by Nancy N. Rue
“Not that long,” Matt said. “I knew if I didn’t get right back with the stuff, Will was going to go into milk shake withdrawal.”
Willoughby pulled her head out of the refrigerator and put out her hands for the milk jugs. “You’re a lifesaver,” she said to Matt.
Sophie was sure she wasn’t talking about milk shakes. Sophie couldn’t even drink the one Willoughby fixed and carried upstairs for her. Her stomach was nothing but a knot.
Willoughby flopped down on her bed and covered her face with her hands. “That was close,” she said. “Somebody must have been on our phone when he called. Don’t they know about call waiting?” She peeked out through her fingers. “It’s a good thing he tried me on my cell.”
Sophie perched uneasily on the edge of a white wicker chair. “What would have happened if he’d caught all those kids here?”
“He would have yelled at Matt and Andy,” she said. “They aren’t supposed to leave me alone when I have a friend over.” Willoughby sat up. “They really wanted to go out, and I really wanted to have this party, so we worked out a plan. I hate that they almost got in trouble. They’re cool brothers.”
Matt wasn’t acting cool just now, Sophie thought. I think he was scared to death.
“Aren’t you going to drink that?” Willoughby pointed to Sophie’s milk shake. Her hand trembled. “You okay?” Sophie said.
Willoughby plastered on a smile, the same too-cheerful one she’d used with Coach Yates. “I am now. It was worth it, though. Wasn’t that a cool party?” She twirled a curl. “I hope Victoria and them had a good time.”
Sophie ran a hand over her own short crop of hair. A fake nail hung up in it. “Would they still be worth it if Matt got in trouble?”
“Are you kidding me?” Willoughby’s face sobered as she looked at Sophie. “Victoria and Ginger told me they think I have what it takes to be captain of the eighth-grade squad next year. And since they’re co-captains this year, they get to be judges when we have tryouts in March. You know what that means?”
“No,” Sophie said.
“It means I’m practically guaranteed to make it!”
“But you’re the best,” Sophie said. “You’d make it anyway.” Willoughby shook her head, sending the curls into a frenzy. “When you get up into eighth grade, it gets tougher. It pays to have somebody on your side.”
The Corn Flakes are on your side, Sophie wanted to say. But she wasn’t sure that would make any difference to Willoughby right now. She had Victoria-worship shining on her face.
“I’m getting my pajamas on,” Sophie said.
“Just one thing, Soph,” Willoughby said as Sophie reached for her backpack. “Would you please not tell your parents about what happened tonight?”
Sophie pretended to have trouble with the zipper while her mind spun.
This feels like lying. Willoughby’s too good at lying.
But what good would it do to tell her parents and get Matt in trouble?
Not to mention herself.
She knew she should have called home the minute she found out Willoughby’s dad wasn’t home. She also knew that Willoughby was waiting for her answer with fear flickering in her eyes.
She’s that afraid for Matt to get yelled at?
There was something else going on, something that made Sophie want to run to Mama and whisper to her about the frightened squeal in Willoughby’s voice and the fear-flickers in her eyes.
“It’s Corn Flake Code,” Willoughby said. “We all promised we’d help each other with our parent stuff.”
“You said you didn’t have parent stuff,” Sophie said. Willoughby rolled her eyes. “It’s not my parent stuff. It’s Matt’s. When you don’t have a mom, you get way close to your brothers. We protect each other.”
“From what?” Sophie said.
“Just promise me, Sophie,” Willoughby said. She rolled her eyes again, but Sophie knew that this time she was trying to roll away tears.
“Okay,” Sophie said. “But I can’t come over here when your dad’s not home anymore. You couldn’t protect me from what my parents would say if they knew.”
“You have my word.” Willoughby flew to the chair and threw her arms around Sophie. “I love you, Corn Flake,” she said.
I love you too, Sophie thought later. She sat up in bed, peeling off the phony fingernails while Willoughby slept beside her. But I don’t know if what I just promised was such a good thing.
Sophie shivered and closed her eyes. Jesus was right there with his kind ones.
