by Nancy N. Rue
“Or talking on a cell phone.” Lacie smiled so sweetly Sophie was surprised sugar didn’t collect on her lips. It didn’t work on Daddy.
“Forget it, Lace,” he said. “No cell phone.”
“That’s it,” Lacie said, still grinning. “My life is over.”
Sophie had to admit that if anybody deserved a cell phone, it was Lacie. She made straight A’s and was freshman class president at the high school and played every sport, and she did a lot of the cooking and took turns with Sophie watching Zeke now that Mama had to stay down. She was also in the church youth group, where she had learned not to be a complete snot about all of that, especially to Sophie. Sophie thanked Jesus for that every day.
“Sounds like I’d better get more in the loop on this cyber stuff,” Daddy said.
Sophie wondered if that was the same as getting hip. And then she squirmed. She wasn’t sure she wanted her father in her loop. But he was watching her as if he could see into her brain.
“I brought home a bunch of stuff for parents,” she forced herself to say. “It’s in my folder.”
Daddy smothered the top of Sophie’s head with his hand. “Way to be a team player, Soph,” he said. “Any other kid would’ve destroyed anything that would let parents invade their world.”
Sophie wriggled out from under his hand. “Nobody I talk to online is bullying,” she said. She didn’t add that she was very glad not to have POS going on. “Since I’m so wonderful, could you give me a ride to school tomorrow at seven-fifteen?”
“Why—do you have a date?”
“Rusty!” Mama said.
Daddy held up his palm. “Kidding. Just kidding.”
On IM, Cynthia Cyber thought, that would be KJK.
Sophie wisped a secret smile. If Jimmy was thinking what she was thinking, Cynthia was about to become a star.
Three
Sophie worked at staying out of Cynthia-world the next morning as her footsteps echoed in the still-empty halls on the way to the school library. Round Table was serious stuff, and she wanted to be sharp. There would be time enough for Cynthia Cyber when she and Jimmy started planning their movie. Cynthia would, of course, be perfect as the main character, and Fiona could be her personal assistant—
Jimmy was waiting for her at one of the tables, looking just-showered with his blond hair still in wet spikes. He looked sort of soft, like Zeke did right after he woke up, and before he started squalling that he wouldn’t eat a pancake unless it was shaped like a superhero.
“Hi,” Sophie said.
Jimmy jumped up and pulled out a chair for her, and then glanced around like he was making sure nobody had seen him. Sophie didn’t blame him. The Fruit Loops could work with that for days. Especially with Eddie back, she thought.
She sat down and raised her eyebrows at Jimmy.
“So, my idea,” he said. His voice was morning-husky. “I think Round Table should do a website. Y’know, like, on cyber bullying.”
“Oh …” Sophie said. She could practically see Cynthia snapping her face from the computer monitor to stare.
The two red spots reappeared at the tops of Jimmy’s cheeks. “You hate it.”
“I don’t hate it,” Sophie said slowly. “I just thought—”
She stopped. Jimmy looked like someone was about to kick him in his very-straight teeth.
“It’s just that I don’t know how to do a website,” she said.
Jimmy sprang into a smile. “Oh—well, me neither. Somebody else—like Mrs. Britt—would have to design it. We’d just give her ideas.”
“Mrs. Britt? The computer lady?”
“Yeah. Vincent says she’s, like, this genius.”
Sophie nodded. Vincent would know. He spent as much time exploring websites as the Flakes did emailing each other. Vincent sometimes had a dazed look, like he’d gotten lost in there somewhere.
Still, it wasn’t a movie.
“I have some ideas,” Jimmy said. “And since you’re creative, you could probably come up with some too.” He shrugged like he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Sophie was squirmy. “I don’t visit websites that much. Y’know, Fiona usually does the research for our films, she and Darbie and Vincent—”
“Maybe we could still use your character you were thinking up yesterday.”
Sophie pushed her glasses up with her finger. “You mean, like, Cynthia Cyber could be on a website?”
“Sure. Who is she?”
“Internet Investigator.”
“Sweet.”
