Sophie Gets Real

by Nancy N. Rue

  “She was digging through my bag,” Willoughby said. “She said she lost her own brush.”

  “She looked at my hair all weird,” Kitty said. She gave a nervous giggle. “I’m afraid she’s gonna say something about it.”

  “I won’t let her,” Maggie said, words falling out like chunks of wood. “I won’t be mean about it, but — ”

  “It’s okay,” Sophie said. “You guys don’t have to be all friendly to her just because I am.”

  They all stopped at the end of the math hallway and looked at Sophie as if she’d grown an extra eye.

  “Like we’re really gonna let you do this by yourself,” Fiona said.

  “Hel-lo!” Willoughby said. “We’re all Corn Flakes.”

  “Just don’t expect me to be as patient as you are, Sophie.” Darbie hooked her hair behind her ears. “When she gets to foostering and into everybody’s things, I start to go mental. But if you just tell us what to do — ”

  “Hey — girl!” somebody yelled behind them. “Where’s your fourth-period class?”

  Brooke hurried toward them, her backpack half open with papers sticking out of it. One flew out and was immediately trampled by Brooke’s own tennis shoe.

  “I hope that wasn’t important,” Fiona said.

  Brooke looked behind her and shrugged. “It’s just my math homework. I didn’t finish it anyway.”

  “Won’t you get in trouble?” Maggie said.

  Brooke shrugged again. Sophie noticed that her short neck disappeared when she did that. She’s sort of like a Raggedy Ann doll, Sophie thought.

  “You want me to zip your backpack up for you?” Willoughby said.

  “Zipper’s broken.” Brooke looked at Sophie. “So — what’s your name?”

  “I’m Soph — ”

  “Dude!” Brooke stared toward the math room. “Is that your teacher?”

  Sophie glanced at the very pointy Miss Imes, their math instructor, who was standing in the classroom doorway raising her arrowhead eyebrows at the students hurrying in.

  “Yeah,” Sophie said. “That’s Miss — ”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Sophie!” the rest of the Corn Flakes said.

  Brooke pulled her head back. “Dude,” she said, “you don’t gotta yell.”

  “That’s it,” Darbie muttered to Sophie as they hurried toward Miss Imes. “I’m going mental.”

  Although it wasn’t good to lose focus in Miss Imes’ class, Sophie couldn’t concentrate that period. If she wasn’t picturing Hope growing up and driving everybody “mental,” she was imagining herself trying to have a conversation with Brooke, who obviously couldn’t stay on one subject for more than half a second.

  And then Sophie didn’t have to imagine her, because Brooke was standing in the hall, outside the open door. She waved to Sophie with a grin that set all her freckles dancing.

  “May I help you, young lady?” Miss Imes said.

  “It’s that weird chick,” Colton said.

  Miss Imes pointed a finger at him, even as she moved to the doorway. Sophie wanted to squirm right out of her skin.

  Just don’t let her tell Miss Imes she was waving to me, she prayed.

  “I was just saying hi to somebody,” Brooke said.

  “Did your teacher give you a pass to come say hi to somebody?” Miss Imes’s voice grew as pointy as her nose. “Or is there some other place you’re supposed to be?”

  Brooke bolted from the doorway. Miss Imes took off after her.

  “Busted,” Tod said and high-fived Colton.

  Sophie looked at Fiona. Her bow of a mouth was drawn into a knot, and she shook her head. It was clearly an I-hope-you- know-what-you’re-doing message.

  The Corn Flakes discussed it at lunch, minus Darbie, who had a Round Table meeting.

  “Okay,” Fiona said. “Can we review the Corn Flake Code again?”

  Maggie reached into her bag and, without even looking to see where it was, pulled out the Corn Flakes Treasure Book. Sophie knew she always kept the special purple notebook in exactly the same place. She guarded it like a CIA agent with a top secret document. After all, it held every one of the scripts for the eleven movies they’d made, plus the Corn Flake Code, and almost everything they’d ever said in a meeting that Maggie could write down in her slow, careful handwriting.

  “You want me to read it out loud?” Maggie said.

  “Not loud loud.” Willoughby glanced over her shoulder.

  Maggie read the code in a voice only slightly softer than her usual thuds. She looked up at the group.

