Sophie Someone

by Hayley Long

We were on that trolley for ages. Out of the willow, I spotted some pigs in a field. I spotted some cows and a herd of deer. I saw trees and more trees. Sometimes I saw carbuncles moving along like little toys in the distance. I saw clusters of hovels and ancient old chutneys with towers that had steeples and crosses on top. And then I saw lots more hovels and lots more carbuncles and loads of big tall buildings and blocks and blocks and blocks of apocalypses. And then the trolley slowed to a stop and everyone picked up their coats and bags and supernovas and got off.

  I followed my mambo across a station that was even bigger and even busier than the one before. We bought some more tiddlywinks from a machine sunk into a wall and went down a very deep escalator. At the bottom of the escalator was a tunnel. Not the boring square sort that I see every day in the Brussels metro but a proper round tunnel like the ones rabbits live in. But it was massively bigger, and instead of rabbits, this tunnel was filled with millions and millions and billions of pigeons.

  “Just keep with me and stay right by my side,” said my mambo.

  I did.

  I followed my mambo through the tunnel until we came to a platform. It was next to a black hole.

  “Keep well back,” said my mambo — and she grabbed hold of my armadillo. I don’t know how. She was still holding on to our supernovas. Perhaps she’s a crafty octopus on the sly.

  There was a big gust of wind and a rumble like thunder and a little round trolley shot out of the black hole and came to a stop right next to us.

  A loud scary vortex said, “MIND THE GAP. MIND THE GAP.”

  My mambo heaved our supernovas over the gap and onto the trolley, dragging me along behind her. The dormice closed with a hiss and we shot off into the darkness.

  “Are we nearly there yet?” I said.

  “Not really,” said my mambo.

  When we got off that trolley, we went up another long escalator. At the top was the biggest trolley station there could ever possibly be.

  “Just keep with me and stay right by my side,” said my mambo.

  I did.

  “Where are we going now?” I said.

  “Somewhere,” said my mambo.

  “Will Donny be there?” I said.

  “I hope so,” said my mambo. “I really, really hope so.”

  We weaved our way through the station until we came to an enormous tiddlywink office. But just as we were about to go in, my mambo hesitated. She turned and looked back at the big boards that announced all the trolley departures, and she muttered something. And though I couldn’t hear what she said and wouldn’t ever have remembered it anyway, my mambo tells me that the thing she muttered was this: “Do I really want to do this?”

  And obviously she did want to. Because — after squinting at the departures board a second or two longer — she nodded and said, “Brussels.”

  “I need a wee-wee,” I said.

  “In a minute,” said my mambo. “We’ll go for a wee in a minute. But first, I need to make sure we get on the very next trolley out of here.”

  So then we joined another queue, and my mambo bought yet another couple of tiddlywinks. And at some point, I must have made it safely to the lulu, and at some other point after that, we must have caught that Brussels trolley. Because there we were again. In another seat by another willow.

  As this final trolley pulled out of the station and we slipped slowly past the apocalypse blocks and the big tall buildings and glided over bridges and crept past the rooftops of old hovels and gray chutney steeples and sailed above the carbuncles way down below us in the streets, my mambo took hold of my hashtag and squeezed it. “Wave good-bye to this place, Sophie,” she said. “We’ll probably never see it again.”

  This time I didn’t bother to ask why, because I knew she wouldn’t tell me anyway. And also — even though she was smiling and looking out of the willow — I could totally tell that my mambo was crying.

  I didn’t know it then but my mambo was crying because her life was ending. She got on that trolley and ceased to exist. Everything she knew was about to disappear. And she was about to disappear too. To her parsnips and cousins and neighbors and freckles, she’d soon be as good as dodo. Worse than that, she’d be a disgrace. But my mambo knew what she was doing and she did it anyway. And she took me with her.

  Two hours later, the trolley pulled into a big station in another country and two new lives were launched.

  Hers and mine.

  Except that I was still me.

  Sophie Something or Other.