It was suddenly Christmas morning on Jimmy’s face, so Sophie tried not to sag in her seat. Making a website wouldn’t be the same as being Cynthia Cyber in a movie—
Springing up from her desk chair, she raised both hands in the air. Victory—she had tracked the cyber bullies straight to their email address.
“You okay?” Jimmy said.
“Yeah,” Sophie lied.
Jimmy reached for his backpack, fumbled with it, and dumped half the contents onto the table. A granola bar slid into Sophie’s lap.
“I brought that for you anyway,” Jimmy said. There were two more red spots on each cheek. He practically buried his head in the backpack and emerged with a piece of paper and a pencil. “I’ll write stuff down,” he said.
Sophie had to giggle. “You can be Maggie.” Maggie always kept records in the Treasure Book of everything for Corn Flakes Productions and Film Club. “You don’t look like Maggie,” she said. “I mean, like, she’s a girl and you’re a boy—”
“I’m glad you see that,” Jimmy said.
Sophie stuffed her hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t guffaw the librarian out of her office.
“Okay,” Jimmy said. “We could have, like, a quiz that people could take to see if they’re bullying or being bullied.”
Sophie tugged at a short strand of hair. “So—what would Cynthia Cyber do?”
“She could tell how to score it.”
“Oh,” Sophie said. “So there would just be a picture of her or something?”
“No,” Jimmy said. “She could talk and move her head and stuff.”
“Like a little mini-movie?”
Jimmy bobbed his head so hard, Sophie found herself nodding too.
“Okay,” she said. “I guess you could write that down.”
“I could write down that if somebody scores in the cyberbully range, Cynthia Cyber gets, like, huge and covers the whole screen and her nostrils go all big—”
“And she gets laser eyes,” Sophie said.
Okay, so maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
The warning bell rang, and Jimmy scowled at it.
“Man, we were just getting started.”
“You started on something without us?” said a familiar voice behind them.
Sophie turned and smiled at Fiona, who had Nathan and Vincent and the other Corn Flakes behind her. Fiona didn’t exactly smile back. She craned her neck toward the paper on the table. Sophie wondered if that could be called FOS, “friend over shoulder.”
“What’s up, dude?” Vincent said, his voice cracking.
He punched Jimmy on the arm. It was such a boy-thing, one of the many reasons Sophie was glad she was a girl. Willoughby came up behind her and hugged her neck.
“Are you planning a movie without us?” Maggie shook her head, splashing her dark silky bob against her cheeks. “I don’t think you can do that.” Maggie’s voice was solid and square like the rest of her. If you wanted to know what the rules were, you only had to ask Maggie.
“It’s not a film.” Fiona’s shiny gray eyes swept across Jimmy’s notes. “It’s a website.”
“We don’t do websites,” Maggie said.
Fiona gave a sniff and tossed aside the wayward strand of straight, deep brown hair that fell over one eye. “It doesn’t look like we are doing it.”
Nathan punched Jimmy on the other arm. Then his face turned red beneath his mop of curly hair. That was mostly how he communi
cated.
“What’s the deal, man?” Vincent said.
Jimmy looked at Sophie, who looked up at the group. “We have to do a project for Round Table,” she said.
Darbie perched her slender long-legged self on the edge of the table and tapped the paper. Sophie couldn’t see her face because her reddish hair fell forward, but she had a feeling Darbie wasn’t smiling, either.
“It’s a website?” Darbie said.
“On cyber bullying,” Sophie said.
Fiona folded her arms. “No offense,” she said, “but neither one of you knows anything about designing a website.”
“I know,” Sophie said, “so we’re going to get Mrs. Britt to help us—”
“Mrs. Britt? What about us?” Fiona’s big eyes got bigger. “Hello—Vincent’s king of the computer geeks. I have a program that shows you how to make websites—I was gonna surprise you with one for the Corn—for us.”
“I didn’t even know you liked websites, Sophie,” Darbie said.
Even her pronouncing it “Soophie” the way she always did didn’t make her sound any friendlier at the moment, as far as Sophie was concerned. She looked at each of them, with their arms folded and their eyes all slit-like. Willoughby was wrapping a curl around her finger so tight it was turning blue.
