By the time she finished her homework, Sophie had a plan. She was nervous, but, as she told herself, “I have to get this out of the way.” She took a deep breath and called Maggie.
Senora LaQuita told her she didn’t think Maggie would come to the phone.
“Please — just ask her?” Sophie said. Her voice was barely squeaking out.
Sophie heard Maggie’s mom call out something in Spanish — twice — three times — until finally a frail voice said, “Hello?” sounding more like a pin-drop than a thud.
“Maggie?” Sophie said.
“I’m only taking the phone because my mom is making me,” Maggie said.
Sophie’s hand tightened around the phone until her fingers went white. “I just want to say, please come to school tomorrow. I’ll protect you — I promise.”
There was a heavy silence. Then Maggie’s words dropped with close to their usual clunk. “I don’t care if I ever go back to that school again — but my mom’s making me do that too.”
“Meet us on the playground early, okay?” Sophie held her breath again.
“Whatever,” Maggie said. And then she hung up.
Love is where it starts, Sophie reminded herself. I sure hope Dr. Peter is right.
When Mama dropped Sophie off at school — earlier than the bus — the next morning, Darbie and Fiona were waiting for her on the sidewalk, and they half dragged her to their spot backstage.
“Are we glad to see you!” Fiona said as she finally let go of Sophie under the flower arch.
“We thought you’d still be mad at us after yesterday,” Darbie said.
Fiona hooked her elbow around Sophie’s neck. “I wish we hadn’t had that fight — especially since the dance is going to happen anyway.”
Darbie nodded soberly. “You can’t help what your mum and dad do.”
“I’m not going,” Sophie said.
She could feel Fiona’s arm going stiff around her neck.
“You’re not going to the dance?” Fiona said.
“Aunt Emily said I can go,” Darbie said. “I just can’t dance with only Ian the whole night.” She shook her head. “Sophie, your parents really ARE strict.”
“They didn’t tell me I couldn’t go. I decided myself.”
Fiona let go of her completely. “WHAT?” she said. “But what about your dress?”
“I can use the dress in our film.”
“What about Jimmy?”
“I’ll just tell him the truth: the whole thing is messed up, and Maggie doesn’t want to be my friend now because of it, and maybe Kitty either.”
Sophie lowered her eyes. She’d said what she knew was right to say, but she didn’t want to hear what Fiona and Darbie were going to say back. Maybe if she didn’t look at them, the words wouldn’t come out of their mouths.
“Sophie! You guys! You gotta come right now!”
Sophie turned around in time to see Willoughby burst through the curtains in a billow of dust.
“Why?” Fiona said. “If this is some kind of trick — ”
“They’ve got Maggie on the playground — she needs you. Come on!”
Without asking who “they” were, Sophie charged off the stage, through the cafeteria, and out the back door. Darbie and Fiona were right behind her.
“I told Maggie to meet us out here!” Sophie cried. “I told her we’d protect her!”
“We’ll take care of those Corn Pops!” Fiona said.
Willoughby ran ahead and led them around the corner of the school to the area where the trash Dumpsters stood. At first Sophie didn’t see anyone, until Willoughby stopped and motioned for them to look between two of the giant green boxes. It wasn’t the Corn Pops they saw. It was the Fruit Loops.
Tod was sitting on top of one of the boxes, dangling his legs as he looked down. Colton had his back to them, facing Eddie, intent on doing something that obviously cracked up the other two. Their faces were exploding with hysterical laughter. When Fiona yanked Colton back by his shirt, Sophie saw why.
There was Maggie, with Eddie’s arms wrapped across her chest from behind, and she had what looked like a donut stuffed halfway into her mouth. It was hard to tell which was bulging more, her cheeks or her eyes, as she coughed and choked.
Colton held a Krispy Kreme box over his head as he stumbled into Darbie. Fiona made a dive to catch her before she careened into the side of the Dumpster, Sophie hurled herself straight at Eddie, and Maggie and hung with her whole weight on Eddie’s arm.
“Dude!” he shouted.
He let go of Maggie, but before Sophie could even reach for her, she felt her own arms being pulled behind her back. It wasn’t Colton who was doing it. It was B.J.
“Get off me, you little eejit,” Darbie cried — because Anne-Stuart had leaped onto her back like a spider monkey.
Fiona had both hands entwined with Julia’s, pushing her back, obviously to keep from being slashed by her fingernails. As Sophie watched in horror, Julia spit into Fiona’s face.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Maggie was on her hands and knees, spewing out pieces of donut and rocking as if she were going to throw up any second. Sophie took two steps toward her and ran smack into Tod — who had apparently come down from on high.
