This is my first multi-chapter story. It is based off of my story "You Believed in Me." Do to the positive response towards the story, I have decided to go ahead and expand on the story. I'm starting from the very beginning of Chad and Sonny's story. I hope that you enjoy this story as much as I enjoy telling it :)
This chapter is dedicated to Emily who gave me my first review on the one shot that this story is based off of. Thanks Em!
I hope that you enjoy this chapter!
"Mama! The Goody Gang is about to come on!" Five-year-old Sonny Monroe stood in the living room of her family's country house. She was half-dressed, with one sock on and one sock off. Her hair was tangled and uncombed. In her hands, she clutched the TV remote. As impatient as she was, she didn't touch any of the buttons. Mommy and Daddy had a rule that only they could turn on the TV and work the remote. Normally, Sonny didn't mind. She didn't really know how to work the remote anyway, but right now, she was impatiently hopping from socked foot to unsocked foot.
"Mama!"
"Sweetie, I need to finish drying the dishes first." Connie Monroe poked her head into the living room. She was holding a dripping wet bowl in one hand and a dish towel in the other. Her expression softened when she saw the state that her daughter was in. Connie laughed and went to put the dish and towel on the counter. She came back a moment later and took the remote from her daughter's hand. Sonny clapped her hands.
"Yay! It's on Channel 5, Mama, 'member?" Connie just smiled and pressed a button on the remote. The theme music for The Goody Gang began to fill the room, but it was quickly drowned out by Sonny's squeal. "Yay! Mama, did you know that this is my favoritest show. I love it so-" She squealed again as the music ended and the scene flipped to one of the gang sitting in a circle on the playground. "There he is, Mama! That's him. Oh! I'm gonna marry him someday."
Sonny reached out a finger and pointed to a little blonde boy sitting off to the side of the Goody Gang. He was one of the minor characters, but Sonny thought that he was the "cutest boy" on the show, and she watched it religiously just to see him for five minutes. Her obvious joy at seeing him in the opening scene made Connie laugh.
"Well, sweetie, you have a long, long time before you get married. Let's not rush anything." Sonny frowned and gave her mom a disappointed look.
"I know, Mama, but he's the bestest boy I ever saw. I already decided that we are gonna live in a gingerbread house and he's going to make me pancakes. I just wish there was a way that I could tell him that we are gonna get married. Then I cou-" Here she was interrupted,
"You could write him a letter." Sonny's older sister, Alivia, stood in the doorway. She was buttoning up her coat. Sonny stared at Alivia with wide eyes.
"I could do that?" The TV show was forgotten in Sonny's excitement.
"Sure, why not. Lots of girls at school send fan letters to famous actors." Alivia had just turned twelve and was in middle school. Sonny looked at her sister with wide eyes. She had always thought that Alivia was so grown up and knew anything. "You just need to find out where he can have mail sent to. I'll ask around at school. Someone is bound to know where to send mail to The Goody Gang." Sonny jumped off the couch and ran to give her sister a hug.
"Thank you! Thank you! THANK YOU!" She gave her sister another quick squeeze and began to hop from one foot to another again. People often remarked to Connie that her daughter had an endless energy source. She had to agree, and she ofthen had to step in and calm her daughter back down. She reached out and placed a hand on Sonny's slim shoulders to make her stand still.
"Alright, that's enough. Livi, you need to get going. I hear the bus coming down the street. Where is your brother?" Here, Connie paused and put her head through the doorway that opened into the back hallway. She hollered towards the back bedroom for her middle child, "ANDREW!"
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Eight-year old Andrew came running down the hall, shoving his arms into his coat sleeves along the way. At that moment, the bus pulled up to the house. Connie gave them each a kiss and then herded her two older children out the door. Sonny stood next to her mother and waved to her siblings. She couldn't help but shout one last thing at her sister,
"Don't forget to ask, Livi! I wanna write to Woody." Her arm waved frantically in the air as the bus pulled away. As it disappeared around a curve, she turned to her mom. "Can I color a picture for Woody Goody, Mama?" Connie smiled.
"Sure sweetie, but his name isn't really Woody Goody. I checked the credits. You need to write your letter Chad Dylan Goldfarb. He's the boy who plays Woody Goody." Connie watched her daughter's face to make sure that she understood. Sonny opened her mouth in a silent "O." Connie continued, "Why don't you go wash your hands and I will get out the crayons and some paper for you?"
Sonny nodded and ran off to wash her hands. Connie went to the living room closet and got down a box of crayons. After setting it on the table, she went over the the computer desk and pulled a few pieces of paper out of the printer and placed them in front of Sonny, who had returned from washing her hands.
