“Yeah,” Eve agreed. “Me either.” Why hadn’t she said something? Why hadn’t she remembered that until now?

“He has made every single girl in this school feel horrible,” Sophie said slowly and deliberately. “He can’t keep doing it.”

“But what do we do?” Nessa asked.

“Yeah.” Eve shrugged. “What can we do?”

“Are you kidding?” Sophie turned to them both, a gleam in her angry eye. “We get justice.”

15

SOPHIE

“So what’s your plan?” Nessa asked her.

Right to the point. Sophie liked that.

“Wait,” Eve broke in. “The adults back there … they’re trying to work it out. If it’s Brody, they’ll handle it.”

Sophie couldn’t stop herself from muttering “Snow White” under her breath. Nessa jumped in.

“Evie,” Nessa said as they all stood up and faced one another in a triangle under the dim lights. “Did you hear those adults out there? They have no idea what our lives are actually like. And they are a mess! Just bickering among themselves.”

“Exactly!” Sophie jumped in. This Nessa girl saw the situation for what it was.

“And Brody Dixon can’t go around making people cry in choir rooms,” Nessa continued. “Choir rooms are for the majesty of song. For joy! This sucks, what he did.”

“I’m gonna ignore that you just said ‘majesty of song,’” Sophie had to say.

“You’re right,” Eve relented. “I just want this to go away.”

“Good.” Sophie felt herself begin to focus. “Because we’ll need you. Before we can get justice, we’ll need proof he did it. Here’s our strategy.”

Like she did when she led school projects, or led the Sophies, she made the decisions and gave assignments. They needed hard evidence, so Eve’s job was to make Brody think she really liked him back, to get him vulnerable, and then maybe get his phone password, or look on his laptop, or ideally even ask him sweetly about the list and record his answer. Then they’d bring the confession to Principal Yu. But to achieve this, Eve would need a total makeover. He may have wanted Eve as number one, but she needed to act like number one if Brody Dixon was going to go out with her long enough for them to catch him. Sophie understood this, even if Eve didn’t.

And Sophie was obviously the expert in how to look like number one, so she’d teach her.

“And then I can get my old life back?” Eve Hoffman asked her.

“Sure,” Sophie said. What was her old life, anyway?

“But you’ll have to be the actress for a little while,” Nessa told Eve with a grim expression on her face.

“I’ll be at your house this weekend,” Sophie decreed. “I’ll text you.”

“I’ll create a group text. I’ll call it”—Nessa paused for dramatic effect—“the Choir Room Trio.”

Sophie grimaced at the name, but she moved on.

She declared that Nessa could use her position as the other lead in The Music Man to watch for any whispered bragging about the list and any signs of weakness. As for Sophie, well, she was the captain. She’d manage the plans and, in the meantime, welcome Eve into the Sophies. The task was enormous. But she’d make it happen.