Sophie's Friendship Fiasco Read online

  “I need somebody.” Willoughby’s voice quivered. “I can’t do it by myself, and I want this really, really bad — ”

  Aurora drew in a breath, and with it came the courage she was so known for. I don’t know the dance, she thought. But I must be at the side of my fellow maiden in her distress. Until she learns the power of the Code, I must stand by her —

  Fiona snapped her fingers in Sophie’s face. “Where did you go, Soph?”

  “You have a new character, don’t you?” Darbie said.

  Without even hesitating, Sophie said, “Aurora — medieval maiden.”

  “Our next Corn Flakes production!” Fiona said.

  Maggie grunted behind them. “Don’t say anything else. We don’t have the Treasure Book with us to write stuff down.”

  “But what about the cheerleading tryouts?” Willoughby said.

  Sophie smiled what she hoped was an Aurora smile. “I’m there for you,” she said.

  Willoughby shrieked in that way that always made Sophie think of a poodle yipping. She tried to hug Sophie while they were running. They both got an extra half a lap from Coach Hates.

  At the end of class, Kitty was all proud that she’d walked a quarter of the way around one lap. The Flakes carried her into the locker room, yelling, “Kitty rocks!”

  Sophie ran in ahead of them to clear a space on the bench so they could set Kitty’s wobbly self down. Something caught her eye as she rounded the corner. On Sophie’s locker door were two wads of cotton stuck on with duct tape, and above them was a piece of paper with a message scrawled across it: Use these under your shirt until you get some real ones!

  Behind her the Flakes were rounding the corner. Sophie’s hand flew up to yank it off, but the tape wouldn’t let go.

  “What is that?” Darbie said.

  Sophie got the cotton balls and the paper down just as the Corn Pops also came around the corner. When they saw Sophie, they smothered their mouths with their hands. Cassie sidled up to her and spit through her braces, “I’ll show you where to put them.”

  The other three Pops collapsed in a heap as Sophie’s Flakes looked on, baffled. Only Cassie’s narrow face was Corn Pop cool.

  “I know where to put them,” Sophie said. She stuck the taped side of both cotton balls under her nose like a mustache and turned to the Flakes.

  “You look like Albert Einstein!” Fiona said. The rest of the Flakes cackled.

  Behind them, the Pops laughed even harder, but Sophie pretended they weren’t there. She just helped Kitty out of her shirt without anybody seeing her porthole, keeping the cotton balls stuffed under her nose the whole time. Kitty giggled until her cap was safely back on her head.

  But Fiona held Sophie back on the way to fourth-period math. Her bow of a mouth was pulled into a small pink knot. “Are they teasing you about not having a bra that’s padded out to here like they have?” She held her hands six inches from her chest.

  “You knew?” Sophie said.

  “Hello! I’m your best friend! So who saw? Cassie?”

  Sophie nodded.

  “Figures,” Fiona said. “She tries to make herself look like Jennifer Lopez or somebody.”

  Sophie laughed. “We’re not supposed to say evil stuff about them.”

  “Even if it’s true?”

  “That’s the Code,” Sophie said.

  Fiona sighed. “I know,” she said. Then she gave Sophie a sideways grin. “But you have to admit: you got them with the mustache.”

  Sophie grinned back. Yeah, she definitely had.

  Two

  But as soon as Fiona and Sophie went into Miss Imes’ math room, all mirth — as Fiona called it — disappeared. Sophie dreaded this class almost as much as she did PE.

  She had barely dropped into her seat when Miss Imes said, “Sophie.”

  She was standing over Sophie’s desk. With her dark eyebrows shooting like arrows toward her short, almost-white hair, Miss Imes pointed to her head and mouthed, Off.

  This was the only class where the teacher made Sophie stick to the no-hats-in-class school rule. Kitty was allowed to keep hers on in the fourth-period section because she had a medical reason. Miss Imes had told Sophie the first day that she didn’t qualify for that. Slowly Sophie slid her cap off and put it in her lap.

  “Hey, Cue Ball,” Colton Messik whispered.

  Sophie ignored him and adjusted her glasses as she stared, unseeing, at the board.