Are you disappointed in me? she prayed to him. I hope not, because I’m really confused, and I really need your help. She sighed into the pillow. I really need you to show me what the rules are.
The Film Club spent most of their long-weekend days together working on their movie. Willoughby missed a lot of rehearsal time because she said she had cheerleading stuff.
Sophie wondered whether she was talking about the seventh-grade squad, or the eighth-grade.
They filmed all the movie except for the kidnapping scene. They were gathered in the sunroom at the back of Kitty’s house trying to figure out what to do about what the Parent Patrol had said, when there was a tap on the glass.
“It’s Willoughby!” Kitty said.
“I hope she has the pictures for what we’re supposed to do with our hair,” Fiona said. “She’s giving about 50 percent, which is not what we all promised.”
Kitty ignored her and pushed open the door, letting in a blast of cold late-November air. “Come in before you freeze to death!”
But Willoughby stood in the doorway, shivering and shaking her head. Sophie saw the flicker in her eyes, and she herself started to shake.
“I just need to talk to Sophie,” Willoughby said. “In private.”
Sophie felt Fiona stiffen beside her.
Throwing her jacket around her shoulders, Sophie slipped outside to join Willoughby. She heard Fiona say in her twenties voice, “What are the rest of us? Chopped liver?”
Willoughby grabbed Sophie’s jacket sleeve and dragged her around the side of the house. She was breathing so hard, little puffs of frosty air were coming out of her nose.
“Are you in trouble?” Sophie said. “Did your dad find out—”
“It’s not about me,” Willoughby said. Her already-big eyes got bigger. “It’s Victoria and Ginger.”
“Again?” Sophie said. She hoped Willoughby didn’t see her sagging with relief.
“They might have to go before the Round Table again.” “Okay,” Sophie said. “You know that’s not a punishment, even if their parents—”
“You have to say that they were at my house all Wednesday night.”
Sophie knew she would have frozen even if the icy wind weren’t whipping through her.
“But they weren’t,” she said.
“They were there part of the time. I really need you to do this, Sophie. Please—”
“Willoughby!”
Even from a block away, the voice was loud and deep and had a growl in it.
“That’s my dad—I have to go,” Willoughby said.
And she ran as if Al Capone’s entire mob were after her. “I can’t lie for them!” Sophie called after her.
But she knew Willoughby didn’t hear her as her father growled again. “Willoughby, get home!”
It definitely didn’t sound like it was Matt he was mad at.
When Sophie went back into the house, everyone had left the sunroom except Fiona, who was “up to ninety,” as Darbie would say.
“What’s going on?” Fiona said.
Sophie swallowed hard. The tangle of rules seemed to be caught in her throat. “Willoughby wants me to do something I can’t do, and I didn’t get to tell her I couldn’t do it because her father yelled at her.”
“I thought she had Superfather,” Fiona said. “What is going on?”
“I’ll tell you after I talk to Willoughby.”
Fiona’s gray eyes went into slits. �
��Why do I have to wait? I’m your best friend.”
“Because I don’t know which rule I’m supposed to be following!” Sophie said.
Fiona looked closely at her. “You’re about to freak out.”
“And how,” Sophie said. One thing she did know, though: the reason she was now so valuable to the eighth graders.
She wanted to email Willoughby as soon as she got home, but Lacie was on the computer, moaning about the huge history paper she was “never going to finish.”
Sophie tried calling the Wiley house, but when one of the twins answered the phone, he told her Willoughby couldn’t come to the phone and hung up before Sophie could ask him when she could. She imagined his lips trembling the way they had Wednesday night.
Please help me with all these rules, she begged Jesus when she went to bed. I need to know what to do!
One rule was very clear: she couldn’t lie for Victoria and Ginger. It was one thing to keep a secret for Willoughby, and another to tell a big old whopper for girls she didn’t even know—girls who said things like, “She’s valuable,” even if they also said Sophie was cute and a boy magnet.
As she thought about that during first period, she watched Colton Messik saunter to the pencil sharpener and do a fake burp in Anne-Stuart’s ear as he passed.
EWW.
