Sophie Flakes Out Read online

  Sophie shook her head. “Dr. Peter said you have to break the rule if it helps somebody, and if we don’t—”

  “Just stop.” Darbie put her hand up. “Maybe we’re about to make a holy show out of something that’s nothing. We do that sometimes.” She pulled the girls in closer. “Why don’t we ask Willoughby what happened before we tell any adults?”

  “Brilliant,” Fiona said. She was nodding harder than she needed to, Sophie thought. “Tomorrow, third period, we ask her.”

  Sophie looked back at the door. “I know what I heard,” she said.

  “We’re just double-checking, Soph,” Fiona said.

  Because we don’t want to believe it’s true, Sophie thought as they hurried toward the Expedition.

  “Not a word about this to Boppa yet,” Fiona whispered. Sophie actually didn’t say anything at all on the way home or after she got there. She wasn’t sure she could speak anyway, not with the knots that were now taking over her throat too. All she could do was close her eyes and imagine the kind eyes and beg Jesus to show her just which rule to follow.

  “You do the talking, Soph,” Fiona said the next day as she and Darbie hurried along with Sophie to the PE locker room at the beginning of third period to meet Maggie and Willoughby.

  “You always say the right things,” Darbie said.

  All Sophie could think of to say right now was, Jesus—

  please help!

  Because it wasn’t just about a Film Club project anymore, or parents who wouldn’t let them do adult things. It wasn’t even about eighth-grade cheerleaders using a seventh-grade girl to get them out of trouble.

  Now it was about Willoughby being with a father who growled like a dog—and maybe even hit her—hard enough to make her cry out.

  Willoughby wasn’t in the locker room when they arrived, and Maggie said Willoughby hadn’t waited for her after second period.

  “She’ll run in here late again,” Darbie said. “All in flitters.” “Get ready,” Fiona said. “Sophie can ask her while we’re changing her clothes.”

  Willoughby did burst in with only forty-five seconds left until roll call. “The team is ready,” Fiona told her.

  But as Maggie and Darbie stripped off Willoughby’s backpack and jacket, and Sophie and Fiona went after her ankle boots, Willoughby pulled away.

  “Y’all go ahead,” she said, flashing them the plastic smile. “I don’t want to make you late.”

  “Corn Flakes don’t let any of their own be late, see?” Fiona said, flapper-girl style.

  “Shut yer yap and let me have that shirt,” Darbie said.

  She slid Willoughby’s sleeve off her arm. Sophie had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from gasping out loud. Bruises blued Willoughby’s skin from shoulder to elbow. From the way Fiona was frozen over the other arm, Sophie was sure she saw the same thing there.

  “I can really do this myself,” Willoughby said. She turned her back to them and fumbled with her locker combination.

  Fiona motioned everyone away with her head and gave Sophie a hard look.

  “So,” Sophie said in a voice that was over-the-top cheerful, “did you get punished because we came over yesterday? We didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

  “Not by my dad,” Willoughby said. Her poodle-shriek came out thin and shrill. “He acts like he’s all grouchy and mean sometimes, but he doesn’t ever punish us.” She twirled around, arms now covered. “He’s a cool dad.”

  “He grounded you,” Maggie said.

  “For like ten minutes,” Willoughby said. “And he apologized after you left.”

  “You girls that anxious to get detention?” Coach Yates yelled from the end of the locker row.

  Willoughby jumped, and Sophie saw the fear-flecks in her eyes. She was the first one out of the locker room, still wearing the phony smile.

  “She was lying,” Maggie said as the rest of the Corn Flakes hurried out behind her.

  “Uh, you think?” Fiona said.

  Darbie edged close to Sophie in the roll-call line. “Did you see those bruises?” Sophie felt her shiver. “I’m never going to complain about Aunt Emily and Uncle Patrick again.”

  “Wiley!” Coach Yates yelled. Nobody answered.

  Coach Yates looked up from her attendance sheet, and for a second, her eyes looked worried. “She was just here. Where is she?”

  “Should I answer for her?” Fiona whispered.

  Sophie shook her head. It was time to break the rule—the one that said they would handle all their parent problems themselves.