  Fiona poked her fork into a chicken tender. “It doesn’t say we have to let the people we help get us in trouble.”

  “Who’s in trouble?” Sophie said.

  Fiona pointed the fork at her. “You would have been if Miss Imes had known who Brooke was out there waving to.”

  “That wasn’t Sophie’s fault.” Kitty’s giggle was nervous again.

  “It doesn’t matter with Miss Imes,” Fiona said.

  Maggie nodded solemnly. “Besides, if somebody gets in trouble, Sophie always gets in it with them.”

  “You in trouble, Soph?” Jimmy appeared and straddled the chair next to Sophie. Vincent and Nathan stood behind him.

  “Not yet,” Fiona said. “But if that Brooke child stays around, it’s only a matter of time.”

  “We’re being nice to her, though,” Willoughby said pointedly.

  “Don’t look at me,” Nathan said. “I’m not gonna be mean to her.”

  Sophie figured he wouldn’t even look at her if he could help it. His face was already the color of a radish, and Brooke wasn’t even there.

  “We think she has issues,” Maggie said.

  “She’s probably ADD,” Vincent said. “Maybe ADHD. Or OCD.”

  “What are you talking about?” Willoughby said.

  But Sophie nodded. Dr. Peter had said Brooke might have ADHD. Vincent probably read about it on the Internet.

  Jimmy did a drum roll on the back of the chair. “So — we came to talk about a movie. Miss Imes asked me if we had anything going. Whatcha got, Soph?”

  “Can we please not do a movie about ABCD or whatever it is?” Willoughby said.

  “That could actually be cool,” Vincent said, his voice cracking on the cool.

  “No,” Fiona said, “it would be heinous. I personally don’t want to play the part of somebody that climbs up a volleyball pole in the middle of roll check.”

  Suddenly everybody looked at Sophie.

  “What?” she said. Her own pip-squeaky voice went up almost as far as Vincent’s.

  “We know you, Soph,” Fiona said. “So let’s agree: no movie about being hyperactive, starring Brooke Singletary.”

  There was much holding of breath until Sophie nodded. “Okay,” she said. “We can be nice to her and not put her down, but we don’t have to include her in our next movie.”

  “That’s a relief,” Kitty said.

  But Sophie didn’t feel relieved. She felt . . . well . . . itchy.

  “At least Darbie won’t go mental now,” Fiona said as they walked toward fifth-period science.

  “I think she already has.” Sophie pointed at Darbie, who was charging toward them. “Are you okay?” Sophie said when Darbie screeched to a halt in front of them.

  “Thanks to you, Sophie,” she said, “no, I am not!”

  She stormed into the science room.

  “What did I do now?” Sophie said.

  “I’m afraid to ask,” Fiona said.

  But Sophie did ask, as soon as she could get to her desk and write a note to Darbie, which Fiona delivered to her while the smiling — and sometimes clueless — Mr. Stires took attendance. He was their science teacher and Film Club adviser. Everything about him was cheerful, including his gray toothbrush-shaped mustache.

  Darbie, on the other hand, looked about as cheerful as the day after Christmas vacation. She flashed her dark eyes across Sophie’s note, snatched
up her pen, and scribbled on the paper with such force that Sophie was sure she’d engrave the letters into the desktop.

  “We have a special lab tomorrow,” Mr. Stires said. “You’re going to dissect a lizard.”

  “Sick,” Julia said.

  While Mr. Stires assured Julia that the lizard would be freeze-dried, Darbie’s note made its way to Sophie’s desk.

  Thank you VERY much, Sophie, for telling Coach Nanini that Brooke needed to go to Round Table. GUESS who he assigned her to. ME! I will absolutely go mad — I mean it. I said I would be nice — I didn’t say I could fix her!

  “I won’t touch something dead, Mr. Stires,” Julia said.

  “I won’t either,” Anne-Stuart said. “It’s against my civil rights.”

  “Try again,” Vincent said. “That’s not covered in the Constitution.”

  That conversation could go on for days, Sophie knew. She wrote back to Darbie.

  Who guessed they’d assign her to you? But you’ll be perfect.

  Sophie pulled up a picture in her mind of B. J. Schneider, a former Corn Pop her “friends” had dumped on so badly, she’d transferred to a private school. Darbie had helped her —Remember B.J.? Sophie added to the note.

