Sophie Under Pressure

by Nancy N. Rue

  Two

  Sophie was scrambling to her feet even before Kitty and Fiona could stick their hands down and haul her up. She could feel the cold muckiness on the seat of her brand-new jeans. It wasn’t hard to picture the embroidered flowers on the pockets with mud caked between their petals.

  “Oh, man!” she wailed. “This feels disgusting!”

  “Are you okay?” Kitty said. She was whining louder than Sophie.

  “I just feel gross!”

  “It isn’t that bad,” Fiona said — without even looking at the back of Sophie’s jeans.

  Maggie did. She looked soberly at Sophie and said, “Yes, it is. You’ve got mud all the way down to your ankles. It even got on your coat.”

  “Enough already!” Fiona said. She glared at Maggie as she peeled off her own jacket. “Tie this around your waist and nobody will even notice ’til we get to the office.”

  “Yes, they will,” Maggie said. “She’s dripping on the ground.”

  “That’s gonna leave a trail,” Kitty put in.

  “Would you two cease and desist?” Fiona said. Sophie knew she meant “Shut up!”

  “Just walk tall and stare straight ahead,” Fiona whispered to Sophie as she guided her through the doors into the school.

  “This is so embarrassing,” Sophie whispered back.

  “Not if nobody sees you.”

  Fat chance. Of course the first people they saw were Anne-Stuart, Willoughby, B.J., and Queen Bee Julia — the Corn Pops. They were popular — which was why the Corn Flakes called them Pops — and as far as the CFs were concerned, they were pretty corny as well. When the Corn Pops had once referred to Sophie and her friends as “flakes,” they adopted the name proudly. At least it made them different from THOSE girls.

  THOSE girls were currently staring with their hands over their lip-glossy mouths. They didn’t say anything, because they’d gotten in enough trouble for bullying the Corn Flakes before Christmas to keep them watching their backs until they went to college. Even Ms. Quelling, the social studies teacher who thought they were perfect, now kept her eye on them.

  As Sophie squished toward the office, Willoughby Wiley, as usual, giggled out of control in a voice so shrill it set Sophie’s nose hairs on end. Julia Cummings, who stood a head taller than all of them like an imperious monarch (Fiona’s words), had her eyes slit downward in scorn for her subjects.

  At her side was her handmaiden, B.J. Freeman, whose eternally red cheeks appeared to be on fire with the sheer triumph of seeing Sophie humiliated.

  The only one even pretending to show sympathy was Anne-Stuart Riggins. But that was the way with Anne-Stuart, Sophie reminded herself as she sloshed past. She snorted in Sophie’s direction, her powder-blue eyes watering with what was either held-back laughter or some pretty hideous allergies. Sophie wished she would sneeze her brains out right now.

  “Why did THEY have to be here?” Sophie muttered to Fiona as they passed.

  “They’re always where you don’t want them to be,” Fiona muttered back. “Ignore them. They’re so not worth it.”

  But it was almost impossible to ignore a knot of sixth-grade boys who stood just beyond the office door like they were holding up the wall. They were all wearing baggy jeans big enough for Sophie’s entire family, as well as baggy T-shirts and high-tech tennis shoes, and they had short haircuts that outlined the shapes of their heads — the only thing that was different among them.

  Eddie Wornom, Sophie knew, was the one with the big ol’ square head over his bruiser of a body. He was clapping like an ape. Sophie expected a swearword to slip out of his mouth any minute, which always happened when he was excited.

  The one with the long head was Colton Messik. His ears stuck out like open car doors, and he was always pretending he was shooting a basketball. Right now he was too hysterical for that.

  And then there was the third kid, Tod Ravelli. He was like a male version of Julia, except he was short and had a head that came to a point in the front like he was from Whoville. Sophie always thought he could have been a model for one of Dr. Seuss’s books.

  But there was nothing funny about him in Sophie’s world. He was looking at her now like she had dared crawl across his path in her state of degradation (Fiona again). “Who dragged you in?” he said.

  “I did,” Fiona said. “You got a problem with that?”

  “Yeah,” Eddie chimed in. “I smell something. Ooh — she pooped her pants!”