“Going somewhere?” he said. His whole face seemed to come to a point just inches from hers. And then it was gone as he twisted her around, latched his arms around her, and picked her up. “Dude, we gotta get rid of the garbage around here. It’s starting to smell.”
Eddie was up against the dumpster with Colton standing on his shoulders. Tod plunked Sophie into Eddie’s arms, and Eddie lifted her up to Colton as if she were one of the donuts.
“Watch this!” Colton said. He flipped Sophie over and held her upside down. There was no decision to be made about what to do — screams ripped out of her and she banged her fists against anything close enough to reach.
Sophie looked around frantically as her head began to throb. Even upside-down she could see B.J. with Fiona in a headlock, and Anne-Stuart and Julia sitting on Darbie while she clawed at the air and shrieked about eejits. Both her Corn Flakes were putting up a good fight, but the Corn Pops weren’t giving in — and Sophie felt herself being hoisted, head still lolling, toward the opening to the Dumpster. Willoughby was nowhere in sight.
“Somebody HELP!” Sophie screamed.
“Wythe here,” said a voice above her. “JAMES Wythe.”
Sophie curled upward. Jimmy’s head appeared above the dumpster, and then his whole chest appeared as he pulled himself up by his gymnast-muscled arms and swung the rest of his body over the side. He dropped past Sophie to the ground and yelled, “Ready, Double-O-Nine?”
Another head popped out of the Dumpster — Vincent’s this time — and he reached out and grabbed one of Colton’s ears. “Drop her,” he said.
“Dude! Let go!”
“Not until you drop her!”
“Don’t drop me!” Sophie screamed.
But Colton did, right into Jimmy’s arms. He set her down almost as soon as she realized where she was and moved in front of her. Vincent was now sitting on Colton’s shoulders, fingers wrapped around both of Colton’s ears.
“One move and I pull,” Vincent said.
By now Eddie’s face resembled a turnip, and he hurled himself at Jimmy. But Jimmy stepped aside, taking Sophie with him, just in time to avoid being plowed down by Eddie’s chunk of a body plummeting to the ground.
“What the — ” she heard Tod shout, sounding as if he were inside a cave.
Sophie peered around Jimmy. Make that a bag, she thought.
Ian and Ross were wrapping Tod soundly inside a large cloth sack with a hunk of yellow rope from the bottom of the Dumpster.
“Eddie — get up and do something!” Colton cried, voice cracking.
“I can’t!” Eddie said.
It was easy to see why. His ankles were tied together with more yellow rope. Nathan appeared from the other side, dusting off his hands and grinning like he’d just taken a gold medal.
“Good work Double-O-Eleven,” Jimmy said. “What is the status of Agent Canary?”
Nathan whipped something black out of his pocket and talked into it. “Canary, this is Double-O-Eleven. Do you read me?”
“Canary?” Fiona said.
Sophie stepped all the way out from behind Jimmy. Fiona was rubbing her neck — and B.J. was long gone. So were Julia and Anne-Stuart. Darbie was frozen in an I’m-going-after-them position, staring at Jimmy.
“Are you talking about Kitty?” she said.
“Canary has the spies in her sights,” Nathan said as he returned what was obviously a walkie-talkie to his pocket. “She and Mockingbird will keep a tail on them until help arrives. She’ll advise if they head back this way.”
“Who’s Mockingbird?” Darbie said.
“I don’t know,” Nathan said. “I thought you did.”
Sophie didn’t catch the rest of the discussion. She went to Maggie, who was still on her knees, wiping her mouth with the back of her shaking hand.
“Did you throw up?” Sophie whispered to her.
Maggie shook her head. “None of it went down. I spit it all out. They said I would never get skinny — that I was always feeding my cake trap anyway, so they were going to ‘help’ me.”
Sophie knelt down beside her. “I let you down again. I’m really sorry — ”
There was no answer. Maggie spit another sugary glob into the dirt.
“Do you hate me now?” Sophie said. “You probably do — but Maggie, I LOVE you, and I’ll never hurt you ever again. I’m not even going to the stupid dance.”
“Me neither,” said a voice above them.
“I wouldn’t go if they PAID me,” said another one.
Sophie’s head came up. Fiona and Darbie were standing over them. Their faces looked ready to crumple.
Nathan’s walkie-talkie crackled, and he pawed it out of his pocket. “Double-O-Eleven here. Come in, Canary.”