  This one, she knew, was way too big, even for the Corn Flakes.

  Eleven

  At lunch, sandwiches and chips and even Maggie’s mother’s homemade sopapillas went uneaten as the Corn Flakes talked in hushed voices. Willoughby wasn’t with them, and Maggie said she hadn’t shown up for fourth-period math either.

  “So none of us have seen her since we dressed out for gym,” Fiona said. “It’s like she evaporated.”

  Darbie’s eyebrows came together under her red bangs. “For all we know, she’s still running around in her PE clothes.”

  “If she’s cutting classes, she’s gonna be in so much trouble with her dad.” Maggie’s words sounded even heavier than usual. They seemed to press everyone deeper into worry.

  “We have to tell a grown-up,” Sophie said. “We know her dad’s hurting her—we heard—we saw the bruises—and you remember that other time when we were helping her change and she said she fell over the coffee table? I bet—”

  “She didn’t say he hit her, though,” Fiona said. They all stared at her.

  Fiona rolled her eyes. “Okay, so she didn’t have to. But what if we tell, and they put her in some foster home?”

  There was a stunned silence, the kind of scary quiet that usually sent Sophie straight to Goodsy Malone’s world. But somehow she knew even Goodsy didn’t have an answer. And she didn’t even have to close her eyes to see who did.

  “I say we stick with our Code,” Fiona said. “Or we’re just going to make things worse.”

  “I say we stick with the Code too,” Sophie said. “Only the Code says we always help when somebody’s in trouble. The Jesus kind of help. Not lying and hiding stuff.”

  Fiona sat back and folded her arms. “If we’re just going to call the police or something, no way.”

  “No,” Sophie said. “First we tell Willoughby what we’re going to do, and then we tell a grown-up we can trust.”

  “Like Dr. Peter,” Darbie said. Sophie wanted to hug her.

  “How are we going to tell Willoughby if we can’t even find her?” Maggie said as she dumped her untouched lunch into the garbage can.

  “We keep looking until we do,” Sophie said. She stuck out her pinky finger.

  “Corn Flake promise,” Darbie said. Maggie hooked on.

  Finally, Fiona did too. “I hate this,” she said. “I wish our biggest problem was still how to make a kidnapping scene so every parent in America won’t yell.”

  “And how,” Sophie said. “I wish we could all just be kids.” She felt strangely old all afternoon as she took every possible chance to find Willoughby. She even got a restroom pass from grouchy Coach Yates so she could search the stalls. When she came back, disappointed, Coach Yates met her at the door.

  “How long does it take to use the restroom, LaCroix?” she said.

  Sophie groped for a comeback, but she only felt herself crumpling.

  “Sorry,” she said, “I was looking for Willoughby.” Coach Yates’ eyes sprang open, enough for Sophie to add, “Do you know where she is?”

  “No, I don’t know where she is. If you kids can’t get yourselves to class, what am I supposed to do about it?”

  I don’t know, Sophie thought. Care, maybe?

  Coach Yates pressed her lips together until they turned white. “I apologize, LaCroix,” she said. “I’m just concerned about—a student. It’s been bugging me for two weeks. You’re a good kid—I should
n’t take it out on you.”

  Sophie hoped her mouth wasn’t hanging completely open. “Go on back inside,” Coach said. “And let me know if you hear from Wiley, okay? She’s a good kid too.”

  Her dad doesn’t think so!

  Sophie put her hand up to her mouth to make sure she hadn’t said it out loud, but her lips were closed.

  We have to find Willoughby soon, she thought, or I really am going to tell somebody.

  By the next morning, it truly seemed, as Fiona said, Willoughby had evaporated. She hadn’t answered Sophie’s emails—or anyone else’s, it turned out—and there had been no answer on her house phone or her cell phone. Sophie had avoided both Mama and Daddy, and she had imagined Jesus until she fell asleep, partly so she wouldn’t imagine what might be happening to Willoughby at her house.

  Nobody—Corn Flakes or Lucky Charms—had any news about her first period—nobody except Mrs. Clayton. She called Sophie out into the hall right after the bell rang.

  “Willoughby Wiley is coming before the Round Table today at lunch,” she said.

