Sophie Gets Real

by Nancy N. Rue

  While Jimmy worked, Sophie tried to write down what to do next. She didn’t get much further than, Go to Brooke’s tutoring room after school.

  But Fiona and Darbie obviously made more progress. They were waiting for her outside when she left fifth period, and they flanked her as they pulled her down the hall. Sophie could almost see idea light bulbs popping over their heads.

  “We didn’t get any work done,” Fiona said.

  “But we weren’t foostering about,” Darbie said. “We might have a plan.”

  Sophie stopped just short of their sixth-period classroom. “You changed your minds about helping Brooke?”

  “Here’s the deal,” Fiona said. “Now that everybody on the entire planet knows we call ourselves the Corn Flakes, we can really show them what that means.”

  “That we aren’t some clique,” Darbie said. “That we help people take back their power to be who they really are — just like we do for ourselves.”

  Sophie looked from one of them to the other. They weren’t watching her like they were waiting for her to tell them what to do. They looked like they already knew.

  “Don’t you want to know how we came up with that?” Fiona said.

  Without waiting for Sophie to answer, Darbie said, “We did just what you always do. We imagined Jesus.”

  When Maggie, Willoughby, and Kitty arrived, they gathered in the back of the art room while a substitute teacher wrote her name and THIS IS A STUDY PERIOD on the chalkboard.

  “Yikes,” Fiona said, “that Jesus-thing works faster than I thought.”

  They spent the period with their heads bent together, bringing Maggie and the others up to date and wrestling a plan into place. A Jesus-way, they named it.

  A few times they all looked at Sophie, as if waiting for her to tell them the right thing to do. But it didn’t make her itchy anymore. She knew without seeing that inside each of them there was a little doubt, a little fear, a little being smart about things, a little love. No, a lot of love. The things that made them all Corn Flakes.

  “Okay,” Maggie said when the bell rang. “We have until the late bus to make this happen, right?”

  “If we don’t, we go to Coach Nanini with the camera first thing tomorrow,” Darbie said.

  “Whatever happens,” Sophie said, “we’ll know we did it the Jesus-way.”

  After a big Corn Flake hug, they split up to go to their stations.

  Sophie looked at her watch every five feet as she headed for the Special Ed hall. Like that would make time slow down, she thought. She wished she’d pushed Maggie a little on the deadline. But they had to do it the Jesus-way.

  Still, every “What if . . . ?” from What if Brooke didn’t go to her tutoring session today? to What if she tied herself up with that stupid boa? went through Sophie’s head until she reached Brooke’s classroom door.

  She stood on tiptoe to see through the little window. Before she could even get her nose to the glass, the door opened. Sophie stumbled in, straight into Brooke.

  They stared at each other long enough for Sophie to see that Brooke had attempted to undo the makeup job. The lipstick and eye shadow had been pushed to the sides of her face along with raised rows of foundation makeup. It looked to Sophie as if a mask had been partly peeled back to reveal the real Brooke.

  And the real Brooke looked as if she were staring straight into the face of Godzilla. Sophie took advantage of the frozen moment to pull the camera bag from behind her back and hold it in front of her.

  “We need to talk,” Sophie said.

  Brooke shook her head. “I knew you wouldn’t help me when you found out.” Then she looked as if she wanted to chomp her tongue off.

  Sophie just nodded. “We already figured out you did it. But we don’t think you did it alone.”

  Sophie slipped her hand into the outside pocket of the camera bag and pulled out Julia’s nail file. Brooke went so pale that every freckle stood out from her face. She grabbed for the file, but Sophie slid it back into the pocket and pulled her out into the hall.

  “Let’s talk right here,” she said. That had been Darbie’s idea. She said if Sophie tried to take Brooke too far, she would make a getaway. If she did try, Sophie knew the next step in the plan. She just hoped Willoughby remembered.

  Brooke stood against the wall, kicking at it with her heel while she stared at the camera bag. “I have to give that nail file back to Julia,” she said. “I thought I lost it, and she said I was gonna have to pay for it.”

  “Did you sort of borrow it from her?” Sophie said.