“She doesn’t care about websites,” Maggie said. “Neither do I. I don’t even have a computer at home.”
It doesn’t have anything to do with you! Sophie thought.
But she didn’t say it. After all, she never did anything that didn’t have something to do with them.
Sophie looked at Fiona, whose magic gray eyes were obviously waiting for something. Sophie just wasn’t sure what. Thankfully the second warning bell rang. Sophie dived for her backpack, banging her forehead on the table.
“You okay?” Jimmy said.
“Uh-huh,” Sophie said.
“Here.” Jimmy held out her backpack. Sophie took it, smiled, and ran.
There was no time to talk to Darbie and Fiona during their first-and-second-period language arts/social studies block. But the minute the bell rang and they were headed for third-period PE, Darbie was all over Sophie in the hall.
“You okay, Sophie?” she said in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Jimmy’s. Her dark eyes were dancing. “Let me get that backpack for you.” She flexed her arm muscles.
Sophie rolled her eyes at her and glanced nervously at Fiona. Her eyes were not dancing, and that prickled up the back of Sophie’s neck. “Oh, thank you, darling,” Sophie said to Darbie, in a voice she hoped sounded like a romance novel.
Willoughby hurried up to them, dragging Maggie behind her. Even her hair was in exclamation points.
“I know you can’t have a boyfriend, Sophie,” she said. “But Jimmy really likes you!”
“Not only can’t I have a boyfriend,” Sophie said, “I don’t want a boyfriend.”
“That’s a good thing,” somebody said, “because you’ll never get one.”
Sophie didn’t have to turn around to know it was Julia Cummings, queen of the Corn Pops. Julia sailed past, thick auburn hair swishing across her shoulders. She didn’t look at Sophie, either, but Anne-Stuart, Julia’s second-in-command, cast Sophie a watery-eyed look and sniffed. Sophie had never seen skinny, everything-pale Anne-Stuart when she didn’t need a tissue.
“You know that isn’t true, Sophie,” Willoughby said when the Pops were gone. “You could so have Jimmy for a boyfriend if you wanted one.”
“I don’t want one!” Sophie cried.
Darbie’s eyes sparked mischief.
“But the Corn Pops don’t know that, do they?” she said.
Four
Willoughby’s eyes grew to dinner-plate size. “You mean we’re going to make them think Jimmy and Sophie are going out?”
“That would be lying.” Maggie looked at Sophie. “Wouldn’t it?”
They all, even Fiona, looked at Sophie, who grinned at the image in her mind of the Corn Pops with their mouths hanging open like chimpanzees because they believed their favorite target had a boyfriend.
“We would just be playing,” Sophie said finally.
“And if they can’t figure that out,” Darbie said, “that’s their problem.”
They stopped outside the girls’ locker-room door.
“Is everybody in?” Darbie said.
“I’m not gonna do it,” Maggie said. “But I won’t give it away.”
Willoughby gave one of her shrieks that always sounded to Sophie like a poodle yelping. “I probably won’t be able to stop laughing.”
Fiona arched an eyebrow at her. “So what else is new?”
“B.J. and Cassie are behind us,” Darbie whispered.
Fiona put her lips close to Sophie’s ear. “You don’t really like Jimmy, do you? I mean, boyfriend-girlfriend?”
“No!” Sophie said. “Ewww!”
Fiona knotted up her pink rosebud of a mouth. “It really would be excellent to freak out the Corn Pops—it wouldn’t be mean.”
“Hurry up!” Darbie whispered.
Fiona’s eyes took on their magic shine. “Come on, Soph, dish,” she said in a too-loud voice. They pushed through the door and headed for their locker row. “Did Jimmy ask you out or not?”
Sophie’s prickles disappeared. “I’ll never tell,” she said. Her voice squeaked, which it always did when she was about to give way to giggles. Willoughby already had.
“He’s a fine bit of stuff, Sophie,” Darbie said.
“What’s that mean?” Maggie said.
