Sophie Flakes Out Read online

  “I have a cell phone, Soph,” she said. “You want to call your mom?”

  “Since when did you get a cell phone, Willoughby?” B.J. said. Julia snapped the Pops away with her fingers. Willoughby produced a pink phone from the pocket of her track pants, flipped it open, and pulled up the antenna with her teeth. “Where did you get this?” Sophie said.

  “My dad. He spoils me.” Willoughby poised a finger over the tiny buttons. “I already have your number programmed in.”

  “Can we call the high school instead?” Sophie said. “I need to find Lacie.”

  It took a while to leave a message, then wait for Lacie to call back. Willoughby stood first on one foot and then the other and glanced at her watch every seven seconds. Sophie was afraid she’d have to give her back the phone and let her go where she was obviously dying to get to. But it burst into a tinny version of “It’s a Small World,” and Willoughby shrieked, “Answer it!” “Whose phone do you have?” Lacie said when Sophie said hello.

  “I need you to take my Zeke duty today,” Sophie said. “Please? It’s vital.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure it’s a matter of life and death.” There was a pause. “You are so going to owe me for this.”

  “Thank you!” Sophie cried. She knew she sounded like Willoughby, who looked like she was about to let out a poodleyelp herself if she didn’t get to wherever. Sophie hung up before Lacie could elaborate on just how she was going to owe her.

  Whatever it was, it was worth it, Sophie decided when she was deep into research in the library. The 1920s were, in Fiona’s words, “positively scintillating.”

  “Does that mean it gives you chills?” Sophie said. “Precisely,” Fiona said.

  Maggie grunted from behind a book called Fashions of the Jazz Age where she was getting ideas for her mom to make their costumes. “I don’t feel any chills,” she said.

  But all of it made goose bumps chase across Sophie’s skin. The girls of the twenties, called flappers, bobbed their hair and shortened their skirts to be free of the shackles of Victorian corsets and gowns.

  The college boys in oversize fur coats sat on top of flagpoles and swallowed goldfish, just because they could.

  The good people of Chicago tried to reclaim their city from the corruption of mob leaders like Al Capone. That was what made Sophie suggest that Goodsy Malone should be a police officer instead of a gang leader.

  “They didn’t have female cops back then,” Vincent said. He squinted at the computer screen. “Women had barely gotten the right to vote.”

  “So I’ll play a boy,” Sophie said. She ran a hand over her head. “I’ve got the hair for it.”

  Jimmy jabbed a thumb toward the computer. “This says girls made a lot of advances in the twenties. Maybe we could make it like Goodsy is a girl, but she’s pretending to be a guy so she can be a cop.” He shrugged his big gymnast’s shoulders. “It’s just an idea.”

  “It’s brilliant,” Fiona said.

  Goodsy Malone pulled her fedora low over her eyes the way the other plainclothes detectives did and was grateful for her bobbed hair. For once it was even a good thing to be the flattestchested woman in America. There wasn’t a chance anyone would guess her secret, and with Al Capone’s mob pumping out bullets with their tommy guns all over town, the Chicago coppers needed all the help they could get—

  “You didn’t hear any of that, did you, Sophie?” Maggie said. She closed the Treasure Book.

  Sophie peeked out from under the bill of her newsboy cap and shook her head.

  “Vincent’s going to email us with more information tonight,” Fiona said. “Then we can finish the outline.”

  “This is going to be brilliant,” Darbie said.

  “It’s gonna be swell,” Nathan said. His face went radishcolored as they all stared at him. “I was looking up slang. They said ‘swell’ instead of ‘cool.’ ”

  “Let’s all start saying that,” Sophie said.

  She said it in her head all the way to the late bus. The word fit Goodsy’s lips as if it were made for them.

  Taking the bus is a swell way to spy on the mob, Goodsy told herself as she scanned the passing city with trained eyes. They’ll never think of it, and they’ll let their guard down. Maybe she would see them attempt one of the drive-by shootings. That would be really swell.

  Even as the thought appeared, so did a long black car with darkly tinted windows. It slowed to a crawl in front of a small grocery store, and Goodsy watched as the glass in the back opened and the barrel of a gun inched its way out. Before Goodsy could shout for the driver to stop the bus, she heard the shots rat-a-tattatting in rapid succession.