  “I didn’t swipe it! She told me to use it to open your camera and mess with stuff so it wouldn’t work. Only first I read that thing about me being a project and how dumb you thought I was.” She switched heels. “I was still so mad when Julia got me the camera, and then I couldn’t get it open. So I just jumped up and down on it until I heard that teacher with the mustache coming. I guess I left the nail file in there on accident.”

  Sophie sucked in a huge breath. With a picture in her mind of Brooke stomping on her camera like it was a soda can, it was mega hard to go on with the Jesus-way. But another picture — of Julia tucking the nail file into Brooke’s hand and purring instructions — was even clearer.

  “We still want to help you,” Sophie said.

  Brooke shook her head. “Nobody wants to help me. Nobody even likes me.”

  Sophie felt as if her chest were caving in.

  “See?” Brooke said. “You can’t say, ‘Sure, I like you.’ ”

  No, Sophie thought. I can’t. Not if she was being her real, honest self.

  She swallowed hard. “It’s hard to like you because of some of the stuff you do. Only, some of that stuff you sorta can’t help because nobody ever helped you with your ADHD — ”

  Brooke let out a scream that ripped through Sophie. “I don’t have that! And I’m not a retard, either!”

  She pushed herself away from the wall and, eyes wild, stormed down the hall. Bounding after her, Sophie threw herself onto Brooke’s back, and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. She got a face full of red hair.

  “Get off me!” Brooke screamed.

  “No!” Sophie screamed back — although hers went up into the atmosphere someplace. “Not until you let us help you.”

  Brooke whipped herself around in the other direction, so that Sophie had to squeeze tight to stay on. There in front of them was Willoughby, standing with her hands on her hips and a cheerleader grin on her face.

  “Ready!” she said.

  If Sophie hadn’t known the plan, she would have thought she was about to do a cheer. She could feel Brooke tighten under her.

  “Come on, Brooke,” Sophie said into her ear. “Just give us a chance. We’ll help you turn yourself in so you won’t get into as much trouble, and you can get real help.”

  “We’ll stand by you.” Willoughby raised her arms as if she were holding a pair of pom-poms. “We’ll be your cheerleaders.”

  “I hate cheerleaders,” Brooke said.

  But Sophie felt some of the tightness go out of Brooke’s shoulders.

  “You don’t have to like us,” Sophie said. “Just let us help you. That’s what Corn Flakes do.”

  It actually felt good to say it out loud to somebody who wasn’t a Corn Flake. And at least Brooke let go a tiny bit more.

  “We’ll bring Julia and Cassie and Anne-Stuart to you, and you can ask them to tell you the truth about whether they’re really your friends,” Sophie said.

  “And we’ll be right there, in hiding,” Willoughby said.

  “Then you can make your own decision.” Sophie hugged Brooke’s shoulders. “You’re smart enough to do that.”

  Brooke went so limp, Sophie slid to the floor. Slowly she studied Brooke, and deep inside a question was answered.

  After all the Internet research, the Dr. Devon Downing pretending, and the good-girl-Brooke rewards they’d gotten on film, the way to help Brooke was looking right back at
her.

  Brooke was suddenly a girl that somebody believed in.

  Twelve

  Okay,” Brooke said. “But you can’t leave me.”

  “No way we’ll leave you,” Willoughby said.

  So Brooke trudged behind Willoughby toward the locker hall with Sophie at her side. When they reached the corner, Willoughby pointed to a row of four big garbage cans.

  “We’ll be right back here, cheering you on,” she said.

  Brooke sucked at her lip and rounded the corner.

  Sophie felt a tap on her shoulder. Kitty motioned for her and Willoughby to duck with her behind the row of trash containers where Maggie was already crouched, notepad and pen in hand. Sophie didn’t ask how they’d managed to come up with four honkin’ huge garbage cans and drag them there. It was their part of the plan, and they’d done it.

  “Did Darbie and Fiona find the Corn Pops?” Sophie whispered to Kitty.

  “Some of them,” she whispered back. “Fiona’s still looking, and Darbie went to get — ”

  Maggie cut them off by pushing Sophie’s head down. Sophie had just hidden behind the middle can when she heard Julia say, “There you are. So, do you have my nail file, or what?”