“Sophie,” said a trumpet-voice at her elbow. Sophie looked up at Mrs. Clayton.
“Round Table during lunch today. We have some repeaters.”
Sophie felt her stomach harden.
It was still in a mass of knots when she and Jimmy got to the council room and joined Hannah and Oliver and Coach Virile, Mrs. Clayton, Miss Imes, and Coach Yates. Sophie didn’t see how Coach Yates’ face could be any more pinched in. She was starting to look like a Pharisee.
“It’s those cheerleaders again,” Hannah whispered to Sophie and Jimmy while the teachers talked to each other in under-the-breath voices. She blinked about two hundred times. “No offense, Sophie, but I didn’t think a little chat with Coach Nanini was going to change them.”
“Let’s come to order,” Mrs. Clayton said. “I want us to talk before we bring our offenders in.” Her eyebrows pointed. “I think you’ll all remember Victoria Peyton and Ginger Jenkins, who were before us last week for a confrontation they had with Coach Yates. Any further problems, Coach?”
Coach Yates shook her head. “They’ve basically been avoiding me.”
“At least they have some brains,” Oliver muttered.
“They’re coming before us again today,” Mrs. Clayton went on, “about a different matter. It seems that they were seen out after curfew on Wednesday night, which means Ms. Barnes, the eighth-grade squad coach, has suspended them from the cheerleading squad for two weeks.”
“The end of life as they know it,” Hannah said.
Mrs. Clayton shot her a bullet-look. “Let’s try to keep our personal feelings out of this.”
Oliver strummed the rubber band on his braces. “Who saw them out after curfew?”
“What difference does that make?” Hannah said.
“Could be somebody that wants to frame them. That would make it more interesting.”
“That would be fascinating,” Mrs. Clayton said dryly, “except that it was a reliable source, and no one has come forward to provide them with an alibi.”
“There was one attempt,” Miss Imes put in. “But that was an unsigned note.”
Unsigned by Willoughby, Sophie thought. That definitely wasn’t Corn Flake Code, and it made Sophie homesick for the old Willoughby of before-Victoria-and-Ginger days.
Jimmy raised his hand. “So if they’ve already gotten a punishment, why are they coming here?”
“Because we’re about helping kids become better than they are,” Coach Virile said. “And after working with these girls just one time, I could see they needed some guidance.” His big face softened. “It’s not too late.”
“Ms. Barnes wants them to have some Round Table rehab before she lets them back on the squad,” Mrs. Clayton said. “So let’s bring them in and make our recommendation.”
Ginger and Victoria both smiled at Sophie when they came in and took their seats as if they were about to be offered the title of cheerleading co-captains for the rest of their lives.
Sophie considered asking for a restroom pass. But that wasn’t something Goodsy Malone would do.
Goodsy narrowed her eyes at the both of them. There were kids who needed help, see, and then there were lyin’ little flapper girls who didn’t care about nothin’ or nobody. They used people up and then tossed ’em aside like—like yesterday’s garbage, see—
Willoughby wasn’t yesterday’s garbage. And neither was she.
“Ladies, you know why you’re here,” Mrs. Clayton said.
“I assume it’s to tell us we’re not suspended,” Victoria said. Sophie watched Miss Imes’ eyebrows shoot up, while Coach Nanini’s unibrow lowered almost to his nose.
“Wherever did you get that idea?” Mrs. Clayton said. Victoria’s eyes flicked to Sophie. Ginger’s had never left Sophie’s face.
Sophie adjusted her glasses and looked back at them. She saw her answer dawn on them and freeze their faces.
“We are here to offer you some help,” Coach Nanini said. “Council?”
Sophie raised her hand. “I recommend that we give you Campus Commission after school,” she said. “It’ll really teach you a lot. You know”—Sophie drilled her eyes right into Victoria—“like not to use people.”
The teachers all looked puzzled. Ginger and Victoria didn’t. Sophie barely got to her locker after they adjourned before Willoughby was there. Her face was a furious red, and her big eyes looked ready to lunge from her face, right at Sophie.