  “If it weren’t for your face, I wouldn’t be able to tell the front of your head from the back.”

  I can’t WAIT to tell Fiona how hilarious he is, Sophie thought, rolling her eyes.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty weird back here,” Colton whispered on. “It’s like your nose is missing. And your eyes. Dude, somebody stole your face!”

  I wish somebody would steal YOURS, Sophie thought. This would be so much easier if Kitty were in their class, instead of her and Maggie and Willoughby being in another seventh-grade section for academics. Sophie always felt braver when she was showing Kitty how to handle these ignorant little children.

  Aurora slid her Sword of Vengeance back into its sheath and lowered her head. “Father,” she whispered to God, “please forgive me for my evil thoughts.” Aurora knew that revenge belonged to God alone. Her job was to protect her maidens by teaching them to live by the Code. A Code that came from the Father himself.With her eyes closed and her face turned up to the Light, she could feel his strength coming into her again —

  “Sophie LaCroix.”

  Sophie opened her eyes. Miss Imes was scowling down at her.

  “Class,” she said. Her voice was brisk and pointy like her eyebrows. “Your first test is this Friday, and I warn you, if you are not prepared, you will most definitely fail it. You came to me highly recommended, and I expect top work. So far, with the exception of Tod and Fiona, very few of you are giving me that. Am I clear?”

  Sophie nodded. After all, Miss Imes might as well have just said she was talking right to her.

  I would LOVE to give you top work, Sophie thought as she hunkered down over her paper. But I’ve hardly understood a thing you’ve ever put up on the board. I’m lost!

  Lost in a sea of numbers that even she, Aurora, could not navigate —

  Sophie felt something tickle the back of her head. She forced herself not to turn around.

  No wonder I’m having trouble concentrating in here, she thought. I wish I could sit next to Fiona. She’d help me focus.

  But Miss Imes had scoffed at that suggestion when they’d made it the first day. “I don’t think much math would get done,” she’d said. “And besides, Fiona is going to be working ahead of the class. She has an excellent mind for mathematics.”

  Sophie felt the tickle on the back of her head again, but she simply wrote down the next problem and stared at it. For at least three minutes. She could hear Fiona coughing, the way she always did when she saw that Sophie might be drifting off into dream world. But it wasn’t that this time. Sophie just didn’t get it.

  And heaven knew what Colton was still brushing against her head. The thought of him touching her made her feel like things were crawling under her skin.

  Oh, gross — he isn’t BLOWING on me, is he? Sophie thought with horror.

  She couldn’t stop herself this time. She slid her hand across the back of her head and flicked it a few times, like she was shooing a fly. The room erupted.

  Miss Imes glared over the top of her half-glasses. The classroom went as still as a morgue. When she looked down again, Sophie started to pick up her pencil. But there was something black on the palm of her hand. It was smeared with something. Like ink.

  She whirled around in time to see Colton passing a black Sharpie over his shoulder to Anne-Stuart, who smothered a thick laugh. Colton had been writing on the back of her head with a Sharpie? What was now permanently engraved on her scalp for every hyena in middle school to go into hysterics over?

  Sophie wasn’t sure what she would have done if the bell hadn’t rung at that exact moment. She clapped her hat onto her head and mowed down three people trying to get to the door. Miss Imes met her there.

  “Your citizenship grade is falling, Sophie,” she said. “You’d better get serious.”

  When Sophie got out into the hall, Fiona was leaning against the outside railing next to Darbie, holding a piece of paper with a smiley face on it.

  “I can’t smile!” Sophie said.

  “No, eejit,” Darbie said, pronouncing “idiot” in her Irish way. “That’s what Colton drew on the back of your noggin!”

  “Can you get it off?” Sophie said.

  They scurried for the restroom, the minutes before the next bell ticking away. Fiona scrubbed Sophie’s head with soap and a paper towel, until Darbie announced that it wasn’t budging.

  “We’ll all be getting detention if we don’t get to lunch,” she said.

  Sophie punched her cap back on and they ran for the cafeteria. Maggie, Willoughby, and Kitty were waiting, and before Sophie could even sit down, Darbie said, “The Loops are being eejits again.” She pulled up the back of Sophie’s hat just enough for the Flakes to take a peek.

