Five

For Sophie, time spun in a waltz of its own after their dancing lesson.

On Sunday, Dr. Peter reminded the girls that their Bible study would start Tuesday. Sophie felt a twinge again — the kind she used to feel when she forgot a homework assignment.

I’m going to read my Bible and pray every night from now on, she thought.

But Sunday night there was homework, and Monday after school she went fabric shopping with Mama. When Sophie headed for the pattern books at Jo-Ann Fabrics & Crafts, Mama said, “We won’t be needing those, Dream Girl. Senora LaQuita told me she would teach me how to design my own patterns.” She gave Sophie a wispy Mama-smile. “It’s time I learned anyway. Who knows, maybe I can whip up something like they sell at Rave for Lacie.”

“Anybody can make Band-Aids, Mama,” Sophie said.

They found gold taffeta and brown shimmering lace, and Sophie was so thrilled she barely noticed the Fruit Loops or the Corn Pops all day Tuesday.

What did get her attention was Kitty.

Kitty giggled a lot that morning, more than usual, and it was a different kind of giggling. She laughed when things weren’t even funny — like when Gill lost a filling out of her tooth, right into the burrito Maggie gave her from her lunch. Kitty’s voice was shrill, and the laughter didn’t get to her eyes.

When they went out to the playground during the second half of lunch period to rehearse for their film, Fiona put her hands on her almost-hips and said, “All right, Kitty, you’re hiding something. What is it?”

Kitty’s eyes got as big as cereal bowls. “How did you know?”

It’s a good thing Kitty doesn’t try to be a REAL secret agent, Sophie thought.

“Because you’ve been acting mental all day,” Darbie said.

Kitty sank down to the ground and leaned against the fence, knees pulled into her chest. “You’re all going to be mad at me when I tell you — and you’re probably gonna kick me out of the Corn Flakes — but I never wanted to agree to that pack thing anyway.”

“What pack thing?” Maggie said.

Sophie nodded. “You mean the ‘pact’? About the boys?”

“Yes,” Kitty said. “I hate the Fruit Loops, but I like other boys — nice boys — and I found one. And you can’t make me not go to the dance with him!”

She burst into the tears Sophie had been expecting. Maggie reached into her backpack and handed Kitty a tissue.

“You don’t mean some boy asked you?” Darbie said.

“And you said yes?” Fiona said.

Kitty nodded as she blubbered into the wadded-up tissue.

“I’m scandalized,” Fiona said.

Sophie sat down next to Kitty. “Who is he?” she said.

“Nathan Coffey,” she said, although from the other side of the tissue it sounded at first like “make some toffee.”

“Which one is he again?” Darbie said.

“Curly hair. Braces,” Fiona said. “Wears a Redskins hat.”

“Remember I told you his dad is in my dad’s squadron,” Kitty said. “We even went camping with them last summer.” She looked up, face streaming and miserable. “I didn’t know I had a crush on him before.”

Maggie said, “How can you have a crush on somebody and not even know it?”

“All right, let’s not all go off our nut here,” Darbie said. She sat down and pulled Fiona with her. Maggie squatted beside them.

“You’re not in love with Nathan, Kitty,” Fiona said, her face serious and sage.

“We’re going together,” Kitty said. She poked her chin into the tops of her knees.

“Where are you going?” Maggie said.

“I think that means they’re boyfriend and girlfriend,” Sophie said.

“And THAT means you’re breaking the Corn Flakes pact,” Fiona said.

Darbie shook her head. “You’re making a bags of it, Kitty, I’m telling ya.”

Kitty looked at Sophie with panic in her eyes. “Are you going to throw me out?”

“No!” Sophie said, before Fiona could jump in with something Sophie knew she would have to apologize for seven hundred times later.

“If she goes, I go,” Maggie said. She even stood up.

“She’s not going!” Sophie said.

Kitty flung herself at Sophie’s neck and cried until the bell rang, while Fiona and Darbie folded their arms and looked everywhere but at Kitty.

On their way to class, Fiona pulled Sophie back. “What is the point of having a pact if you can just break it and nothing happens?”

“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “But Dr. Peter will.”

Fiona’s eyebrows came together. “I thought he was going to talk about the Bible.”

