Sophie Under Pressure (7 page)

She swallowed again.
How does Daddy do this every single day?
she thought.

“So vote,” Maggie said.

“Okay. I think Astronaut Jupiter's idea is the best. Only we could make it so that — ”

“Not fair.”

Fiona turned to Maggie, nostrils in a record-breaking flare.

“You know what, NIMbus?” she said. “You're just mad because you didn't get your own way. That isn't very scientific.”

“This whole project is just gonna be dumb now,” Maggie said.

And with that final thudding sentence, she snatched up her backpack and disappeared down the ladder. The other three Corn Flakes waited until they heard her land heavily in “Huntsville” before they said a word.

Fiona let out a huge relief-sigh. “Good riddance is what I say.”

“Me too,” Kitty said. “She's way too bossy.”

But Sophie shook her head. “Who's going to keep the records?”

“We won't have any records, remember?” Fiona said.

“I was going to tell you guys how we could do it so she'd have stuff to write down,” Sophie said, “but she didn't even wait for me to finish.”

“Luna can do it,” Fiona said.

Kitty's face froze up. “Me? I can't spell that good and my handwriting stinks.”

“It doesn't matter … ” Sophie started to tell her.

And then she stopped. Fiona's eyes went into slits, and Sophie felt her stomach churn. She had never seen her best friend look so much like a Corn Pop. This Fiona was wearing a face that said,
Don't mess with me. I'll get my way.

“The only problem,” Fiona said, in a voice that matched her eyes, “is that Maggie took all of our plans with her. I hope she doesn't try to sell them to the enemy.”

“We have enemies?” Kitty said.

As Astronaut Jupiter went on to explain that there were always intergalactic villains flying around at light speed, Captain Stella Stratos closed her eyes.

We have had a mutiny
,
just as I feared
,
she thought. What's to be done? When the head of NASA
,
Commander Utley
,
finds out that Astronaut Nimbus has left the program
,
we will be called in for questioning. I do not want to tell her that there has been too much fighting among the Expedition Crew. That violates the code of the Corn Flake Society
:
we will not leave anyone out. Captain Stratos looked out into deep space. I feel responsible for Astronaut Nimbus. What is she to do for a project? And can we save the planet without her?

Sophie's stomach churned even more. And what about Fiona? Why was she suddenly like the people Sophie always daydreamed her way away from?

Captain Stella put her hands up to her space helmet and checked its arrangement on her head. She was certainly glad that she had an appointment with the NASA psychologist the next day.
Scientist Peter Topping would know exactly what to do.

Mama went up to the Loom Room again after supper that night, and even though Daddy made popcorn and invited everybody to watch
Finding Nemo
with him after they did their homework, Sophie felt like there was a big old hole in the family room where Mama should have been. Lacie wanted to watch
Clueless
for about the seventy-fifth time, and when Daddy said “unh-uh” (and Zeke howled the longest “NO-O-O” in history), Lacie stomped upstairs and slammed her bedroom door.

Daddy looked at Sophie over the head of Zeke, who was still hollering, and said, “You're the only sane person left in this family.”

Even that didn't wipe out Sophie's worries.

Mama made them worse the next morning by being way quiet while everybody was getting ready for school. She didn't even say much when Zeke put his socks on his ears instead of his feet and stuck a raisin into each nostril.

I wonder if she's daydreaming
, Sophie thought.
I hope she's not imagining leaving us.

The pang in her chest went straight through to her backbone. She couldn't blow this science project, or Mama would get upset. She couldn't do anything that would let Mama go. That just couldn't happen. Sophie climbed off her stool at the snack bar and knelt down beside Zeke.

“I'll put his shoes and socks on him, Mama,” she said.

Mama mumbled a “thank you” and went back to the lunch boxes, where she was making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches again.

Between that and the memory of Fiona with slanted eyes and sneery voice, it was impossible not to let Captain Stella Stratos take over during the school day. Sophie imagined Jesus too, and she begged him again to help her fix things. But he just kept smiling his kind smile and didn't give her any answers.

In second period Ms. Quelling made them read, and most of the class had their faces in their social studies books, except for the Fruit Loops. Tod was acting like he was reading, but Sophie could see him giving directions to the other two Loops with his sharp little eyes. Colton kept leaning under his desk like he was trying to find something, and when he seemed to get his hands on it he slipped it to Eddie. Sophie was expecting them to take the whole class hostage any minute.

That's exactly the sort of thing we need to save the planet from
,
Captain Stella Stratos thought. The secret plans of Moron-oids who want to take over the universe and make people bow down to them and feed them Cheetos.

Captain Stella adjusted her glasses. She was going to have to be prepared to evacuate the room when the Moron-oids opened fire with their secret space weapons. If only she knew what they were. It was hard to defend a planet against the unknown. So far
,
all she had been able to figure out from their presence was that they had brains they seldom used except to humiliate the citizens of earth. And that they had a peculiar smell. And that they could not be trusted.

She needed to get closer now
,
where she could possibly gather data.

Stella crept in clandestine fashion around the back of the Huntsville control room
,
keeping out of sight of the Moron-oids.
As she drew closer to their corner
,
she paused
,
making certain that she wasn't seen. She glanced at her official
Freedom 4
watch.
It was ten hundred hours. She would need to make a note of that in her report.

But in the instant she took her eyes from the Moron-oids
,
the three space villains had gotten off a shot. Several small green projectiles were thrust from a tube planted firmly in Moron-oid Eddie's nose.

