The water rippled as she splashed her way through the puddle, sending droplets of dirty rain water over her neat black leather shoes and up her white knee high socks. The little girl of six years old would have looked too young to be walking the streets of New York alone through the eyes of a passer – by but she was perfectly happy to walk the two blocks from her West Street private school for girls to the office block where her father worked. Sophie looked up at the rain clouds forming over her head and nodded to herself, turning on her heel and running down the walkway as the rain began to fall once more adding to the puddles already on the damp ground. Her golden blonde ringlet curls bounced as she ran trying to hold her red duffle coat closed tightly whilst holding the matching red felt beret on her head. The rain came heavily and soon the small girl was dripping wet and cold. Her mother would not be pleased.
Arriving at the Brooke street offices, Sophie ran inside and dashed up the stairs as fast as her small legs could carry her. She wanted nothing more than a hug for her daddy. She ran along the corridor towards his office, leaving little wet footprints behind her as she reached his office, entering to find him on the phone. She shivered and walked in slowly. "Daddy" She whispered. Her father, Matthew, heard her sweet little whisper and looked up. Seeing her standing there, soaking wet and shivering, he quickly stopped his phone call and moved around his desk to pick her up.
"Aww my poor baby, all wet and cold" He said soothingly. Sophie nodded and pouted. Matthew smiled and removed her wet clothes, dressing Sophie in his spare shirt which was long enough to be a dress for his little girl. He knew that her mother would not approve but he didn't want Sophie to be standing around in soaking wet clothing. Once she was changed, Matthew sat with Sophie on his lap and listened as she told him sweet little stories that she had came up with. She was a creative child and Matthew always said she had a way with words for a child so young.
A couple of hours had passed before Karen, Sophie's mother who was a powerful New York lawyer, walked through the door with a stern look upon her face. She looked to Sophie wearing her father's spare shirt and she scoffed pulling a disgusted face as if she had smelt something that made her stomach turn.
"Why is she wearing that? Where is her uniform? She's wet, her hair is an absolute mess" She scowled looking her daughter up and down.
"It was raining when she walked here Karen, my poor girl was soaked through and I wouldn't leave her standing around in wet clothing now. Her uniform is drying over there and I'm sorry that her hair is a mess but I don't carry a hair brush around with me everywhere I go" Matthew replied in an irritated tone.
"If it was raining when she left school, you should have been there to pick her up. Our daughter cannot go around looking like a drowned rat" Karen said picking Sophie up. "The Hall family has a reputation to uphold"
Matthew rolled his eyes and stood up, gathering Sophie's clothing and preparing to leave work deciding not to argue back to Karen. She may say that he should have been at the School to pick up Sophie but had insisted that Sophie should be an independent healthy little girl and walk from school to the office every day. Her mother was used to a wealthy lifestyle and had a very certain idea about how she wanted her daughter to be raised.
Privileged? Yes she was. From the moment Sophie was born, she was treated like royalty. The Hall family home was grand and stood in the centre of the Oxford lane estate, private compared to the other houses crammed side by side down the long wealthy lane. Sophie had a large bedroom with a wide bay window that overlooked the estate, and she had all the things that a little girl would want. She had all the latest toys, her room full with posh dolls and technology you would not expect a child to understand. This was just the life that Sophie was used too. There was one thing that this lifestyle had lead Sophie to be and that was independent. Both her parents worked a lot, especially her mother and her mother always encouraged her daughter to be more and more independent from a young age saying that it was the best way to get far in life.
The house was always neat and tidy, a habit Sophie followed. She tried to keep everything tidy and insisted that she was a perfectionist from the moment she learnt what the word meant. She was intelligent and did well in school, leading her mother to set out a whole life plan for a daughter.
"You will be a lawyer just like me" She told Sophie on her fifth birthday and although she said nothing, Matthew could see that his daughter didn't approve of this idea. Sophie always hated the way her mother would come in every day and sit in her office with towers of paperwork and a serious expression upon her face. She never looked happy or looked as if she was enjoying herself. No, this isn't what Sophie wanted.
Sophie loved to write. She may have only been six but English was definitely her favourite and best subject. She always liked to write stories about various little characters in her large leather bound notebook she kept safely in her bedroom. She had always loved to read and Matthew would often find her sitting in her armchair in the family room with a book across her lap. Sometimes, she would sit herself beside him when he was reading his daily newspaper and examine the words and images carefully. She would smile reading what she could understand of it all.
"Who writes these stories" She asked one day as she sat looking at the newspaper with great interest.
"Journalists" He answered. "They research news stories and write stories about them to tell the public what is going on in the world. Some journalists write big important news stories and some write lots of different things"
Sophie smiled, satisfied with that answer. She nods her head happily and jumped down from her seat, dashing out of the room and up the staircase towards her bedroom. Closing the door behind her as if shutting herself away in her world, Sophie pulled her notebook down from the shelf and lay on her stomach on her bed with the book open in front of her. She wrote little news stories about news at school, like the fact that her maths teacher was going away to have a baby and how there was new food in the canteen. Just little things but Sophie considered this news.
She wrote, and notebook after notebook became fall with her little news stories and other writings she had doodled down. Sophie loved it, and she knew from the age of seven that she wanted to be a writer, a journalist to be precise. But of course, her mother did not approve.
"A writer? Honestly Sophie that is no dream for you to be following. You should have higher hopes then that? Writing is a job for the simple minded, it doesn't take much intelligence to write words upon a page" She scoffed over dinner one evening as Sophie revealed her writing dream to her family. "No, I tell you now no. A child like you should be focusing on a more important job, like a job in law. Yes, that is more suited to you. I raised you to be perfect, why do you think that there are so many rules in your life and in this household"
That was true. If someone was to look at Sophie, they would find a picture perfect little girl staring back at them. Her mother tried to make sure that she always looked her best, with her golden ringlet curls that laid perfectly in place and her designer clothing that made her look as if she had stepped straight out of a fashion magazine. She had started ballet at the tiny age of three years old and at first Matthew had believed that this was simply a fun activity for their daughter but really Karen had only wanted Sophie to attend the dance lessons to make sure that she had perfect posture and always stood correctly. Everything in Sophie's life was there for a reason, and although some may think that all of this is only giving her a better chance in life, some others may say that some of the rules in the life of Sophie Hall was taking rules and strict control too far. She had a private education at a school for girls, where she was taught by the best in classes with the highest form of control. Matthew didn't like the fact that is wasn't a mixed gender school as he thought that was all part of growing up and being a child, but Karen insisted that Sophie would grow up a certain way and it would be Karen's way.
Matthew would encourage his daughter's creativity and love for writing whenever Karen wasn't around. Sophie didn't like showing him her stories saying that she never felt as if finished but he didn't mind. If she was happy, he was happy. He knew she wanted to be a journalist and wanted to encourage her as much as possible.
He knew he had succeeded in encouraging her when one day when she went to his office after school, he gave her a copy of The New Yorker magazine.