Sophie the Awesome

SOPHIE
the
AWESOME

by
Lara Bergen

illustrated by
Laura Tallardy

To Shannon the Awesome … editor!

S
ophie closed her book and sighed.

Leo the Lionhearted: Bravest Kid Ever.

It just wasn’t fair!

Sophie was sick and tired of reading about other people who were so much more … more
everything
than her.

Then it hit her. She knew exactly what she needed.

A name.

Of course! But not just any old name. She had one of those already: Sophie H. Miller. (The
H
stood for Hamm—yes, Hamm. Enough said.)

Big deal. So what? Boring.

What Sophie needed was a name that described her perfectly. She needed a name that said it all. A name that was
not
boring.

She looked across the library table, took a deep breath, and sighed again.

“What?” said her friend Kate Barry. Her face popped up from behind her book. “Are you okay?”

But Sophie sighed a lot. So Kate wasn’t too concerned.

“No. I am not okay,” said Sophie. Now she crossed her arms.

“Why?” Kate looked around. “Is Toby bugging you again?” She scrunched her mouth into a small sour-lemon frown. Then she glared at the boy sitting at the next round table. Sophie’s eyes followed hers.

Toby Myers was very freckled, very redheaded, and—if you asked Sophie—very hard to lo ok at for very long. So she didn’t.

Instead, she shook her head. “No. That’s not it.”

“Then why?” asked Kate. Beneath her long brown bangs, her forehead made a wavy wrinkle.

“Because I’m nothing,” Sophie told her. This time, she gave an extra-long, I’ll-never-be-anything sigh.

Kate looked at her funny.

“I’m talking about this,” Sophie said. She picked up her book and jabbed her finger at the cover.

“You’d rather be a book?” Kate said. She scratched the freckle on her neck. “Can’t help you there. Sorry.”

“No,”
groaned Sophie. That wasn’t it at all. She ran her finger along the book’s title. “I want to be Sophie the … something, too! All the great characters have names like that. And I’m a character. Ms. Moffly says so all the time. Think about it!” Sophie grinned at her best friend. “Nate the Great. Ramona the Brave. Harriet the Spy …”

“Winnie the Pooh,” added Kate. There was a twinkle in her eye.

“Exactly!” Sophie nodded. Then she frowned. “Very funny.”

Kate giggled and Miss Elaine, the librarian, swooped over.

“Shhh!”
warned Miss Elaine. “It’s
quiet
reading time. Remember?”

Kate nodded and buried her nose back in her book. Sophie could tell she was still laughing.

“You’re no help at all,” Sophie whispered. But she had to giggle a little, too.

They watched the librarian zip off to Toby’s table. “Please sit down,” she told him and his super-annoying, new best friend, Archie Dolan. Someone was
always
telling the two of them to sit down.

Kate patted Sophie’s hand. “Sorry,” she whispered. “You know, I’m not anything, either. Though ‘Kate the Great’ is kind of catchy.”

Sophie slumped down and opened her book again. But she didn’t try to read it. She filled her cheeks with air and thought very hard instead.

Sophie the …

Sophie the …

Sophie the …
what?!

She couldn’t really be Sophie the First, because she was not the first in her family. Her older sister, Hayley, never let her forget that.

And she couldn’t be Sophie the Last, because of Max, her little brother. Which was fine. She didn’t really want to be last, anyway!

She couldn’t even be the only Sophie in Ms. Moffly’s third-grade class, thanks to Sophie Aarons. Or Sophie A., as everyone called her.

That was another reason Sophie needed a special name. Being called Sophie M. was just plain silly.

So what else was there?

Sophie couldn’t be anything that rhymed with her name, like lucky duck Kate the Great. Nothing rhymed with “Sophie.” At least, nothing that made sense.

She couldn’t be the Tallest. That was Grace.

She couldn’t be the Smartest. That was Sophie A., too. (So unfair!)

She couldn’t even be the Meanest. (Not that she wanted to be.) That was Mindy.

And she couldn’t be the Funniest. That was Kate. Definitely.

“Hey, I’ve got one,” Kate suddenly whispered.

Sophie turned to her, still frowning. “What?”

“Sophie the
Grouch,”
Kate answered.

Sophie rolled her eyes. Maybe Kate was not that funny after all. But Sophie knew that something would come to her sooner or later.

Meanwhile, Kate kept rambling on softly. “Ramona the Pest … Bob the Builder … Billy the Kid … Marvin the Magnificent … Glinda the Good Witch …”

“What did you say?” Sophie asked all of a sudden.

“Glinda the Good Witch?” Kate repeated. “You know, from
The Wizard of Oz.
”

“No, no, no,” said Sophie. She quickly looked over her shoulder. Was Miss Elaine staring at her? She turned back and carefully lowered her head and her voice. “What did you say before that?”

“Uh …” Kate thought for a moment. “Marvin the Magnificent?”

Sophie’s heart began to
thump-a-thump-thump.
Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of it before?

