Sophie

Jostein Gaarder

Sophie Amundsen was on her wayhome from school. She had walked the firstpart of the way with Joanna. They had beendiscussing robots. Joanna thought thehuman brain was like an advancedcomputer. Sophie was not certain that she?agreed. Surely a person was more than apiece of hardware？

When they got to the supermarket，they went their separate ways. Sophie livedon the outskirts of a sprawling suburb andhad almost twice as far to school as?Joanna. There were no other housesbeyond her garden， which made it seem asif her house lay at the end of the world.This was where the woods began.

She turned the corner into CloverClose. At the end of the road， there was asharp bend， known as Captain's Bend.People seldom went that way except on theweekend.

It was early May. In some of the gar?dens the fruit trees were encircled withdense clusters of daffodils （黃水仙）. Thebirches were already in pale green leaf.

It was extraordinary how everythingburst forth at this time of year！ What madethis great mass of green vegetation comewelling up from the dead earth as soon asit got warm and the last traces of snowdisappeared？

As Sophie opened her garden gate，she looked in the mailbox. There wasusually a lot of junk mail and a few bigenvelopes for her mother， a pile to dumpon the kitchen table before she went up toher room to start her homework.

From time to time there would be afew letters from the bank for her father， butthen he was not a normal father. Sophie'sfather was the captain of a big oil tanker，and was away for most of the year. During?the few weeks at a time when he was athome， he would shuffle around the house，making it nice and cozy for Sophie and hermother. But when he was at sea， he couldseem very distant.

There was only one letter in the mail?box and it was for Sophie. The white enve?lope read， “Sophie Amundsen， 3 CloverClose.” That was all; it did not say who itwas from. There was no stamp on it either.

As soon as Sophie had closed the gatebehind her， she opened the envelope. Itcontained only a slip of paper no biggerthan the envelope. It read： Who are you？

Nothing else， only the three words，written by hand， and followed by a largequestion mark.

She looked at the envelope again. Theletter was definitely for her. Who could?have dropped it in the mailbox？

Sophie let herself quickly into the redhouse. As always， her cat Sherekan man?aged to slink out of the bushes， jump ontothe front step， and slip in through the doorbefore she closed it behind her.

Whenever Sophies mother was in abad mood， she would call the house theylived in a menagerie. A menagerie was acollection of animals. Sophie certainly hadone and was quite happy with it. It hadbegun with the three goldfish， Goldtop，Red Ridinghood， and Black Jack. Next shegot two budgerigars （虎皮鸚鵡） calledSmitt and Smule， then the tortoise calledGovinda， and finally the marmalade cat （橙色斑貓） Sherekan. They had all beengiven to her to make up for the fact thather mother never got home from work untillate in the afternoon and her father wasaway so much， sailing all over the world.

Sophie slung her schoolbag on thefloor and put a bowl of cat food out forSherekan. Then she sat down on a kitchenstool with the mysterious letter in her hand.

Who are you？

She had no idea. She was SophieAmundsen， of course， but who was that？She had not really figured that out yet.

What if she had been given a differ?ent name？ Anne Knutsen， for instance.Would she then have been someone else？

She suddenly remembered that Dadhad originally wanted her to be calledLillemor. Sophie tried to imagine herselfshaking hands and introducing herself asLillemor Amundsen， but it seemed allwrong. It was someone else who kept intro?ducing herself.

She jumped up and went into thebathroom with the strange letter in herhand. She stood in front of the mirror andstared into her own eyes.

“I am Sophie Amundsen，” she said.

The girl in the mirror did not reactwith as much as a twitch. Whatever Sophiedid， she did exactly the same. Sophie triedto beat her reflection to it with a lightningmovement but the other girl was just asfast.

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What was peculiar about the letterSophie found in the mailbox？

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