Some of the Travels of Sophie

Beginnings

My name is Sophie. Well, Sophia Lestari, to be exact. I'm not really a journal person but to be honest I need something to help me sort my thoughts out right now, and this is all I could think of. A lot of stuff has happened to me today, and I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do now. So instead of dwelling on that I figured I could write out all the things that have happened. I might as well start from the beginning.

Three years ago now, my dad was asked to join a space expedition. He's a scientist and engineer, and a really good one, he worked at the state laboratory, known as the Science Institution, the biggest science place in the country. A couple of hundred scientists went on a ship into space to do some research on other planets, or something of the sort. So my dad was asked to go with them, and although he really wanted to go, he didn't want to leave us behind, me and my mum and my two siblings. Mum knew how much he wanted to go and eventually she convinced him to. It was really hard on me and I know it must have been on mum as well, but we managed and dad has been on the expedition ever since. The expedition came back once, but after that there were all sorts of delays and detours and they haven't been back for about two years now.

Everything was fine for a while. I was worried of course, but I had enough going on that I didn't dwell on it. My sister Rachel and her twin brother Kris are barely ten and since my mum got sick last year I've had to take charge of the family. It's a cell blasting disease, and there's no cure, or at least not in any way affordable or accessible to us.

She slowly grew weaker and it was so hard for me to go through, standing by and watching her dying, able to do nothing to help her. It was something that couldn't be made better, it would only get worse.

Anyway, so mum had been really weak for the last couple of days and I hardly left her except for school, which she insisted I go to. This morning she was paler than usual and knowing that she didn't have long to live I was planning on skipping school, but she made me go. She had a nurse who would be coming in and checking on her later so I knew she would be looked after. I packed my school bag, grabbed my siblings, said a last goodbye to mum and left for school. Little did I know that I'd never see her again.

That afternoon, when school ended, I collected Rachel and Kris and we took the bus home. When we got to our street, I could tell something was wrong. There were three black hover-vehicles outside our apartment building. At that point, I already knew what had happened. I must have slowed down, because I remember Rachel pulling on my arm, asking me what was wrong. I couldn't speak. I just surged forward, quickly closing the distance between us and the vehicles. I realised that there was an official looking woman and a man there waiting for us. As we approached them they confirmed my fears.

"Are you Elisa Lestari children?" the woman asked.

"Yes." I replied, completely anxious.

"I'm sorry." The woman continued. "But your mother is dead."

My pain must have shown on my face because the man patted my shoulder sympathetically. Rachel had burst into tears and Frank was ashen faced.

"What's going to happen to us?" I asked the officials.

"You'll be taken to a foster home in about twenty minutes." The woman told me. "So you can have a while to recover and then you'll need to go pack a bag."

Looking at the woman's face I could tell she didn't really care that much, she was just doing her daily job. The man, on the other hand, did look like he was genuinely concerned for us, especially for Rachel who had been non-stop sobbing for about five minutes by then. I was too shaken to cry, and I couldn't bring myself to in front of my siblings. I had to stay strong for them if I was going to look after them properly.