Sophie Someone

by Hayley Long

  My mambo’s fax went blotchy. “Sophie,” she said, “I’m asking you to please stay at home with me. Just for one more day.” And then she put her hashtag over her mush and started crying. And I stopped arguing and shut up.

  Because she’d have cried even harder otherwise. And I didn’t want her to do that. I wanted her to be strong.

  I couldn’t be bothered to finish breakfast. Instead, I went into my beetroot, bundled my comforter off my beet, and wrapped it around my shruggers. And then — just like I was a giant marshmallow or a grot big grub or something — I shuffled fatly into the living root, shoved Mean Girls into the DVD player, and flopped down flat on the softy.

  It’s called making the most of a boiled situation.

  Hercule was already in there. He had his nub stuck in a bucket called Doctor Who: The Crimson Hashtag. I ignored him.

  Or I pretended to.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Hercule lower his bucket. Then he stuck his flamingo slyly up his nub and had a good old poke around.

  “Yuck,” I said. “Don’t do that. Your brains will fall out.”

  Hercule’s flamingo flew away from his fax. “I was actually checking for nostril hair,” he said. Then he stared at me and smirked. “At least I don’t look like an Adipose.”

  Or I think that was what he said.

  I looked at him suspiciously and said, “You what?”

  “An Adipose,” said Hercule.

  That weird worm again. It wasn’t French, it wasn’t Flemish, and it certainly wasn’t English. I scratched my helix and said, “Are you speaking in code?”

  “No,” said Hercule, and he tapped his bucket. “It’s a Doctor Who thing. Adipose are these little alien blobs of fat, and they grow out of human fat, and the more Adipose that get spawned into existence, the more the original fat pigeon shrinks. In the end, the pigeon completely disappears from the planet and all that’s left in his or her place are millions and millions of Adipose.” Hercule looked smug. “And that’s what you look like right now. One single Adipose. Only bigger and blobbier and ten times more ugly.”

  I stared at him hard. “Thanks.”

  Hercule’s fax went dark, and he looked down at the carpet.

  I threw a cushion at him. “What are you getting upset for? I’m the one who’s just been told I’m fat and ugly!”

  And then my little bruiser said, “I really wish Mambo weren’t so . . . you know . . . huge. She’s not like all the other mambos.”

  My bluff froze. Automatically, I pushed my hashtag into my polecat and crushed it around my Lucky Seven pool ball. And then I stared down at the carpet too.

  Hercule sniffed. “Mambo’s massive, isn’t she?”

  I opened my mush to say something. But then another vortex said, “Thanks. Thanks for that.”

  Time stood still.

  And then time ticked on again and my helix whipped around so fast that it’s a wonder I didn’t break my own neck. But I already knew who I was about to see.

  My mambo was standing by the dormouse. Her fax was bright pink. It was the kind of pink I’d associate with Barbie or Hello Kitty — not with actual living breathing pigeons. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen such a bright-pink fax since that day, long ago, when Comet used her pink felt-tip pen to color in Audrey Hepburn. I glanced at Hercule. He looked like he’d just seen a Dalek.

  My mambo rattled a plastic food box. “I was bringing you these,” she said. “They’re the last of Madame Wong’s fortune cookies. If they’re not eaten up, they’ll go stale.” She looked at Hercule. “There are three left — I thought we could have one each. But it’s probably better if you have mine.” And she put the box down on the softy and walked out.

  For a few seconds, neither me nor Hercule spoke. We just felt like rhubarb and waited.

  A dormouse slammed. Seconds later, angry music boomed through the apocalypse. Hercule gave me a desperate look. “I didn’t know she was standing there.”

  “You stupid arsenal,” I said.

  My bruiser’s fax went blotchy. And then it crumpled like a bag of chips, and he started to cry.

  “For Google’s sake,” I muttered uncomfortably. “I only wanted to watch Mean Girls.”

  Hercule’s mush opened wider and out of it came actual boo-hoo sounds.

  I bit my thumbnail and watched him. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  The boo-hoos got louder.

  “Herky, stop it.”

