Chapter 4

The next morning, Sofia woke up earlier and made breakfast for her brother: blueberry pancakes with a chocolate smiley face on top.

“Hey, here’s breakfast” Sofia says, handing a plate with four pancakes to her brother as he walks in the kitchen. “I thought you needed something to cheer you up”

“Thanks Sofy” he smiles. They sit and eat breakfast, while Dustin talks about camp and especially Suzie.

After eating, Dustin helps Sofia clean the plates and they both get dressed. Sofia gets dressed in blue mom jeans, a red top and decides to wear blue converse on one foot and red converse on the other foot. She puts on her silver heart-shaped necklace and once Dustin’s ready, they get in the car and Sofia plays Madonna.

When they get inside the mall, Dustin sprints off to Scoops Ahoy, making Sofia run after him.

“Hi” Dustin says.

“Hi” Robin says, and Sofia waves at her.

“I’m Dustin”

“I’m Robin”

“Pleasure to meet you. Uh, is… is he here?”

“Is who here?”

“Henderson” Steve says, opening the back door. “Henderson! He’s back!” he says, making his way to Dustin and Sofia.

“He’s back!” Dustin says, with a smile on his face.

“I’m back!”

“You got the job!”

“I got the job!” Steve says, as he and Dustin make their little celebration.

“How many children are you friends with?” Robin asks, making Steve sigh and Sofia chuckle. Robin looks over at Sofia with a tiny smile on her face. “Hey” Robin says, softly.

“Hi” Sofia says with dreamy eyes and a faint voice. Dustin looks between the two of them with a strange look but doesn’t say anything. Steve makes an ice cream for Dustin, and they sit somewhat far from the counter.

“Would you mind if I stayed here?” Sofia asks Robin. “It’s just that I don’t really feel like hearing Dustin talk about his girlfriend for the millionth time again” she smiles.

“Yes, of course. You can sit here” Robin says, pointing at the little window behind the counter, “or I can go grab a chair for you”

“No, it’s okay, I can sit here, thanks” Sofia smiles, as she sits down.

Robin sits next to Sofia, making her feel a bit nervous. “They make an odd pair, don’t they?” Robin asks, as they look at Steve and Dustin.

“Tell me about it” Sofia laughs.

“I saw you were reading Les Misérables yesterday, are you enjoying it?” Robin asks.

Sofia makes an impressed face as she looks at Robin, questioning why she would ever notice her. “Yeah, I mean I started two days ago so I’m in the beginning, but I like it so far. Have you read it?”

“Yeah, it’s actually one of my favorite books” Robin responds.

“What are your other favorite books?” Sofia asks, turning her body to fully face Robin.

“Frankenstein and Little Women, I love those. Little women is my favorite book ever, I could read it forever” Robin says, very excited.

“Yeah, I know. I remember when you presented it in class” Sofia says, avoiding eye contact as she realizes what she had just said.

“Oh, um, you remember that?” Robin asks, blushing a bit.

“Yeah. I loved how you talked about Jo. And I agree with you by the way, I also think Jo is different.”

“Y-you do?” Robin asks, impressed by what she just heard. Sofia nods, smiling a tiny bit.

“Oh, I thought I was the only one. I just love how she’s a misfit, a rebel, too smart for her life and already so done with the restrictive gender roles. Jo never feels quite right in her world, she doesn’t want to marry anyone, she hates the idea of being financially dependent by a man and-” Robin babbles and suddenly stops.

“Why’d you stop talking?” Sofia asks, as she was enjoying hearing Robin talk.

“I’m sorry, was I being annoying?” Robin asks.

“No, not at all. I was enjoying hearing what you were saying” Sofia says, with a comprehensive smile.

“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just that sometimes I get nervous, and the words keep spilling out, and it’s like my… my brain is moving faster than my mouth, or… or rather my… my mouth is moving faster than my brain-” Robin starts rumbling again.

“I-it’s okay, that happens to me too” Sofia smiles at Robin, making Robin sigh and smile back.

Sofia felt a different kind of happiness, not the same one as winning a contest or getting a good grade. It was a happiness that didn’t feel momentary, it persevered with her. She tried her best not to overthink it, but of course her mind didn’t let her rest.

A few minutes later, Dustin and Steve walk by, and Dustin says “Sofy, let’s go”. She excuses herself and follows her brother to the backroom. She sits at the back of the room, with her legs crossed as she plays with her necklace.

As Sofia hears the recording of the secret Russian communication, her mind wanders off to Robin, again. Sofia always thought Jo was a lesbian. What did Robin mean when she said Jo was different? And how could she know? Could Robin be different too?

