Free Queen Sophie Hartley by Stephanie Greene Page A

again.
    Then she stood there, waiting.
    â€œWhat was that for?” Dr. Holt said in a querulous voice. She glared at Sophie with her fierce eyes as if trying to scare her off, but Sophie didn’t budge. She knew what it was for; Sophie could tell she knew.
    She didn’t say a word.
    â€œHa!” said Dr. Holt.
    This time, Sophie was absolutely
sure
there was a gleam in her eyes. “Bet you can’t do it again,” said Dr. Holt.
    Sophie did do it again. A perfect, dignified curtsy.
    Then she stared back at Dr. Holt in stubborn silence. It seemed to go on for quite a long time.
    â€œOh, all right. Have it your own way,” Dr. Holt said at last. She waved a hand toward the pots. “Put blue next to purple. See if I care.”
    â€œThank you,” said Sophie. She picked up another pot of flowers and put it down in the bed. Then another pot. Purple, blue, purple, blue. She stood back to take a look. “There. Doesn’t that look beautiful?” she asked.
    â€œMagnificent,” said Dr. Holt.
    Sophie set about digging a hole for each plant. “Isn’t it much nicer when we don’t argue?” she said conversationally.
    â€œWe’re still arguing,” said Dr. Holt. “We’re just not doing it out loud.”
    Â 
    â€œI hope Dr. Holt’s not being too hard on you,” Mrs. Hartley said on the drive home. She sounded worried. “Her daughter said she had quite a reputation for whipping her students into shape when she taught school.” She gave Sophie a quick glance. “She might have some old-fashioned ideas about how she wants you to treat her.”
    â€œShe’s all right,” said Sophie. “Sometimes she’s a little grouchy, that’s all.”
    Her mother drove for a while, looking thoughtful. Then, “Didn’t I see you curtsying
to her out there this afternoon?” she said finally when they came to a red light. “I just happened to be looking out the window.”
    Sophie nodded. “I was teaching her how to be polite.”
    Her mother sat up straighter and turned to look at her. It made Sophie feel even more satisfied than she’d been feeling when she first got in the car. She’d wanted to tell her mother about what had happened, but she wasn’t sure how. The fact that her mother had been spying on her made it easier.
    â€œYou?” her mother said. “Teaching
her?
”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œAnd you did that by curtsying to her?”
    â€œTalking back was getting me nowhere,” said Sophie. “Then I wondered what Queen Victoria would do.” She looked at her mother. “Do you know about Queen Victoria? The teenaged queen?”
    â€œI’ve never heard her referred to that way before,” her mother said. “But, yes. A bit.”
    â€œQueen Victoria was never mean to anyone, or yelled at them,” Sophie said. “She didn’t
have to.” She wasn’t exactly sure if this was true, but she’d been thinking about it quite a bit. She couldn’t imagine a queen sitting on her throne, arguing. Not in an ermine cloak. She acted so dignified that everyone acted dignified back. If they didn’t, she waved her magic wand and made them disappear.
    Sophie thought maybe she was mixing her facts up a bit, but she liked the way it sounded. “If you act dignified to a person,” she explained to her slightly dazed-looking mother, “then the person acts dignified back. There’s a lot more to curtsying than just bobbing up and down, you know.”
    â€œReally, Sophie,” said Mrs. Hartley. She turned so abruptly into their street that the car ran up over the curb and thumped down again. “You say the most incredible things,” she said. “Sometimes I think there’s more going on in that brain of yours than meets the eye.”
    â€œThat’s what Dr. Holt thinks, too,” said Sophie. “Except all she