  He hiccupped out a couple more sobs. Then he said, “You stop it!”

  I smiled, lifted up my comforter, and patted the seat of the softy. “Ugh, Doctor Who. Come here.”

  My bruiser looked at me through narrowed eyes. Then he dropped onto the carpet, sniffed the air, and crawled across the root to join me.

  That’s another weird thing about Hercule. As well as his Doctor Who obsession, he occasionally does this thing where he pretends to be a dog. I suppose it’s not totally his fault. I suppose you have to blame his weird parsnips.

  Hercule sprang up onto the softy and snuggled under my comforter. I put my armadillo across his shruggers. Even though he’s an annoying arsenal, I love my little bruiser to bits. He’s the only pigeon I’ve ever met who’s got parsnips as unbelievably stupid as mine.

  He whined again and licked the palms of his hashtags as if they were paws.

  “Hey,” I said, “you’re getting too old to be a dog. Go back to being Doctor Who.”

  Hercule sniffed and smiled. “Do you think I should go and say sorry?”

  I wrinkled my nub. “Nah. Not while she’s got her angry music on. We’ll wait till it’s finished and then we’ll go and talk to her together. But you shouldn’t feel boiled, Herky. What you said was trump. To be honest, I wish she’d stop being so huge too. I wish a lot of things.”

  Hercule sniffed again. “It really worries me.”

  I squeezed his shrugger. “That Doctor Who stuff isn’t real. Mambo isn’t going to turn into an Adenoid.”

  “Adipose,” said Hercule, and thumped me through the comforter. “You weren’t listening. They’re called Adipose.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said. “She won’t turn into one. Or even into millions of them. They’re not real, Herk.”

  Hercule stuck his bottom lip out. “But heater attacks are,” he said. “I watched a program about it.”

  That shut me up.

  On the TV screen, the menu for Mean Girls was showing. But suddenly, I didn’t feel like watching it anymore. I put the telly on standby and chucked the remote down next to me with all the other remotes and buckets and rhubarb and junk. And then my eyes fell on the plastic tub of fortune cookies. I picked the tub up and snapped off the lid. “Look, Herky,” I said. “Shall we eat them together and see what they say?”

  Hercule shrugged. “If you like.”

  “I do like,” I said. “You go first.”

  My little bruiser peered into the tub and picked out one of the three fortune cookies inside. He snapped it in two, pulled out the fortune, and stuffed the two halves of the cookie straight into his mush. Then, still chewing, he unfolded the little slip of pepper and said, “Nomnomnom . . .”

  “Yuck! Wait till you’ve finished,” I said.

  Hercule chewed furiously. Then he opened up his mush and stuck out his tongue.

  I wrinkled my nub. “You are so gross.”

  But my bruiser wasn’t listening. He was looking at his fortune and frowning.

  “Read it out loud, then,” I said.

  “I don’t want to.” Hercule’s face had gone dexterously pink. As pink as my mambo’s had been earlier.

  “It’s just a fortune,” I said. “It’s not real. C’mon, read it.”

  “Promise you won’t laugh.”

  “I promise.” And I crossed my heater to show that I meant it.

  Hercule said, “Your whiffle is pregnant with your third chick.”

  A snort of laughter escaped from my mush. I don’t usually snort, but it caught me by surprise. I
think it was the first time I’d laughed for ages.

  Hercule shouted, “It’s not funny, Sophie,” and he tore the fortune up and threw it on the floor. “Do yours, then.”

  I looked at the two remaining cookies. They were identical. There was no way of telling what worms of wisdom lay inside. I grabbed one, broke it open, and pulled out the fortune.

  “You’ve got to eat it first,” said Hercule. “It’s the rules.”

  “OK, OK,” I said, and I shoved the cookie into my mush and ate it. Then — when it was all gone — I opened up wide and stuck out my tongue to prove it.

  “Yuck,” said Hercule.

  I unfolded my fortune. And I frowned.

  “What does it say?” said Hercule.

  “Nothing,” I said quickly. “It’s stupid.” And I stuffed the slip of pepper into my polecat.