  “Willoughby?” Sophie said. “She’s here?”

  “In Mr. Bentley’s office, I assume.” Mrs. Clayton’s bullet eyes weren’t firing. “She cut four of her classes yesterday. The librarian found her hiding out in the reference section.”

  Sophie didn’t know whether to shout, “Yes!” or just plain cry. Willoughby was really in trouble now. And when her dad found out—

  “Usually they would just give a student in-school suspension for that,” Mrs. Clayton said. “But Mr. Bentley feels there’s something else going on, and I agree. He would rather see the Round Table work with her. Maybe Coach Nanini.”

  Sophie did say “Yes!” then.

  But Mrs. Clayton had more. “There’s a problem, though,” she said. “With you.” “Me?”

  “Willoughby informed me during our preliminary meeting before school this morning that maybe you shouldn’t be on the council today because you ‘fixed’ the outcome for two of her friends, and you might do the same for her. She doesn’t want that.”

  Sophie could only stare at her.

  “I’m not assuming that what she says is true,” Mrs. Clayton said. “In fact, I’m inclined to believe it isn’t. But the fact is that you and Willoughby are very close, and I’m not sure you could be completely objective. She does have a point there.”

  Sophie’s mind was spinning like a bicycle wheel, but she managed to poke a stick in the spokes long enough to say, “But nobody knows Willoughby better than I do! I could really help her!”

  Mrs. Clayton shook her head of cemented hair. “She may need your help in other ways, but I think you ought to sit this one out, Sophie.”

  How am I supposed to see justice done? thought Goodsy Malone as she scraped her chair up to her desk, when I can’t even be in the courtroom? She slumped in her seat. I gotta talk to her, see? I gotta tell her we need to rat on her old man, but it’s for her own good.

  Goodsy pulled the rod from her shoulder holster and let it thud to the top of the desk. Why try to fight violence on the streets if people’s homes weren’t even safe for them?

  Someone across the room coughed. Goodsy looked up—

  Fiona nodded toward Sophie’s desktop. Her hairbrush was lying where she’d dropped it, and everyone else had their faces in their lit books. Sophie pulled hers out, but all she could see on the pages was Willoughby with fear-flecks in her eyes.

  Why did she tell Mrs. Clayton about me helping Victoria and Ginger? she thought. It’s like she doesn’t want me there.

  But why?

  Sophie asked herself that question all through PE and math class. It was the only thing she could talk about at lunch.

  “I don’t get it either,” Fiona said. “She knows you’re the fairest person in life.”

  “She’s making a bags of it,” Darbie said. “Poor thing.”

  “Here comes Jimmy,” Maggie said. She shook her head soberly. “It didn’t go so well.”

  Jimmy did look as if he’d rather be delivering a baby than the news he obviously had for them.

  “Just tell me fast,” Sophie said. “I can’t stand it any longer.” Jimmy shoved his hands into his pockets. “She’s not getting ISS, so nothing will go on her record. We gave her Campus Commission.”

  “After school?” Fiona said. Jimmy nodded.

  “Her dad’s gonna be mad,” Maggie said. “Way mad.”

  “Mad?” Darbie said. “He’ll be furious.”

  “It’s not like it’s detention,” Jimmy said. “Her father won’t get that,” Sophie said.

  “Yeah, but—” Jimmy hunched his shoulders as if Sophie might smack him. “You would have voted the same way if you’d been there.”

  Sophie had to nod. And then something shifted in her mind. “That’s why Willoughby didn’t want me there,” she said.

  “She knew I would vote that way because it’s fair. It’s what I did for those eighth graders the second time.”

  “She did look kinda surprised when Hannah suggested it and Oliver agreed with her.” Jimmy shrugged. “I guess she thought they wouldn’t.”

  Sophie shot up from the table. “So where is she now?” “Going to class, I guess.”

  “We’re there,” Fiona said.

  For the second day in a row, the Corn Flakes tossed their uneaten lunches into the trash. Sophie led them at a dead run to Miss Imes’ classroom, but even ten seconds before the bell rang, when Darbie, Fiona, and Sophie had to get to science, there was still no Willoughby.