“Stuff like that is in the Bible,” Sophie said.

There was another Jesus-twinge. I’m coming back, she prayed. Honest, I am.

It was so much easier to remember to talk to Jesus when Dr. Peter was around. And just as Sophie had expected, he had the Bible study room fixed up so that everybody said some form of “Wow!” when they walked in.

“Everybody” consisted of Sophie, Fiona, Darbie, and Harley and Gill from the Wheaties.

“I didn’t know you went to church here, Harley!” Sophie said.

“We don’t,” Gill said. “Not yet anyway.” She always talked for the husky Harley, who just smiled that eyes-disappearing-into-cheeks smile a lot. “Your mom told my mom about this at a PTO meeting, so she’s making me try it.”

“I don’t want anyone to come because her mom makes her,” Dr. Peter said. “But I am going to ask you to give it an honest try. Two sessions. Then if you would rather do something else with your time, I’ll tell your moms they should let you.” Dr. Peter clapped his hands together and nodded toward the beanbag chairs that were set in a circle, each one a different color. “Choose a seat, and let’s get started.”

Sophie picked the purple chair and flopped into it. Beside each beanbag was a Bible in a matching color.

“This is class,” Darbie whispered to her.

“A lady doesn’t whisper,” Fiona said.

“I don’t know about a lady,” said Dr. Peter. “But members of this group don’t HAVE to whisper — at least not in here.”

“Define this group,” Fiona said.

“We’re going to do that over time,” Dr. Peter said. “But I will tell you this: you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t ready to get closer to God.” He wrinkled his nose so that his glasses worked their way back up closer to his sparkling eyes. “Unless your mom made you come.”

“It’s cool so far,” Gill said. Harley gave him a thumbs-up.

“You all got the packet I sent you, telling you what we’re going to be doing?”

Heads bobbed.

“So, any questions before we get started?”

“I have one,” Fiona said. She resituated herself in her hot pink beanbag. “Sophie says the Bible talks about stuff like what we’re dealing with right now with a friend of ours. I just don’t see how that could be true, since the Bible was written, like, a million years ago.”

Sophie was sure Miss Odetta Clide would say a lady didn’t talk to the Bible study teacher like that. But Dr. Peter grinned at Fiona.

“I like a challenge,” he said. “Bring it on.”

Fiona straightened up tall, and then looked at Gill and Harley. “You guys have to promise you won’t tell anybody at school about this.”

“What is said in here stays in here,” Dr. Peter said. “That’s one of the ground rules. But we aren’t here to vent about people either.”

“This isn’t venting. Here’s what happened.”

Fiona told him all about the pact and Kitty’s breaking it, with Darbie and Sophie adding details, and Harley and Gill looking as if they were hearing about the worst kind of traitor.

“So,” Fiona said when they were through, “how can the Bible tell us what to do about something that probably never happened back then?”

“The Bible is full of stories about betrayal,” Dr. Peter said. He rubbed his hands together as if he couldn’t wait to get into one.

“Oh,” Fiona said. “So what’s the answer?”

“What’s the question?” Dr. Peter said. He looked at the Wheaties. “Do you two mind if we explore that?”

Gill was obviously into the whole thing, which meant Harley was too.

“The question is — ” Fiona looked at Darbie.

“Why would an eleven-year-old girl be wanting a boyfriend?” Darbie said.

“So much that she would break the pact,” Sophie put in. “We made a promise to each other that we wouldn’t go to the dance with a boy — any of us.”

“Did Kitty agree to the promise?” Dr. Peter said.

“Yes!” Fiona said. “She pinkied up like the rest of us.”

Dr. Peter looked bewildered. Sophie and Darbie linked pinky fingers, and he nodded. “Gotcha,” he said.

“But then today she’s telling us she never wanted to make the promise in the beginning,” Darbie said.

Dr. Peter ran his finger up and down his nose. “Something is really strong in her to make her break a promise. Maybe the Bible can show us what that something is.”

“No way,” Gill said.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Fiona said.

“Don’t take my word for it,” Dr. Peter said. “Let’s go in.”

Sophie was squirming in the purple beanbag, but Dr. Peter’s eyes were still dancing, the way they did when there was a juicy problem to solve.

