Sophie Simon Solves Them All (3 page)

Daisy crossed her toes.

“I d-don't even know what it, um, says.”

Daisy crossed her eyes.

“Well,”
Mr. St. Cupid said, “why don't we all find out
together
then?” And he unfolded the paper and began to read aloud.

If Mr. St. Upid ate three onions, he'd be left with stinky breath.

“Class!” Mr. St. Cupid hollered. “Whoever wrote this
note
has broken a very serious
rule
.”

Daisy's eyeballs were bulging from holding her breath too long.

“My
name
,” Mr. St. Cupid said, “is spelled like
this
.”

He wrote it on the board.

MR. ST. CUPID

“It has a
C
in it, class. St.
Cupid
. Not St.
Upid
.” He wrote that on the board, too.

MR. ST. UPID

“I simply
cannot
understand why my students continue to spell my name incorrectly
every
year.
Rule number thirty-nine!
” He pointed to the list:

No spelling anything rong

“Now!”
Mr. St. Cupid shouted. “Let us
return
to
math
!”

Daisy returned to breathing.

“If I had
five—
”

Mr. St. Cupid stopped talking again as he passed in front of Daisy's row. “
What
are you doing?” he bellowed.

He was looking directly at Daisy.

Daisy knocked three erasers out of her desk, which was against Rule number 77:

No dropping three things at once

But Mr. St. Cupid didn't notice.

“
Miss
Simon!” he hollered.

He wasn't hollering at Daisy.

He was hollering at Sophie Simon.

The teacher strode over to Sophie's desk. “
Miss
Simon!” he shouted, spitting a little on the
s
's. “Are you reading a
book
under your
desk
during
math
time?”

Sophie Simon always read books under her desk during math time. Daisy had been watching her do it all year. Sophie read books under her desk during science time, too. And during language arts time, and social studies time, and music time.

During silent reading time, she worked on chemistry experiments.

Sophie placed a finger in her book and looked up at Mr. St. Cupid. She showed him what she was reading.

“Principles of Civil Disobedience,”
he read.

“Yes,” Sophie said. “It's all about how, throughout history, people who were
absolutely powerless
”—Daisy's ears perked up—“fought against authority by refusing to follow laws or rules they felt were
utterly unfair
.” Daisy sat up a little straighter in her desk. “Like in India in 1930,” Sophie went on, “when the government made buying salt illegal so a man named Gandhi led a march to the seashore to collect it. And in North Carolina in 1960, when African-Americans weren't served at lunch counters because of their race, so they staged protests called ‘sit-ins.' Or nowadays, when parents won't buy their children graphing calculators, so the kids have to figure out how—”

Mr. St. Cupid slapped a hand on Sophie's desk.

“Rule number sixty!”
he shouted, pointing to the wall.

No reading books fatter than your head

“You will learn about
history
in
high
school!” Mr. St. Cupid bellowed at Sophie, plucking the book from her hands. “
Third
grade is for learning
subtraction
and tying your
shoes
!”

“But I already know those things,” Sophie said with a sigh.

“Rule number forty-five!”
Mr. St. Cupid screeched at her. He pointed.

No sighing

“
Three checks!
No final recess for
you
, Miss Simon!”

And he tossed Sophie's book in the garbage can.

As Mr. St. Cupid went back to hollering about onions, Daisy sat at her desk and thought.

Was it really true that powerless people could find a way to change their lives, like Sophie had said? Just by refusing to do something they didn't think was fair?

Was all of that in the book Sophie had been reading?

Daisy stared at the garbage can.

Maybe, she thought, there was some hope for her after all.

“Miss Pete!”

Daisy looked up to see Mr. St. Cupid glaring down at her. His cheeks were puffed out like tomatoes.

“Why aren't you paying
attention
?”

Daisy blinked. “I was just…” she said, “thinking.”

“Unacceptable!”
Mr. St. Cupid shouted. “New rule!”

And he walked over to his list of rules and added a new one.

No thinking

Then he put a third check mark by Daisy's name.

*   *   *

While everyone else was outside for final recess, Daisy and Owen were cleaning windows with squeegees.

Sophie was not cleaning windows with a squeegee.

She was reading her book from the garbage can.

“Sophie?” Daisy said.

Sophie did not look up.

Daisy tried again. “Can you help me with something?”

“No, thank you,” Sophie said, turning a page. “I'd rather not.”

Daisy looked over at Owen, but he was busy squeegeeing his window.

“I need your help,” Daisy told Sophie. “I need you to teach me about that civil disinfectant stuff.”