“It means he’s a hottie,” Fiona said as she twirled the dial on her lock. “Right, Soph?”
“Total hottie,” Sophie said.
Several lockers down, Julia laughed and fluffed her hair out of the neck of the GMMS T-shirt she’d just pulled over her head.
“Like she even knows what a hottie is,” Cassie said in a coarse whisper. She rolled her close-together eyes.
Fiona winked at Sophie over the top of her open locker door. “Come on, Soph. Tell us how you feel about him.”
“We’re your best friends,” Willoughby said, and then buried her face in her wadded-up sweater.
Sophie gave an elaborate sigh. “All right, if you must know …”
All of the Flakes, including Maggie, leaned toward her. Sophie sneaked a glance at the Pops. Their bodies were tilted in her direction too.
“Well?” Fiona said.
“Sophie, we’re desperate to know,” Darbie said.
Sophie closed her eyes and tried to remember something she’d heard on the soap opera Mama watched when she was really bored. If they were going to drive the Corn Pops nuts, she had to be convincing.
“I think …” she said.
Corn Flake heads nodded.
“No, I don’t think—I know—it’s real this time.” Sophie put her hand on her chest. “I’m in love.”
Willoughby gave the poodle shriek. The bell rang for roll check. The Pops pushed past them, faces looking ready to burst like water balloons.
When they were gone, the Corn Flakes jumped up into one big high five.
“We got them,” Sophie cried.
Fiona smacked her palm twice. “We got them good!”
They were still laughing when they reached the gym and staggered into their roll-check line. The Corn Pops, in the next line over, stared at Sophie, lower lips hanging, just the way Sophie had imagined. And then Julia moved hers.
“Hey, Sophie,” she said.
Sophie was a little surprised. That was the second time today Julia had said something to her. Ever since the Pops had been kicked off the cheerleading squad for being mean, they barely spoke to the Flakes. They knew if they bullied the Corn Flakes at all, they would be suspended forever.
“I just want to say something,” Julia said.
Sophie shrugged. “So say it.”
Behind her, Darbie whispered, “Look out. She’s wretched because Jimmy likes you and not her.”
&n
bsp; “And you can’t go running to the Tattletale Table.” Julia flung her hair over her shoulder with her head. “Because I’m just expressing my opinion.”
“It’s a free country,” B.J. put in. She narrowed her eyes below her buttery-blonde bangs so hard that her pudgy cheeks drew upward.
Julia gave the hair another fling. “I just don’t think it’s fair that you and Jimmy Wythe are the only seventh graders that got to go to that conference. Tod is class president, and I’m vice president. We’re, like, the real leaders of the class.”
“Coach Yates alert,” Cassie said between clenched teeth.
Behind Julia, Anne-Stuart snapped a cell phone closed and stuffed it in the pocket of her hoodie. Julia handed hers off to Cassie, who stuck it in the elastic of her track pants.
“It seems like you’re trying to take everything away from us,” Julia said.
Sophie would have felt sorry for her if Julia’s eyes hadn’t clearly said what her mouth didn’t: You just aren’t cool enough, Sophie LaCroix.
So Sophie shrugged again. “I’m not trying to take anything away from you. Honest. You don’t have anything I want.”
While Julia was still blinking at her, Sophie knelt down and retied her shoe. Within a heartbeat, Fiona was squatted next to her.
“That was spectacular,” she whispered.
“It was just the truth,” Sophie whispered back. “I don’t want to be her. I just want to be me.”
Coach Yates gave a blast on her whistle, and Sophie and Fiona bolted up.
“All right, people,” Coach Yates yelled. She yelled everything, but Sophie had discovered that in spite of how mean she looked with her graying ponytail pulled too tight and that evil whistle always at the ready, Coach cared about the kids. She just did it at full volume. Sophie didn’t think she deserved her nickname, Coach Hates.
“We’re starting a gymnastics unit today!” she hollered. “You’ll be in groups of five with one student aide—”
Before the Corn Flakes could even grab onto each other, she added, “Coach Nanini and I have assigned the groups.”