Those could be weapons of mass destruction! Captain Stella thought. With the lightning speed of a finely tuned scientific mind
,
she made a decision. Diving from her place against the wall
,
she hurled herself forward and grasped for the green bullet that was even then piercing through the air. It didn't matter that she herself could be mortally wounded. She couldn't let anyone else be hurt.

The bullet hit the palm of her hand
,
and she curled her fingers around it just as gravity pushed her to the floor. Even before she hit the ground she could feel the tiny green object giving way to a soft mush in her hand. It could be some form of biological warfare —

Or it could be a pea. Sophie sat on the floor, right at the feet of Julia Cummings, and stared at her open palm. A green mass was squished right in the middle.

“Gross me out!” Julia said.

“What is going on?” Ms. Quelling called out from her desk.

Sophie could hardly hear her over the racket that was coming from the Fruit Loops' corner. Their monkey-laughter shrieked right up to the ozone layer. Eddie fell out of his desk.

Seven

M
s. Quelling stood over Sophie, looking down between two thick curtains of bronze-colored hair.

“Sophie,” she said.
“What on earth?”
Then she looked at Julia, eyebrows up.

“I don't know,” Julia said. “She just threw herself down here like some kind of freak.” She put up both hands, spreading out her fingers with Valentine-red fingernails. “I didn't do anything to her, I swear.”

“All right, get up off the ground, for starters,” Ms. Quelling said to Sophie.

She didn't appear to notice that Eddie was still rolling on the floor, his face as red as Julia's manicure. By the time Sophie got to her feet, she was aware that the whole class had their faces in their books and their eyes over the tops of the pages on her. The entire room seemed to be holding its breath.

“What in the world were you doing?” Ms. Quelling said. Her forehead was twisted into a question mark.

“I was catching this,” Sophie said, opening her hand. “Eddie was shooting them out of his nose.”

Julia coiled up and slapped the red nails over her mouth.

“It's a good thing I did too,” Sophie said to her, “because it was headed straight for the side of your face.”

Ms. Quelling turned to the Fruit Loops. “Is this true, boys? Where is Eddie?”

Tod and Colton both pointed calmly to the floor.

“Eddie! Get up!” Ms. Quelling said.

“I can't!” Eddie said. “I think I laughed myself to death.”

I hope so
, Sophie thought.

“Is this your pea, Eddie?” Ms. Quelling said.

That did it. The class let out its held-back breath in one enormous burst of hysteria. Ms. Quelling closed her eyes, and Sophie could see her trying not to join in.

“All right, go wash your hand, Sophie,” Ms. Quelling said. “Eddie, come up to my desk, and bring your peas with you.”

“He doesn't have them,” Sophie said. “Colton does.”

Ms. Quelling gave Sophie a pointy look, as if Sophie hadn't just made her life easier by giving her all the information she needed. “I will talk to
you
later,” she said.

Later didn't happen right away, which meant Sophie couldn't think about anything else through the rest of her morning classes except that Ms. Quelling was after her again. By lunchtime, Sophie could barely choke down her peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“I don't see why you would get in trouble,” Kitty said. “You were just trying to save Julia.”

“The question is, why?” Fiona said.

Maggie would probably have jumped right in and reminded Fiona that the Corn Flakes tried to protect everybody from harm. But Maggie hadn't hung out with them all day. Right now she was sitting alone all the way at the other end of the table, past the Wheaties, putting one tortilla chip after another into her mouth like letters into a mail slot.

“Uh-oh,” Kitty said. “Here comes Ms. Quelling. I think you're busted, Sophie.”

Ms. Quelling stopped at the end of the table, forehead twisted into that question mark thing like it had been there since second period. Fiona squeezed Sophie's hand.

“You were right, Sophie,” Ms. Quelling said. “Eddie and Colton were doing their boy thing. I've dealt with them.”

“And Tod?” Sophie said.

“What does Tod have to do with it?”

“He put them up to it. I saw him.”

“Which brings me to why you were lurking on that side of the room in the first place, Sophie,” Ms. Quelling said. “You were supposed to be reading.”

Sophie didn't answer. Ms. Quelling would never understand about a scientific thing.

“Never mind,” Ms. Quelling said. “I know what you were up to. Now that Julia and B.J. and Anne-Stuart have changed and you can't blame everything on them anymore, you're looking for ways to get the boys in trouble.”

“I wasn't doing that!” Sophie said.

“Trust me, Ms. Quelling,” Fiona said, her gray eyes wide and serious. “I know Sophie. She would never do that.”

“Thank you, Fiona,” Ms. Quelling said coldly. “When Sophie needs a character witness, I'm sure she'll call you.” She lowered her sights on Sophie again like she was aiming a rifle.

“I'm going to let it go this time, but from now on, you'd better leave those boys alone. Don't think you can do this kind of thing and stay in the GATE program.”

They don't leave us alone!
Sophie wanted to say.

As Ms. Quelling strode out of the cafeteria — amid calls from the Corn Pops of “Hi, Ms. Quelling! Love you!” — Kitty turned frightened eyes on Sophie.

“Why does she hate you so much?”

“Because Sophie has proved her wrong twice before about her little teacher's pets,” Fiona said. “She can't tolerate being wrong.”

“I know what ‘tolerate' means,” Kitty said. “You should leave them alone, Sophie.”

“I'm not doing anything to them! They're the ones doing it all!”

“Besides,” Fiona said, “we vowed we could handle them, and we will.”

“How can we do that when we can't even talk to them?” Kitty said.

Nobody had an answer for that.