“Civil disobedience?” Sophie said.

“Yeah.” Daisy nodded. “I need to learn how to get out of my ballet recital tomorrow. Does it say anything about that in there?” She pointed to the book.

“No,” Sophie said.

She turned another page.

“Look,” Daisy told her, waving her squeegee in the air. “Haven't you ever had a problem of your own?”

A blob of water flew off the squeegee and landed—
PLOP!
—at Sophie's feet.

Sophie kept reading.

“A really really
big
problem?” Daisy went on.

Another two blobs flew off the squeegee and landed—
PLOP! PLOP!
—on Sophie's head.

Sophie still kept reading.

“A problem so huge,” Daisy said, “that you thought there'd never be any way to solve it?”

Three more blobs landed—
PLOP! PLOP! PLOP!
—right in the middle of Sophie's book.

Sophie Simon finally raised her head.

“I want a calculator,” she said. “A Pembo Q-60. It's the very latest model. It costs one hundred dollars.”

Daisy thought that one hundred dollars sounded like an awful lot of money for a calculator. But she didn't say that.

“I can help you get it,” she said instead. “If you get me out of my ballet recital.”

Sophie raised her eyebrows. “Do you have one hundred dollars?”

“No,” Daisy said. “I only have”—she added up all her saved allowance—“five. But I bet the other girls in my ballet class would chip in, too.
No one
wants to dance in the recital tomorrow. There are thirteen of us, and we could each give you five dollars. That's enough, right?”

Sophie frowned at Daisy.

“If thirteen ballerinas each gave me five dollars,” she said, “I'd only have sixty-five.”

Daisy scratched her cheek. “So that's not enough then?” she asked.

“I'd still need thirty-five more dollars for my calculator.”

From the window, Owen hiccuped.

“But you could help me anyway,” Daisy told her.

The bell rang for the end of final recess. Owen crossed the room to put away his squeegee.

“I don't see why I should help you get out of your recital,” Sophie said, “if you can't help me get a calculator.”

“But—”

“Anyway,” Sophie went on, “the principles of civil disobedience would never work in your case. You'd need someone from the newspaper to cover the story, and we couldn't find anyone on such short notice.”

“The newspaper?” Daisy asked.

She didn't know anyone who worked for a newspaper.

Sophie shrugged. “Sorry.”

And with that, she walked over to Mr. St. Cupid's desk, tucked her book back in the garbage can under a slimy banana peel, and sat down at her desk.

Daisy sighed and walked to the suds bucket to put her squeegee back.

She slipped—
SWISH!

And tripped—
CLUNK!

And crashed—
THUD!

“Rule number twenty-nine!”
Mr. St. Cupid hollered as he entered the room.
“No falling on your butt in the squeegee water!”

This, Daisy thought as she lay on her rear end in the middle of the classroom, was exactly why she needed to get out of that recital tomorrow.

But if Sophie wouldn't help her, what could she do?

Piranhas and Pet Stores

Every afternoon, on the Number 17 bus coming home from school, Owen Luu sat in the exact same seat.

The second seat from the front, on the right side.

He always sat there with his best friend, Julia McGreevy. Julia didn't care which seat she sat in, but it was very important to Owen.

The second seat on the right was the cleanest one on the whole bus.

It didn't have dirt smears on the seat.

It didn't have stuffing coming out of the bench.

It didn't have gum underneath that your leg might stick to.

Owen hated dirty bus seats. They were grimy and messy and gross. Owen didn't like being grimy and messy and gross. He was happiest when his clothes were ironed, his ears were washed, and his shoelaces were double-knotted.

But on Friday afternoon, as the bus pulled away from Eisenberg Elementary, Owen wasn't sitting in his usual seat with Julia.

He was sitting in the fourth seat from the back on the left side, which was the second to grossest seat on the whole bus.

And he was sitting next to Sophie Simon.

Owen was sitting there because he had a problem.

A huge problem.

An
enormous
problem.

And he was positive that Sophie Simon was the only person who could help him.

But Sophie wasn't paying any attention to him. Owen didn't even think she knew he was there. She was busy reading a gigantic book called
Basics of Human Psychology
.

Owen didn't know how Sophie could read a book like that. He got bored halfway through the title.

Sophie sure was weird, he thought. She was always reading boring books. And talking to Sophie made his brain dizzier than a windup monkey toy.

No wonder she didn't have any friends.

Owen looked to the front of the bus. He half-hoped Julia would be looking his way so he could make “I really can't do this” eyes at her, and she'd understand and make “It's okay, come sit up here with me” eyes at him.