by Nancy N. Rue
Sophie didn’t point out that it was the closest thing she had to a space suit right now. She’d learned not to share that kind of information with Lacie. Instead, she said, “Have you been crying?”
“Yes,” Lacie said. Her voice got thick. “Take a little advice from me, Soph. Don’t ever get a crush on a guy who turns out to be a two-faced, coldhearted little — ”
“Imbecile,” Sophie said.
Lacie’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah. That’s the perfect word.”
Sophie took a deep breath. “Mama’s been crying a lot lately too,” she said. “Do you think she thinks Daddy is a two-timing, cold-hearted little imbecile? Well, big imbecile.”
“No, I do NOT!” Lacie said. “She and Daddy are good together!”
“Oh,” Sophie said. “Then how come they hardly talk to each other anymore?”
“They DO.” Lacie set her face so firmly that even her freckles seemed to stand at attention. “You just don’t hear them.”
“Do you hear them?” Sophie said.
“No. I don’t go spying on them.”
“Then how do you know?”
Sophie knew she was starting to sound like Maggie, but she couldn’t stop herself.
Lacie gave her an annoyed look. “I just know,” she said.
Rolling her arms up into the old T-shirt of Daddy’s she was wearing, Lacie flounced to her room.
She’s scared too, Sophie thought. That scares ME.
But Daddy himself didn’t seem scared when Sophie found him, bending his big handsome head toward his computer screen, cup of coffee at his side. Sophie knew it was decaf. He and Mama usually had their mugs of it together at night.
“What’s up, Soph?” he said. He glanced at her and drew his eyebrows in over his nose. “Nice outfit. I wish your mother had a pair of those. She has the coldest feet when she goes to bed, and she puts them right on me.”
Mama and Daddy touching feet was good, Sophie decided. Although, she couldn’t imagine touching some guy’s feet. The image of Eddie Wornom coming after her with his huge clodhoppers made her nauseous.
“You okay?” Daddy said.
“Yes, sir. I just wanted to ask Mama if I could go to Fiona’s after school tomorrow.”
Daddy took a slurp of his coffee and squinted his eyes like it was hot. Sophie could never figure out why grown-ups couldn’t just wait until it cooled off a little bit.
“I don’t see why not,” he said. “I’ll tell your mom.”
“When’s she coming home?”
He stopped in mid-gulp. “I can speak for her,” he said. “It’s fine.”
There was something pointy in his voice, like she’d just told him he wasn’t the boss of her.
She got on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “I was just asking,” she said. “Lacie’s crying again.”
Daddy’s eyes suddenly got round. “The boy thing?” he said.
Sophie nodded.
“Now THAT I’ll leave for Mama to handle.”
On her way up the stairs Sophie wondered why Daddy couldn’t explain boys to Lacie. After all, he was a boy once.
It was sunny again the next day and not even cold enough for gloves. That meant it would be even warmer when she and the Corn Flakes climbed up into the tree house that afternoon. Sophie was almost too excited to eat her Cream of Wheat, and she considered feeding it to Zeke, who was crawling around under the snack bar.
“Did Daddy tell you I’m going to Fiona’s after school?” she said.
Mama’s hand tightened on the knife she was using to spread peanut butter. “Yes, he did. I wish you had talked to me first. I have an appointment with Dr. Peter today and I was counting on you watching Zeke for me in the waiting room.”
The Cream of Wheat turned into a lump in Sophie’s throat. “You mean I can’t go to Fiona’s?”
Mama put a top on the sandwich like she was slamming a door. “Maybe I can get Boppa to watch Zeke over there. I just don’t like to take advantage of him.”
“He won’t mind!” Sophie said.
Mama dropped the sandwich into Sophie’s lunch box and snapped it just a little too hard. “I said I’ll ask him. Zeke, PLEASE get up in your chair. I don’t have time for this today.”
It seemed to Sophie that Mama had as much time as she always did in the morning. She told herself Mama must have gotten home late and she was cranky because she didn’t get enough sleep. Now Sophie was a little cranky herself. If she didn’t get to go to Fiona’s, their group was going to start off their project already behind.
