Chapter 18

Getting Ready for Church

After breakfast, Sophie brushed her teeth, had a nice long bath and attempted some fancy stretches in the sunlight. Then she went into her closet to get dressed. Sophie had a much bigger closet than most girls. Ever since she started sewing, it needed to be.

“What is it?” she remembered her father asking her. She was even littler back then.

“I can’t . . .” sniffle, sniffle, “fit . . .” sniffle, sniffle, “anymo’ of my cos-tooms . . .”

“Is that so?”

Without warning, he opened the closet door and kicked the whole back wall down!

“Eek!”

“There, that’s better. Isn’t it?”

Behind the wall was their den.

“Yes, I think this will do quite nicely,” he said, looking around.” It’s all yours now. Make as many costumes as you’d like.”

He even blocked off the other doorways too, so the only entrance would be her bedroom. It wasn’t long before it was completely filled up again.

Nowadays, going into her closet felt more like wandering backstage at a circus. There were hanging linens, spools of string, a wall of strange hats, funny masks and old trunks full of props. In the middle, there was a large spinning wheel and two sewing tables, each with a great jar of candy on it. One for her and one for her mother. But the best part were all the rows of dresses she could choose from.

“Hmm . . .” she sighed as she skipped through that morning. “I wonder what I should wear to church today . . .”

Whenever Sophie got dressed, her goal was always to try and look on the outside the way she was on the inside—using people’s reactions as a way of gauging whether she got it right. If someone told her she looked “pretty” or “nice,” she took it as a sign that she’d chosen wrongly. “Oh, Sophie! That’s so YOU!” or “Only YOU would wear it that way!” Now this is what our heroine liked to hear!

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How then did she dress, you ask? Well, it was really quite simple. She was warm and soft-hearted. Therefore, the materials and colors she chose were warm and soft-looking. She was neat and clean. Therefore, her dresses were always spotless and constant, with no loose threads. Sophie also loved to stop and chat with people. So, she always chose accessories that made her look extra friendly and approachable, like a basket under her arm full of goodies. She wore no watch and carried no purse, for she never wanted to appear busy or short on time. If there was to be any message in appearance, she wanted it to be “Hello! Come and talk to me. I have all the time in the world!” And it worked very well. Wherever she went, people were always approaching her.

But Sophie was also a very odd girl—and she knew it. So, she always tended to sew or wear things a tad unevenly or inexplicably. Many of her pockets, for instance, were crooked. Buttons and zippers were sewn in silly places. Places which had no function whatsoever. It wasn’t because she liked the way it looked. Rather, she viewed it more like a common courtesy. People who talked to her were bound to find out she was a little weird sooner or later. Dressing that way helped save them the time and trouble. And this worked very well too! Sophie looked exactly like the kind of girl who would say something odd. Many were shocked when they talked to her. But because of the way she dressed, no one was ever surprised.

All of this led, of course, to the common view that Sophie Tousaint didn’t care about the way she looked—and that she just threw things on at random. But nothing could have been further from the truth. To the contrary, reader, no little girl in the village spent more time designing and planning her outfits. Every stroke of every needle she sewed, especially the little imperfections, was scrupulously and painstakingly planned, sometimes months in advance.

After she was done getting dressed that morning, she did her chores—sweeping, dusting, folding clothes and brushing Samson’s snowy white fur. Next, she did her outdoor chores—watering plants, trimming vines and feeding the farm animals.

Their little house was light brown with bright blue trimmings and a brick chimney. All of the windowsills had pink flowers beneath them. There were bird feeders and bird baths wherever they could fit them in the yard. Samson liked to sit outside in the grass and plot war against them. “Be afraid!” he’d roar. “Meow! Be afraid! Samson is nigh! Dreadful as the storm and lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth!” But at the end of the day, it was always too much work for him. He wasn’t nearly as dangerous as he pretended to be and spent most hours sprawled out on the porch, fast asleep. Birds and bunnies could hop right up to him and eat the crumbs of his breakfast off his whiskers. He had a hard-enough time lifting his arms, let alone hurting anything.

The farm was about as big as a schoolyard. A white picket fence encircled it. As Sophie worked, she hummed and sang little songs, saying hello to all the animals.

But there was one chore that our heroine dreaded every morning. So much so, that she often went to great lengths to avoid it. After putting it off as long as she could that morning, Sophie went into the barn to feed the pigs. Suddenly, a funny-looking man appeared from the pen. He was giant, dark-skinned and had a great big bushy beard, crawling on all fours like he was one of them.

“Snort, snort, snort! Squee! Squee!” he bellowed. “Snort, snort, snort! SQUEE!”

Sophie shrieked.