Sophie and the New Girl

by Nancy N. Rue

  “The Cubans that escaped from Cuba and went to Miami in the 1960s didn’t even get discriminated against like the blacks did,” she said. “People thought they were heroes because they left that loser Castro to come here.” She tossed her bangs. “They just set up their Little Havana and lived it up.”

  “That’s not what it says,” Fiona said without looking at her.

  Phoebe moved to stand behind Vincent at the next computer. “Yes, it does. Right there, it basically says the Cubans that left Communist Cuba were rich and all the Americans accepted them because they kept to themselves.” She looked at Maggie. “Are you rich?”

  “No,” Maggie said.

  “Didn’t think so.” Phoebe stuck her tongue thoughtfully into her tooth-gap. “So how come you’re not?”

  Willoughby nudged Sophie. “Do we have to let her be rude?” she whispered.

  Sophie almost squirmed right out of her chair. Jesus, she squeezed out, help Phoebe know when to shut up. This was definitely the hardest thing Dr. Peter had ever asked them to do.

  Jimmy looked up from the book he was poring over across the table from Sophie.

  “Hey, Maggie, when did you come to the United States?” he said.

  “I was born here.” Maggie’s words thudded harder than usual. “My mom came in 1980. She was twelve.”

  “Our same age!” Sophie said. A character for Maggie began to form in her head. A character Liberty Lawhead could protect …

  The little senora — or was it senorita? — blinked her dark, Cuban eyes up at Liberty. They begged silently for acceptance. “I know you aren’t rich,” Liberty said, “but you will find no discrimination here.”

  Sophie propped her chin in her hand. That was the problem, though. They could show that the Civil Rights Movement had worked for the Cubans, but that wouldn’t make a very hot movie.

  “Did you say 1980?” Nathan was at the computer farthest away from the table. His ears went radish-colored immediately as everyone looked at him.

  “That’s what she said.” Phoebe bounced in sideways steps to get behind him. The tops of his ears got even redder as she got closer. “Did you find something good?”

  “No,” he said.

  Sophie saw his fingers swarm over the keys like bees. But Phoebe grabbed one of his hands and stared, mouth hanging open, at the computer screen.

  “ ‘Marielitos,’ ” Phoebe read. “ ‘Fidel Castro, Cuban dictator, allowed 125,000 people to leave the port of Mariel, Cuba, for Miami between April and October 1980. Most were unskilled and uneducated. Many were prisoners and patients from mental institutions.’ ” She looked like she wanted to lick her chops. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

  “Maggie’s mom probably wasn’t like that,” Jimmy said quickly.

  “Hello!” Sophie said. “She was twelve years old!”

  Vincent, who had been clacking away at his keyboard ever since Phoebe uttered the word Marielitos, said, “Dude, this could be good movie stuff. It says here the people in Miami didn’t accept them like they did the Cubans that came in the 1960s. Even the Cubans that were already there didn’t want them. They were lowlifes.”

  Phoebe curled one of her smiles at Maggie. “Oh,” she said.

  “Excuse me,” Darbie said, “but Senora LaQuita is not a ‘lowlife.’ ”

  “And since we’re doing a movie about her and Maggie,”

  Fiona put in, “this Marielito thing won’t work anyway.”

  Maggie stared at the stack of books she had just put on the table. The nothingness on her face made the back of Sophie’s neck feel like it was being stuck with tacks.

  “So keep looking, you guys,” Sophie said.

  Phoebe grabbed her hoodie, the one that said BRAT on the back. “I give you brain children one more day to find something juicy for our movie,” she said. “But personally, I think this is it. See ya.”

  “I’m telling you, Sophie,” Fiona said when Phoebe was gone, “I don’t see how I’m going to hold up the Code much longer.”

  Sophie ran her hand over her hair-spikes. “Dr. Peter said to pray for her and not judge her,” she said. “And whatever that other thing was.”

  “When is it supposed to start working?” Darbie said.

  Maggie didn’t say anything. Her silence was like a thud of its own.

