Sophie Simon Solves Them All (5 page)

“Okay,” Owen said. “But what's the exact opposite of a rabbit?”

“Well,” Sophie said. She began to read a new flyer. “Would you say that a rabbit has long ears?”

Owen stuck his hands in his pockets. “Of course,” he said.

“And would you say that it has a short, fluffy tail?”

“Very short,” Owen told her. “And fluffy.”

“And would you also say,” Sophie went on, running her finger over the last row of flyers, “that a rabbit is very, very quiet?”

Owen nodded. “So the opposite of a rabbit,” he said, beginning to understand, “would have short ears, a long tail, and be very, very loud?”

Sophie didn't answer him.

Instead, she slapped her hand over a flyer in the window.

“Perfect!” she cried out.

Owen squinted at the flyer.

When he turned back to talk to Sophie, she was inside the pet store.

Owen stood outside, staring at the flyer in the window. And he was still standing there two minutes later when Sophie popped her blond head out the door.

“Owen, come on!” she called to him. “Come on in here! We need to talk to Daisy. Oh, and you can get a letter to Julia for me, right?”

“Huh?”

But Sophie had disappeared inside the store again.

Owen gulped as he opened the door to the pet store.

Sophie Simon
and
pets?

What had he gotten himself into?

Very Ugly Hats

Julia McGreevy parked her bike in front of the Middlebury Performing Arts Center and looked up at the marquee.

Madame Robespierre

In Association with Eisenberg Elementary

Presents:

OOH LA LA

A ballet recital about the history of France

Blech, Julia thought.

Julia did not like ballet recitals.

She thought they were boring.

And long.

And pink.

But last night Julia had found a note slipped under her front door, a note that made her want to come to this particular ballet recital very badly.

Julia,

Looking for a big scoop?

Middlebury P.A.C. 2:00 p.m. tomorrow. Bring fifteen dollars and your camera. Come in the rear entrance, and don't let anyone see you.

You won't be disappointed.

—Sophie Simon

P.S. Owen says hi.

Julia pulled her camera out of her bike basket and hung it around her neck.

She patted the folded bills in her pocket.

She checked her watch.

1:52.

Right on time.

Julia slipped inside the back door, which was propped open with a brick.

Julia sneaked past the dressing rooms, where girls were busy getting ready. She didn't see Sophie Simon anywhere. How was Julia supposed to figure out what the big news story was if Sophie wasn't there to tell her? What a weirdo. All that girl ever did was read about boring stuff like history. And talking to her always made Julia feel like she was in the middle of a one-kid brain tornado.

No wonder she didn't have any friends.

Still, if Sophie could find Julia a big news story, it was definitely worth paying her fifteen dollars.

Julia really, really needed a big news story.

Every Monday, Julia turned in a story for the weekly paper. Stories about the mysterious meat loaf in the cafeteria, or the contaminated candy machine outside the teachers' lounge.

They were pretty good stories.

But every Tuesday, Miss Harbinger told Julia that she didn't print anyone's stories unless they were in fifth grade or higher.

That was
the Rule
.

But what Miss Harbinger didn't know was that, if Julia didn't publish a story in next week's paper, her dad was going to make her drop out of the journalism club.

And then, whether Julia liked it or not—and Julia did
not
—her dad was going to make her sign up for the Math Olympics team.

As a mathlete.

Julia was not a mathlete. She was a journalist.

She just had to get a story published to prove it.

A man burst into the hallway. He was dressed all in black and had a headset stuck over his ears. “Five minutes to curtain!” he hollered.

He ignored Julia as he rushed past.

“Everybody to the stage!”

Well, Julia thought, if everyone else was going to the stage, she should, too. That was what a good journalist would do.

Julia ducked through the stage door and hid under a prop table on the side of the stage.

No one noticed her.

It was dark. The stage lights were off and the curtain was closed. Julia could hear murmurs from the audience on the other side.

It sounded like a big crowd.

Julia took her pencil from behind her ear and scribbled a note in the notebook she always kept in her back pocket.

PACKED AT THE P.A.C.

Julia always took lots of notes when she was working on a story. A reporter couldn't risk forgetting anything. It was just being smart.

Her father wouldn't think it was smart.

Professor McGreevy thought that there wasn't anything
smart
about working on a school newspaper.

The only thing Julia's dad thought about, all day every day, was math.

Math, math, math, math, math.

He quizzed Julia on her times tables over her morning cornflakes.

He picked her up early from birthday parties to talk about long division.

He even tucked her into bed with stories about Isaac Newton.

Ever since the day she was born, Professor McGreevy had been trying to make Julia as nuts about math as he was.

It was not going to work.

Julia McGreevy hated math worse than she hated the color pink.