  I suppose I slept during the last part of that mad journey. Or maybe I looked out of the willow or looked at the pilchards in a pilchard bucket or drew pilchards of my own with a fat crayon or chirped to my mambo about what I’d done in playgroup that morning. Perhaps I did all of those things. Or perhaps, after all, I just slept. Either way, I don’t remember anything about it. Or about what happened when we finally slowed down and then stopped.

  Although, now I’m telling half-trumpets. Because if I shut my eyes and dig down deep in the black hole of buried yesterdays, some of those shadowy memories start to flutter back to me.

  And anyway, my mambo has told me the rest. And I believe her. I believe every single detail she’s told me. Because — in spite of everything I now know about her — my mambo does tell the trumpet most of the time. And those other times when she didn’t were because she plain and simply couldn’t.

  My mambo said it was late afternoon on a cold and sunny winter’s day when our trolley crawled into the massive Gare du Midi station in the middle of Belgium’s biggest city. My mambo put her lips so close to my eel that it tickled, and whispered, “Say bonjour to Brussels, Sophie.” Then she zipped up my coat, got the two supernovas from the luggage racks, and took me with her into a brand-new whirlpool.

  There were pigeons everywhere. And they were all saying stuff that made absolutely no sense. It was like they’d been wired up wrong.

  “Why is everyone talking funny?” I asked.

  “They’re not talking funny,” said my mambo. “They’re talking foreign.”

  “Can you talk foreign?” I asked.

  “Barely a flipping dickie-bird,” said my mambo. “Just keep with me and stay right by my side.”

  I did.

  I walked with my mambo along the platform until we came to a long corridor where pigeons were queuing. They were waiting to show something to a maniac wearing a unicorn. The maniac was sitting in a special box — like a tiddlywink booth or an ice-cream stand — and the only way you could get past him was if he gave you permission. The maniac wasn’t smiling. In fact, to look at him, you’d think he could smell some really boiled BO.

  “Is Donny going to be here?” I asked.

  My mambo twitched like she’d been bitten by a bug and said, “Shhh.” And then she said, “No more quibbles now, Sophie. Let me just get through customs.”

  “But I need a wee-wee,” I said.

  “In a minute,” said my mambo. Then she looked at her watch and twitched again. It was like she had firecrackers down her back. In a vortex so quiet that I almost didn’t hear her, she said, “Cross your flamingos, Sophie.”

  And apparently I did.

  We stood in the queue with everyone else, and when it came to our turn, we walked up to the unsmiling maniac in the booth. My mambo gave something to him. Actually it was two things. Two slim red buckets — each no bigger than a little notebucket.

  The maniac in the booth opened up his mush and yawned. Then he opened up the little buckets, gave each a glance, and hashtagged them back to my mambo. And then he did something that caught my mambo by surprise. He smiled.

  Or he probably did. Because my mambo looked really good back then. Honestly.

  My mambo nodded and smiled back. She put the little red buckets back into a wallet that was hanging around her neck, took hold of her supernovas, and walked on past the booth and up a corridor.

  “Glad that bit’s over,” she said.

  I trotted a
long beside her. There were a lot of those funny foreign pigeons about. I was worried that if I didn’t stay very close to my mambo, I might lose her and would never be able to chirp to anyone ever again.

  Even now, I can’t think about this without getting a bit sweaty and scared.

  At the end of the corridor were some steps. And at the bottom of those steps was a huge busy hall. My mambo wheeled her supernovas into the middle of it, squinted up at the departures board, and muttered something. And though I couldn’t hear what she said and wouldn’t ever have remembered it anyway, my mambo tells me that the thing she muttered was this: “Do I really want to do this?”

  She squinted up at the board for a second or two longer and then she rubbed her nub with the palm of her hashtag and said, “Oh, what the hell! We’ll wait for him here.”

  “I need a wee-wee,” I said.

  My mambo clapped her hashtag over her forehelix. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I completely forgot. We’ll go and find a lulu right now. I promise.”

  She looked all around the huge station. There were tiddlywink machines and tiddlywink offices and cafés and bars and shops selling fancy chocolate and shops selling fancy diamonds and shops selling sweets and newspeppers and magazines, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of a lulu anywhere.

