by Nancy N. Rue
“I hate when we have to do it the right way,” Fiona said. “My rotten selfish way is always so much easier.”
Darbie sighed. “All right, let’s stop foostering about. Pinkie promise.”
They locked pinkies. All except Maggie. She left to go to the bathroom.
Sophie tried not to think about that the next morning before school, when Phase One of the Plan went into motion. She went to Mrs. Clayton and told her all about Phoebe and how she thought she needed Round Table help.
As soon as Mrs. Clayton heard Phoebe’s name, she shuffled through some file folders on her desk. “Phoebe Karnes,” she said. “That’s interesting, because she’s already on our schedule. Coach Nanini said she has some anger issues he thinks we should work with.”
Sophie tried to stay businesslike and not grin too big. Now that Coach Virile was with them, it was hard not to giggle right out loud.
Phase Two was getting through PE with Phoebe. Although they still claimed Sophie was nuts, the Corn Flakes agreed to think of Phoebe as a lost sheep.
“Did you get busted for going after Eddie last Friday?” Fiona asked Phoebe when they were in line for roll call.
Sophie bulged her eyes at Fiona.
“That’s Fiona being interested,” Darbie whispered.
“Not yet,” Phoebe said. “I’m supposed to talk to Mr. Unibrow this period, though. I figure he’ll just give me a lecture.”
Coach did call Phoebe aside. That meant the Flakes wouldn’t do anything until Phase Three, their lunchtime filming session. They were ready for that.
According to the Plan, they met on the school steps, the closest thing they had to a courthouse. Sophie and Maggie went to Mr. Stires’ room to get the camera. Mr. Stires was still puttering around with test tubes when they arrived.
“Are you coming out to the filming?” Sophie said.
He chuckled. “Wouldn’t miss it. I was just waiting for you girls.”
“I don’t think we’re gonna be filming today,” Maggie said from the storage room doorway.
“Why not?” Sophie said. “Mags, don’t give up now — ”
“No,” Maggie said. “Your camera’s gone.”
Eleven
What do you mean it’s gone?” Sophie said. Her voice squeaked beyond itself.
“I mean it’s not there,” Maggie said. “I looked everywhere.”
If Maggie said it wasn’t there, it wasn’t there, but Sophie had to double-check anyway. She could almost hear Daddy lecturing her as she stared at the empty place on the shelf.
“Nobody else came and got it?” Sophie said to Mr. Stires.
He shook his bald head. His usually happy mustache drooped. “I don’t let anybody check it in and out but you.”
“Hel-lo-o,” Phoebe said from the doorway. “What’s taking so long?”
Fiona ran into the back of her. “I told her we were supposed to wait for you out there,” she said to Sophie, “but no-o-o, she had to — ”
“The camera’s gone,” Maggie said.
Fiona stared. So did the rest of the group who were now clumped in the doorway.
“You mean, like, stolen?” Willoughby said.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Mr. Stires said.
But Sophie could see by the faces of the Charms and Flakes that they had already made that leap. Fiona had obviously made another one too, because she was driving her eyes into Phoebe. Phoebe herself was fingering her tooth-gap and staring at Maggie.
“All right, folks.” Mr. Stires brushed his fingers back and forth across his mustache about six times. “Let’s fan out and look and make sure it didn’t just get moved.”
“Yeah,” Phoebe muttered, “moved to somebody’s locker.”
They searched Mr. Stires’ classroom and storage area until the end of lunch period, but there was no trace of the camera. Vincent even got a magnifying glass out of his backpack and looked for a stray hair they could use for a DNA sample. Jimmy told him he watched too much TV.
When Miss Imes arrived and got the news, her eyebrows shot almost into her scalp. Sophie had to admit Phoebe was probably right. Somebody had stolen her camera.
Jimmy folded his arms and looked shyly at Sophie. “I’m really sorry this happened,” he said.
“Yeah, bummer,” Nathan said.
Willoughby ran her hand up and down Sophie’s back. “Why would somebody do this?”
“Because they’re heinous,” Fiona said.
“Because they’re eejits,” Darbie said.