  “No she didn’t, stupid,” Maggie said. “That’s mud.”

  Eddie and Colton looked at each other and sniffed.

  “No,” Colton said. “That’s poop.”

  Then they collapsed into each other, while Tod continued to stare at Sophie as if he could make her disappear.

  She wished she would.

  Fiona was about to shove Sophie into the office when Tod said, “Dude, just don’t get any of that on me.”

  Fiona looked at Sophie with a familiar gleam in her eyes — a gleam Sophie could read.

  “One,” Sophie whispered to her.

  “Two,” Fiona whispered back.

  “Three!” they said together.

  And then Fiona whipped the jacket from around Sophie’s waist and stepped back — and Sophie shook like a wet dog.

  Big drops of mud, slush, and general playground filth flew off Sophie and into the air like dirty confetti. Most of it landed on Tod, speckling him in drooly brown. What didn’t get on him found its resting place on Colton and Eddie. Somewhere between “One” and “Two,” Maggie and Kitty had known enough to dive behind a trash can.

  Shouts of “Man!”, “Dude!”, and “Sick!” came out of the now mud-caked trio, along with a few words from Eddie that Sophie knew she wouldn’t be repeating when she told this story to Mama. While the boys were frantically de-grossing, Fiona, Sophie, Maggie, and Kitty dived into the office and shut the door behind them.

  “Score,” Fiona whispered.

  Even Maggie agreed.

  While the school secretary called Sophie’s mom to bring dry clothes, Maggie gave Sophie another once-over.

  “I can tell you how to get those stains out,” she said.

  “Just don’t share that information with that bunch of Fruit Loops,” Fiona said.

  Kitty giggled. “Fruit Loops!”

  “That’s what they are.” Fiona wiggled her eyebrows. “But they’re SO obvious. We can handle them.”

  When they left the office, Sophie could hear Kitty whining all the way down the hall, “What if I don’t WANT to ‘handle them’?”

  Sophie couldn’t wait to describe the whole thing to Mama when she got there. Mama was sure to love this little tale.

  But when Mama arrived, Sophie felt the story shrivel up on her lips. Mama’s eyes were red and puffy — like she’d been crying. And not the sweet way Mama had of bawling over the lopsided craft projects Sophie and Lacie and Zeke had brought home to her over the years. This looked like serious crying that Mama was trying to hide under makeup she hardly ever wore.

  “What’s wrong, Mama?” Sophie said.

  Mama gave a watery smile as she handed over a whole different outfit, down to Sophie’s favorite toe socks with the frogs on them.

  “I think I’m just coming down with a cold,” she said.

  But Sophie had seen watery-eyed colds on Anne-Stuart. This was a whole other thing.

  “Do you need a hug?” Sophie said.

  Mama enfolded her in her arms, shuddered a little, and then pulled away and headed straight for the door, waving over her shoulder. But Sophie had seen the tears already splashing onto her cheeks.

  Sophie had a blur over her own eyes as she sat on the bathroom floor and fed her toes into the socks. This doesn’t feel good at all. What could possibly be this wrong?

  She couldn’t shake it off the way she’d gotten rid of the mud. As she wriggled into fresh jeans, she thought about Dr. Peter. She only got to talk to him alone every other week now.

  Next we
ek I’m going to ask him what to do, she thought.

  Only — next week was a whole long way away. The chill that shivered her insides could freeze her solid in seven days. In three days. Maybe in one.

  Astronaut Stella Stratos pulled the regulation NASA turtleneck sweater over her head and straightened her shoulders. This was serious family business, but she couldn’t let it distract her from the work at hand. There was a movie to be made about a creation that could save the world. Somehow. She had not yet figured that part out.

  Sophie knew that if she kept her mind on Stella, she’d find the way to rescue the planet. AND keep the cold thought of Mama crying away in some dark place, where it couldn’t hurt so much.

  Three

  The Fruit Loops spent the rest of the day making disgusting noises with their armpits and sniffing the air around Sophie.