  “She’s probably wrong about this being a good movie for our project anyway,” Vincent said, still squinting at the computer screen. “Technically, the way the people in Miami treated the Marielitos isn’t discrimination.” He cocked his head like he was studying a math problem. “Who would want a bunch of crooks and crazies — ”

  “Vincent,” Fiona said. She kept her eyes on Maggie.

  “Yeah?”

  “Stop talking.”

  Maggie backed away from the table, her own dark eyes so blank it was scary. “You got it messed up,” she said.

  “No,” Vincent said, “it’s right here on the Net.”

  “Would you hush?” Sophie turned to Maggie. “Your mom wasn’t a Marielito, so it doesn’t matter. We aren’t doing the film on that — ”

  “It does matter,” Maggie said. Sophie had never heard Maggie’s words fall so hard. “The Internet doesn’t even know — ”

  And then she turned with a squeal of her sneaker and was gone.

  “That went well,” Vincent said.

  “Shut up!” they all said to him.

  There was no time to go after Maggie because the late bus would be there any minute. Besides, Sophie reminded the Corn Flakes, when Maggie had hurt feelings, she usually needed time to simmer before people got in her face.

  “I wasn’t even gonna let that Phoebe girl see the website,” Nathan said as they left the library. He put on the Redskins cap he always wore when he wasn’t in class. It covered the ears that now looked like the inside of a watermelon.

  “Let her?” Fiona said with a flare of her nostrils. “She practically took your hand off!”

  “She’s pushy, that one,” Darbie said.

  Sophie didn’t remind them about the Code again. She was having a little trouble upholding it herself.

  But I personally must follow the directions of Dr. Barton Gunther Prince Jr., Liberty Lawhead told herself as she left the Civil Rights for All building. Even if it doesn’t feel like Diva Dramatica is truly worthy of our support.

  Liberty drew herself up to her statuesque height and headed for her limousine. She must remember that Diva needed prayer — and whatever else the great doctor had said. Swinging her briefcase briskly at her side, she — “

  Watch it, freak!”

  Sophie pulled her backpack against herself just before it smacked into Eddie Wornom’s knees. He stood between her and the late bus, eyes bugging out.

  “Sorry.” Sophie’s voice squeaked. She made a mental note to sound more like Liberty Lawhead, or at least like Ms. Hess.

  “You oughta be sorry,” Eddie said, and he moved a step closer.

  He smells like one big armpit, Sophie thought, holding her breath.

  “It’s ’cause of you I hadda hang out with Coach Nanini,” Eddie said. “I coulda used that time to get in shape for basketball tryouts.”

  Sophie choked back the words. There isn’t that much time left in the world.

  “I’m gettin’ my dad to come down here and get me off this stupid Campus Concentration thing.”

  “Campus Commission,” Sophie said.

  “Shut up! It’s stupid, because you thought it up!”

  “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,” said a familiar voice behind Sophie. “Why are you making a holy show of yourself in front of everybody?”

  “Huh?” Eddie said to Darbie.

  Fiona pulled Sophie back so Darbie could wedge herself between Sophie and Eddie.

  “Everybody’s starin’ at you,” Darbie said into his baffled face. “You want them to think you’re an eejit?”

  “What’s an eejit?” Eddie said, then he lowered his head like a bull and practically snorted.
“I don’t care what it is, I ain’t that.”

  Then with an actual snort, he stomped away.

  “Did he say something heinous to you before we got here, Soph?” Fiona’s gray eyes were like thunderclouds.

  “He just blames me because he got caught being heinous,” Sophie said.

  Darbie shook her head. “You know what, Sophie? Even you couldn’t dream up somebody who was that much of an ee — ”

  “Corn Flake Code,” Fiona and Sophie droned together.

  Eddie can blame me all he wants, Sophie thought as she boarded the bus. But I’m gonna help make this a safe place for everybody to go to school. That was what Liberty Lawhead would do.

  And right now, that seemed to include Maggie. They weren’t going to do a movie about the evil Marielitos, but there was still something about them even talking about it that had done more than make Maggie nervous. Sophie knew her fellow Corn Flake. When Maggie shut down, she was feeling extra bad inside.