There was more sputtering that Sophie couldn’t make out, but it brought a grin to Nathan’s — Double-O-Eleven’s — face.
“She said the Corn Pops were on their way back here, but Mockingbird and two other agents cornered them at the door.”
Nathan’s eyes crunched up. “Some kind of cereal?”
“Wheaties?” Sophie said.
“Yeah, that was it. Canary has gone to get O.”
“O?” Fiona said. “Oh! Mrs. Olinghouse!”
“Are you talking about Kitty?” Darbie said to Nathan. “OUR Kitty?”
While Nathan’s ears went so red they looked like Christmas lights, Sophie turned her attention back to Maggie.
“I’m going to protect you,” Sophie said. “Even if you hate me — ”
“I don’t hate you.” Maggie sank back and folded her arms around her knees so she could hug them against her. ”But you can’t be around me to protect me every minute. And people are always going to do stuff like that to me. I’m never gonna be skinny — I’m not made that way, and somebody’s always gonna say I’m fat.”
“Those guys are slime,” Jimmy said.
Jimmy squatted down in front of the Corn Flakes, looking suddenly as if he didn’t know where to put the arms that could, as far as Sophie was concerned, do just about anything.
“You aren’t fat and besides, even if you were — ” Jimmy swallowed, so that Sophie could see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.“ — you don’t deserve to be treated like that.”
Vincent gave Colton’s head a shake. “Whenever you need assistance, Agent Owl, just call on us.”
“How did you know her code name was Owl?” Fiona said.
“Canary told us,” Nathan said. “When SHE came to me for protection.”
“From what?” Darbie said.
“From the Corn Pops. They threatened her with bodily harm if she got in the way of these morons. Mockingbird told her this was going to go down, but she couldn’t tell YOU agents because the Corn Pops’ threat covered you all too.”
It was the most Sophie had ever heard Nathan say. He must have realized it too, because his ears turned into Christmas bulbs again.
“WHO is Mockingbird?” Darbie said.
But she didn’t get an answer, because “O” rounded the corner of the Dumpster with Mr. Denton and Kitty.
“All right, guys, turn them loose,” Mr. Denton said.
“They were saving us from being thrown into the garbage!” Sophie said.
Mr. Denton took a sniff at Vincent. “You really got into it, didn’t you? Okay — let’s go sort this out.”
He nodded for Colton to come with him and waited while Nathan untied Eddie — who had been lying facedown ever since he’d fallen. Sophie could see that he’d been spending the time crying.
“Where’s the other one?” Mr. Denton said.
Ian and Ross whipped the bag off Tod. Sophie wasn’t sure, but she thought a hint of a smile trailed across Mr. Denton’s face.
When they were gone, along with Jimmy, Nathan, Vincent, and the twins, Mrs. Olinghouse turned to the Corn Flakes.
“I want you to tell me the absolute, unvarnished truth about how Julia and B.J. and Anne-Stuart were involved in this.”
“You can count on us,” Fiona said. “Especially Sophie. She’s always honest.”
“If your story matches Kitty’s and Willoughby’s,” Mrs. Olinghouse said, “then I think Julia and her friends are in a great deal of trouble. They’ve had enough chances this year.”
“Excuse me,” Sophie said. “Did you say Willoughby?”
“Yes, ma’am, Willoughby Wiley. I just talked to her and Kitty. I was surprised she would turn her friends in, and I thought maybe they’d had a falling-out and this was her revenge.” She turned her sharp blue eyes on Sophie. “But if you confirm it, I guess I’d better believe it, hadn’t I?”
“Willoughby is Mockingbird,” Fiona whispered to Darbie and Sophie as they followed “O” into the building. “I’m going to have to get down on my KNEES to apologize to her.”
“I know,” Sophie whispered back.
“Ahem,” Darbie said. She was grinning. “A lady does not whisper.”
And Mrs. Olinghouse made it clear that a lady does not threaten or conspire or hold people against their will either. The Corn Pops were suspended for five days.
Except for Willoughby, who made it official when she sat with the Corn Flakes at lunch that day, that she was no longer one of Julia’s Pops.
“I think you should be one of us,” Kitty said. Then she glanced quickly at the other Corn Flakes. “I mean, if that’s okay.”
They all looked at one another and nodded, except for Maggie, who was tearing the roll from her sandwich into pieces and not eating it.
“Is it all right with you, Mags?” Sophie said.
“Do I still get a vote?” she said.
“Well, duh-uh — you’re a Corn Flake!” Fiona said.
