by Nancy N. Rue
There was no time to get together that night, so they promised to meet in the morning before school, and they called Kitty to join them. But when they arrived at their secret place backstage in the cafeteria, Maggie was already there.
“Mags!” Kitty said, throwing her arms around Maggie’s neck. “Are you better?”
Maggie nodded, but to Sophie she looked worse than she had the last time she’d seen her. She had deep, dark circles under her eyes, and her mouth was in a grim little line. Fiona gave Sophie a look that read, Do you think she already knows?
But Maggie didn’t say anything about the boys or the dance. In fact, she didn’t say much at all. She just sat under an arch of tissue-paper flowers that the fifth grade had used for their spring festival and listened while the rest of the Corn Flakes talked about everything but what they had come to discuss.
The only time Maggie reacted to anything was when the voices of Eddie, Tod, and Colton echoed against the cafeteria walls as they charged through. Maggie scooted herself behind Kitty and buried her face in her knees.
“Today is not the day to bring up anything,” Fiona said to Sophie and Darbie after Kitty had followed Maggie to the bathroom.
“She’s still sick,” Sophie said.
Darbie frowned. “All right — but we better be hoping nobody else tells her.”
First period went smoothly, and they knew in second period the Corn Pops were giving their culture presentation, so there wouldn’t be a chance for any of them to talk to Maggie. In fact, the Pops were so busy rearranging the room, they didn’t even give the Flakes any deadly looks.
I guess they don’t know about Jimmy yet either, Sophie thought. But that didn’t make her feel any better. Just then she would have given up everything she owned if that made any sense for Maggie. I hate hating myself! she thought.
“We’re going to demonstrate a folk dance the peasants in France used to do,” Julia said to the class when all the chairs and tables had been pushed against the walls. “And everyone has to do the dance with us.”
“Aw, man!” Gill said, above the groans of everybody else.
“Uh-oh,” Fiona said.
Sophie nodded. She had forgotten Anne-Stuart’s words until now: We’re going to make the whole class participate.
“Line up with your partner as I call your names,” Julia said. B.J. and Anne-Stuart stood in the middle of the room as if they were ready to enforce Julia’s every word. Willoughby stayed at the edge, looking like she wished she’d never heard of any of them.
“Julia and Colton,” Julia said.
Colton grinned and went to the spot B.J. pointed out to him.
“B.J. and Eddie. Willoughby and Ross.”
So far there were no surprises, but Sophie held her breath. The rest could be worse than heinous.
“Kitty and Ian.”
“What?” Kitty whined.
“Darbie and Vincent. Fiona and Nathan.”
“She doesn’t know as much as she thinks she does,” Fiona muttered to Sophie as she went to join Nathan, with Kitty whimpering in their direction.
The Wheaties looked relieved as Julia paired Harley and another Wheatie, then Maggie and Gill. Maggie didn’t look any way at all. She shuffled next to Gill, her eyes on the floor.
“Sophie and Tod. Anne-Stuart and Jimmy.”
Sophie felt the two red spots burning into her cheeks, but she moved slowly toward Tod. She couldn’t make any more trouble with Ms. Quelling. As long as I don’t have to touch him, I can do it, she told herself.
“Take your partner’s hand,” Julia said. “And we’ll call out the instructions while we do it.”
Tod looked as if he would rather hold a deep-sea creature than Sophie’s hand. She knew exactly how he felt, but under Ms. Quelling’s stern glare, she let him grab the tips of her fingers as if they were jellyfish tentacles. A shiver went through her from head to toe.
Julia called out instructions, but it didn’t do much good. B.J. hauled Eddie around anywhere she could get a vantage point to give hate looks to Anne-Stuart because she was dancing with Jimmy. Kitty whined like a terrier every time she passed Fiona, who was only trying to keep Nathan from stepping on her toes. Tod abandoned Sophie altogether and grabbed Anne-Stuart from Jimmy, which sent her into a sniffling tizzy that brought the whole thing to a halt.
Ms. Quelling switched off the CD player and folded her arms. “Fix it, Julia,” she said. “Or I’m taking off points.”