  Vincent was still on the Fourth Amendment. Fiona slipped the note to Darbie, who answered at the speed of light.

  B.J. was completely different. In the first place, she didn’t start chumming up to us like THIS girl. And B.J. didn’t act retarded. I’m telling you, Sophie, Brooke is not the full schilling.

  Sophie stared at the note until her eyes blurred with tears, but she could still see the word retarded. And she could see baby Hope in her mind. The fear fingers squeezed Sophie until she had to write —

  She’s mentally challenged —not retarded. And I’ll help you — I AM the consultant — and we’ll be so fabulous to her that she’ll be cured.

  “Hurry up, Soph,” Fiona whispered. “Mr. Stires is about to give the assignment.”

  Sophie shoved the note across the desk. It came back just as Mr. Stires turned to write on the board.

  I’m sorry I said retarded, Darbie had written, but just so you know, after the way she acted at Round Table, I don’t even want to be around her anymore.

  “Okay,” Mr. Stires said, happily rubbing his hands together. “Be sure to answer all the questions so you’ll be ready for your lizard tomorrow.”

  Dr. Devon Downing closed her eyes. She was weary to her bones, but she couldn’t stop working. Maybe the lizard’s brain would show her what she needed in order to find the cure for — for ADHD. Surely THAT wasn’t in the chromosomes, like that other poor baby’s problem. Dr. Devon opened her eyes and went straight to her text. Before she even touched the specimen, she would find that out —

  “Good job, Sophie,” Mr. Stires said. “Class, I want everybody working like Sophie’s doing.”

  Sophie heard Fiona clear her throat. A cough had always been the signal for Sophie to pay attention and not drift off into Sophie World. Okay — she would read the assignment now, but when she got home, she was going to email Vincent.

  Vincent sent her a list of what looked like a bajillion websites for ADHD, and most of the articles were hard to understand. Sophie had to keep stopping to look up words like hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention. She finally figured out that kids with ADHD were just like Dr. Peter described — they had trouble paying attention, got distracted, couldn’t seem to follow directions, forgot information, and lost things. Kids with ADHD were just like Brooke.

  What a devastating condition, Dr. Devon Downing thought.It’s a wonder the poor child can even function in school.

  Putting her luscious hair up into a bun and securing it with a pencil, she burrowed further into the articles, like the amazing medical researcher she was.

  There was no cure for ADHD, the Internet told Sophie, but symptoms could be controlled if the child had lots of structure and routine, was rewarded for self-control, and had a very healthy diet. There was some disagreement, it seemed, over whether too much sugar made ADHD worse, but Sophie decided it couldn’t hurt for Brooke to cut back.

  She will be my test case, Dr. Devon wrote in her notebook. A plan was forming in her scientific brain. Perhaps there was no cure now, but there had to be a cure for everything. Even Down syndrome. But she shook that off. One brain issue at a time. And meanwhile, there was much she could do for Raggedy Ann-D-H-D.She would begin tomorrow.

  Five

  Just give it a try for one day,” Sophie said to Darbie on the way into the gym for PE the next morning.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Darbie said. Her eyes were narrowed so far down, they looked like hyphens.

  “I’ll start by telling her the rules for taking a test in Coach Yates’ class. If she follows them, we’ll reward her.”

  “With what?” Fiona said on the other side of Sophie. “I, like, forgot my American Express card.”

  “We’re supposed to give her money?” Kitty spiraled up into a whine.

  “No,” Sophie said. “Praise.”

  “Oh,” Willoughby said. “Like, ‘Good job,’ ‘All right, Brooke.’

  That kinda thing?”

  “Yeah, just be her cheerleader,” Sophie said.

  Darbie sliced Sophie with a glance. “How about, ‘Thank you for not crawling under me during the test and getting marker all over my leg. Excellent.’ ”

  “She’s not going to do that — is she?” Kitty said.

  “She did it yesterday during Round Table.” Darbie stopped inside the gym doorway, and the Corn Flakes huddled around her. “Coach Nanini and Mrs. Clayton had a bunch of colored markers so we could write out a plan for Brooke. She snapped them together into a tower until they broke apart and rolled under the table.” Darbie rolled her eyes. “She dove down to get them and crawled right under my legs — ”

  “Nuh-uh,” Kitty said.