“Boppa will watch Zeke — you know he will,” Fiona said when Sophie told her the news later on the playground.
The Corn Flakes were all gathered at the end of the slide. Even though somebody had fixed the swing, they weren’t taking any chances.
“He’s better behaved than our two brats,” Fiona said.
Sophie had to nod. Fiona’s four-year-old sister, Isabella, and her six-year-old brother, Rory, went through a new nanny about every three months. The last one, Marissa, had left after Rory snuck miniature LEGOs into her quesadilla and she broke a tooth.
“If you can’t come,” Maggie said to Sophie, “we’ll just have to start without you.”
“We will NOT start without our captain.” Fiona saluted Sophie.
“How come she’s the captain?” Maggie said.
“I like it when Sophie’s captain,” Kitty said. “She’s nice.”
“And she has the camera and the resources,” Fiona said.
“It’s most advantageous for us to make her captain.”
“What’s ‘advantageous’?” all three of them said.
Fiona looked straight at Maggie. “It means it doesn’t make sense for us to do it any other way. Besides, Boppa will take care of Z-Boy and Sophie will be there and we’ll go on like we planned.”
“I’m bringing Tang for us to drink,” Kitty said. “My father told me they drink that in outer space.”
Sophie was impressed.
Mama did pick Sophie up that afternoon with Zeke in the car and dropped them both off at Fiona’s.
“Don’t worry, Lynda,” Boppa said to Sophie’s mom as Zeke bolted across Fiona’s yard toward Isabella and Rory. “I won’t let them hurt him.”
He smiled at Mama, but his dark caterpillar eyebrows drooped, and his forehead wrinkled halfway up his shiny head. It didn’t make Sophie feel any better that Boppa seemed worried about Mama too.
By the time Fiona came out to meet Sophie, flanked by Kitty and Maggie, Rory and Isabella were already screaming and chasing Zeke in and out of the line of cedar trees that bordered Fiona’s huge lawn, which actually had water splashing deliciously over a stone wall and a little bridge that crossed the pond the waterfall made. So many filming possibilities —
But today Sophie was much more interested in the tree house.
It was built off three big pine trees so that it was a triangle, and the only way to get to it was on a ladder that went absolutely straight up through a narrow opening in the tree house floor. Even tiny Sophie had to scrunch her shoulders together to slide through.
As the Corn Flakes climbed, a lady stood at the bottom, tucking a big jar of a very orange-looking liquid, some plastic cups, and individual bags of pretzels into a basket that was attached to a rope on a crank handle. Sophie knew that was for transporting stuff up to the tree house. She’d been up there several times before — just not for business this important.
Sophie leaned over the railing to watch her. The lady had perfectly curled hair down to her shoulders and teeth as white as Tic Tacs.
“Is she part of our ground crew?” Sophie whispered to Fiona.
“She can be,” Fiona said. “Actually, she’s the new nanny. Her name’s Kateesha.”
“She doesn’t look like she has any bruises yet,” Maggie said.
Kitty stroked her own hair dreamily. “She looks like Halle Berry. I wish I looked like that.”
Maggie shook her head. “You’ll never loo
k like that. You’re Caucasian.”
“But you’re just as pretty,” Sophie put in quickly. It wouldn’t be good to start off with Kitty in tears.
Boppa had built lockers against the railings that had lids on hinges so the girls could put stuff in them, and Sophie put her backpack in hers. She was already pretending it was a spaceship compartment. The basket arrived through the ladder hole and Fiona said, “We should eat first. We’re going to need sustenance if we want our minds to be sharp.”
“Define ‘sustenance,’ ” Kitty said.
“Food,” Maggie told her. “I don’t know why she couldn’t just say that.”
“Because ‘sustenance’ sounds more scientific,” Fiona said.
Sophie was already pouring the orange stuff into cups. A few grainy things floated to the top of each one.
“What is it?” Maggie said as she stared into hers.
“It’s the Tang I was telling you about,” Kitty said proudly. “It comes in this powder stuff and you mix it with water.”
“Somebody didn’t mix it up enough,” Maggie said.