Sometimes Julia wondered if maybe her father wasn't really her father. Maybe, Julia thought, sometime just after she was born, her dad had been hit over the head with a very large abacus, and it had shaken up his brain so much that he'd gotten amnesia. Maybe he'd forgotten all the things he
used
to like—normal dad things like golfing and barbecues, and reading bedtime stories like
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
—and now all he could remember were math problems. Maybe, Julia thought, if she just whacked her father hard enough in the right spot, he'd go back to being the nice, normal, non-mathy dad he was before.

But really, Julia knew that her father had always been the same math nerd he was today. Because sometimes he'd say things like “Back when I was your age, my team had won the regional Math Olympics three times already,” and she'd seen the photos, too. So there most definitely was no need to whack her father over the head with something heavy.

Too bad.

Behind her, Julia heard a group coming through the stage door. She poked her head out from under the table to watch and listen.

One by one, the ballerinas filed past Julia's hiding spot and lined up on the stage. From underneath the table, Julia couldn't see any of the girls' heads—just their pink tutus and pink ballet slippers.

They were followed by a tall, thin woman holding a large wooden stick.

That must be Madame Robespierre.

Pound!

Madame Robespierre banged her stick on the ground as the last ballerina lined up onstage.

Julia counted them.

Thirteen.

Thirteen tiny, terrified tots in tutus.

Pound!

“Lay-DEEZ!” Madame Robespierre hollered at them.

She had a thick French accent, with vowels as sharp as her pointy shoes.

“Tonight you are telling zee 'istory of France!”

Pound!

“Zee story of my country!”

Pound!

“So you will wear zee 'atts proud-lee and zere will be no complaining!”

Pound!

Julia pulled her pencil out from behind her ear and scribbled in her notebook.

ATTS?
she wrote. What was an att?

Julia inched out of her hiding spot to see.

She sucked in a breath when she saw what the girls had on their heads.

She had never seen anything so ugly.

HATS,
Julia wrote in her notebook.
VERY UGLY HATS.

Each one of the very ugly hats, which were also very large, was shaped like a different object, and Julia guessed that they must all have something to do with France.

One girl was balancing an enormous wedge of stinky cheese, while another girl was teetering underneath a hat shaped like a huge bottle of perfume. A brown-haired girl across the stage was strapped to what appeared to be a two-ton plate of frogs' legs.

But the biggest and ugliest hat of all was Daisy Pete's. It was a gigantic sculpture, at least two feet high, that Julia recognized as an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Julia thought that if she had to wear a humongous hat like that, she would topple over in a millisecond.

Was
this
why Sophie had told her to come today? Julia wondered. To see the giant ugly hats?

Pound!

Madame Robespierre slammed her stick on the ground again.

Pound!

“Zere will be absolutely no steenk-ing tonight,” she hollered. “Do we all understand zat?”

Madame looked down her nose at each girl in turn.

Pound!

“Because sometimes you all steenk quite bad-lee!”

Julia wrote a new note in her book.

MRS. R. = NOT NICE

Pound!

Daisy Pete raised a hand.

Pound!

“What eez it, you stu-peed girl?” Madame asked.

In her notebook, Julia crossed out
NOT NICE
and wrote
MEAN.

“Um, well,” Daisy said. “I was just wondering, um, what if I
do
fall over? What if I … lose my balance?”

The other girls gasped.

Julia leaned forward until her neck was stretched like a rubber band.

Madame Robespierre did not pound her stick.

She didn't shout.

She didn't do any of the things that Julia thought she might.

Instead, she straightened her back and looked down at Daisy with a calm smile.

“It is very important to have zee balance,” she said.

Daisy nodded.

“But zee problem,” Madame said, “it is zee little baby toes.”

She scratched her chin.

“Zey are no good for zee balance.”

Madame Robespierre leaned down close, until her nose was just an inch away from Daisy's.

Daisy was shaking. The tower on her head looked like it was in the middle of an earthquake.

“So,” Madame continued, “zee ballerinas in Par-ee”—Julia knew that this was the weird French way of saying
Paris
—“do you know what zey do to keep zee balance? Do you know what zey do with zese stu-peed baby toes?”

Daisy shook her head, her eyes as big as volleyballs.

Pound!

“ZEY CHOP ZEM OFF!” Madame Robespierre hollered.

Pound!

“
ZAT
IS WHAT ZEY DO TO ZEE BABY TOES!”

Pound pound!

“Any girl who falls oh-verrrr tonight,” Madame screeched, “we will chop off zer toes!”

And just like that, she marched off the stage, her heels clackity-clickity-clackity-clicking.

Julia crossed out
MEAN
in her notebook and drew a picture of the Wicked Witch of the West.

On the other side of the curtain, the orchestra began to play. The ballerinas scrambled to their places.

Julia was worried.

What if Daisy really did fall over?

What if Madame Robespierre really did chop off her baby toes?

Was that why Sophie had asked Julia to come? Was that the big scoop she'd been talking about?

Just before the curtain rose, Julia noticed something across the stage. On the side opposite her, crouching under a folding table just like she was, there was a small, blond person.