by Nancy N. Rue
“You mean we’ll have boys in our group?” Maggie whispered. Sophie thought her Cuban-brown face looked a little pale.
“Group One!” Coach Yates yelled. “Darbie O’Grady. Anne-Stuart Riggins. Sophie LaCroix. Nathan Coffey. And Edward Wornom.”
No! Sophie wanted to yell back at her. How could the coaches do this to her? They both know Eddie blames me for every scrap of trouble he ever got into! They both know he’ll be heinous to me!
Arguing with Coach Yates only got a person after-school detention. Maybe she could talk to Coach Virile.
But Coach Virile was walking toward Group One’s mat with his arm around Eddie’s shoulders, their heads close as he talked. It didn’t look like Coach was warning Eddie. It looked more like he was pumping him up for the Olympics.
Darbie tucked her arm through Sophie’s. “This is going to be murder,” she said. “I hope the coaches keep their eyes on him.”
There aren’t enough eyes in this whole school to stop Eddie Wornom, Sophie thought.
Coach Yates was still calling out groups when Darbie and Sophie got to their station. Right in the middle of the Group Six announcement, somebody let out a squeal that echoed through the gym like screeching tires.
It was Julia, literally doing cartwheels toward the Group Six mat, where Jimmy was waiting. Sophie could see the red spots already oozing onto his cheeks.
“I don’t think that’s because Jimmy’s a gymnastics champion,” Darbie said.
Willoughby tapped Sophie’s shoulder as she ran past her. “Me and Maggie and Fiona are in Group Six too. We’ll protect Jimmy for you.”
“Student aides are going to teach you the forward roll,” Coach Yates yelled, and then gave an extra-long toot on the whistle.
“Who’s going to protect us?” Darbie whispered as they hurried toward their mat.
“We just have to keep our power to be ourselves,” Sophie said.
Darbie snapped a ponytail holder around her hair and muttered, “Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be enough.”
Sophie tried not to agree with her, even in her mind. No, she told herself, we can do this. We have to start with Step One in anti-bullying: ignore him.
A solid-looking eighth-grade girl named Pepper—who had a curved-in waist and thighs bigger than Sophie’s hips—demonstrated the forward roll for them and told everybody to try it.
Eddie volunteered to go first.
“Get ready for some eejit thing,” Darbie whispered.
Sophie nodded. Eddie did everything the idiot way.
Eddie knelt at the end of the mat, tucked his head under just the way Pepper had told them, and rolled over twice. When he stood up, his gym shorts were down around his hips, revealing a pair of plaid boxers underneath.
“Nobody needs to see that,” Darbie whispered.
“Woo-hoo, Eddie!” Anne-Stuart said with the customary sniff.
Eddie hitched up the shorts and said to Pepper, “Sorry. These are from before I lost weight. I’ll get new ones.”
“You did lose weight,” Anne-Stuart purred. She sounded to Sophie like a cat with a sinus problem. “You look good, Eddie.”
Eddie shrugged one shoulder and sat down. Sophie and Darbie stared at each other.
He must’ve learned to be sneakier in military school, Sophie thought. She shivered. This was worse than Eddie just picking her up and trying to stuff her into the garbage. At least back then she had known what she was dealing with.
The Flakes discussed it at lunch.
“Like I said in my email,” Fiona told them, “we’re going to have to be more vigilant than ever.”
“Does vigilant mean ‘careful’?” Maggie said.
“It means don’t take your eyes off him if he’s within a mile of you.”
Maggie frowned. “I can’t see a whole mile.”
“That’s why we have to work together,” Fiona said. “Report all suspicious Eddie activities to each other, and if we find out something outside of school, we have to email each other.”
“I don’t have a computer, remember?” Maggie said.
Willoughby slung an arm around her. “That really stinks,” she said.
“I feel like I don’t know what’s going on sometimes.”
“I hate that for you,” Fiona said.