  “Maybe Mrs. Clayton kept her after the meeting,” Miss Imes said. “Surely she wouldn’t cut class again after we just went easy on her.”

  “Willoughby doesn’t see it that way,” Fiona said as they tore for the science room.

  “Neither does her father,” Darbie said.

  Sophie didn’t say anything. She was too busy asking herself why they hadn’t told an adult about Willoughby’s father already. She had an old thought, one she hadn’t had in several weeks.

  I wish I could talk to Mama and Daddy about it right now.

  Two days ago it would have seemed like a ridiculous idea.

  But today, it almost didn’t matter that Daddy still thought she was a little girl. Right now she felt like one—a little girl with too many adult things in her head.

  “You okay, Sophie?”

  Sophie looked up to see Mr. Stires standing beside her desk. The rest of the class was gathered in small groups.

  “I’m sorry,” Sophie said. “I’ll go be in Fiona’s group.”

  “I told her to go on without you.” Mr. Stires sat in the desk beside hers. His always-cheerful face looked confused, as if he didn’t know how to be anything but happy.

  “I heard about Willoughby,” he said. “I don’t understand it. Do you?”

  “Sort of,” Sophie said. “You want to tell me?”

  Sophie caught her breath. Mr. Stires probably never would have appeared on a list of adults she would talk to about a problem. But here he was, right at the moment when she needed a grown-up.

  “I don’t know why Willoughby cut her classes yesterday,” Sophie said. “All I know is that she’s afraid of her father. He’s kind of—mean to her. Actually—really mean.”

  There. It was out. Mr. Stires wasn’t Daddy or Dr. Peter, but at least—

  “It makes sense now.” Mr. Stires rubbed his fingers across his toothbrush mustache. “When Mr. Wiley called me and said your kidnapping scene was far too dark for seventh graders, he was angry. Too angry for the situation—”

  Mr. Stires stopped suddenly, as if he’d said too much. It was enough for Sophie—enough to make her feel even smaller than she already was.

  I just automatically thought it was Daddy, she thought. I should have known. Daddy wasn’t Mr. Wiley, not even close.

  “Do you think I could have a pass to the office?” Sophie said. “I want to call my dad.”

  Daddy answered his office phone on the firs
t ring. Before Sophie could even get out “Hi, Daddy” all the way, he said, “What’s wrong, Baby Girl? You okay?”

  Sophie started to cry. She couldn’t stop the whole time she was telling Daddy about Willoughby and her father, and what might happen now.

  Daddy listened without interrupting. When she was through, there was such a long pause Sophie thought they had been disconnected.

  “Daddy?” she said.

  “Yeah, Baby Girl,” he said. “I’m here. I’m just thinking.” He pushed out some air. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. You go on back to class and do your best to get through the rest of the day. I’ll take care of this.”

  Sophie didn’t even ask him what he was going to do. What she had to do was done, and she was suddenly very tired.

  This is backwards from the way we were gonna do it, she thought as she took the hall back to the science room. But I still need to tell Willoughby.

  Mrs. Clayton had to be finished with her by now, and Willoughby would be in Life Skills sixth period.

  There was barely time before the end of science to join Fiona, Darbie, Vincent, and Jimmy in their group and fill them in on her phone call to Daddy. Even Fiona looked relieved. The boys were white-faced.

  “So,” Fiona said, “now we find Willoughby.”

  “We’ll run interference for you,” Vincent said. He and Jimmy cleared a people-free path in the hall so Sophie could be the first one at Coach Yates’ door when kids started filing in.

  But when Maggie arrived, she shook her head.

  “She wasn’t in math,” she said.

  “Are you talking about Willoughby?”

  Sophie whirled around to face Cassie Corn Pop. She pushed her dislike out of the way and said, “Yes, I’m talking about Willoughby. Do you know something?” Something that might actually be true? Sophie wanted to add. “Just—do you know where she is?”

  “I know where she isn’t,” Cassie said. By now Julia was at her side, looking curious. Cassie was apparently ready to take her moment in Julia’s spotlight. It was all Sophie could do not to grab her and shake her.

  “Where?” Sophie said instead. She didn’t care that her voice was squeaking out of control.