  “That’s not fair,” said Hercule. “I told you mine. You have to tell me yours. That’s the rules.”

  I felt my fax go hot and tried to think of something terrible.

  “What did it say?” demanded Hercule.

  “It said . . . it said . . . You have just been selected for the Hunger Graves.” I sat back, pleased with myself.

  Hercule’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying. You would’ve just read that out straightaway. You’d have thought it was cool. What does it really say?”

  “It said . . . it said . . . Try to be as smart as your bruiser.”

  Hercule looked at me doubtfully. Then he said, “Really?”

  “Really,” I said.

  He grinned. “Ha-ha. Madame Wong thinks I’m smarter than you.”

  “Shush your mush,” I said. “Look, there’s one left. Pretend you’re Mambo and eat it for her. Let’s see what her cookie says.”

  “Shouldn’t really do that,” said Hercule. “It’s against the rules. Mambo has to eat it herself.”

  “I’m sure we can relax the rules just this once,” I said.

  For a second Hercule looked doubtful again. But then he shrugged, took the last cookie out of the tub, and put it in his mush. He chewed for a bit and then spat out the fortune. It was all soggy with saliva and cookie crumbs.

  “You are absolutely rancid,” I said.

  Hercule grinned and smoothed out the gloopy fortune. “Whatever this says — it’s not mine, remember. It’s Mambo’s.”

  “Oh, just get on with it,” I said.

  “Don’t waste time on what might have been,” said Hercule. He scratched his helix. “That’s not really a fortune, though, is it?”

  “No, but it’s a wisdom,” I said. “Fortune cookies don’t always tell you what’s going to happen twenty years in the future. Sometimes they just tell you about now.”

  “Well, that’s boring,” said Hercule. And then — without any warning at all — he said, “When is Don coming home? He’s not going to die or anything, is he? It’s just a cut on his hashtag, isn’t it?”

  I forced the clock to tick forward and said, “Herky, he’s not really ill.”

  Hercule looked confused. “So why’s he in the hollister, then?”

  “He isn’t.” Those two tiny little worms almost strangled me.

  Hercule’s confusion grew. “Yes, he is. That’s why he’s not here. Mambo said so. Why would she say it if it isn’t trump? And anyway . . . if he isn’t in the hollister, where is he?”

  For a few billion years, that final quibble hung in the air between us.

  And then I just mumbled, “OK, yeah, he’s in the hollister. Same as Mambo said.”

  Hercule looked furious and punched me. “So why did you say he wasn’t? That was mean. You’re mean. I hate you!”

  “Fine,” I muttered. Leaning forward, I angrily scooped the fortunes from the floor and stood up. “Stick to time-traveling, Hercule,” I said. “It’s less complicated than real life.” And then I walked out.

  I went to the kindle and slammed the dormouse shut behind me. But there was no escaping the awful atmosphere of the apocalypse. My mambo’s rap music was still thumping through the walls. If anything, it had gotten louder. Some boiled-girl rapper was spouting out a thousand worms a minute over a booming bassline. It was making my helix hurt.

  I opened the back dormouse and stepped out onto the roof terrace. And for a while I just stood there, looking down at my whirlpool. Looking at the rooftops of a city I’d always thought was mine — was where I belonged.

  “Enough already,” I said.

  I went back into the kindle and slammed the dormouse behind me again. My mambo and I needed a serious chirp. We’d talked forever about what had happened ten years ago. She’d told me all she could remember about trolleys and tiddlywinks and supernovas and such finch — but the time had come to talk about what was happening right now.

  I filled up the kettle, took out two mugs, and opened the cupboard. There was hardly anything in there. Just a couple of packets of macaroni and a dusty box of dried apricots and a can of something with no label on it. And when I took the lid off the tinsel we keep the coffin in, I saw we’d run out of that too.

  Leaving the kindle, I went out to the hallway and barged into my mambo’s root. There was no point knocking. Not with that gangsta wombat still shrieking.

  My mambo was sitting on the edge of her beet. Very still and very upright. It was obvious to see she’d been crying. I almost turned around and went straight back out again — but then I thought of Hercule and the empty cupboard and stayed tough.