“All right,” Julia said with a sigh. It was obvious she had been enjoying the entire mess. “Everybody get with the partner you’re going to have at the graduation dance and we’ll start over.”
Sophie felt herself going cold. Everyone shifted around, including Jimmy, who slid into place beside Sophie. Nearby, Vincent found his way to Fiona. The Wheaties pulled together in a sulky trio.
Maggie was left standing alone. In a frozen second, her eyes swept the room and came back to Sophie.
“Maggie?” Sophie said.
But Maggie’s face crumpled, and she ran for the doorway, knocking Eddie against a table as she went.
“Hey, watch it, wide load!” Eddie called after her.
“Close your cake trap, blackguard!” Darbie shouted at him.
Sophie and Fiona tore for the door, but Ms. Quelling beat them there.
“You stay right here,” she said, her face twisted down at them. “I’ll call the counselor.”
Kitty burst into tears, and Fiona was barely able to hold Darbie back from poking Eddie’s eyes out. Sophie could only stare out into the hallway where a shattered Maggie had disappeared.
I don’t think SHE’s the one who needs the counseling, Sophie thought. She wished with all her might for Dr. Peter — and some answers she could understand.
Ten
Fiona, Darbie, and Sophie were a long-faced, droopy group when they met in Sophie’s family room that day after school to work on their Bible study assignment.
“I bet Willoughby was the one who told Julia about our dates for the dance,” Fiona said. “I KNEW we couldn’t trust her.”
But Sophie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter who told. We did a terrible thing to Maggie, and we have to take the blame for it.”
“I hate it when you’re right,” Fiona said. She picked up her hot-pink sheet and put it down again. “No wonder Maggie can’t eat if she feels like this.”
Darbie opened her Bible and unfolded her sheet. “Come on then, enough. Dr. Peter says there’s an answer in this Bible story, and we have to find out what it is before we all go mental.”
“I just don’t think it’s in there,” Fiona said.
But Sophie had been thinking about the Bible story ever since the dance disaster of second period. Every time Dr. Peter had given her a Jesus story to help her figure out a problem, it had always worked. Sometimes it just took a while to figure out.
“What does the sheet say to do?” she said.
Fiona picked it up again and scowled at it. “It says to answer the question next to each verse below and do, for real, what our answer says.”
Darbie craned her neck over Fiona’s shoulder. “Mark ten, verse seventeen. ‘How did the rich young man get to Jesus?’ ”
“He ran to him,” Fiona said, tapping the page with her eraser. “So — we run to Jesus. But he’s not here.”
“You imagine he is, in your mind,” Sophie said. “That’s what I do. Or at least, I used to, before I became a heinous person.”
“Can you ever lay off that?” Darbie said. “Jesus already said God’s the only one who’s good — it says so right here — and he shows us how to be good. That’s what we’re getting back to. Now get off yourself and let’s move on.”
Sophie blinked. “So I can still run to him, you think?”
“If YOU can’t, nobody can,” Fiona said. “You’re, like, perfect.” She examined the sheet again. “Okay, what does he do when he gets to Jesus?”
“Falls on his knees,” Sophie said.
<
br /> “Then we need to be doing that right now,” Darbie said. “We always act everything else out, don’t we?”
Fiona was the first one in a kneeling position, sheet and Bible on the floor in front of her, pencil poised. Sophie closed her eyes.
“ ‘What are three things he tells the man that are important?’ ” Fiona read.
Darbie paused for only a couple of seconds. “Only God is truly good. Know the commandments. Keep the commandments.”
“Check,” Fiona said. “So far, we already do all this stuff.”
“Go on,” Sophie said. She kept her eyes closed. Jesus was becoming clearer and her hands, for some reason, were getting sweaty, the way they did when Daddy was about to ground her for an impossibly long time.
“ ‘What did Jesus tell him was the one reason he couldn’t get eternal life?’ ” Fiona read.
“He cared too much about money,” Darbie said.
“Wait — there’s more.” Fiona frowned at the directions. “ ‘HINT: what is separating you from loving God more than anything else? It doesn’t have to be money.’ ”
“Oh!” Darbie said. She had that light-bulb-over-the-head look. “The first day Dr. Peter said we would know it was our time for boys if they didn’t get between us and God.”