Miss Imes shot silence through them with her eyebrows. “Here’s how we’ll handle this,” she said. “Next period I’m going to make an intercom announcement that the camera has gone missing. I’ll ask that it be returned to its original place, no questions asked.”
“Then we can check it for fingerprints,” Vincent said. “I know how to do that.”
“Of course you do,” Miss Imes said, “but ‘no questions asked’ means exactly that. We’ll give our thief a chance to reconsider and make this right.”
“Not gonna happen,” Phoebe said. She gave Maggie one last long look before she exited with a wave of her hand.
She thinks Maggie took it, Sophie thought. She so does!
The back of her neck started to prickle — but she closed her eyes and recited the phases in her head.
1. Tell a grown-up.
2. Remember that Phoebe is a scared lost lamb without a shepherd.
3. Help Maggie stand up for herself with all the good Corn Flake stuff.
That second one was harder than ever at the moment, but Sophie made herself pray for Phoebe like the Flakes had all promised to do. That phase of the Plan was supposed to go on all day.
When the bell for fifth period rang and she opened her eyes, there was a note on her desk, folded Fiona-fashion, like a bird.
What about the Plan now? she’d written.
Before Sophie could get her gel pen out to answer, the speaker box squawked. Miss Imes made her announcement, and the class immediately buzzed like a hive.
“I can tell you exactly who did it,” Julia said.
“Who?” Colton said. His stick-out ears suddenly reminded Sophie of antennae.
Julia cupped her hands around her mouth. Both Colton and Tod leaned so far into the aisle, Sophie was sure they’d end up in Julia’s lap. Sophie had to force herself not to lean too, because she couldn’t see what Julia was mouthing.
“Who’s Fee-Bee?” Colton said, stretching his lips across his teeth.
“That girl who buys her clothes at Kmart,” Anne-Stuart said with the usual sniff. “You know — ” She put her finger up to her two front teeth.
Tod’s face came to a point at his nose. “You mean that chick that tried to slash Eddie’s face with her fingernails?”
Sophie felt her eyes widen, and she turned to Fiona, who was already nodding.
The minute Mr. Stires told the class to pick up their materials for the lab, Sophie got to Fiona with the words already on her lips. “You think Phoebe — ”
“I know she did — ”
“That doesn’t make sense!” Sophie said. “All she wants to do is this movie. Why would she take the — ”
“So she can blame it on Maggie,” Fiona said. “Didn’t you see the way she looked at her?”
Sophie had; she couldn’t deny that.
“Or — and you don’t know this yet — ” Fiona took two test tubes from the tray and pulled Sophie toward their lab station, glancing warily over her shoulder. “When we were all out on the steps waiting for you and Maggie to show up with the camera?”
“Yeah?”
“Phoebe said Coach Nanini told her that she was going to Round Table tomorrow. She said if she got detention and couldn’t work on the movie, somebody was going to pay.” Fiona grabbed two vials of liquid from the tray Gill was passing by with and lowered her voice. “I’m thinking that somebody is you.”
“I still don’t get it — ”
“If we don’t
have the camera, we can’t keep working on the film without her.”
Sophie began to nod. “This film or any other film. We have to tell Miss Imes what we suspect.”
Fiona wiggled her eyebrows. “Unless we can prove it ourselves — ”
“Un-uh,” Sophie said. “We have to do it the right way, or we’re just — ”
“Yeah, yeah, Pharisees.” Fiona flipped open the lab workbook and cut her eyes toward Sophie. “You think she did it, though; I can tell.”
Sophie didn’t answer, but Fiona kept looking at her.
“Okay,” Sophie said finally. “But we have to let the Round Table handle it. And we can’t tell Phoebe we think she’s guilty.”
Fiona bunched up her lips. “I’m gonna have to put duct tape on my mouth.”
“After you tell everybody else in the group to keep quiet about it,” Sophie said. “Right after class, I’m going to Coach Nanini.”
At the end of the period, Sophie raced to Life Skills for a pass from Coach Yates. “Just don’t make a career out of it, LaCroix,” she said. “I want you back here in fifteen.”