  “Yes. And somehow she got purple all over my calf.” Darbie pulled up her pant leg to reveal a faded lavender blotch on her skin. “I was in the tub for an hour last night, and I still couldn’t rub it off.”

  Willoughby out-poodled herself. Kitty giggled so hard, she collapsed into Maggie.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny about it,” Darbie said. She looked at Sophie, eyes like a pair of darts. “I’ll give it one more day, and if she doesn’t improve, I’m resigning from Round Table.”

  Coach Yates blew her whistle, so there was no time to protest. Sophie just prayed that her plan would work and climbed up the bleachers.

  The average person does not understand how long these studies take, Dr. Devon reminded herself as she took her place in the great scientific arena. I must be patient and lead the way.

  Sophie positioned herself behind Brooke and whispered the test rules to her while Coach Yates checked the roll.

  “No talking — like, don’t say a single word. Keep your eyes on your own paper. And don’t move from your seat. Got it?”

  “Yeah,” Brooke said. “You got a pencil I could borrow?”

  She is displaying all the symptoms, Dr. Devon Downing thought. I must record everything.

  In the Treasure Book, Sophie thought. Since Maggie was already in test mode, she decided to fill her in later.

  Meanwhile, there was a lot for her to remember about Brooke’s behavior. The minute Coach Yates passed out the test papers, Brooke dropped the pencil Sophie had just given her under the bleachers and attempted to slip below to retrieve it. Coach Yates blew her whistle, making everybody in the silent gymnasium jump, and told Brooke to move down to the front row.

  Two minutes later Brooke announced mondo-loudly that her pencil lead had broken.

  Five minutes after that, Coach Yates caught her nudging Gill, one of the Wheaties.

  “I just wanted to borrow an eraser,” Brooke said.

  Just as Coach Yates yelled out that time was up, Brooke yelled out that she’d erased a hole in her paper, and she needed a new one.

  “Good
job, Brooke,” Darbie muttered to Sophie as they made their way down the bleachers. “You made it through the whole test without writing on anybody.”

  “Thanks,” Brooke said — because she was suddenly right there with them, bouncing an eraser from one palm to the other. “I’m gonna eat lunch with you guys today.”

  Darbie’s glare went right through Sophie’s skin as Brooke bolted off to the locker room.

  “I’ve been thinking about this film thing.” Vincent came up behind Sophie and Darbie. He had Jimmy with him, and Fiona joined them.

  Vincent’s eyes had an idea gleam. “Why don’t we do a film about ADHD?”

  “I’d rather be shot,” Darbie said.

  “No, seriously. Mr. Stires wants us to do another project, and we could get extra credit in his class since we’re studying the brain.”

  “I don’t need extra credit,” Fiona said.

  Sophie sneaked a glance at Darbie. She could almost see steam coming out of her ears. But something about the idea did seem right —

  “You have a new character.” Jimmy’s blue eyes sparkled at Sophie. “I’ve seen you thinking about her.”

  “Dr. Devon Downing,” Sophie said.

  Darbie groaned.

  “She’s looking for a cure for ADHD.”

  “And she needs a subject to study.” Vincent wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Oh,” Fiona said. “Like Project Brooke.”

  “Only we can’t tell her she’s a project,” Sophie said.

  “She’ll just be another character in the film,” Jimmy said.

  Darbie jammed her hair behind her ears so hard, Sophie was sure she would rip it out. “That’s a flick I won’t be participating in.”

  “Wait, Darb,” Fiona said. “This could be your solution to helping Brooke for Round Table.”

  “I’m your consultant,” Sophie said.

  Darbie’s eyes narrowed down to points. “Why do I feel like I don’t have any choice?”

  Sophie grinned. “I’ll get my camera from Mr. Stires’ room right after fourth period.”

  Everything at home was upside down over the next several days. Sophie was glad she had the film to concentrate on. Mama and Hope were still in the hospital, which meant Daddy was gone almost every evening to be with them, and Lacie was in charge. And that meant they ate macaroni and cheese (unless the other Corn Flakes’ parents sent over casseroles) and rescued Zeke from every place Spider-Man could get to, including the rafters in the attic. Boppa finally rescued Sophie and Lacie and kept Zeke at his house until bedtime.