“Anne-Stuart and B.J. are the ones who practically knock each other out trying to get to Jimmy,” Fiona said. “They DEFINITELY aren’t thinking about God!”
“Today when Julia mixed all the couples up, just to be a control freak,” Darbie said. “That wasn’t about Jesus.”
Sophie didn’t say anything. She just looked down at her sweat-sparkly palms.
“What, Soph?” Fiona said. “You don’t look so good.”
“I think it’s talking about ME!” Sophie sank back onto her feet and scrubbed her hands on her thighs. “I used to talk to Jesus all the time, but ever since this whole dance thing started I hardly go him at ALL. He must think I forgot all about him, because I’m always thinking about Kitty all giggling over Nathan, and Darbie feeling special for the first time because Ian asked her, and what to tell Maggie because Vincent and Jimmy asked you and me — ”
“Mercy,” said a voice in the doorway. “It sounds like a soap opera in here!”
Darbie’s aunt Emily bustled into the room with Mama behind her. They perched on the edge of the couch.
“What’s wrong?” Fiona said. “You look like we’re busted.”
“No, you aren’t busted,” Mama said. “We’re just — concerned.”
Aunt Emily pulled at a gold hoop earring. “Is your entire class pairing up for this dance?”
“Everybody but the Wheaties,” Fiona said. “They aren’t even going.”
“And Maggie,” Darbie said.
Sophie looked down at her hands, but she could feel Mama’s eyes on her.
“I see,” Mama said, dragging out the “I.”
“That’s exactly why kids your age are too young for the dating thing,” Aunt Emily said. “Somebody gets left out —people get their feelings hurt.”
“It isn’t exactly a date,” Fiona said.
“It might as well be,” Mama said. She crossed her arms and drummed her fingers on the opposite arms. “I thought this dance was a bad idea for sixth graders to begin with, but I thought, well, you’re so excited about the dresses, and you’ll all go together and it will just be a girl thing.”
“But it’s not turning out that way.” Aunt Emily looked at Mama, and they exchanged motherly looks. “I need to talk to Patrick.”
“I know what my husband’s going to say.” Mama turned to the girls. “For right now, let’s put your plans on hold.”
Fiona had crawled up onto a chair and now stood on her knees. “What does that mean?”
“It means we’re going to do what’s healthy for you girls,” Mama said. She put up her hand. “I know you, Fiona, and I don’t want to hear your twenty arguments right now. You can save those for your Boppa.”
“Boppa’s too busy giving dumb flowers to Miss Odetta Clide,” Fiona said when Mama and Aunt Emily had gone back to the kitchen. “He won’t care that the Corn Pops AND the Fruit Loops are going to hate us worse than ever if the dance gets called off.”
“The Corn Pops?” Darbie said. “What about our Kitty?”
“There’s only one person who might be happy about this,” Fiona said, “and that’s Maggie.” She tried a smile that didn’t work. “Maybe this solves our problem, huh?”
Sophie didn’t even try to smile. “Maggie already knows we forgot all about her when we said we’d go to the dance with boys,” she said. “I bet that hurts her more than the Fruit Loops calling her fat.”
Their silence said they knew she was right again.
Between that and the fact that Darbie was right too — Kitty was going to dissolve into a puddle for sure if she didn’t get to meet Nathan at the dance and act like he was her boyfriend — the girls were very down when they left Sophie’s house.
Sophie didn’t have any highs to tell at the supper table that night. When she tried to give a low, she had so much trouble picking just one that she burst into tears and excused herself from the table.
“Was it something I said?” she heard Daddy ask as she ran to her room.
No, she wanted to cry out, it was something I said! I said yes, and it messed everything up!
She had almost stopped “keening” over that, as Darbie would say, when Mama tapped lightly on her door. Sophie really didn’t want to talk to her, but Mama only said, “Come downstairs. We have a visitor.”
Sophie followed Mama down the steps with her heart dragging to her knees.
Senora LaQuita was in the family room, letting a mug of tea get cold on the coffee table in front of her. Mama ushered Sophie to the chair across from her, and Daddy came in behind her, blocking all hope of escape.
