Chapter Six

“Easy does it,” I said to myself, sliding the needle into the black circle with a hole in the middle of it—the valve. Then I turned on the air pump and inflated the football. I’d done this so many times, I could do it in my sleep. Not that Tyson and I enjoyed filling the footballs with air—we had to reset the pump after almost every football was filled, since it was so old and decrepit.

“Yo, don’t overinflate it, Soph,” he shouted over at me.

I rolled my eyes. He had said that to me after literally every single ball I’d filled this afternoon. Ignoring him, I quickly removed the needle. At least filling footballs took my mind off the hackathon and how I was going to let my team down. I hadn’t seen my friends for the rest of the afternoon, so I’d have to tell them tonight during our group chat. Every time I thought about it, my hands got clammy.

I tossed the newly inflated football into the football bin, half listening to Coach’s pep talk a few feet away. “A player is nothing without his team,” he told the players. “You’ve gotta watch out for one another. What good is a quarterback if he doesn’t have his team backing him up?” They had a game tomorrow, and Coach always gave speeches like that the night before big games.

The guys all put their hands on top of one another’s and yelled, “Rise as ONE!”

Football could be so sappy sometimes, but I loved it. No matter what happened in practice, the guys gave it their all at games, and it was true—they always had their teammates’ backs. Plus, I loved the structure and order of it all. There were no surprises or changes of rules at the last minute—not like at home.

Tyson was on the bench nearby, cleaning visors and helmets. When he was done, he came over to help me with the footballs. He was tall and skinny, with short hair, and ears that stuck out from his head. He didn’t seem like the type to get nervous around people—I had a feeling he had no problems in the romance department, and was pretty sure he’d have advice for me about Sammy. Plus, since he was in high school, he wouldn’t even know who I was talking about. It was perfect.

“Hey, Tyson,” I said, trying to sound casual. “If you wanted to ask someone to a dance, how would you do it?”

“Um, I’d just ask them,” he said, resetting the machine, which had conked out again. “Why?”

“No reason.”

He made a face. “You think I’m going to believe that? Come clean, Sophia. Why’d you ask?”

I shrugged, looking down at my sneakers. I didn’t like feeling so unsure of myself, but when I was around Sammy, that was exactly how I felt. “It’s just, there’s this guy, and the winter dance is coming up, and he, um, asked me about the theme, and I was wondering . . .”

“Did he ask you to go with him?”

“No.” I was starting to feel stupid for bringing this up.

“Maybe the guy’s into you. Or maybe he just wants to be friends.”

I thought about that. “He brought up the dance, but he didn’t ask me to go to it,” I said, feeling more confused.

Tyson looked at me, narrowing his eyes. “Do you want to go to the winter dance with him?”

“No,” I blurted out. My cheeks were tingling, and by the way Tyson was looking at me, I knew I was blushing. “I mean, I don’t know. Maybe!” I looked down at the football machine. “Ugh, I hate this.”

But when I glanced up at him, Tyson didn’t look fazed at all. He just kept filling up footballs and chucking them into the bin. “Just be yourself, Sophia,” he told me. “You’re a cool girl. If this dude doesn’t want to go to the dance with you, his loss.”

I waited for a second, not sure if he was joking. “Well, thanks,” I said. Tyson threw a ball at me, and I caught it.

“Nice catch,” he said, grinning.

“Yeah, I usually am able to catch those three-foot passes,” I said sarcastically.

“Now there’s the Sophia I know!” Tyson said, laughing.

I tried to smile back. Now that I thought about it, whether or not Sammy wanted to ask me to the dance, I knew that he was my friend. And once I told my coding team I was dropping out of the hackathon, I was going to need all the friends I had.

When I got home from school, my parents weren’t home yet. For dinner, Abuela made her famous tortilla soup with extra chopped green onion, just like I like it, but I couldn’t even enjoy it. Later that night, I logged on to my computer and opened the chat program. I’d tell my friends fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid. Lucy would be mad. I knew how excited she was about the hackathon—she’d wanted to do it before Mrs. Clark even told us about it in coding club. I hadn’t been friends with Maya and Erin for that long, but they’d probably be mad, too, especially since we’d already put so much work into our robot idea. And Leila had been so happy when we asked her to be part of our group. Sigh.

Suddenly my screen lit up.

Maya: hey!!!

So far, Maya was the only one on.

Sophia: hey

I wanted to tell them all at once, so I waited for the others.

Lucy and Leila finally logged in. Now we were just waiting for Erin.

Lucy: so, i have an idea for the algorithm

I knew that once we started talking about our robot plans, it’d be hard to change the topic.

Sophia: can we wait for erin? i have something to tell u guys

Lucy: what? is this what you were acting so weird about today????

Sophia: i

I’d only typed one letter when the ding on the chat announced that Erin had arrived.

Sophia: we have a problem

Erin: is this about whatever happened at lunch?

Sophia: kind of. i

Knock knock

“Sweetie?” I heard my mom say outside my door.

I stopped typing and looked away from the computer for a second. “Come in!” It wasn’t good timing, but I knew Mom would be mad at me if I didn’t let her in.

Sophia: hold on, moms here

My mom came over and kissed my cheek. “Hi, honey. I got your text. So we have a little problem, huh?”

“What’s your definition of ‘little’?” I said, crossing my arms across my chest. My mom was looking around my room at the mess of papers and clothes. Normally I kept my room superclean, but I’d been too distracted this week.

“Can I . . . sit down?” Mom asked, waving vaguely toward my bed.

I nodded and got up to clear a spot.

“Sometimes, honey,” Mom said, sitting back on the bed and crossing her legs, “we all have to make hard decisions.”

“I know.” I glanced over at my computer quickly.