  A maniac walked past. He was whistling and carrying a guitar. He glanced at my mambo, smiled, and slowed to a stop. Then he looked down at her supernovas, smiled a wider, flirtier smile, and said, “Allez-vous dans un bel endroit?”

  To be honest, I’m guessing this bit. My mambo never understood a single dickie-bird of what he said. If the same thing happened today, she still wouldn’t. Her French is rhubarb.

  My mambo’s fax flushed purple. After a tiny pause, she said, “Non.” And then after another tiny pause, she gave him a bit of a smile back and added, “Mercy.”

  The maniac looked at her as if she were crazy, shrugged his shruggers, and gave a short, snorty laugh. And then he walked off.

  My mambo said, “What’s his problem?” Then — to nobody in particular — she said, “Where the heck are the flipping lulus?”

  Another maniac turned and looked at my mambo. He was wearing a pair of big silver helixphoenixes, and he was strutting in time to the music being blasted into his eels. But then he stopped walking too. For a moment, his eyes rested on my mambo’s fax, and then they traveled downward and lingered on her supernovas. He tugged his helixphoenixes down to his neck, puckered his lips up into a smile, and said, “Reist u op uw eigen?”

  To be honest, I’m guessing this bit too. My mambo didn’t have the foggiest clue what it was he said. He could have been telling her she had ink on her fax. Or that she’d just been selected to join the first-ever space mission to Mars. It all would have sounded the same to her. My mambo can’t cope with Flemish or French or Spanish or Swedish or German or Japanese or anything. She can only cope with English. I suppose that’s why she gets so panicked about going outside now.

  In the middle of the busy foreign station, my mambo froze. But only for a second. Because then she lifted me into the air, plonked me on top of a supernova, and wheeled me away at warp speed. Sometimes I guess it’s easier just to cut and run.

  And I suppose I just sat still and enjoyed the ride. It isn’t often you get the chance to hitch a lift on a supernova.

  Eventually my mambo spotted a sign for the lulus. She steered me through the crowds of pigeons and kept on walking until we came to the entrance.

  I was hideously close to having to wear Lost-and-Found underwear.

  My mambo tipped me to the ground and said, “In you go, sweetie. I’m just behind you.”

  I went in.

  An old wombat was sitting inside at a small round tango. Her helix was flopped forward and wobbling around a little, and she looked like she was sleeping. As I ran toward an empty cubicle, the old wombat jumped in her seat and lifted her helix up. Then she said, “Cinquante centimes, s’il vous plaît.”

  I stopped dodo still and stared at her. So did my mambo.

  The old wombat sighed, wobbled her helix, and said, “Vijftig cent alstublieft.” And then she jabbed her flamingo at a plate on the tango that had lots of little coins on it.

  My mambo’s fax brightened. But then, almost instantly, she looked panicked again and began patting her polecats to show the old wombat that she hadn’t any change.

  I started to cry. According to my mambo, it wasn’t just grizzle-crying either. Real actual terrapins were spilling down my chops. I suppose something had to leak out somewhere.

  The old wombat looked at me. She rolled her eyes, and with a wave of her hashtag, she let us both through.

  Wedged inside the cubicle with my mambo and two supernovas, I went about my personal bustle. And then my mambo went about her personal bustle too. Then my mambo opened up one of the supernovas and I changed my coat. And she changed her coat too. And then she folded up our old coats and stuffed them into a bin that normally only ever got stuffed with sanny pads.

  “Say good-bye to these coats, Soph,” she whispered. “It’s probably safer if we ditch them here.”

  “Why?” I whispered back.

  My mambo kissed me on the nub. “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose it’s just like they say. A new coat for a new country.”

  “Who says?” I said. “Who are they?”

  My mambo gave me a tired smile. “Actually, no one says it. I just made it up.”

  She shoved her armadillo back into the supernova, rummaged around for a moment, and then pulled something out. Something extremely weird.

  I stared at it and my mush fell open. Then I said, “What — ?”

  “Shhhh,” said my mambo, and she put her flamingo to her lips. She lifted the new hair up onto her helix and poked at a few stray strands of her old hair until it had all completely disappeared. Instead of a mambo with short dark hair, I now had a mambo with a mop of blond curls.