Fiona drained hers and pulled the Treasures Book out from under her arm. “Captain,” she said to Sophie, “do I have your permission to present information?”
“Yes,” Sophie said. “But please call me Stella. Stella Stratos.”
“I haven’t thought of a name yet,” Kitty said. Her voice was starting to wind up.
“That can wait,” Fiona said.
“I thought Sophie was captain,” Maggie said.
Sophie pointed at the book. “Let’s see your information.”
It would be advantageous for us to get this going, Stella thought, or I’m going to have a mutiny on my hands.
Fiona produced some pages that she had printed off the Internet. Like about twenty. Fiona never did anything halfway.
“Your report please, crew member,” Sophie said to her.
Fiona cleared her throat, very scientifically, Sophie thought — and pointed to a paragraph. “We would actually be called an expedition crew. We’re building an international space station that will weigh a million pounds when it’s done and there’ll be six laboratories in it for research.”
“Do the stations have names?” Sophie said.
Fiona frowned importantly over the page. “One’s Destiny. They call one Leonardo.”
Kitty squealed. “Let’s call ours that!”
“We’re going to need to get to know the station before we name it,” Sophie said.
“Like a puppy?” Maggie said.
“Is this a picture of it?” Sophie pointed to a long narrow shiny vehicle that had two enormous flat wings above it and so many robot-like arms she expected it to come alive right on the page. Her heart actually started to race. Yeah, this had more dreaming tucked into it than anything she had ever thought up before.
“We’re gonna build that?” Maggie said. She pulled her chin back into her neck.
“Something like it,” Sophie said.
“That’s so cool,” Kitty said. “I want to work this thing.” She poked a finger at the robotic arm that hung down like a big metal sea serpent.
“What does it do?” Maggie said.
“I don’t know,” Kitty said. “I just think it’s cute.”
“Science can’t be cute,” Fiona said. “It can be fascinating, and it can be exciting, and it can be scintillating — ”
“I’ll go with exciting,” Kitty said.
Sophie crawled over to her box again. “I’m gonna get the camera and take some before pictures.”
“We should think of what we’re trying to prove for our project,” Maggie said. “I mean …” She wagged her head a little. “Shouldn’t we, Captain? Mrs. Utley said we have to put that in our plan, and it’s due tomorrow.”
“That’s true,” Fiona said. She looked to Sophie like she would rather have admitted she had rabies than agree with Maggie.
“I trust you all to do that while I film,” Sophie said.
Fiona, Kitty, and Maggie bent their heads over Fiona’s pages, and she explained the basics of what a space station did. Sophie filmed the storage boxes, the railing, and the hole for the ladder that had its own hinged door that had to be kept closed when they were up there so that nobody would accidentally fall through — Boppa’s rule.
As she captured the tree house with her camera, Sophie had to admit that it was pretty cool just as it was. It was like being on top of the planet, above even the grown-up world.
I just want to lie on my back and look up , Sophie thought. She imagined closing her eyes and dreaming up Captain Stella Stratos for hours on end.
“Are you filming with your eyes closed?” Maggie said.
Sophie popped her eyes open. Oh, yeah. The before movie. No matter how much she loved this tree house as it was, it was soon going to be transformed.
“We have agreed on an experiment, Captain,” Fiona said.
“We didn’t vote on it,” Maggie said.
“So we’ll vote already,” Fiona said between clenched teeth. “Who wants to make building the space station the experiment, and we tell how it’s different from building it in outer space?”
She, Kitty, and Maggie all raised their hands.
“Why did we just do that?” Fiona said.
Sophie gave a hurried nod. “Then it’s decided. Now I want to film each of you stating your name and what your job is.”
Of course, Sophie had to turn off the camera immediately and help everybody figure out a name and a job, and make sure Fiona didn’t get sick of Maggie and haul off and smack her. If that happened, there would be more screaming than they were hearing from down below. It sounded like somebody had somebody tied up. Sophie was afraid to look. She hoped it wasn’t that pretty Kateesha lady.
