the three-mile walk to school. “You sure?”
“Go on, now.” He turned his face back and started lubricating the teats.
Walter did not have to tell Sophia again. As she headed back to the house, she couldn’t understand how Walter could be so content with farmwork. Sophia could not wait to grow up and wear classy dresses with high heels and perfume like the pretty girlfriends Unc brought around.
Sophia washed her hands at the spigot that ran on the side of the house.
Cracked and calloused, her fingers looked like they belonged to someone twice her age.
The Old Man was already out on one of the tractors—she could hear the motor chugging from around back—but Ma Deary continued to snort and snore.
As Sophia set the eggs to boil, she thought lovingly of her television mother, Margaret Anderson from Father Knows Best. Margaret would never let her children go off to school without presenting a beautifully set dining table, covered with bacon, eggs, toast, and freshly squeezed orange juice.
Sophia rolled her eyes in the direction of Ma Deary with disgust.
She walked down into her bedroom. An octagonal window the size of two fists let in a stream of sunlight. There were no electrical sockets in her room, and the only other light that came through was when she left the kitchen door ajar.
Sophia pulled her school skirt out of the trunk in the corner. Last school year, the skirt fell below her knee, as required. She must have grown at least two inches over the summer, because now the skirt stopped above her knee. Seeing that it was all she had to wear, it would have to do.
The farm sat a ways back from the main street, so Sophia and the twins traipsed through uncut grass for a quarter of a mile before reaching Double Oak Road.
Sophia checked her brothers for ticks, then the three walked along in single file.
After dropping the boys off at the big red barn that had been converted into a lower school, she walked the last mile alone to the high school, feeling her stomach slip from a loose loop into a tight knot.
W. S. Brooks was a single-story brick building that sat back on a large lot with a smattering of white ash and hickory trees.
The grass smelled freshly mowed, and the high-pitched laughter of classmates reuniting after summer rang out loud.
Sophia pushed her hand over her head, not sure why she had even wasted time with the brush and comb because the morning humidity had already puffed up her hair like a horse helmet.
As she crossed the parking lot, tugging her too-short skirt, she saw upperclassmen wearing their first-day best, posted against freshly washed vehicles, shooting the breeze.
A group of sophomore boys tossed a football while blushing girls flashed their teeth, thirsting after the attention their two-hour morning routine deserved.
“Orangutan,” a shrilly voice called out.
Sophia’s shoulders stiffened. It was Maxine and her dreaded triad of flunkies. She picked up her pace.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know your name all of a sudden.” Maxine spoke louder, and her acolytes scratched under their arms while producing monkey sounds: “Oo-oo-ah-ah.”
Sophia didn’t have to look at them to know that all four girls had on brand-new A-line skirts, starched white blouses, and two-toned flats, with their hair pressed to a shine.
Their flowery fragrances contrasted with her own aroma of egg yolk and the rotten-plant residue stuck to the bottoms of her shoes.
The girls were on her heels by the time Sophia had reached for the school’s front door with a trembling hand.
“Don’t fall asleep in class this year, either. Wouldn’t want the boogeyman to get you,” Maxine hissed in her ear and cackled while the flunkies chorused their monkey sounds.
Sophia was about to run away from them like she had all last school year, but something deep inside of her rooted her to the ground. She turned and looked Maxine dead in the eye. “And don’t you eat lunch. Might be a razor blade in your sandwich.”
Maxine looked so stunned that, in the time it had taken for her to recover, Sophia was already down the hall ducking into her first-period class.
She had been assigned to eleventh-grade chemistry even though she was technically in tenth grade. While her teacher went over the year’s objectives and what they would master, a student entered with a note for the teacher.
“Sophia Clark, report to the principal’s office,” her teacher said.
The knot was now so tight in her stomach, Sophia thought she would throw up.
Swallowing hard, she gathered her things.
It seemed like every eye in the room turned to watch her get out of her seat.
Her knees wobbled so much that, right before she reached the door, she tripped over her own foot and grabbed the doorknob to catch herself from falling. The kids roared with laughter.
“Now, class, settle down.” The teacher slapped her palm three times against her desk.
Sophia moved through the deserted halls, wondering if she was being summoned because Maxine had told on her about the razor-blade comment, or if one of the hall monitors had reported her for dress-code violation on account of her too-short skirt.
If it were the comment, she would deny it, and if it were the latter, she would assure Principal Travis that the short skirt was an accident.
She’d say that her mother had bought the wrong size but would take her shopping over the weekend.
Which was a bald-faced lie. Ma Deary never took them shopping.
She simply brought home clothes from the hospital’s lost-and-found box and told them to choose whatever passed as fitting.
Unc’s latest girlfriend had given Sophia what she wore now, probably out of sheer pity.
She had looked Sophia over and said, “Sugar, you are way too pretty to be dressed like an old maid.”
The school’s office had a small reception area with a desk and two bookshelves.
“For heaven’s sake, Sophia?” The white-haired receptionist looked up from her ledger.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Mrs. Brown’s just about had a cow trying to locate you. Head on back now before you give that woman a full-fledged heart attack.”