  “Everybody down!” she shouted—and dived under the seat. Around her the crowd roared—

  With laughter.

  “Hey,” one of the eighth-grade boys said. “There’s a chick freaking out back here.”

  Gill’s face appeared upside down under Sophie’s seat. “What did you think that was?” she said.

  “Gunshots,” Sophie whispered.

  “Dude, it was that eighth grader’s cell phone. She has it on vibrate, but you can hear it all over.”

  “Oh,” Sophie said. She crept out from under the seat and turned to the window to avoid the okay-she’s-whacko looks being cast her way. “Uh-oh,” she said.

  “Wasn’t that your stop back there?” Gill said. Harley grunted. So did Sophie.

  She got off at the next corner and ran back to Odd Road as if Al Capone himself were chasing her—

  Which he was. Goodsy could hear the soles of his Italian leather shoes slapping the sidewalk as he gained on her, but she hadn’t been through vigorous police training for nothing. She veered sharply to the left, leaving the sidewalk as if she were about to dart across the street. The footsteps grew closer as Goodsy ducked between two parked cars.

  As soon as she heard the fancy shoes hit grass, she zipped back to the right, leaped over the sidewalk, and ducked behind a pile of leaves. The powerful Al Capone stood bewildered in the middle of the street, head whipping from side to side until he threw up his hands, diamond rings glinting in the sun, and snapped his fingers for the long black car.

  Goodsy smiled smugly to herself as the car pulled away with the confused gangster inside. He’s never come up against a tough woman before, she thought as she slipped, unnoticed, the rest of the way back to police headquarters. And the beauty of it is, he doesn’t even know he has. That was swell.

  Goodsy was still feeling pleased with herself when she entered headquarters. That was, until something heavy and warm was suddenly on her back.

  “I’m Spider-Man,” a six-year-old voice chirped in her ear. “You’re goin’ down.”

  “He’s all yours,” said Lacie, head in the refrigerator. “I’m cooking dinner and Mom’s asleep.” She pulled her dark head out and waved a bag of shredded cheese in Sophie’s direction. “Like I said, you owe me.”

  “That ain’t no problem for me,” Sophie said.

  Lacie blinked her Daddy-like eyes at Sophie. “It ‘ain’t’?” “Matter of fact, it’ll be swell.” Sophie looked at her brother.

  “Come on, Z-Boy. I need your help. You’re very good with shadows.”

  Zeke shook his head of unruly dark hair that was looking more like Daddy’s every day. “I’m Spider-Man,” he said.

  “Swell. Good code name, fella. Capone will never guess it.” Lacie turned back to the counter, ponytail swinging. “I don’t even want to know,” she said.

  Dinner was, as Fiona would have said, nontraditional. They had nachos, the only thing Lacie knew how to make, with celery sticks and peanut butter on the side because Mama had given Lacie instructions to be sure they had a vegetable and some protein. Sophie was sure if Daddy had been there, he would have ordered Anna’s Pizza. But he was working late, and it was just the three of them at the snack bar. Sophie got Zeke to eat by promising they’d continue to play “Spider-Man and Goodsy Malone Clean Up Chicago” when he was through.
r />   It was a promise she regretted an hour later when Daddy still wasn’t home and Lacie was locked in her room with her algebra book. Every time Sophie pounded on the door for Zeke relief, Lacie just said, “You owe me.”

  As Sophie tried to do her own math homework, so she wouldn’t fall below a B and lose video camera privileges, Zeke climbed up her closet door. Sophie was sure she had paid Lacie back at least twelve times. When Lacie came to the door and said the phone was for Sophie, Sophie tried to pawn Zeke off on her. Then she could at least have a conversation that didn’t include peeling him off the shower curtain rod. But Lacie just said, “My meter is still running,” and went back to her room. “Can you hold, please?” Sophie said into the phone. She tucked it under her arm and told Zeke that Al Capone had her locked in the closet. Then she shut the door and barricaded herself behind the clothes.

  “I have two minutes, tops,” she whispered into the phone. “That’s all I need.” The voice on the other end cracked. “Vincent?” Sophie said.