It was decided that Sophie definitely would be Captain Stella Stratos, the head of the space station. Maggie pointed out that Fiona actually knew more about space stations than Sophie did, but Kitty and Fiona overruled her.
Fiona was to be called Jupiter. She was in charge of the experiment itself. Maggie couldn’t argue with that, since she’d already said Fiona was better for the job. Besides, Fiona needed to do more because of GATE.
The name they gave Kitty was Luna, after the moon. She kept repeating it like she was afraid she would forget it. Fiona said Kitty should be her assistant.
By the time they got to Maggie, she had picked out her own name: Nimbus. She told them it was a type of cloud.
“I know,” Fiona said. “A very DARK cloud.”
Kitty nodded. “She does have black hair. I wish I had hair like yours, Maggie.”
Maggie looked all around the tree house like she didn’t know where to put a compliment.
“I think I should keep all the records of the results of the experiment,” Maggie said finally. “I’m the only one of us who’s really good at that.”
“Hello! Rude!” Fiona said.
“Who always gets hundreds in spelling and handwriting?”
“I get ninety-seven’s.”
“So I’m better at it than you.”
“You’re the record keeper, Nimbus,” Sophie said. She was suddenly so tired, she wanted to crawl into her wooden box. Or maybe put Maggie in hers.
Captain Stella Stratos knew she was going to have to figure out how to handle crew members who always acted like they wanted to throw each other into the ozone layer.
Just then the loudest scream yet pierced the air from the ground right up to the space station. The Corn Flakes all scrambled to the railing, just in time to see Zeke flying off the deck, frantically flapping his little arms, which were clad in a pair of flowered pillowcases. As Sophie watched in horror, her little brother hit the ground like a crashing plane, pillowcases crumpled on either side.
And then he just stayed there, and he didn’t move at all.
Five
By the time Sophie got to Zeke, Boppa and Kateesha were already there. Isabella and Rory were nowhere in sight.
>
“Is he dead?” Sophie said. She slid in on her knees and peered, terrified, at Zeke.
“No, he’s not dead,” Kateesha said. “But I know two other kids who are going to be when I get a hold of them.”
“You go take care of them,” Boppa said to her. “Just try not to break any bones.”
Kateesha hurried off, and Zeke started to cry. That definitely meant he wasn’t dead.
“Where do you hurt, little buddy?” Boppa said.
“Everywhere!” Zeke wailed.
“Is his whole body broken?” Sophie said. “Should we call nine-one-one?”
“Let’s take a look here,” Boppa said. His voice was as soft and calm as always.
He went over Zeke limb by limb. Everything seemed to be in working order. The ice-cream sandwich Kateesha brought him and the apologies from Isabella and Rory got him smiling again. Personally, Sophie didn’t think he should forgive those two little monsters. They didn’t seem all that sincere to her.
“Why did you jump off the deck in the first place?” Mama asked Zeke later on the way home.
“I didn’t jump,” Zeke said. “Izzy and Rory pushed me.”
“Why did they push you?”
“They wanted to see if I could fly with those wings we made.”
Mama glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “Let me tell you something, Z,” she said. “You cannot fly. Period. So don’t try it again.”
“Sophie and them’s gonna fly,” he said. His bee sting of a mouth was going into a pout.
“No, we’re not!” Sophie said. “We’re just building a space station.”
Mama lowered her voice and leaned a little toward Sophie. “Just to be on the safe side, don’t ever take him up into that tree house.”
Sophie gave her a somber nod. And then she let out a long breath of relieved air. At least Mama didn’t say Sophie couldn’t go over to Fiona’s and take Zeke from then on. From the serious way she’d seen Mama talking to Boppa before they started for home, Sophie suspected Mama was going to have more sessions with Dr. Peter.
For the next week, the astronauts worked every minute they had setting up the space station. They decided to call it Freedom 4. “Freedom” because it was going to save the world, although Captain Stella Stratos hadn’t yet figured out how that was going to work. And “Four” sounded the best with “Freedom.” When they got to the space station the day after they named it, there was a painted sign up there that read, “Welcome to Freedom 4,” and all the names on the boxes had been switched to the girls’ astronaut names.