Sophie shifted into high gear as she raced down the hall, but at the corner, bony fingers wrapped themselves around her arm. Phoebe hauled her into the girls’ restroom.
“I don’t have time for this!” Sophie said. “I have to — ”
The door slapped closed behind them. Phoebe’s mouth came so close to Sophie’s face, Sophie thought she might fall right into the gap between her teeth. Phoebe took a step forward, and Sophie backed into a sink.
“Everybody thinks I stole your camera,” Phoebe said.
“Who’s ‘everybody’?” Sophie managed to say. Her voice couldn’t have sounded less like Ms. Hess or Liberty Lawhead or anybody else who wasn’t squeaking off the scale.
“Those rich chicks with the manicures,” Phoebe said. “I heard them running their mouths about me in the hall between fifth and sixth. I get to sixth period and everybody’s looking at me like I’m a serial killer or something.”
Sophie could only stare. It always amazed her how fast the Corn Pops worked.
“So I gotta ask you something.” Phoebe raked her bangs out of her eyes with her fingers. “Do you think I did it?”
Sophie opened her mouth, but a tangle of words caught in her throat, and nothing came out.
Phoebe’s eyes searched Sophie’s face. “You do,” she said.
“You don’t even have to say it — I can see.”
Phoebe’s lip curled, but not into a smile. She took two steps backward before she turned and headed straight for the door. When she got there, she stopped and looked over her shoulder at Sophie through her fence of bangs.
“I just thought you were better than most people.” She made a dramatic exit. But Sophie knew that, for once, Phoebe wasn’t acting.
Sophie wasn’t sure how long she stood there, arms wrapped around herself, remembering the look on Phoebe’s face and feeling the cold of the sink through her parachute pants. Two things were for sure. She now knew what a lost lamb looked like. And she knew what a Pharisee felt like.
Sophie stuffed Coach Yates’ pass into the pocket of her hoodie and headed for the door. She’d probably used up ten of her fifteen minutes, but now she had to see Coach Virile more than ever.
He was in the gym, watching lines of eighth-grade boys dribble basketballs up and down the court. The squeal of sneakers was deafening. There were so many long arms and legs dangling between her and Coach Virile, Sophie didn’t see who stood next to him until she was almost on them.
It was Phoebe.
Sophie’s own sneakers squealed as she stopped dead. But Coach Virile’s eyes met hers, and he said something to Phoebe that sent her out onto the court, picking up balls. Coach blew his whistle, and the boys bounded to the bleachers and ran up them, two rows at a time. Coach motioned Sophie toward himself, but now she wasn’t sure she wanted to go. There was no guessing what Phoebe had told him. The worst would be if she had told him the truth.
“Hey, Little Bit,” he said. “You look like a whupped puppy.”
She could hardly hear him over the pounding of feet, but at least she didn’t see disappointment in his eyes.
Tell a grown-up, she could hear herself saying to the Flakes.
So she did — all their suspicions and their reasons and her feeling at that moment like a finger-pointing tattletale.
“I had to tell a grown-up that she was being mean to Maggie and scaring her,” Sophie said. “And I guess she just wanted to get back at me.” She swallowed hard. “Only, how come I feel like maybe she didn’t do it?”
“Because maybe she didn’t.”
He nodded his shiny head toward the court, where Phoebe dragged a bag of basketballs twice her size toward a storage closet. She was bent over like an old woman walking in the wind. Sophie felt a pang inside.
“You don’t think she did?” Sophie said.
“She was with me all third period. She’s in my fourth-period Life Skills class, and we were talking until the last bell rang for lunch. I’m not a detective, but I don’t see where she ever had the chance.” He looked down at Sophie, his one big eyebrow hooding his eyes like a visor. “Proving her innocence isn’t what’s hard for Phoebe right now,” he said. “It’s dealing with the fact that you automatically assumed she was guilty.”
“She automatically assumed Maggie was guilty!”
As soon as she said it, Sophie looked at the floor. “That doesn’t make it right, does it?” she said. “I feel like a heinous Pharisee.”
“Little Bit.”
Sophie looked up. His eyes were kind.