Lucy: sophia? you back yet?

Mom gave me a sympathetic look. “I know you were looking forward to the hackathon, honey, but Dad and I really need you here on Saturday.”

“Yeah, I know.” I didn’t want to be a brat about it, but it was starting to feel like I didn’t matter at all. “But I told you about the hackathon.” It was a done deal now, so it wouldn’t make a difference, but I couldn’t help telling my mom how I felt. “I know you’re busy, and I get that Dad has a work thing, but couldn’t you get how important this is to me?” I said. “Why do I always have to fill in for everyone?” I added. Against my will, my eyes were filling with tears. I hated crying—especially in front of people.

My mom looked shocked. “Honey. That’s not how it is at all. We—”

“No, that’s exactly how it is!” I cried without thinking. “I’m working really hard at school, and football, and coding club, but none of that even matters, because the minute you have something to do, it means I have to stop everything to help you. I’m so sick of it!” Now I was really crying.

My mom sat quietly for a moment. She looked a little shocked at my outburst. “Do you want a tissue?” she asked finally. I nodded, and she went over to the tissue box on my dresser to get me one.

“I think I need the whole box,” I said, blowing loudly.

She managed to give me a small smile, but her eyes were creased with concern. “Sweetie, I’m really sorry about all this. I know you have a lot of responsibility around here as the oldest sibling, and Dad and I really, truly appreciate how much you help out at home.” She took a deep breath. “If—if we made you feel like your plans didn’t matter, I’m sorry. That’s not how we think or how we feel. I guess sometimes grown-ups get caught up in things and might not see things from their kids’ point of view.”

“You can say that again,” I muttered.

My mom reached out and wrapped her arms around me tightly. “I didn’t realize you were so upset about this. I wish I could change things, but we’re really in a bind.”

“I know, it’s just . . . ,” I choked out. “I really wanted to go to the hackathon. Coding club is, like, the only place where I have my own . . . my own group,” I said, realizing how much I cared about my “permanent group.” “And everyone from the club’s going to be there . . .” I stopped short of telling her about Sammy. “And I haven’t even been able to tell my friends yet, and now they’re going to be disqualified, all because of ME!” More tears slid down my face.

“Disqualified?” Mom echoed. She looked confused.

“Yeah, those are the rules if someone cancels.” I took a gulp of air. “And we passed the deadline to make changes.”

“Oh, honey,” my mom said, rubbing my back. “I wish I could help fix this. But why didn’t you tell your friends sooner?”

“I tried!” I cried. The truth was, I hadn’t wanted to tell them because I thought I could handle it on my own. And clearly I was wrong.

My computer kept dinging. My friends were probably wondering where I was.

My mom looked at me. “Sweetie, I do feel bad about all this. I think your friends will understand, though. They know you have responsibilities at home, too—we all do.”

“Maybe,” I said, sniffling. “But it affects them, too.” Thinking about my friends made me feel guilty all over again about letting them down. I decided I had to give it one more try. I looked up at my mom pleadingly. “Can’t we get a babysitter, just this one time?” I knew finding one would be a challenge, but I couldn’t help bringing it up.

“You know how Dad and I feel about babysitters after Becky,” she said, wrinkling her nose like she was smelling something rotten. Then she looked down at her knees. “Especially with Lola not handling new situations so well.” She gave me a look. “Plus, we’re not in a position to spend the extra money right now—you know that, Sophia.”

I could feel tears welling up again. I tried to hold them back, but they started slipping down my cheeks.

“Oh, honey,” my mom said. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying!” I burst out as I sobbed.

I could tell Mom was thinking things through. “Although . . . there’s a family that moved into that white house with the blue shutters on Lucy’s street that has a teenage daughter. I’ve met her and her mom a couple times when I was walking with Rosie. The daughter’s name is Monica. She seemed really nice.”

Monica. My mom had just thrown me a life preserver, and I grabbed it with all my might. “Let’s ask Dad if we can have Monica babysit!” I said excitedly. I felt a glimmer of hope that Mom was even considering this.

Mom stood up. “Let me talk to him and see if we can work something out.”

I put my hands on my heart. “Really?”

“I’m not making any promises.” Mom pointed at my computer screen. “And you should tell your friends what’s going on. It’s always best to be honest, Sophia. You should give your friends a little more credit. They might just surprise you.”

Down the hall, Pearl shouted, “Mooooooooommmmm!”

“Coming!” My mom sighed as she walked out.

After my mom left, I got back on my computer.

Sophia: hey i’m back

Erin: finally! so what’s the problem?

Mom was right, I should be honest with my friends. But what was the point of worrying them if we could get Monica to babysit?

Sophia: we need to do our pseudocode

Lucy: umm . . . duh

Maya: that was the big problem???

Sophia: yeah

Sophia: ok i started a shared doc

We chatted about how to make our robot and ended up with this:

The Rockin’ Robots Pseudocode

We start with a rover base with four wheels and an attached motherboard. The motherboard has four slots for plug-in modules. Our first plug-in is a large arm that swings freely. Our second module is plug-in speakers, which will start playing automatically.

Next will be a button. We will write code so that if the robot hits a wall and activates the button, the robot will turn left and left again, until it is not facing the wall and can continue through the maze.

The last part is a ball. The arm will push it along like it’s playing soccer. The robot will move through the maze entirely on its own with our program.

Sophia: done. this is awesome.

Leila: epic!

I was proud of our robot plan. It was amazing to think of how much we’d learned since our first coding club meeting! As we all logged off, I thought, Now all I have to do is make sure Dad and Mom agree that:

a. we can get a babysitter

b. Monica is able to babysit, and

c. my friends don’t get disqualified and hate me forever.

Otherwise the only epic thing was going to be my epic fail.