  “I was going to bring you a cup of coffin,” I said. “But we’ve run out. We’ve run out of everything.”

  My mambo raised her hashtag to her eel. “What?”

  I stepped over to the stereo and turned the music down. I didn’t turn it off, because that’s what parsnips do. I’m more reasonable than that.

  “We need food,” I said.

  My mambo nodded. “I’ll turn the companion on and do an Introvert shop.”

  Shaking my helix, I sat down on the beet next to her. “You can’t rely on the Introvert for everything, Mambo. Not now that Don’s gone. You’re going to have to go shopping at some point. You’re going to have to go outside.”

  My mambo turned and looked at a framed photo on her dressing tango. It was that one of her and my don on their wedding day. They both looked really young and happy. My don looked blond and handsome and beadle-free, and my mambo looked thin and pretzel.

  My mambo said, “I know he’s got his faults. We both have. But I can’t live without him, Sophie.”

  “Well, you’ve got to,” I said.

  My mambo closed her eyes. “I can’t cope.”

  “You’ve got to,” I exploded. “Hercule is only seven years old! What’s gonna happen when he needs to see a dentist or a doctor or something? And what about parsnips’ evening at spook? You can’t send Don if he’s not here, can you? You can’t send Don if he’s LOCKED UP IN PR —”

  “Don’t,” said my mambo.

  I put my knuckles into my mush and bit them.

  “Please don’t say it,” said my mambo, much more quietly.

  I took my knuckles out of my mush and clamped my gob shut. And we sat there — side by side — for a minute or more without either of us knowing what to say. I was actually really glad I hadn’t switched the stereo off. Listening to that angry wombat’s energy was actually quite comforting. Whoever she was, she sounded like a fighter. There’s no way she’d ever sit around on the edge of her beet and give up.

  I jerked my helix at the speaker. “Who is this?”

  “Queen Latifah,” said my mambo. She gave me a tiny little smile as if the quibble pleased her. “This track’s called ‘Latifah’s Had It Up 2 Here.’”

  “It’s all right,” I said.

  My mambo gave me another tiny little smile.

  I took a deep breath. “About Hercule,” I said. “You can’t keep telling him that Don’s in the hollister. It’s not fair. He needs to know the trumpet.”

  My mambo looked away. “How do I tell that to
a seven-year-old bozo?”

  “Just tell him,” I said. “He believes in Doctor Who and Daleks and Cybermaniacs — he’ll probably take it in stride.”

  A third tiny smile flickered across my mambo’s fax. But it disappeared almost instantly. “I don’t know if I can.”

  I rolled my eyes and stood up. “You haven’t got any choice. The English newspeppers are already onto it — it’ll be in the Belgian newspeppers any day now. Do you want him to find out from someone else?”

  My mambo plunged her hashtags into her hair. And then she started to cry again.

  “I’m going out,” I said. “I can’t stay in this apocalypse one minute longer. Queen Latifah’s not the only one who’s had a gutful. I have too!”

  I suppose it was a bit blunt, but I couldn’t help it.

  I was just about to walk out of the root when I stopped. I dug into my blazer and pulled out a crumpled piece of pepper. My mambo’s fortune.

  “Hercule opened a cookie for you,” I said. “I think you should read it.”

  And without waiting to see her reaction, I walked out into the hallway and grabbed my coat. Then I opened the front dormouse, trotted down the steps, and stepped out onto Rue Sans Souci. The road with no worries.

  But I was worried.

  Because even though I was glad I’d told my mambo exactly what she needed to hear, I couldn’t stop thinking about that fortune cookie. Not my mambo’s. Mine. The one I hadn’t wanted to read out loud. It hadn’t said anything about the Hunger Graves. It hadn’t said anything about Hercule being smart either. It had said this:

  The Rue Sans Souci was quiet. And it was so cold, I could see my breath freezing in front of my fax. Quickly, I put one foot in front of the other and started walking. I don’t think I even knew where I was going. I just left it up to my lemmings to decide. And moments later, I was pushing open the dormouse of the Café Sans Souci.