  There was silence. Sophie peeked through an opening between garbage cans. She could barely see Brooke nodding.

  “She’s saying yes,” Sophie whispered.

  Maggie wrote it down.

  “So give it back,” Julia said. “And it better not be messed up, or you still have to pay for it.”

  “And we know you can’t afford it,” Cassie said.

  Sophie frowned as her gaze grew focused and very narrow.

  “I can’t give it back to you right now,” Brooke said.

  Sophie hoped she wasn’t looking back toward the trash cans for cheers. The Pops needed to think this was Brooke’s idea.

  “I thought you said you had it,” Julia said.

  “I do — well, I don’t . . .”

  Sophie closed her eyes. Please, God, let her believe we want to help her. Please let her believe it.

  “She doesn’t have it, Julia,” Cassie said. “Let’s just report that she stole it. Your mom’ll buy you another one.”

  “I didn’t steal it!” Brooke said. “You gave it to me, and you told me to use it to mess up Sophie’s camera!”

  “And you did,” Julia said. “And now I want it back.”

  Sophie didn’t have to see her to know that she was holding her hand out like a queen waiting for somebody to kiss it, and that Cassie was ready to do the Corn Pop beheading if Brooke didn’t. It had been the crossroads for so many girls before her: Kitty, Willoughby, B.J.

  “I’m gonna turn it in with the camera,” Brooke said.

  “Turn it in to who?” Julia’s voice was shrill.

  “Whoever Sophie and them tell me to. That way, I won’t get in so much trouble.”

  “Get ready,” Willoughby whispered. She grabbed one of Sophie’s hands and Kitty grabbed the other. Maggie just kept writing. Sophie wondered if, when Julia attacked Brooke, Maggie would stay there and get down every last word while the rest of them went into the next phase of the plan.

  But there was a sudden quiet down the locker row. Then Julia said, in a voice Sophie had to strain to hear, “Before you turn into a little Corn Flake and go confessing, let’s make sure you have your facts straight.”

  “I do.”

  “Except the part about the nail file. Do you know whose idea that was?”

  “Yours.”

  “Uh, hel-lo-o. No-o-o. I didn’t want you taking any kind of risks. It was all Anne-Stuart.”

  “It was?” Cassie said.

  “Shut up, Cassie. You don’t know everything Anne-Stuart and I talk about.”

  During Cassie’s stung silence, Julia’s voice went even lower. “I hated the idea so much, Brookie, that I will even tell whoever you plan to tell that Anne-Stuart was the one who messed up Sophie’s camera, not you. Then you don’t even have to mention the nail file, and neither one of us will get in trouble.”

  Sophie heard a loud sniff that couldn’t belong to anyone else but Anne-Stuart herself.

  “Good job, Fiona,” Willoughby whispered.

  Sophie saw Maggie make a large check mark on the plan.

  “You are so not serious, Julia,” Anne-Stuart said. “You would actually lie and say I did it, when it was all your idea?”

  “It was yours, Anne-Stuart,” Cassie said.

  “Like you so know everything Julia and I talk about, Cassie.” Another sniff. “Brooke, Julia’s making that up about me so you won’t get her in trouble.”

  “Shut up, Anne-Stuart.” It sounded like Julia’s teeth were in a vicious clench.

  “Don’t tell me to shut up.”

  “Since when do you tell me what to say, Anne-Stuart? I tell you — ”

  “And you know what? I’m sick of it.” Anne-Stuart’s voice clogged from not sniffing. “I’ve gone along with everything you ever wanted to do to bring down the goody girls — ”

  “Corn Flakes!” Julia cried. “They’re the Corn Flake clique — and if it wasn’t for me, we never would have found that out. If it wasn’t for me, they could just go on making everybody think they’re all perfect while they take everything away from me that I deserve!”

  “Oh, and I didn’t help at all,” Anne-Stuart said.

  “You did what I told you.”

  “And now you plan to let me take all the blame?” AnneStuart’s words screeched like a bad microphone. “How could you take Brooke’s side?”

  “Because I need her to keep the Corn Flakes down. So either trust me to get you out of it, or go back to being the loser you were before I found you.”