  Flake eyes bulged and hands came up to mouths. But all Sophie saw was Kitty, staring in horror.

  “You don’t think he’ll try to do that to ME, do you?” she said.

  “No way,” Maggie said. “We’ll protect you.”

  Sophie squeezed out a giggle that she hoped was convincing. “Colton is so not an artist,” she said. “Is this lame or what?”

  A slow smile broke across Darbie’s face. “He made a bags of it, that’s for sure.”

  Fiona nudged Kitty. “You draw way better than him.”

  Sophie felt an idea pop up like a spring. “Can you make it look better, Kitty?” she said. “Anybody have any Sharpies?”

  “I do.” Maggie dug into her backpack. “What colors do you want?”

  Sandwiches were left uneaten as Kitty went to work on the back of Sophie’s head, amid much coaching from the other Flakes.

  “Bigger lips!” Willoughby said.

  “More eyelashes, Kitty,” Fiona told her. “And draw in glasses too.”

  When Kitty was finished, they declared it was good enough for a TV cartoon.

  “I wish I could do it on myself!” Kitty said. She giggled.

  Darbie drew her eyebrows together. “I just wish we could drop the Code for once and do something back to those blackguards,” she said.

  Darbie pronounced it “blaggards,” which Sophie loved, but she shook her head.

  “No way,” Sophie said. “Then we’re as heinous as they are. I’m never breaking the Code no matter what happens. Besides — ” She shrugged. “This is all small stuff.”

  “You’re so good, Sophie,” Darbie said.

  Sophie trailed Fiona and Darbie on the way to science, her mind spinning. It was cool that Darbie thought she was good. Still, she was really glad they were going to their girls’ group Bible study after school. She needed a good boost.

  Mr. Stires, their science teacher, was at the door, cheerfully greeting them with his shiny bald head and his toothbrush mustache. As soon as Sophie was past him, she felt something tug at her backpack, and suddenly all her books were pouring out of it onto the floor. She leaned over to pick them up, and her hat fell too.

  “Dude!” said Colton Messik from behind her. She felt him poke at the back of her head. “I didn’t do that face!”

  “Lemme see.” Tod stepped on Sophie’s science book to get behind her.

  Sophie turned her head to give Tod a full view and then looked back at him. Everything came to a point at his nose, until he started to laugh.

  “No, man,” he said to Colton, “you can’t draw that good. That is cool!”

  “Shut up!” Colton said. He punched Tod in the side with his fist. “It’s not funny!”

  “Yeah, it is. Hey, Julia, check it out!”

  Anne-Stuart arrived behind Sophie with Julia, and Sophie ducked her head forward so she wouldn’t get nose gunk all over her when Anne-Stuart snuffled.

  “That’s cuter than your real face,” Julia said to Sophie with an actual giggle.

  “I know,” Sophie said. “I’m thinking of having it done the same way.” She grinned. “But I’m not going to let Colton do it.”

  By now the entire class was crowded around Sophie’s head. Right in front were Darbie and Fiona, who were giving her thumbs-ups and jerking their heads toward the Loops and Pops. Sophie had to agree that their usual enemies were looking impressed.

  Except for Colton, who gave Tod a shove. “It’s lame, man — it’s stupid.”

  Tod, Julia, and Anne-Stuart stared at him, and Sophie watched the realization spring into their eyes one by one: they had forgotten they were supposed to think everything Sophie and her friends did was dumb.

  “That is, like, such an immature thing to do,” Julia said, tossing her mane.

  “But it’s so Sophie,” Anne-Stuart said.

  Tod pointed his finger at Sophie and gave a hard laugh. “Lame again,” he said.

  Aurora pushed away the inner knot that strained against her brocade gown. I have nobler causes, she reminded herself. I must protect the sickly Katrina, and the happy Willow, who so much wants to dance. The words of vixens and villains cannot hurt me.

  Sophie felt a smile, the kind Fiona always described as wispy, spread across her face. The Code of the Medieval Maidens was going to be such a great film.

