Times of Trouble by Victoria Rollison Page B

desk chair and traced my finger along the grooves where
Sophie had doodled. She was always good at finding anything to do
other than homework. She didn’t doodle like most teenagers did,
with I luv michael or school sux . Her
doodles were mostly the lyrics to The Beatles songs, and quite
amazingly lifelike drawings of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Mum
always thought she would grow out of her love for The Beatles, but
Sophie’s preoccupation passed through the description of ‘phase’,
and turned into ‘obsession’. She didn’t just dabble in things; she
turned them into her passion, letting them grab hold of her and
drag her through the mundane parts of life. I guess I did this with
the piano, so maybe we were more alike than I realised.
    More out of boredom
than in an attempt to go through Sophie’s things, I wriggled open
the drawers on the side of the desk, and flicked through the piles
of paper and envelopes. Mum really was a hoarder. She must have
gone through all this stuff and decided it was worth keeping. There
was everything from report cards, to invitations to eight year
olds’ birthday parties, to stories written in the semi-illiterate
scrawl of a five year old. Near the bottom of one of the drawers
was a large envelope, with thick cardboard mounted photos inside.
They were Sophie’s class photos throughout her entire time at high
school. I stared at the rows and rows of faces; most were
strangers, but a few I recognised. The girl standing next to Sophie
was Tina Gianopoulos, Sophie’s best friend. Suddenly an idea sprang
into my mind; Facebook!
    Back before I became
a virtual recluse, one of my friends invited me to join Facebook. I
had heard of it many times since. Even my youngest piano student,
Alice, who was only 13, was a member, and talked about it all the
time. I remembered telling her I wished she spent as much time
practising piano as she did updating her Facebook profile. I had,
so far, never bothered to sign up. What was the point of
‘networking’ with people if you couldn’t bear the thought of them
asking about your life? If anyone I knew saw me on Facebook, their
first question would be ‘so how is your piano stuff going?’ and my
response would be... to log off! But this could be my best chance
to get in touch with Sophie. Liam didn’t seem to be getting
anywhere. Maybe I could be some use.
    I hardly ever used my
email account. There was no point, when I never contacted anyone.
It didn’t take me long to scroll through my old emails to find the
one inviting me to join. Within moments, I was officially part of
the Facebook universe. I typed Sophie’s name into the search,
wondering for the first time whether it was possible she married
and changed her name. Much to my amazement, there were over 2,000
Sophie Goddards; I had forgotten Facebook was an international
site. I scrolled through the photos for what felt like hours, but
was probably only minutes, and none of them were my sister. There
were a handful of profiles that didn't have a photo, but the
profiles said they lived in the US so were very unlikely to be
Sophie. Determined not to hit a dead end so soon, I decided to see
if I could find Tina Gianopoulos. Just because Sophie lost touch
with me and mum, didn't mean she had ditched all the people from
her past. I grabbed the school photo from the bedroom to check the
spelling of the last name and typed this into the Facebook search.
Thankfully there was only one result, but the photo only vaguely
resembled the teenage Tina in the class photograph. I clicked on
the 'send a message' button underneath the tiny photograph, and
wrote 'Hi Tina, are you the Tina Gianopoulos who left Marryatville
High School in 1999?' As I clicked send on the message, I wondered
if she would remember me. I was just Sophie’s annoying little
sister to all her friends, but my name would still ring a bell with
Tina, wouldn't it? I sat back deflated, all the excitement now
drowned out by impatience. I