  “I just emailed you a bunch more stuff about Capone,” he said. “We have to take him down in our movie. He and his organization killed all these people and made, like, six million dollars selling illegal alcohol, and the cops couldn’t nab him for any of it.”

  Sophie could feel Goodsy flexing her muscles.

  “I’m thinking Jimmy should play him,” Vincent said.

  “He’s got the body to be tough, but we’ll have to work on the attitude.”

  Sophie giggled. She had a life-size picture in her mind of Jimmy glowering and chewing on a cigar. The giggles faded as she heard something scraping all the way down the door.

  “I’ll save you, Goodsy!” a voice chirped. “Even if I have to cut through—”

  “No, don’t!” Sophie cried. “Don’t what?” Vincent said.

  “Nothing.” Sophie shoved the door open just in time to snatch a pair of kindergarten scissors out of Zeke’s hand. “I’ll check my email,” she said into the phone.

  Yeah, good luck with that, Sophie thought as she hurried downstairs to Daddy’s study with Spider-Man crawling down the banister behind her. I bet Daddy is hiding out at work on purpose. She gave a Harley-style grunt. I wish I had a place to hide.

  At least Lacie wasn’t on the computer. Sophie gave Zeke a black marker and told him to write a warning letter to Al Capone. Since he was only in first grade and couldn’t actually spell anything, she figured that could take a while.

  There were emails from Darbie, Fiona, and Willoughby, but Sophie checked Brainchild first. That was Vincent’s screen name.

  He hadn’t been kidding when he said he had more information on Al Capone. There were two pages of facts before Vincent even got to his ideas for scenes.

  There was one scene where Capone shot somebody going to worship and left bullet holes in the church wall.

  Then he suggested another scene where Goodsy got into the Lexington Hotel and heard Capone planning his next move on the O’Banyon gang. “We’ll have to rig up a chair with a bulletproof back,” Vincent had written.

  The scene that captured Sophie the most was the one where Capone held Goodsy at gunpoint, and she never even swallowed hard. Sophie could see that one in her mind.

  “Gun,” Zeke said.

  Sophie jumped. She hadn’t noticed him scooting onto the chair beside her. He pointed at the screen with a chubby finger, black with marker ink.

  “I thought you were writing a letter,” Sophie said.

  “I’m done.” Zeke held up a piece of paper, filled with BAD, EVUL, and even a sentence: SPIDERMAN WIL GET YUO.

  “I didn’t even know you could spell!” Sophie said.

  “Hello,” Zeke said. One eyebrow shot up into a where-haveYOU-been position. He poked at Vincent’s message on the screen again. “ ‘He will shoot you but o-on-only in the leg.’ ” “That’s not in the first-grade reader, I can tell you that.”

  Sophie whipped her head around to see Daddy in the doorway. Zeke bolted for him and clung to his pants.

  “Have you had a bath?” Daddy said to him. “I don’t wanna take a bath.”

  “Then I guess you won’t be needing this.” Daddy pulled a small Spider-Man action figure out from behind his back. Zeke clattered up the stairs with it before Sophie could even sign off the Internet.

  “A little light reading for your baby brother, Soph?” Daddy said. He kissed Sophie on top of the head.

  “It’s just for our new film project,” Sophie said. “It’s about the twenties mobsters, and we’re taking it to a festival. It’s gonna be swell—”

  “It’s going to be violent from the sounds of it.”

  As Daddy pulled off his NASA jacket, Sophie stifled a groan, which Daddy also didn’t like. Here we go again, she thought. Her eyes ached to roll right up into her head.

  Four

  Daddy folded his arms across his big chest. That was never a good sign.

  “What is it with you kids and your fascination with violence?” he said.

  “The movie’s about fighting against violence,” Sophie said. “It’s going to be scintillating.”

  Daddy’s mouth twitched. “I smell Fiona in this.”

  “It’s our whole Film Club. We’re doing it for this really cool—really swell—festival—”

  Daddy put up his hand. “Seriously, Soph, I’m concerned. I don’t want all this stuff about guns and gangs in your head.” “It’s only a movie, Daddy,” Sophie said.