  That night, Sophie talked to Jesus about that. And about keeping her from smacking Zeke because he’d drawn Spider-Man webs all over her math homework while she was downstairs doing her English on the computer. And about the possibility of Eddie Wornom being miraculously turned into a Lucky Charm by Coach Virile.

  She talked to Jesus about everything she could think of so she wouldn’t have to talk to him about Phoebe. But finally, with Jesus’ kind eyes waiting patiently, she prayed to him, I know you love her just like you do us because she’s a lost sheep and all that. I just hope you find her soon — because she’s trying to take over everything like she’s the boss of the world.

  She tried to leave it at that, but his eyes were still waiting.

  Okay, she thought to him, then please help me remember what that other thing was that Dr. Peter said we’re supposed to do. Because it’s getting way hard not to judge her.

  Sophie fell asleep praying that Jesus would make her more like Liberty Lawhead. That, she decided, was the only way this was going to work.

  The Corn Flakes didn’t see Maggie before school the next day, and she was late for PE, so they couldn’t talk to her in the locker room, either. Willoughby said she’d been called to the office at the end of second period and left without a word. Evidently Maggie was still simmering, and Sophie was beyond squirmy. It didn’t help that Phoebe pestered the Corn Flakes all during PE.

  “So, did you come up with anything really delicious for our movie? It has to be something totally dramatic, you know, like someone gets thrown in jail or somebody gets murdered. We should have taken the Puerto Ricans in New York for this project. They get knifed all the time, and I know how to fake a stabbing and make phony blood that looks totally real —”

  “I’ll go mental if I have to listen to that girl for one more minute,” Darbie said on the way to fourth period.

  “We have to remember that she’s lost,” Sophie said without much enthusiasm.

  “Not lost enough, if you ask me,” Fiona said.

  Sophie could hardly concentrate in math class, and when Miss Imes announced that Film Club was having an urgent meeting during lunch, Sophie gave up completely.

  I bet Maggie told her we were accusing her mom of being a criminal or something, Sophie thought. Maggie wouldn’t even listen to us …

  Liberty Lawhead shook her head. It was so difficult to fight for a person’s civil rights when that person went off angry and didn’t get all the necessary information. “Ignorance is the root of prejudice,” Liberty Lawhead always said. Well, she wasn’t the first one to say it, but she lived by it as no other civil rights leader did in these evil times. She would simply have to find a way to make the young senorita listen to her. First she would have to find out where she was hiding —

  “Soph, look who’s here.”

  Sophie shook herself back to Fiona, who stood next to her desk, nudging her with a pencil.

  “Did you find Maggie?” Sophie said.

  “What? No — look.”

  Sophie turned her gaze toward the door. Miss Imes stood in the doorway. With her was Maggie’s mother.

  “That can’t be good,” Sophie said.

  “You know it,” Fiona said.

  Seven

  When the lunch bell rang, the rest of the Film Club arrived in curious bunches and sat in the front-row seats. Sophie didn’t take her eyes off Maggie’s mom.

  Sitting in a chair at the front of the room, Senora LaQuita wasn’t wearing her usual smooth expression. Her coffee-with-milk-colored forehead was in folds, her lips pressed together in a line. Sophie had seen her angry look before, and this wasn’t it.

  She doesn’t look like she wants to hug all of us, either, Sophie thought as she slid into a desk. She probably hadn’t brought them any flan.

  Sophie looked at Maggie, who sat a little apart from the rest of the group, eyes on her mom, face still showing nothing. Sophie felt squirmier than ever.

  Liberty Lawhead folded her hands neatly on the desk and collected her thoughts. It was obvious that the Cuban senora was here to accuse them, the most conscientious civil rights workers on the planet, of discriminating against her and her daughter. I will simply tell her that we do not believe the information we have collected is about her, Liberty decided. Surely with her low, cool voice she would be able to soothe the senora into listening.

  “Why is the cleaning lady here?” Phoebe muttered, landing in the desk next to Sophie.

  Sophie glared at Phoebe. “That’s Maggie’s mom,” she whispered.