  There was a loud smack. Only when Julia gasped did Sophie realize Anne-Stuart had just slapped her. Sophie peered between the trash cans in time to see Anne-Stuart nearly mow Darbie down as she bolted from the scene. Or what Sophie could see of Darbie. She was half hidden by the hulking form of Coach Virile.

  “Catfight?” he said.

  Sophie couldn’t see Julia, Cassie, or Brooke now, but she clearly heard Julia say, “You should go after her, Coach. She destroyed Sophie LaCroix’s camera and tried to blame it on poor Brooke.”

  Sophie could feel her Corn Flakes holding their breath. But she had to believe —“

  No, she didn’t,” Brooke said. “I did it.”

  “With the nail file she stole from Julia!” Cassie said.

  “Shut up, Cassie!” Julia said. “Would you just get out of my life!”

  It appeared that Cassie did, as fast as she could. Her retreating footsteps echoed down the locker hall.

  “I came late to this party,” Coach Nanini said, “so excuse me if I’m a little confused.”

  “Those guys’ll tell you,” Brooke said. “I did it.”

  “What guys?”

  “Back there.”

  Sophie rose slowly from behind the trash cans, pulling Willoughby and Kitty with her. Fiona emerged from the opposite bank of lockers. Julia’s hair seemed to stop in mid-toss, as if the Corn Pop life had just been sucked out of it.

  “Anybody want to clear this up for me?” Coach Nanini said. “Little Bit?”

  Sophie opened her mouth, but Brooke dodged around Darbie, tripping on her shoelaces in the process. She landed with her face close to Coach’s chest. When she looked up at him, Sophie saw tears making trails through the stale makeup, as if they were washing away the last of Project Brooke.

  “I did it, and I know it was horrible. I know I’m gonna get in trouble, but I want — ” Her mouth snapped shut, and she turned to the Corn Flakes.

  “You can do it, Brooke,” Willoughby said.

  Heads bobbed. Darbie even said, “You won’t make a bags of it. Go on then.”

  Brooke squeezed her eyes tight. “I want help,” she said.

  “All right,” Coach Nanini said. “Let’s see if we can’t get you some.” He looked up at Julia. “Expect to hear fro
m Mr. Bentley first thing tomorrow. This isn’t over for you.”

  Then he walked away with Brooke, head bent toward her like an understanding bear.

  “I wouldn’t believe that just happened if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” Darbie said.

  “We didn’t see it,” Willoughby said. She nudged Kitty. “Nice hiding place.”

  But Kitty just slipped her hand into Sophie’s. “We didn’t have to see it to believe it, did we?”

  Fiona coughed and nodded down the locker row. Julia was still standing there, staring toward where Anne-Stuart had left, as if she knew she’d reappear any moment to pay the queen her rightful homage. It was either wait there or face the unbelievable truth: Julia’d been abandoned, and without the Pops, she was powerless.

  “I wrote down everything they said,” Maggie murmured to Sophie.

  Sophie shrugged. “We may not actually need it now. I think the Corn Pops are no more.”

  “What about the Corn Flakes?” Kitty said. “Do we still call ourselves that, now that everybody knows?”

  They all looked at Sophie.

  “I don’t think it matters what we’re called,” she said. “It’s all about who we are. That’s what counts.”

  Sophie didn’t miss her camera as much as she thought she would. In fact, it was a whole two weeks before she wished she had it. It wasn’t to film Brooke telling about her new counselor — Dr. Peter Topping — or Julia becoming so almost-invisible at school that Sophie started praying for her. It definitely wasn’t to make a movie about a dream character. None showed up in her mind to try to solve some problem.

  No, she decided on a Saturday afternoon when she walked into the family room where Daddy was watching a basketball game with a sleepy baby Hope in his arms. Her tiny sister was the one she wanted to film.

  Daddy looked up at Sophie. “I don’t think our little rookie cares about the Boston Celtics,” he said. “You want to put her in her crib?”

  Sophie smiled and put out her arms.

  “Way to be a team player, Soph,” Daddy said.

  Sophie took the steps one by one and placed Hope in her baby bed. She stood looking down at the eyes lightly closed in fairylike sleep. Eyes that were uniquely Hope Celeste LaCroix.