So B. It

Heidi shares that next-door neighbor Bernadette is a great teacher to both Heidi and Heidi’s mama, who has a “bum brain.” Bernadette teaches Mama how to open cans with an electric can opener and tries to teach her other activities by rote. Heidi reveals many nuances of her life with Mama and Bernadette living near Reno, Nevada. Bernadette, whom Heidi calls Bernie, suffers from agoraphobia. She orders clothing and supplies for all of them via catalogues and delivery services. Bernie has a love for reading and shares good books with Heidi; Heidi learned to read at age five thanks to Bernie. Heidi’s continued reading instruction from Bernie includes everything from children’s classics like Charlotte’s Web to unusual choices for a young girl, like philosophy and a Gandhi biography. Heidi acknowledges how reliant on Bernie she and Mama are: “I loved my mother, and I know she loved me too, but if we hadn’t had Bernadette, we’d have been in big trouble” (11).

Because Mama cannot hold a job and because agoraphobic Bernadette is unable to leave their home, Heidi is the only one to earn money outside the apartment. She earns $2.50 an hour baby-sitting a neighbor’s children. Heidi reveals her curious outstanding luck with games of chance; she describes the Memory game she and Bernie played years before, in which Heidi paired off every card without fail—and without missing any, so that Bernie never even had a chance to play: “Every guess I made was lucky” (15). When money is short, Bernie sends Heidi with plenty of safety guidelines to the slot machine in the corner laundry. With her amazing luck, Heidi wins enough cash to keep them going.

Heidi explains how she and Mama came to know Bernie. After Mama mysteriously showed up at Bernie’s door one day holding infant Heidi, Bernie welcomed them in and tended to them. Mama left when Heidi fell asleep and Bernie watched as Mama went down the hall and into the next-door apartment. Bernie worried all day that Mama and Heidi needed help and what she should do. She soon discovered the door adjoining their apartments; prying it open, she saw Heidi crying and Mama asleep beside her on the kitchen floor. From then on Bernie used the adjoining door to care for Mama and Heidi and make a joint home for the three of them.

Heidi recalls more details from her years growing up with Bernadette and Mama. Bernie had plenty of furniture in her apartment and brought items through the adjoining door to help furnish Mama’s and Heidi’s. Bernie homeschooled Heidi instead of sending her to a public school, and once Heidi was old enough, also taught her how to safely cross the street. They used towels in the apartment for the road’s edge, so that Heidi could practice looking both ways. Once she could cross the street, Heidi went with Mama to the market and library, and sometimes the park, though no children ventured near enough to Heidi to play. Heidi meets Zander, a boy who lives in their apartment building. Zander likes to create extravagant stories and gives Heidi junk food like Twinkies when she sits and listens to him.

Mama communicates through only a few dozen words. She told Bernadette only Heidi’s name and her own—“So Be It”—on the day Mama knocked on Bernie’s door for help. Mama’s name is only one of many puzzles about their background that confuses Heidi as she grows. Bernie wonders how Mama got her name: “That’s what you say when something’s over and done with, Heidi” (34). Heidi begins to wonder more about her mysterious past, how she and Mama came to be living in the apartment next to Bernie, and especially about the meaning of one of Mama’s words, soof. An attempt at a list of “Things I Know about Mama” has only one item: her name So B. It, which Bernie writes with a letter B instead of the word Be to provide Mama with a middle initial. When Heidi tries to list things she does not know about her mother, the first item is “What is soof?” (40).

Heidi recalls how she and Mama loved leaving the apartment for nearby errands and walks. While Bernie permits Heidi out of the apartments for short stays or walking errands, such as her babysitting job in the same building or going to the market or library, Bernie balks at the idea of Heidi and Mama boarding a city transit bus to another part of Reno for the vacuum repair. Unable to resist the temptation of adventure, though, Heidi persuades Bernie that the city bus is a promising idea. The plan turns disastrous when Mama becomes panicked. Heidi feels lucky to get Mama back home where it is safe without involving authorities, and after the incident, gives up on traveling farther from home than she and Mama can walk.

As Heidi gets older and realizes her mother’s limitations, she becomes increasingly curious about the word soof: “I spent hours looking into Mama’s eyes, imagining that somewhere behind them was a little package all wrapped up for me with a tag attached saying, This is soof” (50). Heidi tries asking questions and showing pictures in magazines, but Mama does not seem to recognize or associate anything with soof. Heidi also tries looking up the word in the dictionary and asking the librarian but gets nowhere. Heidi allows Mama to make tea for her because Heidi knows Mama is worried about disappointing her. Bernie attempts to convince Heidi to give up her interest in the word and accept that there will always be things she just doesn’t know about Mama, but when Heidi finds a camera with a roll of undeveloped photographs in the back of a kitchen drawer, her curiosity is only stoked.