"Sweetheart, are your hands dry?" Sonny looked down at her dripping hands. She quickly swiped them over her jeans a couple of times. Connie had to stifle a laugh. "Alright, well, have fun, sweetie. I'm going to go do some laundry.
Sonny picked up her peach crayon and drew a wobbly circle. She filled it in, only going outside the lines a few times, then drew a second circle. After filling that one in, she drew a smiling face on each of the circles. The next few minutes were spent drawing bodies for each of the faces. She gave the girl a pink dress and the boy a blue shirt and bluer shorts. Next, she picked up a yellow crayon to draw the boy's hair. A cry of alarm left her mouth when she realized what she had done. Connie came running into the room to make sure that nothing was the matter.
"Mama! I accidentally gave Chad green hair! I thought it was the yellow crayon, but it was green instead." Two big tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks. Connie came over and gave her daughter a hug.
"It's ok, sweetie. I'm sure that Chad will like it no matter what. And you can explain in the letter if you want." She picked up a real yellow crayon and handed it to her daughter. "Here, why don't you color over the green with the yellow. I bet you won't even be able to tell a difference." Connie kissed the top of her daughter's head and went to finish the laundry.
Sonny carefully covered the green with the yellow and smiled at the result. It wasn't perfect- Chad still had a tinge of green in his hair- but it wasn't horrible anymore. She went on to give herself light brown hair and a pink bow. At that point, she laid down the pink crayon and picked up the picture to examine it.
"It needs sump'in," she thought. A smile lit her face as an idea came to her. She picked up a red crayon and carefully drew hearts in all of the white spaces. Then she wrote her name: SONNY, under the girl in the picture. She didn't know how to spell Chad, but she would ask her mom when she came back from doing the laundry.
After finishing the laundry and putting supper into the crock-pot, Connie sat down at the kitchen table with Sonny. She had already told her daughter how to spell Chad and now she was about to write down what Sonny wanted to say to the actor. Sonny wiggled with excitement over being able to tell Chad that they were going to get married.
"I guess that Chad and Sonny sounds 'bout as good as Woody and Sonny, but I'm sad that he don't have a rhyming name anymore." Sonny had lamented on this fact the entire morning, since she had found out Chad's real name. Connie just smiled at her daughter.
"Ready to right the letter?" Sonny nodded enthusiastcially.
"Yep. Ok, now Mama, you have to write exactly what I say. That way he will know that I wrote the letter even though I didn't."
It took almost an hour for Sonny to get her letter just right. The end product was rather amusing. She had Connie read it back to her in order to make sure that she was satisfied with the final result:
Dear Chad, I mean Mr. Goldfarb,
Mama says that I have to be polite when I write this, but I dunno about that. She's the one writing the letter because I am only five years old and I can't write good yet. My name is Sonny, by the way. I would tell you my last name, but Mama says that I can't, just in case some bad man sees the letter. I don't know about that. I bet you would beat up any bad man who tried to take your letter. Opps, Mama said that I need to get back on track. She says that to me a lot. I wanted to write you first to tell you that you are my favorite on The Goody Gang. Mainly because you are the cutest, but also because I think that you are funny. But sometimes you are serious. The other part of the letter is to tell you that we are going to get married someday. I know that it is fast come up on you, but I have known since the first show. We are going to get married in a field and have lots of cake with frosting, or maybe just frosting. And we will live in a big house with windows and have a little boy named Cooper. I like the name Cooper. It's like copper, only not. And copper is shiny and pretty. I only know this because Mama has a plate made of copper that she keeps on a shelf. Mama says that I am writing too much so I have to say bye. I think that you are the bestest actor on the show. I thought that you were Woody Goody, but Mama says that you just pretend to be him and that makes you an actor. If that is true, then you have to be the bestest and cutest actor I ever saw. I am putting in a picture of us together for you to have. I am sorry about the green hair. It was a mistake. Ok, bye-bye.
Love, Sonny
Sonny clapped her hands together. "It's perfect, Mama!" She handed the picture to Connie and watched as she carefully folded both the letter and the picture into thirds. Sonny handed her mom the envelope. As soon as Alivia got home from school with the address, they would mail the letter to Chad Dylan Goldfarb in faraway California.
There you go! The first chapter of my new story. I hope that you enjoyed it! I certainly enjoyed writing it- especially the letter. Sorry for any mistakes although some of the grammar mistakes were because Sonny is only five in this chapter. Thanks again for reading it. Please review :D
