Sophie's Secret - By Nancy N. Rue Page 0,3

be within inches of the water, and all she could think was, If I fall in, I’m going to be in SO much trouble!

And then something stopped her, and Sophie clung to it with both cape-entangled arms. With a jerk of her neck, she got the hood off her face and found herself looking up at Mr. Messenger. She was hanging onto his legs.

It was the closest she had been to him, and now she could see that his eyes were twinkling.

“No swimming allowed, missy,” he said.

He gave her a grin and a hand to haul herself up with. She dusted off her cape, and then she curtsied.

“Thank you, kind sir,” she said.

He dipped into a deep bow. “You are quite welcome, m’lady.”

Behind her, Sophie could hear Lacie wailing, “She did NOT just curtsy to that guy!”

And she could hear Zeke yelling, “Mama! Sophie almost fell in the water!”

But all she really LISTENED to were the words of Mr. Messenger as he smiled down at her.

“You are a student of history, aren’t you?” he said.

“I am. I make my own historical films—well, with my friends.”

“And I imagine they are spectacular. How would you like to take a peek under these tarps here and see the chimney foundation and the floorboards of a house they’ve found?”

Sophie looked over at an area as big as their garage at home that was covered with a sheet of thick green plastic, and her heart started to pound.

“Oh, yes, sir, please!” Antoinette cried. She clasped the kind man’s hands in hers and looked up with tears shining in her eyes. “I would give anything to know more about those brave men and women who came before me and suffered so much for this new land—”

“You better keep an eye on her, Rusty—she’ll go off with anybody!”

Sophie turned to glare at Uncle Preston, but there wasn’t even time to narrow her eyes. Daddy suddenly had her by the arm, pulling her hands away from Mr. Messenger.

“That’s okay,” Daddy said to him. “We’re headed off for the gift shop. We have a lot of ground to cover today.”

With that, he dragged Sophie away. She barely got a wave in to Mr. Messenger before Daddy was halfway into a lecture. Something about never being able to take her anywhere because she wasn’t a team player.

Sophie didn’t hear most of it. She let her eyes, and her ears, glaze over.

Two

All the way back to Poquoson, while Lacie and Aunt Bailey talked about how they wouldn’t have wanted to live in the seventeenth century because there were no malls, and Uncle Preston flipped through radio stations trying to get the Texas game, Sophie stared out at the drizzle and did what she did best. She imagined. I can’t be Antoinette AND be an archaeologist, she thought. But I can be LIKE Antoinette and Captain John Smith: I will be a pioneer for all that has more good than evil.

Then she dreamed some more until she came up with the perfect name: Dr. Demetria Diggerty.

Of course, Sophie knew she would have to give Dr. Diggerty more than just a name, and to do that she needed quiet time in her room. So it really didn’t bother her that almost as soon as they got back to the house late that afternoon, she heard Aunt Bailey and Lacie go off to the movies without inviting her. What DID bother her was that the minute the house was quiet, with Mama and Zeke off to the grocery store to buy stuff for supper and Uncle Preston dozing in front of a football game on TV, Daddy came immediately to Sophie’s room.

Sophie curled WAY up on the purple rug in the library corner of her room. Daddy didn’t waste any words. He didn’t even sit down.

“Look,” he said, pointing at her from his towering height, “I’m trying to understand you, Sophie. I’ve had the sessions with Dr. Peter, I got you the camera, and I’ll let you keep it as long as you keep improving in school.”

He paused, and since Sophie didn’t know what she was supposed to say, she just shrugged.

“What does that mean?” Daddy said.

“It means I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t know what to say when I give you all that leeway and you still abuse it?”

Now Sophie REALLY didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even understand what he was talking about.

“I asked you to stay with the group and I told you why.” Daddy was poking his finger