Sophie Under Pressure (12 page)

“Where are you going?” Sophie said.

She thought she saw the crinkles around Daddy's eyes get deeper.

“Your mother and I are going on a date.”

“But you're married,” Fiona said.

“You don't think a husband and a wife can go on a date?”

Sophie thought about that. Basically, adults could do anything they wanted, so why not? Besides, this sounded good. Mama and Daddy going to a movie and holding hands in there and eating out of the same popcorn. People didn't go on dates if they were about to … No, this had to be a very good thing.

“I'll watch Zeke and I'll even take care of him tonight if you guys want to go on a really long date,” Sophie said.

Daddy broke into a grin. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with my kid?”

To her own surprise, Sophie got a tight feeling in her throat, like she was going to cry.

It's all I have to give
, she thought.
It's like MY loaves and fishes. Daddy
,
don't laugh at me
.

The minute they got to Fiona's, Zeke leaped out of his car seat and crawled across Sophie before Daddy could get the door open. He took off to join Rory and Izzy, with Fiona on his heels toward off a puppy pile of three kids in puffy coats and with runny noses. It was definitely the coldest day they'd had the whole winter. Icy breath was puffing out of everyone's mouths.

“You sure you want to go up in that tree house today?” Daddy said to Sophie. “You're going to freeze your nose off.” He reached down and caught her nose gently between the knuckles of two fingers. “It's too cute for you to lose.” Then he looked at her closely.

“Are you crying, Soph?” he said.

“I think so,” she said. She blinked hard. “I just wanted to help.”

Daddy put his hand on her cheek. It almost swallowed it up. “You do help,” he said. “Just by being you.”

Then he coughed and reached back into the truck. “If you're determined to go up there,” he said, “you're going to need this.” He pulled out a thermos. “Hot chocolate. They drink it in space. I have it on the best authority.”

It made Sophie smile a damp smile.

Maggie was, of course, already up in the space station when Sophie climbed the ladder, trying to write down more stuff with her gloves on. She had a bright yellow scarf pulled over her nose and mouth.

Sophie pulled out the blanket she had stuffed into her backpack and wrapped up in it. Then she produced the thermos and dug in her locker for two cups.

“Maybe we should watch the station from inside the house,” Sophie said as she poured. “It's way cold up here.”

“I will not abandon the
Freedom 4
in her time of need,” Maggie said.

Sophie almost poured the rest of the hot chocolate right over her hand. She sucked on the glove finger where it dripped some and tried not to stare at Maggie.

Reason Number Four
:
Maggie is loyal.

Maggie joined her and took a cup with steam curling up from it. As Sophie was blowing on hers, Maggie said, “I'm not trying to be the boss of you, but I think you did something you weren't supposed to.”

“For real?” Sophie said.

“You left your camera up here yesterday.”

Sophie spit the sip she'd just taken back into the cup.

“I put it in your locker when I got up here this morning. Are you gonna get in trouble?”

Maggie's eyebrows were scrunched up, like she was really worried.

“Only if it's broken,” Sophie said. She squeezed her eyes shut. “I can't look. You check it.”

“I already did. It works okay.” Sophie opened her eyes to see Maggie nodding very seriously. “You're lucky it didn't rain last night.”

“Please,” Sophie said. “That would be so heinous.”

She was about to take another sip of her hot chocolate when there was a scream so loud from the direction of Huntsville, they both abandoned their cups and got to the railing.

“They shouldn't be doing that,” Maggie said, voice as calm and heavy as ever.

Sophie's was not. “No kidding!” she squeaked.

Rory was hauling a little red wagon across the lawn, bouncing it through the now-empty flower beds and nearly turning it over when he got to a walkway. Which was not good, since Izzy was in the wagon, holding on to Zeke. Sophie realized she had to hold on to him because he couldn't hold on for himself. He was wrapped up in enough rope to tie all three of them up. He was the one doing the screaming.

“Somebody's gonna get hurt,” Maggie yelled down at them.

If Rory heard that, he ignored her. He careened the wagon around a curve in the walkway on two wheels, just missing Kateesha, who was coming at him with both arms out. She had to step off the walk to avoid being plowed over, but that didn't stop her from reaching into her coat pocket and pulling out something that she put in her mouth. A high-pitched whistle made Sophie put her hands over her ears. And it definitely brought Rory to a sneaker-screeching halt.

In minutes Kateesha had Zeke untied and she was dragging both Izzy and Rory toward the house by the backs of their collars.

“Captain Stella!” she called over her shoulder. “Could you take Zeke on board for a few minutes?”

“I'm not allowed to,” Sophie called back to her.

But Kateesha was too busy telling Izzy and Rory how long their time-outs were going to be to hear her. Sophie looked down at her little brother, who was looking up at her with his eyes twice the size they usually were. He looked smaller than ever from outer space.

I can't just let him stand there and freeze to death
, Sophie thought.
Mama will understand.

Sophie tried not to think that maybe the new grown-up Mama wouldn't, and helped Maggie get the still-hollering Zeke up the ladder. While Maggie closed the hatch cover, Sophie poured enough hot chocolate into him to make him stop howling. Then he looked around, and his eyes started to shine.

“This is COOL!” he said.

“He shouldn't touch anything,” Maggie said.

Zeke looked at Sophie. “Is she the boss of me?”

“She's the president of the whole world,” Sophie said.

“Nuh-uh!” Zeke said. And then he peered at Maggie from under his knit cap and said, “Are you?”

“No,” Maggie said. “I just act like I am.”

Reason Number Five
:
Maggie didn't lie about herself.

Maggie smiled at Sophie like they had a secret. Sophie made that Reason Number Six.