  “It’s never ‘only a movie’ with you, Sophie. The next thing I know you’ll be staging gun battles in the upstairs hall with Zeke.” “We already did that,” Sophie said. Then she wanted to bite her tongue off. Why do I always have to be so honest? she thought.

  Daddy ran a hand down the back of his head. That was never a good sign either. “I’m going to have a talk with Miss Imes and Mr. Stires before this goes any further,” he said.

  Sophie felt her mouth drop open, but she couldn’t even squeak out a protest.

  “I’m not trying to shut down your film,” Daddy went on.

  “I just want to call a time-out so I can see what direction it’s taking.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder. As far as Sophie was concerned, it was part of that shackle around her ankle.

  When she climbed into bed later, Sophie dragged the imaginary chain with her. Jesus was there in her mind before she even closed her eyes.

  This is heinous! her thoughts cried out to him. You heard that, I know—Daddy’s going to talk to my teachers. Like I’m some first grader! Zeke gets an action figure, and I get a ball and chain.

  Sophie let her eyes fly open. Just like last time, she wasn’t sure this was right, complaining to Jesus about her parents.

  Dr. Peter says I can tell Jesus anything, she thought. And then she sighed into a purple pillow. She was going to see Dr. Peter the next day at Bible study. Not only was he the most amazing teacher in the entire galaxy, but he had been special to her ever since he’d been her therapist last year. He would know how she should handle this. He always did.

  It was hard telling the rest of the Film Club the next morning before school what Daddy planned to do, since they were all so excited about Vincent’s ideas.

  But Darbie said, “We won’t let him make a bags of our project, Sophie,” pronouncing it Soophie like she always did. “We’re all going to help each other with these eejit parents, remember?”

  “And how!”

  They all looked at Nathan, who was already going strawberry-colored.

  “That means ‘you got that right,’ ” he said. He held up a bunch of papers. “I got a whole list of twenties slang off the Internet.”

  Sophie grinned. “That’s swell, Nathan.” “And how!” Fiona said.

  Using phrases like “Says you!” for “You’re totally wrong” and “Bushwa!” for “That’s a bunch of bunk” almost made Sophie forget about Daddy. Her favorites on the list were the expressions for things that were even better than swell. Like “That’s the
bee’s knees!” or “the cat’s pajamas!” The girls were speaking twenties slang like a second language by the time they got to third-period PE.

  In the locker room, they filled Willoughby in as much as they could before Coach Yates started bellowing—louder than usual—for them to hurry up.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” Fiona said as they all headed for roll call. “We need more time with you, Will, to get you caught up, so let’s do a sleepover at my house Friday night.”

  “And we’ll see if Kitty can come,” Sophie said. “It’ll be swell.”

  “I can’t make it.”

  They all looked at Willoughby, who was twirling a curl around her finger.

  “Says you!” Fiona said.

  “I have a cheerleading thing.”

  “Practice is only after school,” Maggie said, words coming out in fact blocks.

  “It isn’t exactly practice,” Willoughby said. She was still twirling the curl, so tightly that the end of her finger was turning purple. “Well, it’s kind of like practice, only not like regular practice—it’s sort of practice for practice.”

  Fiona blinked. “That made absolutely no sense at all.”

  Sophie wasn’t sure it did to Willoughby either. Willoughby’s forehead was pulled into folds, and she seemed relieved when Coach Yates yelled for them all to line up for basketball drills.

  That was only one of the things on Sophie’s mind when they got to Bible study class that afternoon. In spite of the fun they were having with “the cat’s pajamas,” she hadn’t forgotten completely about Daddy pushing himself right into the middle of her business.

  That was the good—swell—thing about Dr. Peter. He could make Bible study about any problem the girls—Fiona, Sophie, Maggie, Darbie, Gill, and Harley—brought in. There was nothing they’d faced yet in middle school that Dr. Peter couldn’t find in the Bible somewhere. Sophie was convinced he had the whole thing memorized.

  The second-best thing about Dr. Peter’s Bible study was the fact that he had different-colored beanbag chairs with matching Bible covers, and there was always some kind of “sumptuous snack treat,” as Fiona put it. Today it was sub sandwiches on big hunky wheat rolls cut into girl-size slices.