Darbie put her mini-can of Pringles in front of Maggie. “Don’t worry, Mags. We won’t let you miss anything.”
“Mags can’t possibly keep up if she’s not online,” Fiona told Sophie when they were walking to fifth-period science. “Nobody can. I think I can fix that, though.”
Cynthia Cyber nodded at her generous assistant, Dot Com. She was as rich as any of the cyber bullies, but she used her money only for good. If she could get their loyal but computerless staff member online somehow, what strides they could make together in cleaning up the Internet for good. After all, Maga Byte knew all the rules and wasn’t afraid to point out when they weren’t being followed—
Sophie found herself staring into her science book. Cynthia Cyber was so cool. Maybe there was a way she could fit Dot Com and Maga Byte into the website too.
But that thought was interrupted by Mr. Stires raising his voice. Mr. Stires, their round-faced, bald-headed teacher, was always so cheerful even his toothbrush mustache looked happy. He never spoke above a chuckle.
But right now he was barking. “Why are you using cell phones in my class?”
By the time he stopped in front of Julia and Anne-Stuart, his face was as red as Nathan’s. And that was red.
“They’re probably text-messaging,” Vincent said.
“We are not,” Julia said with a roll of her eyes.
Anne-Stuart, of course, sniffed.
“What’s text-messaging?” Maggie whispered, but Fiona shook her head.
“May I see, please?” Mr. Stires said.
Anne-Stuart thrust her phone toward him. Julia smiled up, both hands busy with hers under the desktop. Mr. Stires stared at Anne-Stuart’s display window amid the somebody’sin-trouble silence in the room.
“This looks like a website,” Mr. Stires said.
“It is,” Anne-Stuart said. “We were web browsing for our science homework.” She delivered a stony stare to Vincent. “And we found one on E. coli.”
“Isn’t it interesting?” Julia said to Mr. Stires.
“I’m more fascinated by the fact that you can web-browse with your cell phone.” Mr. Stires chuckled. “I’ve read about them, but I haven’t seen one yet.”
“Look at it all you want,” Anne-Stuart said.
Fiona scribbled something on a piece or paper and snapped it onto Sophie’s desk.
I’m appalled by what they get away with, it said.
Me too, Sophie wrote back.
Vincent looked openly over their shoulders. “If you had cell phones, you could text-message that to each other. You know that’s what they were doing.”
Sophie leaned across the aisle toward Jimmy. “We have to put stuff about text-messaging on our website.”
“No doubt,” he said.
Sophie caught Fiona looking from one of them to the other. Her eyes went flatter and flatter, until they were no more than suspicious dashes. Fiona scribbled on the note paper and thrust it onto Sophie’s desk.
I thought you said you didn’t LIKE him, like him, it said.
As Sophie crumpled up the note, she wished for the first time ever that she had a cell phone. She could almost see the text message: I DON’T WANT JIMMY FOR A BOYFRIEND!!!!!!!
But watching Fiona slant her gaze over at Jimmy, Sophie wasn’t sure even that would do it.
Five
Sophie decided it was a really good thing it was Wednesday and they had Bible study after school. Not only was way-cool Dr. Peter Topping their teacher, but he used to be Sophie’s therapist. That meant he could help the Flakes deal with just about any problem by using the Jesus stories.
As the Flakes rode to the church in Fiona’s family’s big Expedition, with
Boppa driving, Sophie tried to decide which of her problems to ask Dr. Peter about.
There was Eddie Wornom’s coming back to school, acting like he was any normal person, when Sophie knew better. It was like waiting for a snake to strike.
Just as bad in a different way, there was the thing of doing a website instead of a movie. It was turning out to be sort of fun, but not like it would be to become Cynthia Cyber and banish a bully from the Internet with fire in her eyes. Or lasers—
But the issue that niggled at her the most was Fiona.
I really want to talk about THAT one at Bible study, Sophie thought. But how am I going to do it with her sitting right there?
