“I think, um, you need math for computers and robots, too, and this teaches us how to problem solve and maybe engineer things. There must be a reason if Mrs. Rodriguez says we should.” Sophie crossed her arms and then looked more closely at Gabe. “Are you messing with me?”
Gabe’s bored expression twisted into a smile. “Maybe. I think I like you. You’ve got spunk, kid.”
The expression sounded archaic, like something in one of the old movies Sophie’s moms watched sometimes, so she tried not to take it as an insult. “I’m not a kid. We’re in the same grade.”
“Ah, but I’ve been in this grade before.”
“Me, too. Well, not this one, but I had to stay back a year when I was little. When I couldn’t remember anything.”
“We should both be revered as elder statesmen, then. Statespeople. Why isn’t this whole class overwhelmed by our cool?”
Sophie looked around. “Because this whole class is full of people who don’t care about cliques or age or anything. We’re here trying not to get left behind any farther than we already are.”
“You don’t seem very behind.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have a Pilot, so I can’t keep up in the regular class where they’re doing six things at once.”
“Maybe it shouldn’t be your responsibility to be keeping up with those freaks.”
“Those freaks are ninety percent of the school. How come you don’t have a Pilot?”
Gabe shrugged. “I didn’t want one. I’m smart enough already.”
The only other person Sophie had ever met who didn’t want one was her mother Val. Everyone else who didn’t have one had something else going on in their brain to prevent it. “It doesn’t make you smarter. It makes you use your brain better.”
“Are you arguing for it? I don’t see a pretty blue light by your ear.”
“I can’t have one. Seizures. But I’m okay with not having a Pilot.”
“Good. We don’t need ’em.” Gabe contemplated the egg like Hamlet eyeing Yorick’s skull. “So how do we keep this from breaking?”
• • •
Gabe caught Sophie as she stepped onto the school bus.
“I’m going home with Sophie,” he said to the bus monitor.
The bus monitor, Mr. Knight, looked skeptical. “I’ve never seen you before.”
“I have a note.” Gabe waved a piece of crumpled paper in Mr. Knight’s face. He read it and looked at Gabe for a second, then typed something onto his list and waved them both on.
“These are not the droids you’re looking for,” said Sophie, twitching her fingers.
“Huh?”
“Never mind. How did you do that?”
Gabe smiled. “Like I said. I had a note.”
“You only met me today.”
“And I wrote the note after I met you. I started here today; how would they know my dad’s handwriting? The secret to adult handwriting is that it’s messy. The harder it is to read, the more they believe you.”
Sophie couldn’t do her sit-on-the-corner ritual, but that was okay. She didn’t need it today; bringing a new friend home was way cooler than hanging around outside.
Mom sat at the dining room table and glanced up when they came in. As usual when she worked from home, she had an array of tablets and phones and papers in front of her. Her expression brightened. “Hey, Soph! Who’s your friend?”
“This is Gabe. He/him pronouns. Gabe, this is my mom.”
Mom smiled. “Call me Julie. Or Mrs. Geller. Whichever you’re more comfortable with. She/her.”
“Nice to meet you.” Gabe returned the smile.
“We love meeting Sophie’s friends,” Mom said. Sophie sent mental commands at her mother not to say something like We meet so few of them or We didn’t know she had any or Sophie never brings anyone home.
“Do you kids want a snack?”
Sophie did, but she waited for Gabe to say.
“That would be great, thank you, ma’am.”
Sophie let out her breath; she knew better than to let someone else make that decision. She needed to eat when she got hungry. It kept the monsters at bay.
The next concern was whether Mom would attempt to make something and accidentally poison them both, but she just jerked her thumb at the kitchen. “Have at it, kids.”
Sophie scanned the shelves. A box of cookies everyone in the family knew was stale, but nobody bothered to throw out. A Tupperware of Val’s home-dried kale chips, too risky.
“Apples and peanut butter, or cereal?”
“Apples and peanut butter,” Gabe said.
Sophie celebrated inwardly that her options hadn’t been mocked or dismissed, and celebrated again that even though Julie had probably heard Gabe’s selection, she didn’t come in to oversee Sophie with the knife in case she had a seizure while cutting. They ate in the kitchen.
“Your mom has a Pilot, huh?” Gabe whispered around an apple slice.
Sophie thought that was obvious, so she shrugged.
“Do both of your parents have them?”
“Nah,” said Sophie. “My other mom doesn’t believe in them.”
“Oh, weird. Do they fight about it?”
Sophie considered. “No. Maybe right at the beginning? No point in fighting about it now. What about your parents?”
“It’s only my dad. He doesn’t believe in them, either. He hates them.”
“Yeah, my ma, too.”
“No, I mean really hates them.”
Sophie couldn’t see the distinction between “hates” and “really hates,” so she took another bite of apple.
“Have you ever been to a protest?” Gabe asked.
Sophie shook her head, and Gabe sat straighter like it was a teachable moment. Every time he did that it made Sophie feel like a kid. Protest what?
Gabe answered as if she’d asked aloud. “You’ll love it! I’ve been to a million with my dad. We have to take you! You’ll fit in perfectly.”
Sophie knew better than to say she’d never fit in anywhere. She was afraid to say anything in this brave new world of friends, cool friends, friends at her house, friend who hadn’t