“Turn to Ecclesiastes 3 — that’s in the Old Testament, Fiona. There you go.” Dr. Peter glanced around the circle as they thumbed to the right place. “This isn’t the most uplifting book in the Bible, but I think you’ll like this part. Now, I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you have come to a wise teacher, someone you look up to.”

Sophie chose Dr. Peter and pictured him in her mind with a beard down to his chest and wearing a long robe that touched the tops of his rope sandals.

“Imagine you have come to this teacher with your question about Kitty, and you know he or she will give you the right answer.”

“What’s the question again?” Gill said.

“What is so strong in Kitty that she would break her pact with her friends? What does she think is so important that she would do this? Now picture yourself asking this wise person that question. Hear it coming out of your mouth. Be aware of how you’re sitting and what you’re feeling. Be there.”

Sophie was already there, sitting at Dr. Peter’s feet, looking up at him with begging eyes, wanting so much to know the answer before they lost Kitty to some boy who would never be as nice and loyal to her as the Corn Flakes were. She could even feel the knot in her throat.

“Now,” Dr. Peter said, “I want you to hear these words as if they are coming from the teacher’s mouth — the answer to your question.”

“ ‘There is a time for everything,’ ” he read, “ ‘and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build.’ ”

He went on to read about weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing, scattering and gathering, hugging and not hugging. Sophie listened, waiting for the part where she would have the oh-I-get-it feeling. So far what he was reading was only making the knot in her throat bigger, and she didn’t know why.

“ ‘A time to search and a time to give up’ ” Dr. Peter read, “ ‘a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend.’ ”

She heard an impatient sigh from Fiona.

“ ‘A time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.’ ”

It was quiet, except for the sound of someone trying not to cry out loud.

“You okay, Loodle?” Dr. Peter said.

“No,” Sophie said. She smeared her arm across her wet eyes. “Everything is changing. It doesn’t ever stay the same. Next year we’ll be in middle school, and all the Corn Flakes might not be together. And it might be harder, and I might start doing bad again and get the camera taken away. And maybe Kitty really will decide a boy is better than us, and she’ll go away because it’s her time to do that.”

“That’s what those verses mean, isn’t it?” Darbie said. “That there’s a time for every different thing.”

“When is my time to kill?” Fiona said brightly. “There are a few Fruit Loops I’d like to take out.”

Dr. Peter grinned. “I doubt that time is now, so hold off.”

Harley and Gill looked disappointed.

“Sometimes change is hard,” Dr. Peter said, looking at Sophie. “Especially when you like things the way they are right now. It’s okay to feel bad over that for a while, as long as you know another time will come with its own set of good things.”

“So let me get this straight,” Fiona said. “It’s Kitty’s time to start liking boys.”

“That could be part of it,” Dr. Peter said.

“I’m not in that time yet,” Fiona said.

“Me either,” Sophie said.

Harley and Gill were shaking their heads. “I’m not ever having that time,” Gill said. “No way.”

Dr. Peter cocked his head at Darbie. “You want to tell us what you’re thinking?”

“I’m thinking it seems to me it’s a bit early for Kitty to be having this time,” Darbie answered.

“I definitely don’t like this pairing-up thing in the sixth grade,” Dr. Peter said. “But there’s nothing wrong with discovering that there is more to boys than nose-picking and smelly socks.”

“That’s so FOUL!” Fiona said.

Darbie was studying Dr. Peter’s face like she was following a map.

“So how do we know when it’s OUR time?” she said. “When it’s okay to really like a boy and maybe want to dance with him or something.”

Fiona looked at Darbie in horror.

“That’s a great question,” Dr. Peter said. “You’ll know it’s your time for boys when being around them takes you closer to God, not farther away.” He rubbed his hands together. “And getting closer to God is what we’re going to learn how to do, using the Bible as our guide.”

I wish Kitty were here, Sophie thought as she flipped through the Bible to the next verses Dr. Peter called out. I’m not sure she’s close to God at all.

Kitty always bowed her head and closed her eyes when the Corn Flakes prayed together, but Sophie wasn’t sure it was always God she was thinking about.

Right now, she was pretty sure it was nobody but Nathan Coffey.