“You said you’d help!” she said. The poodle voice was out of control.
“No, I didn’t,” Sophie said.
“Yes, you did. You stood right here in this very spot and said we all had to be loyal to each other, no matter what!” Willoughby stomped her foot. “If what you just did to me is what you mean by loyal, then I don’t want to be a Corn Flake anymore!”
Then she turned with a squeal of her sneakers and was gone.
Nine
By sixth period that day, it was final. Willoughby had officially dropped out of Film Club.
“How much revising will you have to do on your film, then?” Miss Imes said when Sophie and Fiona gave her the news after school. “You only have two weeks left.”
Sophie hadn’t even thought about that. She was too busy trying to swallow Willoughby’s other decision—that she was no longer a Corn Flake either.
Anybody can play a flapper girl in a movie, Sophie told Jesus on the way home on the bus. But nobody else can be Willoughby in my life.
Who else would yelp like a poodle at Sophie’s funniness? Who else could do a cheer every time Sophie got above a C on a math test?
Or twirl a curl around her finger when she got nervous? Or throw her arms around Sophie just because?
Sophie wished just this once Jesus would answer in actual words—just appear in the seat next to her on the bus and tell her how to get Willoughby back.
She closed her eyes and imagined him looking kindly, sadly at her. It occurred to her that Willoughby needed to be imagining him right now too. Because unless doing what he wanted her to do became more important than what Victoria and Ginger wanted her to do, things were going to stay just the way they were. Somehow that thought added more weight to that chain around her ankle.
Going home didn’t help at all. Daddy was there, whitefaced with the news that Mama was going to have to stay in bed until Baby Girl LaCroix was born.
“Four months?” Lacie said.
“Don’t worry, Lace,” Daddy said. “You won’t have to cook every night. There’s always McDonald’s.”
“Can Mama get up to go to the bathroom?” Zeke said. “Yeah, Z-Boy, she can do that,” Daddy told him.
“Is something the matter with
the baby?” Sophie said. Daddy made a not-too-successful attempt at a smile. “No, she’s just an eager little rookie. She wants to come out and play now, and she’s not ready.”
“Does Mama get to take a bath?” Zeke said. “Yeah, Z.”
“So what’s the game plan?” Lacie said. “Obviously we’re all going to have to help if we don’t want the whole place to fall apart.”
“We need a chart like Mama made for Kitty’s sisters when she was in the hospital,” Sophie said.
“Can she still read with me?” Zeke said.
Daddy patted Z’s head, eyes on the girls. “Thank you for having that attitude, Lace, Soph.” Sophie thought his eyes looked wet. “You two are on the top shelf looking down.”
“It’s family, Dad,” Lacie said. “We all have to take a hit for the team.” To Sophie, Lacie’s eyes looked wise as she pushed up her sweat-jacket sleeves and said, “Okay, how does tuna salad sound for dinner?”
While Zeke put in his vote for raisins in the salad, Sophie kept watching Lacie—pulling cans out of the pantry, making an out-of-my-way bun out of her ponytail and sticking a pencil through it, giving Zeke the raisins and a measuring cup so he could help.
Why did I ever think Victoria and Ginger seemed older than Lacie? she thought. Lacie could be, like, their mom right now.
There must be a difference, she decided, between acting grown up and really being grown up.
“I can chop the celery,” she said.
But being a grown-up was harder than it looked. Dinner had to be fixed, cleaned up, and thought up for the next night. Zeke had to be bathed, chased, and read to. Laundry had to be washed and dried and folded, not to mention collected from every corner of Zeke’s room to begin with.
It meant coming home right after school and taking over for the ladies from the church who took turns keeping Mama fed and occupied all day so she wouldn’t “go bonkers,” as she put it.
It also meant missing Film Club just when Sophie really needed to be there. By Tuesday night, only the second day of their no-Mama routine, Sophie not only felt like she had a chain around her ankle, she was convinced it was attached to a wall.
Some of that was because of Daddy. Even though he was super-busy with Mama and Zeke when he was home, he still had a corner of his brain reserved for running Sophie’s life.