When they first arrived there was no time to talk about anything, not with so much going on.
Willoughby surprised them by showing up. She hadn’t been to Bible study since she’d made cheerleader in September.
“Ms. Hess is only having cheerleading practice twice a week now,” she said. “And my dad said he really wanted me to come back to this.”
She gave Dr. Peter a shiny smile. Sophie knew Dr. P. was working with Willoughby and her dad on some family stuff, which, as far as Sophie was concerned, meant everything was going to be just fine.
Kitty was there too. Since the Flakes didn’t get to see her every day, there was a lot of hugging that had to be done. Dr. Peter made sure frail Kitty with her chemotherapy-puffed face was settled in the pink beanbag chair before all of that started. She got to come to Bible study only if she was feeling not-too-awful, and Dr. Peter liked to keep her that way.
He is the best, the best, the best, Sophie thought as she watched him wrinkle his nose to scoot his glasses up and twinkle his blue eyes at the hugging.
When Gill and Harley arrived, he high-fived both of them and plunked Harley’s Redskins cap on top of his short, gelled-stiff curls to see how Sophie thought he looked in it.
He always knows what to do for every person, she thought. That decided it. She would talk to him about Fiona after class.
As soon as they all were in their every-one-a-different-color beanbags, Fiona’s hand shot up. Sophie froze. Fiona was not going to bring up Jimmy, was she?
“Shoot, Fiona,” Dr. Peter said. He rubbed his hands together like somebody was about to give him a big, juicy cheeseburger.
“I have several issues, actually.” Fiona looked at Sophie. “But let’s start with this one: Eddie Wornom is back.” Fiona held up her palms. “Need I say more?”
Sophie let out all her air.
“Up to his old tricks, is he?” Dr. Peter said.
“That’s the problem,” Darbie said. “He’s acting the perfect gentleman.” She nodded at the girls, who all nodded with her.
“He’s definitely up to something,” Fiona said.
“Being a gentleman.” Dr. Peter’s eyes looked like they were going to twinkle right through his glasses. “That’s pretty low.”
“It’s just an act,” Maggie said.
Dr. Peter raised his eyebrows. “And we know this because—”
“Because he isn’t capable of being anything but heinous,” Fiona said. “He’s proved it, like, a million times.”
Willoughby gave half a poodle yelp. Kitty whimpered. Harley grunted.
“Looks like we’re all in agreement on that,” Dr. Peter said. “And I think I have just the story to help us sort this out.”
Sophie snatched up the Bible from the floor next to her seat, the one with the purple cover to match her beanbag. She loved this part, where Dr. Peter asked them to imagine they were somebody in the story while he read it out loud.
“Matthew chapter 18,” he said. “We’ll start at verse 23.”
“Who do we have to be?” Maggie said.
“Not somebody evil, I hope,” Sophie said. “I don’t like it when we have to be the Pharisees.”
“Those blackguards,” Darbie said.
Dr. Peter grinned. “I wish you girls wouldn’t hold back on expressing how you feel. No Pharisees this time. I want you to imagine that you are the forgiven servant.”
Sophie closed her eyes and immediately pictured herself in a butler’s uniform like she’d seen in a movie once, with a black bow tie and tails on her jacket. She knew they didn’t wear those in Bible times, but Dr. Peter always said to go with the visual that made the story clear. Servants in Sophie’s world were butlers with towels over their arms, always bowing and saying, “As you wish, madam.”
Dr. Peter cleared his throat and read. “ ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.’”
“You mean, like bank accounts?” Gill said.
“More like loan accounts,” Dr. Peter said. “The master’s servants often borrowed money from him, and it was time for them to pay him back.”
“Okay. Go on,” Gill said.
“‘As he began the settlement,’” Dr. Peter read, “‘a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him.’”
“How much is that?” Maggie said.
A lot, Sophie thought. Can we get on with the story?
“Between fifteen and twenty million dollars,” Dr. Peter said.