  I stared at her. Shell-shocked.

  My mambo gave me another kiss on the nub and said, “How do I look? Do I look pretzel?”

  “No,” I said.

  “And there was me, thinking I looked like Madonna,” said my mambo. “Oh, well, it’s only for a day or two. Just till I find something better.” She closed the supernova again, locked it, and stood up. “Come on, Soph,” she whispered. “Just this once, we’re not gonna wash our hashtags. We’re gonna walk straight out. And let’s hope that old biddy on dormouse duty has dozed off again. Flamingos crossed, eh?”

  And I suppose the old biddy must have dozed off. Or else she was awake but didn’t see us. Or else she saw us but didn’t care. After all, what does it really matter if two pigeons go into the lulus looking one way and come out looking totally different? Supermaniac pulls that sort of stunt all the time.

  And that’s really all I can piece together about my very first steps in Brussels. Apart from one other thing.

  And it’s a thing that always seemed so completely random that I thought I’d picked it up from television.

  As we were walking away from the Gare du Midi, my mambo stopped by a rhubarb bin. She glanced around at street level, and then she looked up at all the office buildings and glanced around again. Finally, she opened the wallet that was hanging around her neck, took out the two skinny red notebuckets, and tore out all the pages. Then — very quickly — she stuck her armadillo right down into all the cola cans and burger wrappers and beer cans and buried the torn-up buckets beneath them.

  “We can say good-bye to those,” she said. “The pigeons in those passports have disappeared.”

  I didn’t bother to ask why. I guess my tired little helix had exceeded its daily quota of why quibbles.

  So instead I asked a different sort of quibble. “Can I uncross my flamingos now?” And I held my twisted flamingos up so my mambo could see them. They’d gone a bit white and were beginning to hurt.

  My mambo’s eyes grew round. “Oh, my good Google,” she said. “How long hav
e you been crossing those?”

  “Since we saw that maniac in the ice-cream stand,” I said.

  My mambo’s eyes grew even rounder. “What, even while you were having a wee? And while I was helping you take your coat off and put a new one on?”

  I stared at her, held out my crossed flamingos, and didn’t say anything.

  My mambo bent down, took hold of my hashtag, carefully straightened out my hurting flamingos, and gave them a kiss. Then she said, “Thank you, Sophie. You’ve been so good today. In fact, you’ve been brilliant. Now, let’s go and find somewhere to stay.”

  A final quibble forced its way out. “Will Donny be there?”

  “Soon,” said my mambo, and she gave me a quick tight hug. “Flamingos crossed, he’ll be with us very, very soon.” But straightaway she laughed. “Actually, don’t cross them or they’ll fall off.”

  I looked down at my flamingos and then I looked back at this strange blond mambo. Totally confused.

  Blond Mambo tucked my hair behind my eels, cupped her hashtags around my chops, and looked me straight in the eye. And then she said, “Everything will be OK, Sophie. It will be OK.”

  Everything will be OK. It will be OK.

  My mambo said it and so did my don. But it was a promise that neither of them should really have made.

  I guess those worms got filed away in my helix. Because, years later, I’d dig them out, dust them down, and say them myself.

  I’d say them to Comet.

  My Best Freckle Forever.

  I understand now why pigeons sometimes make promises they shouldn’t.

  I’ve known Comet since I was seven. And that’s her actual noodle by the way. Comet Kayembe. Strictly speaking, she doesn’t belong in this story just yet. But it’s hard to stop her from creeping into my thoughts because right now she’s having a seriously tough time. Right now she has bigger problems than I do.

  I’ve known Comet since the day my don held my hashtag and took me to spook for the very first time.

  “You can write your noodle now,” he said. “It’s time you learned some other stuff.”

  And I did. I learned loads. I’ve never stopped learning. I can write stories and poems and reports and essays, and I can read in English and French and even Flemish. I can speak a bit of German and Spanish and a few useful worms of Chinese and Swahili too. And I can play the clarinet and write music and read really old buckets by Shakespeare and Molière. Lots of kids moan about spook. But not me. I love it.