“What's over here?” Zeke said. Instead of pointing, he got up to stomp across the hatch cover toward the robot arm.

And then suddenly, he was down again. There was a silence, the kind that always came when Zeke fell and he was deciding whether to cry or not. He evidently thought he needed to because the wail he sent up went right through Sophie.

The minute she got to him, she saw why. The hatch cover had split right down the middle, and Zeke's leg was wedged between the two halves. Sophie watched in horror as blood soaked into his jeans.

Eleven

S
ophie thought the floor was breaking open under her too. And then she realized she was just sinking down to her knees, staring at the blood.

“Go get help!” she said. “He's hurt bad! He's bleeding all over the place!”

Maggie got down beside her and bent over Zeke. “Stop crying,” she said to him.

Her voice was so calm it made Sophie want to scream louder.

“You have to answer some questions,” Maggie said.

To Sophie's utter amazement, Zeke choked back his tears to a lower level. “Can you move your leg?”

“Nuh-uh. It's stuck.”

Zeke puckered up again.

“Okay — how about the part that's hanging down?”

Sophie realized for the first time that his leg had gone all the way through and it was dangling from the knee down. Zeke swung it a little and then started yowling again. There was no quieting him this time.

“You go get help,” Maggie said to Sophie. “I'm gonna cover him up with a blanket and stuff.”

“I can't! He's on the hatch cover!”

Zeke's shrieks went way up into the atmosphere, and Maggie looked hard at Sophie and then at Zeke. Sophie bit her lip.

“It's okay, Z-Man,” Sophie said to him. “I'll get help some other way.”

She went to the railing and shouted for Kateesha, for Boppa, for anybody. It wasn't hard, since she wanted to scream anyway.

But her shivery shouts seemed to disappear with the puffs of frosty breath that blew from her mouth. Then Fiona burst out onto the deck, dragging Boppa behind her. Boppa ducked back into the house and came out with a cell phone in his hand. Fiona was already standing at the bottom of the ladder by then, staring up at Zeke's dangling leg. Sophie had never seen her best friend look so white and wide-eyed.

“He's bleeding!” Sophie called to her.

“Boppa's coming!”

Their two voices tangled up into one high-pitched knot. Maggie's voice was the only calm one.

“He's not going anywhere,” she said.

Sophie looked over to see that Maggie had Zeke bundled up and lying down with his other leg up. Zeke was still crying, but he wasn't making a lot of noise. He was watching Maggie's face as she talked to him, and he was nodding. Sophie figured Maggie was telling him he would be fine — or else.

Boppa's bushy eyebrows looked jet black against his skin as he took in the board situation. He was pretty white-faced himself.

“Okay,” he called up to Maggie and Sophie. “I'm going to get up there and pry the parts of the board apart. You two are going to take Zeke by the armpits and pull him back, very slowly.”

“Very slowly,” Sophie said. She could hardly hear her own voice.

“Just get him so his leg is clear of the hole and don't move him any other way.”

Maggie looked at Sophie. “That's in case it's broken,” she whispered.

“Okay, ready?” Boppa said.

Sophie half crawled over to Zeke and got behind him on one side. Maggie took the other, and Sophie could see her holding her breath.

“One, two, three,” Boppa called. “Now!”

Sophie could hear the boards splitting apart, and she and Maggie gave Zeke one gentle tug. Sophie covered her eyes and waited.

“His leg's still in one piece,” Maggie said. “All in one piece is good.”

Boppa was there like Spider-Man himself, with Fiona crawling in after him. He knitted his eyebrows over Zeke's leg and nodded. Sophie decided Boppa nodding was good too.

“It's not as bad as it looks,” he said. “I'm calling Fiona's mother.”

Sophie and Fiona clung to each other like baby monkeys while they waited for Fiona's doctor mom to get there. Sophie watched as Maggie helped Boppa get Zeke in a position where he fell into a soft whimper instead of the screams that were shaking the pinecones out of the trees.

I don't know what number reason I'm on
, Sophie thought.
I just know I like Maggie enough for anything.

When Dr. Bunting got there, she said Zeke needed to go to the emergency room. Boppa got on the phone and called Mama and Daddy to tell them to meet them at the hospital.

That was when it hit Sophie like a blast of frozen air. Mama had told her never to take Zeke up in the tree house. She was going to be so upset — so disappointed, so mad — that this could be it. The final thing. Just when she'd started to be Mama again.

Even Captain Stella Stratos can't fix this one
, Sophie thought.
Because it's all my fault.

By the time Sophie, Boppa, and Dr. Bunting got Zeke to the hospital, Mama and Daddy were already there. Sophie felt like she could almost see through Mama's pale face.

Things went by in a blur. From what Sophie could tell, Zeke was being put in a room with curtains, Dr. Bunting was telling Mama he would barely feel a thing, and Daddy was leading Sophie down the hall for interrogation.

He squatted down in front of her so that their heads were the same level. She was afraid to look into his eyes, so she fixed hers on the third button down on his shirt.

“What happened, Soph?” he said.

“I don't know,” she said to the button. “I told you I'd watch him, and I was. I was protecting him from Rory and Izzy — and I'm not dreaming, he really was in trouble — ”

“Soph,” Daddy said. “Take it easy. I'm running out of breath.”

She looked at his face. His eyes were shiny, not angry.

“Just tell me what happened. One word at a time, okay?”

But Sophie couldn't seem to slow herself down. “Mama told me not to let him go up there, but I had to — Kateesha told me to and I couldn't just let him stand down there and be all frozen — but Mama's going to be so upset with me she'll really leave us now!”

Sophie sucked in some breath, and her eyes went back to Daddy's button. “Are they going to have to amputate?”