“What about me?” Eve asked as Sophie gave out the tasks.

Sophie didn’t know. Eve would be a pariah on Monday. She’d rejected Brody, just like Sophie had.

“I’ll think of something,” Sophie assured her.

“I also think we need more girls,” Nessa said. “All eyes need to be on him in rehearsal, from all corners. What if he tries something like what he did tonight?”

Nessa was right. “Who can we trust?” Sophie asked.

“I have some ideas.” Nessa smiled. “I’m on it.”

“You guys are some serious vigilantes,” Winston muttered. “I’m impressed.”

Eve laughed in recognition, but Sophie had no idea what he meant. “We’re what?”

“Vigilantes,” Eve explained. “It means when the law isn’t doing its job, you do it yourself.”

“Yeah.” Winston jumped onto her explanation, like they could read each other’s thoughts. “A good example would be Batman.”

“Or,” Eve continued, “in real life, in about the early 1900s—”

“I like it,” Sophie said, cutting them off.

“I think we’ve got the name of our little group here!” Nessa declared.

“What? The Vigilantes?” Eve asked, incredulous.

“No. The Dark Knights,” Nessa explained, as if such a leap were obvious.

“A knight is usually a boy. No, thank you. Not for this group,” Sophie asserted.

“Okay, fine.” Nessa pulled out her phone and spoke into it. “What’s the name for a female knight?”

Her phone answered in its robot voice: “A female Viking warrior is called a Shieldmaiden.”

“Yes!” Nessa and Sophie squealed.

“Vikings?” Winston questioned. “When did we ask about Vikings?”

“I’ll take it,” Sophie said. They were Shieldmaidens, going to war for the sake of eighth grade girls everywhere. Or at least at Ford.

“Changing the chat name right now and adding Winston!” Nessa hummed to herself as she fiddled with her phone.

The sounds of the dance down the hall drifted under the slit of the choir room door.

“Worst dance ever, right?” Winston said to all of them as he leaned his back against the piano.

“Winston, you have bad friends. I can relate,” Sophie said.

Nessa hopped over to the piano, and a few notes floated into the room. “Let’s make our own dance.” And Nessa began to sing. Her voice, smooth and pure, made Sophie feel warm all over, like drinking eggnog or eating pumpkin pie, even if the song sounded a century old.

As Nessa crooned, Sophie saw Winston slip his Green Hornet mask onto Eve’s face.

Eve grinned.

“Hey. Even if they stare, with this on they won’t be able to really see you,” she heard Winston say.

“I’d rather be blue over you…,” Nessa sang.

Sophie hopped up and grabbed Eve’s and Winston’s hands. They put their arms around one another and swayed side to side.

Eve moved just as awkwardly as she had in her bedroom a month earlier.

At the memory, a huge laugh burst out of Sophie. “Eve Hoffman, I’ll say this about you,” Sophie said, feeling lighter than she had in a long time. “When I’m with you, I end up dancing. I don’t know why.”