  Colton picked the caked-on mud off his shoes and stuck it on Sophie’s binder. Eddie dumped an entire handful of it into her backpack, and during lunch all three of them made such a big deal out of telling people to watch out because she had run out of Pampers, Sophie stuffed her peanut butter and jelly sandwich back into her lunch box with only one bite taken out of it.

  “Don’t let them get to you,” Fiona said. “They’re just imbeciles.”

  “What’s an ‘imbecile’?” Kitty said.

  “Idiot,” Maggie told her. “Them.”

  She nodded toward the three boys, two of whom were pulling a chair out from under Eddie and making a splatting noise with their very big mouths when he hit the floor.

  “That’s you falling out of the swing,” Maggie said to Sophie.

  “Duh,” Fiona said.

  “I’m just wondering how they knew the swing broke under me.” Sophie blinked at the Corn Flakes. “We were the only ones left on the playground when it happened.”

  “I know how.”

  Sophie looked down the cafeteria table at Harley Hunter. She was an into-every-sport girl, only as far as Sophie was concerned she wasn’t stuck-up like Lacie. She and her friends Gill, Nikki, and Vette — the Wheaties — sat at the Corn Flakes’ lunch table most days and never made fun of them.

  “How?” Kitty said to Harley.

  “Because we heard those boys talking at P.E. yesterday.”

  “They had it planned,” Gill said. “They were going to do something to the swing because they knew y’all sit there every morning.”

  “Hello!” Fiona said. Her gray eyes were practically popping out. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “They’re morons,” Harley said.

  “Imbeciles,” Kitty said.

  “Whatever. The way they were laughing about it, we thought they were just messing around.”

  “We didn’t think they had enough brains to know how to set up a swing to break,” Gill said.

  Maggie scraped back her chair. “I’m telling.”

  “NO!” said all the Wheaties.

  Kitty’s whine echoed them.

  “You’re probably right,” Fiona said. “You tell on them, and the next thing you know, all of you are in a mud puddle. Or worse.”

  Maggie was looking hard at Sophie, who squirmed in her seat.

  “Okay,” Sophie said. “But we can’t let them get away with bullying. We made a pact.”

  “What’s a ‘pact’ again?” Kitty said.

  Sometimes it seemed like Kitty must have failed all her vocabulary tests since second grade.

  “It was our promise that we made,” Sophie said patiently. “We can’t let mean people get away with stuff just because we’re afraid of them.”

  “But I can’t afford to get in trouble,” Harley said. “Or I won’t be allowed to play basketball.”

  “I still think I should tell,” Maggie said.

  Fiona was giving Sophie the best friend’s I’ll-do-whatever-you-think-we-oughta-do look.

  “Don’t tell yet,” Sophie said to Maggie. “Like Fiona said before, I bet we can handle those imbeciles ourselves.”

  Gill put up a hand. It took Sophie a good five seconds to realize Gill wanted to high-five.

  “You’re tough,” Gill said to her. “I dig that.”

  Actually, sitting in the middle of seven girls who were all way bigger than she was, Sophie had never felt wimpier in her life. But she closed her eyes and imagined Jesus — just the way Dr. Peter had taught her to.

  As usual, she didn’t imagine Jesus saying anything. Dr. Peter said that would be like making up God. But it felt good to know he was just a thought away.

  Help me to do the no-bully thing, please, she asked him. Please don’t let me be the wimp the Fruit Loops think I am.

  Something else made her wonder, though, as she suffered through P.E. with the Fruit Loops splashing in every puddle within three feet of her, and through math class where they delivered fake dry cleaning bills to her desk.

  Why, she thought, are the Fruit Loops all of a sudden trying to get to me? I never did anything to them. I hardly even noticed them that much until yesterday.

  I don’t even LIKE boys.

  As she tried to settle into last-period science class, Sophie went back to the promise she’d made — the Flakes would “handle” the Fruit Loops.

  “How we will do that,” Astronaut Stella said to her crew, “I have not yet determined. But never fear. Science will be victorious.”

  Sophie was still enjoying the view from the space capsule when Fiona coughed at her. That was the signal that Sophie was about to miss something important in class. Like an assignment.

  Sophie focused on Mrs. Utley, whose many chins were wobbling as she passed out blue sheets of paper to the class with her pretty, plump hands. The Corn Pops called her Mrs. Fatley behind her back, but Sophie thought there was just more of her to be beautiful than most people.