  “Oh.” Phoebe leaned close to Sophie’s ear. “I see a Mexican woman around here, I figure she must be on the janitor’s staff.”

  “She’s Cuban.” Sophie’s whisper-voice squeaked out of hearing range.

  Miss Imes leaned against the front of her desk, and all whispers shushed. “We understand that you’ve uncovered some information in your research,” she said, “but that there are some holes in your facts.”

  “I must be outta the loop,” Phoebe said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re about to find out,” Mr. Stires said without his usual chuckle.

  “Maggie?” Miss Imes said. “Why don’t you start?”

  This time, Sophie squirmed for Maggie. She knew that talking in front of people was not one of Maggie’s favorite activities.

  Maggie’s face still didn’t change as she turned her eyes on the club members and dropped her words like clumps of wet cement.

  “My mom was a Marielito,” she said. “But they weren’t all criminals and crazy people like everybody thought.”

  Fiona opened her mouth, but Miss Imes said, “Just listen. Senora LaQuita has agreed to tell you what it was like for her when she left Cuba. Then there can be no mistake.”

  The way Senora LaQuita was pulling herself up to her full height reminded Sophie of Liberty Lawhead. It riveted Sophie’s attention.

  “Gracias. Thank you.” The senora lifted her chin. “My English is no very good, but I will try to explain.”

  Even though Senora LaQuita pronounced “ex” like “es,” Sophie wanted to cry out, Your English is beautiful. Beside her, Phoebe grunted.

  “My father,” the senora began, “he did no like Fidel Castro. Our life in Cuba — ”

  She pronounced it “Cooba,” Sophie noticed. “It was very hard. We could no go to the church. I could no get good education because — ” She frowned and said something in Spanish. “We were no like Castro. When he say anybody can go to America, my father, he build a boat for us.”

  Sophie suddenly felt as if she’d never really seen Senora LaQuita before. This senora was a hero, the kind movies were made about. As she told her story, the scenes unfolded in Sophie’s mind.

  A scene where a twelve-year-old girl and her mother and carpenter father boarded a leaky, lopsided raft held together by tires. Her face was all shiny with hope for a life in America where she could go to any church she wanted.

  A scene where the boat sank with Miami in sight — and
where the girl woke up in a hospital, surrounded by people who babbled in a language she couldn’t understand.

  A scene where she and her mother sat in a city of tents and mourned her father, drowned just a few feet from the Florida shore.

  A scene where her mother tried to find work, but even Cuban Americans didn’t trust her because she had arrived with the Marielitos. They were angry with her because other people from her country had been in Castro’s prisons.

  And a scene where the frightened twelve-year-old Cuban girl learned her first English word. “Scum,” said the American officer as he jerked his thumb toward her and her mother. She only had to see the man’s face to know what it meant.

  The room was silent when Senora LaQuita finished talking. Sophie could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.

  “I think you’ve found your story of discrimination,” Miss Imes said to the group. “Thank you — gracias, Senora LaQuita, for sharing your story with us.”

  Before anyone else could speak, Phoebe said, “Yeah, thanks. That story’ll make a great movie. When do we start?”

  Did somebody die and leave you in charge? Sophie thought. The back of her neck was alive with prickles.

  The Film Club agreed to meet the next day, Saturday, at Darbie’s. But the Corn Flakes spent Friday night there to paint each other’s toenails and write letters to Kitty and make sure their Maggie didn’t think they were heinous.

  “I wasn’t mad at you,” Maggie said while Willoughby applied an exact replica of Sponge Bob to each of Maggie’s two big toenails. “I just couldn’t explain it like my mom did.”

  “She was so beautiful,” Sophie said.

  “Your mom has great nails,” Willoughby said.

  Darbie snickered. “I don’t think that’s what Sophie meant, Willoughby.”

  Willoughby blinked her almost-Frisbee-size eyes, and the Corn Flakes sent up a chorus of giggling snorts. Then they linked pinkies just because.

  The next day, Sophie was glad they’d done that, because working on the movie definitely didn’t feel like Corn Flakes Productions. Not with so many other people involved.