Gill whistled.
“‘Since he was not able to pay—’”
“You think?” Willoughby did the poodle thing. “Where’s a servant going to get millions of dollars?”
“Exactly,” Dr. Peter said. “Shall we go further?”
Please! Sophie thought. It was hard to keep Jenkins the Butler in view with all these interruptions.
“‘Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.’”
Jenkins/Sophie fell frozen to the floor. Sell his family—his babies? He buried his face in his hands. He would rather die than be separated from them.
“‘The servant’—that’s you, ladies—‘fell on his knees before him. “Be patient with me,” he begged, “and I will pay back everything.”’”
Then Jenkins/Sophie flattened himself on the rug before the master, barely daring to breathe unless the master told him to. After all, his whole life was in this powerful man’s hands—and not just HIS life.
“‘The servant’s master took pity on him,’” Dr. Peter read on, “‘canceled the debt and let him go.’”
Jenkins/Sophie could hardly believe what he’d heard. He stayed facedown, gasping for air and breathing in rug fibers. Choking and shaking, he pulled himself back up to his knees and clasped his hands over the front of his starched white shirt, now stained with tears. “Thank you, sir,” he cried. “Thank you—thank you—thank you.”
“‘But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.’”
Maggie said, “How much—”
“Just a few dollars,” Dr. Peter said. “About a day’s wages for a servant. ‘He’—well, you, the servant—‘grabbed him and began to choke him. “Pay back what you owe me!” he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.” But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.’”
Sophie’s eyes flew open. “I don’t want to imagine myself doing that!” she said. “That’s heinous!”
“You aren’t the only one who thinks so,” Dr. Peter said. “Let’s read on.”
“I hope this guy’s lips get ripped off or something,” Gill muttered.
“‘When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.’”
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Willoughby said.
“‘Then the master called the servant in.’” Dr. Peter paused.
Jenkins/Sophie felt his stomach tighten. Had the master changed his mind? Or was he going to congratulate him for sticking to the rules about people owing you money? Straightening his bow tie, Jenkins/Sophie marched up to the maste
r and said, “How can I help you, sir?”
“‘You wicked servant!’” Dr Peter’s voice gave Sophie—and Jenkins—a jolt.
Jenkins/Sophie lowered his head and stared at the very rug where only a few hours ago he had felt so relieved, so free.
“‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers.’”
Jenkins/Sophie felt a shock go through him. He couldn’t even move his lips to beg. Besides, he knew it would do no good.
“He got what he deserved,” Maggie said.
“Did he go to prison for the rest of his life?” Kitty said. Her voice was quivery. She got into the Bible stories almost as much as Sophie did.
“He would be a slave for six years, he and his family,” Dr. Peter said. “Not fun.”
“So this story means don’t borrow money and get in debt,” Fiona said. “Like, with credit cards and stuff.”
“What if we substitute the word sin for the word debt?” Dr. Peter said. “How does that work in verse 32?”
Sophie followed it on the Bible page with her finger.
“‘I canceled all that [sin] of yours because you begged me to,’ “ Darbie read out loud. “‘Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’”
“Now,” Dr. Peter said, rubbing his hands together again, “if we put ‘God’ in place of ‘he,’ the master, what does the story mean?”
Sophie read it to herself. “You wicked servant,” [God] said. “I canceled all that [sin] of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I, [God], had on you?”
Something pinged in her head.
“You get it, don’t you, Sophie-Lophie-Loodle?” Dr. Peter said.
“God forgives us for our sins,” Sophie said, “so we should forgive other people for theirs.”
“A round of applause for Loodle!”
“I totally get that,” Fiona said when they were finished clapping. “What I don’t get is what that has to do with Eddie Wornom. No offense or anything.”
“None taken.” Dr. Peter leaned forward in his beanbag, forearms dangling over his knees. “Looks like we need to watch our Eddie and see how it fits.”