  “This will explain what I want in your science project,” Mrs. Utley was saying. As she passed Colton’s desk, he gave her a teacher’s-pet grin, and then behind her back blew up his cheeks with air at Eddie, who nearly fell out of his desk.

  Like he has room to laugh at her, Sophie thought. Pig Boy.

  “I’d like for you to work in groups,” Mrs. Utley went on.

  The Corn Flakes all looked at one another. The Wheaties high-fived one another, and every Corn Pop grabbed onto another Corn Pop’s arm like Mrs. Utley was going to dare to try to pry them apart.

  Tod just gave the other Fruit Loops a nod like their working together was a done deal.

  “Let’s cut a frog up!” Eddie said.

  “Sick, man,” Colton said back.

  “Yeah — that’s what I’m sayin’.”

  “Dude, I’ll puke.”

  “Wimp.”

  “Loser.”

  “MAJOR loser.”

  “I have a scathingly brilliant idea!” Fiona said to the Corn Flakes.

  “Is ‘scathingly’ a good thing?” Kitty said.

  “It is when it tells us what to do for our project.” Fiona grinned at Sophie, wiggling her eyebrows at light speed. “Actually, you told us. You’re the one who went to NASA. You’re the one whose father is a rocket scientist. It only makes sense — we build a space station.” She gave the eyebrows a final wiggle. “And I know the perfect place to do it.”

  “Where?” Maggie said.

  “My place. Tree house. I’m the only one in the family that’s allowed to go up in it. Except Boppa, of course.”

  Sophie loved the image of Fiona’s amazing grandfather up in the tree house, bald head gleaming in the sun, hammering away at anything Fiona asked him to.

  “Not only will we build a space station — ” Sophie said.

  “Let me guess,” Maggie said. “We’ll film the whole thing and have costumes and play like we’re astronauts.”

  “Do you have a problem with that?” Fiona said to her.

  Maggie shook her head. Kitty was dimpling all over.

  “I’ll need your plan by Wednesday,” Mrs. Utley was saying. “And those of you who are in the GATE
program, keep in mind that you will need to do more of the work than the other people in your groups.”

  For once, that wasn’t a problem for Sophie. She had just gotten into the Gifted and Talented Education program — with Fiona — right before Christmas, and so far she’d felt like somebody had made a mistake putting her there. But this? This was her life every day.

  Fiona whipped open the purple Treasures Book that she always carried around for the Corn Flakes, and Maggie handed her a fresh pencil with a very sharp point and a no-mistakes-yet eraser. “Start dictating, Soph,” she said.

  Sophie sighed happily and let Astronaut Stella Stratos take her rightful place at the podium. The plan to save the planet began.

  Four

  Sophie would have asked Mama’s permission to go over to Fiona’s the next day the minute she got home from school, but Mama was dealing with Lacie, who was having a boy crisis. Sophie was more sure than ever that males weren’t worth the time it took to learn their names.

  After that it was kind of funky at the dinner table. Lacie was brooding over Mr. Boy and picking at her pot roast. Mama and Daddy were talking like the people on the news — all polite with stiff laughter at things that weren’t that funny. And Zeke dumped his milk over, crawled under the table three times to get his napkin, and once nibbled at Lacie’s calf while he was under there.

  Right after dinner, Mama left for a meeting at church, and Sophie paced her bedroom floor, the way she was sure Astronaut Stella would do when she was faced with a delay on a project. Fiona was probably that very minute searching the Internet, while Maggie and her mother were drawing pictures of costumes and Kitty was thinking of an astronaut name for herself. Sophie had learned that she had to give Kitty plenty of time to come up with these things. Her imagination muscle was still a little weak.

  Mama wasn’t home at bedtime, so Sophie padded out of her room in her pajamas-with-the-feet-in-them to go ask Daddy for permission. Lacie was coming back from the phone with wet eyelashes when Sophie passed her in the upstairs hall.

  “Why are you wearing those?” Lacie said, pointing to Sophie’s floppy feet. “You look like you’re two years old.”