“Why don’t you just tell her that?” he said. A smile twitched at his lips. “Only I don’t think she knows what a Pharisee is. You might want to change that part.”
Sophie felt Phoebe getting closer. When she stopped next to Coach Virile, he pointed to the bottom row of bleachers. They both sat. Coach Virile climbed up to the row behind them and leaned back, arms stretched out.
“I’m here if you need me,” he said.
Need you? Sophie wanted to cry. Do this for me!
Phoebe struck a pose like the victims of kidnapping Sophie had seen on the news, all shaken and brave. Phoebe’s eyes watered, and as her lips headed toward a curl, they trembled. uddenly, it hurt to see her.
“I’m sorry!” Sophie blurted out. “We shouldn’t have suspected you right away — I should have thought about you being a lost sheep — only we were mad at you for being prejudiced against Maggie — only we should have done something sooner — only I was being a Pharisee, and I know you don’t know what that means, but it’s like so heinous and even being nice to you didn’t change the way you treated Maggie — and I know we didn’t try that hard — ”
“Little Bit,” Coach Virile said, “take a breath.”
Sophie tried, but it was hard. Her chest was squeezing in.
“I didn’t steal the camera,” Phoebe said.
“I know,” Sophie said.
Phoebe looked at Coach Virile. “Then are we done?”
“Are we?” Coach Virile said.
For a second, Sophie was confused as Phoebe shook her head and shoved her bangs back. And then Phoebe said, “I don’t know why I act like that to Cuban Girl — ”
“Excuse me?” Coach Virile said.
“Maggie,” Phoebe said. Her bangs fell in her eyes again, and this time she hid behind them. “She just makes me feel scared. It’s like, she’s not like regular people, and that freaks me out.” Her eyes filled up again. “I don’t know why. But he — ” She jerked her head toward Coach Nanini. “He’s gonna help me figure it out — him and that Round Table thing.”
Finally, she looked at Sophie, cringing as if Sophie might slug her.
“I know you hate me,” she said, “but don’t let them give me detention, okay? I want to do this movie really bad — and I don’t want you guys to get a bad grade — and my dad will — ”
It was
as if her voice caught on something in her throat, and the words stuck. Sophie wasn’t sure she could stand to hear them anyway. Not if they matched the fear on Phoebe’s face.
The bell rang, sounding far away, as if it belonged to some other school. But with a start, Sophie remembered Coach Yates.
“I was supposed to be back to class in fifteen minutes!” she said.
“I’ve got your back.” Coach Nanini turned to Phoebe. “You have something you want to say to your film buddies?”
Phoebe looked like she would rather have climbed into the bag with the basketballs, but she nodded. Then there was a silence, the kind where no one knows what to say.
Liberty Lawhead would know exactly what to do right now, Sophie thought.
It was the first time she’d thought about Liberty all day. But come to think of it, she, her Sophie-self, did know what to do.
“I’ll walk with you,” she said to Phoebe.
Coach Nanini made a soft sound in his throat.
“You don’t have to,” Phoebe said.
“I know,” Sophie said.
Phoebe shrugged, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and looked at Coach Nanini with questions in her eyes.
“Come see me when you’re done,” he said.
Sophie started across the gym, and Phoebe caught up. “I have to go to my locker first,” she said.
“I’ll go with you,” Sophie said.
They dodged the after-school crowd in silence until they were almost to the lockers. Then Phoebe said, “What did you mean when you said I was a lost sheep?” She curled up a smile. “I’ve been called a lot of things before, but never that.”
Sophie stopped beside the locker as Phoebe twirled the combination lock. The Corn Flakes hadn’t planned this part. She closed her eyes for a second.
“Hello, what’s the deal? Why won’t you open?” Phoebe tugged at her locker door. “I hate these things.” She started dialing again. “Are you going to tell me why I’m a sheep or not?”
“It’s from the Bible,” Sophie said.
“I’m in the Bible?” Phoebe said, frowning at her lock. “Go figure.”
“We all are,” Sophie said.
“You’re a sheep too?” Phoebe said.
“Yeah. Only I’m not lost. You know, because of Jesus.”