“Senora LaQuita has been telling us why Maggie has been absent from school,” Mama said.
For a tiny second, Sophie felt relieved. At least this wasn’t about the dance.
“She never eat,” Senora LaQuita said. “She say the boys, they call her fat.”
Sophie’s heart dropped.
“I didn’t think it was like Maggie to pay attention to them,” Mama said.
Daddy nodded. “She’s usually such a little toughie.”
Senora LaQuita shook her head, her turquoise earrings jittering against her face. “Never before. But now — the dance — boy asking girl. Now Maggie — she is very upset.”
Sophie felt the tears fighting to get out again. “I’m SOOOO sorry!” she said. “I didn’t want her to get all hurt like this! We promised her we would all go together, and then boys started asking — and I never thought one would ask me — and when he did I forgot about Maggie because I felt special, and so did Darbie and Fiona, and now I feel like the most heinous person in the world!”
Daddy shook his head a few fast times and crossed his eyes before he said, “Soph, that’s not the point. This just confirms what your mother was saying to you earlier — this idea of a dance where boys can ask girls is too much for sixth graders. It isn’t your fault that Maggie didn’t get asked — but none of this would have happened if the school hadn’t put you all in this position in the first place.”
Senora LaQuita nodded sadly.
“We’re going to talk to the other parents about this thing,” Daddy said.
Mama put an arm around Maggie’s mom’s shoulder.
“Meanwhile, we’re going to postpone the fittings and give Señora LaQuita time to spend with Maggie.”
“She’s going to be okay, isn’t she?” Sophie said.
“Doctor say she must eat,” Maggie’s mother said. “Margarita, she is — ” She looked at the ceiling as if she were searching for the right word.
“Stubborn?” Daddy said.
Sophie leaned forward, clutching the edge of the coffee table. “We’ll make her eat at school,” she said, voice squeaking. “And we’ll keep telling
her she isn’t fat.”
“Sophie,” Mama said. Her eyes were soft. “You aren’t to blame that this is happening to Maggie. Just let her know you love her, that’s all.”
I can do that, Sophie thought as she trudged back up the stairs, but I don’t think she’ll believe me.
Maggie was absent again the next day, and Ms. Quelling told the Corn Flakes she’d been told that Maggie was going to be out the rest of the week.
“Has she helped you with your presentation?” she said. “She’s not going to be here tomorrow when you do it.”
“She got all the recipes for us and she and her mom gave us the ingredients they have at home and she would be here if she could.” Sophie took a breath and added, “Ma’am.”
“I’m convinced already,” Ms. Quelling said. “Sophie, you really ought to consider switching to decaf.”
Sophie could almost hear Maggie saying in her matter-of-fact voice, Sophie doesn’t even drink coffee. Tears sprang to her eyes — yet again.
“Miss Odetta said we could cook at my house tonight,” Fiona said when Ms. Quelling had left them alone. “We’ll make killer enchiladas and get an A-plus for Maggie.”
Then they slumped over their textbooks, and Sophie could see them all trying hard not to cry.
Mama and Daddy dropped Sophie off at Fiona’s that night and picked up Boppa and Fiona’s mom and dad. That’s when she found out the sixth-grade parents were having a meeting at Anna’s Pizza.
“They’re talking to ALL the parents?” Sophie wailed when they’d left. “I thought just OURS were gonna decide if we could go!”
“We’re doomed,” Fiona said. She started slapping corn tortillas into a long glass dish.
Darbie went behind her, splattering spoonfuls of sauce into them. “If the Pops’ parents are there, don’t be surprised if we all have live snakes in our lockers tomorrow.”
“I don’t care about snakes or lockers,” Kitty said. “I just want to go to the dance with Nathan!” She slammed a knife across a tomato, squirting seeds all the way to the refrigerator door.
Miss Odetta Clide was suddenly there, and she calmly took the blade from Kitty’s hand. “This food will not be fit to eat if you don’t stop attacking it,” she said. “A lady does not mutilate her ingredients.” She eyed the cheese Sophie was shredding into powder. “In fact, the preparation of a meal can be rather soothing to the soul. Now, shall we start again? Our cooking must be like a dance.”