  The minute the Corn Flakes got to the Bible study room at church after school, Fiona made Sophie take off her hat so Dr. Peter could see her decorated scalp. His eyes twinkled behind his glasses, which he pushed up by wrinkling his nose.

  “That’s a hoot!” he said. He ran his hand over the back of his head. “The barber cut mine so short this time, I could have one of those done too.”

  “You can’t do it,” Maggie said, her voice Maggie-factual. “You’re a grown-up.”

  He grinned at her. “Don’t spread that around,” he said.

  He lowered himself into a beanbag chair like the ones all the girls were sitting in — Gill and her friend Harley, who were two of the very-cool athletic girls the Corn Flakes called Wheaties, plus Fiona, Maggie, Willoughby, Darbie, and Sophie. Kitty wasn’t with them. She was too tired at the end of the school day to do anything except take a nap.

  But Kitty’s pink beanbag was there beside Sophie’s purple one, as empty as the Kitty-place inside Sophie. She always tried to make sure Kitty got to Bible study. When she had first found out she had leukemia, Kitty had been afraid she would die and not go to heaven. Sophie and Dr. Peter had been helping her get to know Jesus so she wouldn’t be afraid of that anymore. Dr. Peter even went to Kitty’s house and taught her the lessons when she couldn’t be in class. Still, Sophie wanted her there, right beside her, so she could be sure Kitty was getting it —

  “All right, ladies,” Dr. Peter said. “Open up your Bibles to Luke 22:31 – 34.”

  Sophie picked up the Bible with the purple cover. All their Bible covers matched their beanbags — that’s how amazing Dr. Peter was. She was totally ready to put herself right into the story they were about to read, which was the way Dr. Peter taught them. With any luck, it would help her with the Corn Pop/Fruit Loop situation, not to mention Miss Imes and Coach Yates —

  “Now,” Dr. Peter said, “we’re at the end of Jesus’ time with his disciples, and they’re having their last supper together. Let’s try to imagine — ”

  Sophie didn’t even have to hear the rest of the instructions. Dr. Peter had been her special therapist for all of sixth grade, and he had taught her how to put herself in the Bible stories to help with all the heinous things she’d had to deal with back then. Now that he was their Bible-study teacher, she got to work on it even more.

  Sophie closed her eyes and decided to be Simon Peter himself. It wasn’t even that hard to pretend she was a boy anymore.

  Something poked at Sophie’s insides. “I thought you were a boy!” Cassie New Pop had said. “Use these until you get some real ones.

  ”

  “Everybody ready?” Dr. Peter said.

  Sophie replaced the Cassie thoughts with an image of herself, sitting on the floor near Jesus.

  Jesus is so easy to listen to, Sophie/Simon thought. Not only is everything he says like warm bread in my mouth, but his eyes — his eyes are always so kind, even when they’re stern.Sophie/Simon could never get enough of the way Jesus looked at her — as if no matter how much she messed up, he would help her be better —

  “Jesus has told them that one of them is going to turn him over to the people who want to kill him,” Dr. Peter said. His voice sounded far away. “And that has shaken everybody up pretty good.”

  “I would never do that!” Sophie/Simon shouted to herself.

  “And now Jesus is going to tell Simon Peter that Satan will test the disciples, especially him.”

  Dr. Peter began to read. Sophie kept her eyes shut tight and her mind wrapped around Simon Peter, his bread still in his hand as he listened —

  “ ‘Simon, Simon,’ ” Dr. Peter read, “ ‘Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.’ ”

  Sophie/Simon felt her neck go stiff, and she dropped the bread onto the plate.

  “ ‘Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death,’ ” Dr. Peter read.

  Sophie/Simon’s heart was beating hard as Jesus turned to her.

  “ ‘I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.’ ”

  Sophie/Simon shook her head, over and over, even as Jesus looked into her with his kind eyes.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Fiona said.

  Gill raised her hand. “There’s no way he said he didn’t know Jesus. Couldn’t happen.”

  “You’re going to find out in your homework reading,” Dr.

  Peter said. “But let’s talk about this some. Do any of you think you would deny you knew Jesus?”

  “How about NO!” Sophie said. The rest of the girls shook their heads.