“So, what do you think?” Dustin asks, interrupting Sofia’s thoughts.

“It sounded familiar” Steve says.

“What?”

“The music. The music right there at the end.”

“Why are you listening to the music, Steve? Listen to the Russian! We’re translating Russian!” Dustin shouts.

“I’m trying to listen to the Russian, but there’s music…” Steve says, making Dustin sigh.

He turns to Sofia and asks, “What about you?”

“Oh, sorry, I wasn’t listening”

“Unbelievable…” Dustin sighs.

“All right, babysitting time is over” Robin says, as she barges in. “You need to get in there”

She walks to her board, and says “Hey, my board! That was important data, shitbirds” she says, looking at Steve and Dustin. “Not you” she says, looking at Sofia.

“It was important data. How will we know how many times Steve got rejected?” Sofia says, making Robin chuckle.

“I guarantee you, what we’re doing is way more important than your data” Dustin says to Robin.

“Yeah? And how do you know these Russians are up to no good anyways?” Robin asks.

“How does she know about the Russians?” Dustin asks.

“I don’t know” Steve responds.

“You told her about…”

“It wasn’t me-” Steve says, making him and Dustin look at Sofia.

“Don’t look at me, I didn’t tell her anything!” Sofia says.

“Hello, I can hear you. Actually, I can hear everything. You are both extremely loud” Robin says, pointing at Steve and Dustin. “You think you have evil Russians plotting against our country, on tape, and you’re trying to translate, but haven’t figured out a word because you didn’t realize Russians use an entirely different alphabet. Sound about right?”

“Sofia was supposed to figure it out…” Steve mutters.

“Sorry, I was distracted!” Sofia says, defensively.

“With what?!” Dustin shouts, making Sofia raise her eyebrows. Robin goes to grab the walkman, but Steve stops her.

“Whoa! What do you think you’re doing?” Steve shouts.

“I wanna hear it” Robin says.

“Why?”

“Cause maybe I can help. I’m fluent in four languages, you know”

“Russian?” Dustin asks.

“Ou-yay are-yay umb-day” Robin says, making Sofia chuckle.

“Oh-ho-ho!” Steve and Dustin say, making Sofia internally self-palm.

“That was Pig Latin, airheads” Sofia says.

“But I can speak Spanish and French and Italian, and I’ve been in band for 12 years. My ears are little geniuses, trust me”

“Uh…”

“Come on, it’s your turn to sling ice cream, my turn to translate.” Robin says to Steve. “I don’t even want credit. I’m just bored”

“I won’t be able to translate it on my own…” Sofia tells them, and Steve hands out the walkman to Robin. Steve goes to the counter, as Robin pulls a chair next to Sofia’s.

After listening to the recording for half an hour, Robin starts pacing around the room, and Sofia is almost falling from her chair.

“Wait, that last part, just one more time” Robin says, as Sofia starts to pick up what she’s referring to.

“Okay” Dustin says, as the recording plays once again.

“Okay, that word. Um…” Robin says.

“It’s pronounced… dly-nna-ya.” Sofia says, getting up from her chair.

“Dly-nna-ya…” Robin repeats. “Which is spelled…”

“D… D, D, D… The… The chair. The chair-looking thingy.” Dustin says, excited.

“Yeah, okay.” Robin says, taking notes.

After a few more minutes, Sofia and Robin finally figured out the first sentence. They walk to the tiny window and Robin opens it, saying “We’ve got our first sentence”

“Oh, seriously?” Steve asks, turning around.

“Yeah” Sofia responds.

“The week is long.” Robin adds, in a fake Russian accent.

“Well, that’s thrilling.” Steve says.

“I know. But, progress” Sofia says.

“Hey, Sofia?” Sofia hears Max say. She looks behind Steve, noticing the young girl with El.

“Hi Max, what’s up?” Sofia asks.

“I saw Cher at The Gap and she said that if I saw you to tell you that she has something really important to say to you” Max responds.

“Oh, okay, thanks.” Sofia says, closing the window. She grabs her bag, ready to go out, when Robin asks “Where are you going?”

“Cher asked for me, I’m gonna see if I can find her” Sofia says, noticing a tiny difference in Robin’s face. She looked… disappointed? Sad? “But I’ll come here and fast as I can” Sofia adds.

“Okay, bye” Dustin says, wanting to go back to translating.

Sofia walks out of the ice cream shop, looking for Cher. But of course, her mind goes back to Robin’s facial expression back there. Sofia’s really bad at reading people sometimes, and not knowing what the other person is thinking at all times makes her insecure.