“I don’t know if I fit in so much anymore.” Maggie let the last chunk of bread drop into her lunch box. “You all have boys liking you — and you’re pretty — and you look good in clothes. I’m never gonna have any of that.”
“That’s a bit of a horse’s hoof, I think!” Darbie said.
Maggie looked at Darbie with hopeless eyes. “You wouldn’t say that if you were more like me. Any of you.”
“But we ARE like you!” Kitty said.
“We’re all alike in the important things,” Sophie said.
“Yes!” Darbie pulled her eyebrows together. “Tell us what they are, Sophie.”
Sophie got up on her knees so she could look right into Maggie’s dark, sad eyes. “None of us are perfect,” she said. “But we ALL try to follow our rules — like we’re all mostly loyal and we don’t do bad stuff to people like the Corn Pops even though they do it to us — and we TRY to do the right thing. When we fight, we always make up because — ”
Sophie stopped and slid her eyes toward Kitty — whose parents “didn’t believe in church.” She was pretty sure Jesus would want her to go ahead anyway.
“Because what?” Kitty said.
“Because love is always where it starts with God.”
Willoughby stuck her hand up. “If you call Julia and them Corn Pops,” she said, “what do you call yourselves?”
Darbie and Fiona and Kitty whipped their heads toward Sophie.
“Willoughby totally helped us,” Sophie said. “Of course we can tell her. We’re the Corn Flakes.”
Willoughby gave a nod that bounced her wavy bob. “Then I want to be one.”
Fiona looked at Maggie. “Mags?” she said.
“Yeah,” Maggie thudded.
Sophie suddenly felt a little squirmy. “Just one thing,” she said to Willoughby. “We’re not like some clique. I mean, we have other friends too.”
Willoughby looked down the table at Gill and Harley.
“Yeah,” Darbie said. “The Wheaties.”
“And don’t forget the Lucky Charms,” Sophie said.
Question marks formed in Corn Flake eyes, until Fiona said, “OH — Jimmy and those guys. But I thought we said no boyfriends.”
“They aren’t boyfriends,” Sophie said. “They’re boys who are friends. I think it’s our time for that.”
“Yes!” Kitty said. “They are our Lucky Charms!” She high-fived Sophie and Darbie and Fiona. And then even Maggie put up her hand and let Kitty slap it — about fifteen times.
Dr. Peter WAS right, Sophie thought. Love IS always where it starts with God.
They got word later that day from Willoughby, who just seemed to know everything that happened at Great Marsh Elementary, that the Fruit Loops were suspended for the rest of the year. And the dance was cancelled.
“There isn’t going to be a dance after all,” Sophie told her parents when Daddy got home that night. “I figure you’re happy to know that.”
They seemed more than just happy. They looked the way they did when everybody finally woke up on Christmas morning.
“We have a surprise,” Mama said.
Sophie looked back and forth between them. Daddy was sporting a major grin.
“You wanted a dance,” he said, “so you’re going to have one — you and the rest of the Corn Flakes.”
“At Fiona’s house,” Mama said. “It’s being decorated as we speak.”
Daddy nudged Mama. “Don’t tell her everything!”
“I’m excited!” Mama said. She was all but clapping her little elfin hands. “Your dress is upstairs, all finished. You need to go get into it — your date will be waiting.”
“My date?” Sophie said. “But I thought — ”
Mama nodded at Daddy, who was holding up his hand. “Will I do?” he said.
“Are all the dads — ?”
“Yes,” Mama said.
“And Darbie’s uncle Patrick?”
“Yes.”
“But what about Maggie?”
“Boppa to the rescue,” Daddy said. “IF she can get him away from Miss Odetta.”
“Of course she can,” Mama said. “This whole thing was Miss Odetta’s idea.”
“No WAY!” Sophie said.
“There’s only one problem.” Daddy shuffled his feet. “I’m not a dancer.”
Sophie felt a grin spreading across her face. “That’s not a problem. I can teach you.” She put her arms out. “We’ll start with a waltz.”
Daddy lifted her so her feet were on his and leaned down to get into position.
“It’s one-two-three, one-two-three,” Sophie said, and they began to move.
“I want to be the most important guy in your life for a while longer, Soph,” Daddy said in a soft voice she didn’t even know he had.
“You are, Daddy,” Sophie said.
And then she thought, You and Jesus.
With that, Sophie decided not to think of a new mission, now that the old one had been accomplished. She just swept across the kitchen, dancing with her daddy.