Sophie stared numbly after the boy. A Lesser, in the school! But there had been something odd about him... then the answer hit her like a slap. Lessers weren't educated, but they always spoke the same as everyone else. So why had the boy spoken so strangely?
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"Psst," a voice said, "C'mere."
Sophie turned on her heel to see the same boy- or was it? He had red-brown hair, but earlier she had seen him with hair that was jet black. Still, there was no mistaking that thin mouth, green eyes, and freckles covering every inch of his face. "C'mon."
"Who says I should do what you say?" Sophie challenged him, "What if I don't feel like following you? I don't even know your name."
The boy thought about this for a moment. Then he said, "My name's Jeffrey. Now let's go!"
"I don't trust you. Where's your accent?"
"Why does that matter so much to you? We're running late, you know."
"We can go after I ask you all the questions I need to ask in order to be able to trust you," Sophie declared stubbornly. "What are you late for?"
"Not me, we."
"Fine, then. What are we late for?"
"You'd know if you would just stop asking so many questions."
"What's wrong with your hair? What color is it really?"
"This color. Let's go! Georges doesn't like it when people are late."
"One more question. Why is this so urgent?"
"Because it is, okay?"
"Fine, then. Let's go."
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Jeffrey led Sophie through long, winding, roads paved with dull gray cobblestones and mansions lining the sides for about half an hour. Just as Sophie was getting tired, he rounded a corner and turned on to another road. She looked up, expecting to see big white mansions, but instead, she saw ratty clothes hanging from worn thin clotheslines and small apartments that were half-fallen over already. People wandered in and out of the apartments, starting at Sophie. "Where are we?" Sophie asked tentatively.
"My home," Jeffrey replied, "This is where the Lessers live."
Sophie was shocked. She had known that the Lessers were poor, but not this poor. The people were thin as sticks. "I-I don't understand," she stuttered, "In school they said the Lessers get food from the Greaters."
"They only tell you what they want you to know," Jeffrey told her. "They don't tell you that each day twenty Lessers die of hunger or sickness. That's how my brother died. He got pneumonia one winter after a blizzard. It was the Greater's fault. My brother had been hired to work in the garden of a Greater. The lady of the house wanted every kind of plant that could survive winter planted in one day, and fifteen of each kind, too. So my brother got to work. After the blizzard started, the lady wouldn't let him stop. It took him two hours to finish. When he did, the lady made him walk the hour-long way home. He was half-dead when he got here."
Sophie gently laid a hand on his shoulder. I'm so sorry," she said quietly.
Jeffrey shrugged her off. "It's fine," he said, "I don't really remember him, anyway."
But Sophie knew she had to do something about the Lessers. Even though she knew Jeffrey wanted to show her other things, she skipped away towards her house. "See you tomorrow," she called over her shoulder.
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Sophie burst through the big double doors in the front of her home, a colossal marble mansion with four floors and grand stair cases in almost every room. "Mother!" she called, "I'm home!"
She skidded through the huge, empty front hall and into the parlor, where her mother was sitting in an armchair the color of rubies. "You're late, Darling,"she said, setting down the sampler she was sewing. "And remember, ladies don't yell."
"But Mother, I met a boy-"
"Oh, this is marvelous! You've finally come to your senses! But your courting him already?"
"No, Mother. I'm not courting him. In fact, he's a Lesser." Sophie knew it was risky to mention that to her, but she couldn't let her mother think she was courting someone. "Sophie! This is all too much for me!" Mrs. Earlington cried, putting her face in her hands. "My daughter doesn't want to court anyone, and now she's interacting with Lessers! Of all the children out there, why did Frederick have to bring me this one?" Then she snapped her head up, suddenly remembering that Sophie was in the room.
"Mother, what are you talking about?" Sophie inquired.
"Forget about it. I'll tell you when you're older."
But Sophie couldn't forget. Each day, even as she read, or wrote, or talked with Jeffrey, her mother's words nagged at her. What had she been talking about?