Sofia goes to The Gap, Claire’s, Kaufman Shoes, Fine Perfumes and even Lovelace Lingerie, but nothing. The only places she could’ve been to, she wasn’t.

As a last resource, Sofia walked to the bathroom. “Cher?” she asks, seeing that most stalls were empty.

“Yeah?” she hears Cher cry.

“Can I come in?” Sofia asks, as she walks to the only stall that wasn’t empty. Cher says “Yes” and Sofia enters, finding Cher with a pregnancy test in her hands. Without even looking at the result, Sofia knew. She knew. Her heart sank as she watched her best friend cry like there was no tomorrow.

Sofia hugs her, trying to comfort her. “Listen to me, you can get an abortion.” Sofia whispers, wiping her tears.

“I-I can’t, my parents wouldn’t let me” Cher says, between sobs.

“They have to. You wanna go to college, remember? How are you supposed to go to Harvard if you’re at home taking care of a baby?”

As Cher cries harder due to Sofia’s reality check. Cher felt really lost. Sofia tries to change her friend’s mind. If she didn’t want the baby, why would she keep it? After long minutes of talking, they agreed to Cher sleep over at Sofia’s, so they could talk more calmly about this, and make a plan to tell Cher’s parents.

Sofia offers Cher a ride home, but she chooses to take the bus. “There’s so much gossip there” Cher told her.

For the rest of the day, Sofia and Robin tried to translate the secret Russian communication. The four of them had lunch together and, to Sofia’s surprise, she really enjoyed hanging out with them.

She usually hated to be around people during summer vacation because everyone seemed two times more annoying than usual, but their existence wasn’t that much of a burden, actually.

“The week is long, the silver cat feeds, when blue meets yellow in the west.” they read from the board.

“I mean, it just… it just can’t be right” Steve says, as he pulls down the store’s grid down.

“It’s right” Robin says.

“Honestly, I think it’s great news” Dustin adds.

“How is this great news? I mean, so much for being American heroes. It’s total nonsense” Steve chuckles.

“It’s not nonsense. It’s too specific. It’s obviously a code” Sofia says.

“What do you mean, a code?” Steve asks.

“Like a super secret spy code” Dustin responds.

“That’s a total stretch” Steve says.

“I don’t know, is it?” Robin asks, making Sofia relived she wasn’t the only one who believed in her crazy brother.

“You’re buying into this?” Steve asks Robin.

“Listen, just for kicks, let’s entertain the possibility that it is a secret Russian transmission. What’d you think they were gonna say, “Fire the warhead at noon”?” Robin says, making Sofia nod in agreement.

“Exactly” Dustin says.

“And our translation is correct. I know that for sure, so… “The silver cat feeds.” Why would anyone talk like that unless they’re trying to mask the meaning of their message?”

“Exactly” Sofia tells her.

“Why would anyone mask the true meaning of their message unless the message was somehow sensitive?” Robin adds.

“Exactly” Dustin and Sofia say at the same time.

“So I guess that confirms your suspicion” Robin tells Dustin.

“Evil Russians” Dustin says, making both Sofia and Robin chuckle.

“I can’t believe I’m about to agree with this strange child, but, yeah, totally evil Russians” Robin laughs. Sofia looks to her side and realizes Steve stopped walking.

“What’s wrong?” Sofia asks Steve, as she hears Robin and Dustin talking and walking.

“Where’s Sofia?” Robin asks, turning around.

Robin shares a confused look with Sofia, as they look at Steve trying to find coins in his pockets.

“Hey, Steve. What are you doing?” Robin asks him, super confused.

“Uh, it’s a quarter. I need… Do you have a quarter?” Steve asks the group.

“Sure you’re tall enough for that ride?” Robin asks him, making Sofia laugh.

“Quarter!” Steve yells, as Robin throws him a quarter. Steve inserts the quarter, and a song starts playing.

“You need help getting up, little Stevie?” Sofia asks, now making Robin laugh and Dustin chuckle.

“Shh! Would you just shut up and listen?” Steve orders.

After a few seconds, Dustin says “Holy shit. The music.” as he shares a look with Steve. Dustin grabs his walkman and plays the tape.

“I don’t understand” Robin says.

“Yeah, me too” Sofia adds.

“It’s the exact same song on the recording” Dustin points out, leaving Sofia with wide eyes.

“Maybe they have horses like this in Russia” Robin says.

“Indiana Flyer”? I don’t… I don’t think so. This code, it… didn’t come from Russia. It came from here” Steve says, intrigued.