Sophie Pitt-Turnbull Discovers America

I've always known exactly who I am. I am Sophie Pitt-Turnbull. I live with Mummy, Daddy, and my older brother, Xar, in a terraced house in Putney, London, England. Daddy writes books (novels and biographies) and Mummy is a housewife and painter (portraits of domestic animals). Although Daddy's family didn't begin to prosper until the Industrial Revolution, Mummy can trace her ancestors back to Henry II, so I was raised with a strong sense of tradition and history. "Never forget that you're British," Nana Bea likes to say, and I never have. I've always been happy with who I am. Not in a stuck-up, I'm-the-best-thing-that's-happened-since-the-invention-of-the-lightbulb sort of way, of course. More in a God’s-done-a-lot-worse-than-Sophie-Pitt-Turnbull sort of way. Even after Jocelyn Scolfield said all that stuff about me being a bit on the dull and passive side, I was still satisfied with myself. I reckoned that I'd improve with age (like wine or cheese), but I never actually expected to change. Not change so much that I could divide my life into two parts: the part with the old me and the part with the new me. But I never expected to discover America. . . ._____________________SOPHIE PITT TURNBULL by Dyan Sheldon. Copyright (c) 200f by Dyan Sheldon. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.