Page 2 of Trying Sophie

Giving in to Declan’s whiny demands, Mrs. Brennan paired him up with a kid named Cian. As he walked away, I overheard him tell Cian I looked like a fly with my big, ugly plastic glasses. My shoulders sagged. It wasn’t my fault that my real glasses had broken on the flight here. My mom had promised to send new ones as soon as the optometrist could fill the prescription, but for now I had to wear a cast-off pair that had been hers when she was about the same age. Sadly, I couldn’t really fault Declan for his observation, cruel though it may be. The oversized, plastic green frames were hideous and when I’d first tried them on, I’d seen exactly what he’d just pointed out: they did make me look like a bug.

Declan pacified, Mrs. Brennan went to deal with another squabble, leaving me without an assigned partner. One of the teaching assistants, Miss Flanagan, volunteered but because she knew where all the secret items were hidden, I had to complete the task on my own. Which, come to think of it, was like not having a partner at all.

* * *

As much asmy grandparents had tried to help me make friends, word had spread that I was the weird girl who never talked to anyone and who smelled like fried food. And, even though I quit wearing those awful eyeglasses a couple of weeks later, for the two years I lived in Ballycurra I was called Bug Eyes and Fly Girl. I’d also picked up the nicknames Fish & Chips, Pub Girl, and Smoky Sophie for the faint scent of cigarettes that clung to my clothes no matter how many times I begged my grandmother to wash them. The strange thing was, neither she nor my gramps smoked but the stench from the pub downstairs wafted up through the wooden rafters and floorboards straight into my closet. No amount of laundry detergent or air freshener could keep the scent at bay.

It had been a pretty lonely existence for me, a shy eight-year-old little girl reeling from the breakup of her parents’ marriage.

And that horrible, no good Declan O’Shaughnessy?

Well, from that very first day at St. Andrew’s, he’d done his best to make my life a living nightmare. During the two years I’d spent in Ballycurra, he’d been the bane of my existence.

In line for lunch he’d pull on my braid or pig tails; at break time he’d bump into me when he ran past; and in class, any time he got up to go to the chalkboard, Declan made sure to knock my pencil to the floor.

But the absolute worst was when everyone walked home from school and he’d take the long route that brought him past Fitzgerald’s Pub. Crossing the street so he could stand under the eaves of my bedroom, he’d holler out for the entire village to hear, “See you tomorrow Fish & Chips!” while he waved his hand maniacally to and fro.

And because life was inordinately cruel, Declan O’Shaughnessy had been the very last thing I saw when I watched the tiny village of Ballycurra disappear behind me on my way to the airport to return to America.

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