“So, what?” said Kate. “You want to be Marvin the Magnificent?”

“Of course not,” said Sophie. Her name wasn’t Marvin. And Magnificent was taken. But what about another word that meant the same thing — or even better? Something that wasn’t boring or average at all.

Amazing.

Wonderful.

Marvelous.

Or maybe … Awesome.

That was it! That name was special. For sure!

Sophie felt her heart relax into a smooth and steady beat. She closed her book with a
whop
as Miss Elaine flashed the lights three times.

Library time was over.

But the time for Sophie the Awesome had just begun!

S
ophie walked back to her classroom feeling just as awesome as someone named Sophie the Awesome should. Plus she’d finally outsmarted snappy, snooty Mindy VonBoffmann. Talk about awesome!

Mindy was always doing something to torture her. And lately, her way of torturing Sophie had been to steal her library book right out from under her nose.

At the end of library period, each kid in the class always got to choose one book to check out.

The first time, Sophie had wanted
Amazing but True Dolphin Stories.
But Mindy got there first.

The second time, it had been
The Best Human Body Book Ever — with Deluxe See-through Pages.
But Mindy took it while Sophie was getting Toby’s latest spitball out of her hair.

This time, it was almost
Awesome Animals You Can Draw.

Almost.

But instead of reaching for the book she really wanted, Sophie knelt down and reached for a thick one called
Stamps, Stamps, and More Stamps.
And sure enough, Mindy’s sneaky hand swept in to grab it.

“Oh—you didn’t want this book, did you?” Mindy asked, acting surprised.

And for the first time, Sophie smiled at Mindy.

“No,” she said pleasantly. “I didn’t want it at all.” Then she reached up and pulled down
Awesome Animals You Can Draw.

And the point goes to me!
Sophie thought as she headed for the door. She gave herself a bonus point
when Miss Elaine said, “It is
so
nice that you’re not fighting over books this week.”
Whoo-hoo! Way to go!

Back in the classroom, Sophie’s day got even better. Usually, that was when Ms. Moffly made them write about something boring in their journals. Things like what they did over the weekend. Or what they liked best about third grade. Blah!

Sophie sometimes wished her teacher would let them write about a dream. Or about what they wished they’d done that weekend instead of going to their sister’s super-boring ballet recital and cleaning their whole room. Or
anything
but third grade.

Sophie had tried to write about something else once. But somehow, Ms. Moffly had known it wasn’t true.

“I like your imagination, Sophie,”
Ms. Moffly had written at the end of the page.
“I hope one day you do get to travel into space. But from now on, let’s stick to the facts. Real life can be very interesting, too!”

Oh, yeah?

There was just one word for Sophie’s life:
boring.
There was nothing special or interesting about it at all.

Her height was average. Her weight was average. Even her hair was average. It wasn’t straight. And it wasn’t curly. It wasn’t long. And it wasn’t short. It wasn’t blond. And it wasn’t brown.

No matter how you sliced it, Sophie came out somewhere in the middle. Alphabetically by first name. Alphabetically by last name. By birthday. By shoe size. In every running race, or reading group, or spelling bee. Medium. Boring.

For a few years, Sophie had been the youngest in her family. But since her two-year-old brother, Max, had been born, she’d been in the middle there, too.

She even lived in a town called Ordinary, Virginia! Ugh.

But Sophie tried to erase all that from her mind as Ms. Moffly stood and addressed the room.

“I’m afraid that I didn’t get to finish reading your journals this weekend,” Ms. Moffly explained.

There was an “
Ooh!
” and a “
Ms. Moffly’s in trouble!”
from Archie and Toby’s corner of the room.

Sophie rolled her eyes.

“That’s enough,” the teacher said, smiling. “And, boys, please sit down. Now, as you all know, my sister got married and, well, there just wasn’t enough time. So,” Ms. Moffly went on, “I don’t have the journals ready to give back to you. That means that for the next fifteen minutes, you are free to read your new library books, or start your math homework, or
quietly
play a board game.”

The whole class cheered. Sophie, too. She knew exactly what she was going to do!

Kate pulled out her book,
101 Knock-Knock Jokes.
Grace and Sydney left their desks to play Mastermind on the floor. And Sophie got up to find a sheet of paper and the sharpest pencil in the pencil jar. Then she sat back down and practiced writing her new name.

Sophie the Awesome needed an awesome signature, after all!

Sophie the Awesome

Sophie the Awesome!

The Awesome Sophie!

Sophie studied the page. She always did like a good exclamation point!

Then she felt Kate tug on her shirtsleeve.

“Knock-knock,” said Kate.

Sophie sighed. She was eager to get on to other Sophie the Awesome business. Like relabeling all her folders. But she guessed she had time for one joke.

“Who’s there?” she asked.

“Cows go,” said Kate.

“Cows go who?” said Sophie.

“No, cows go
moo
!” Kate doubled over, laughing.

“Good one,” said Sophie, trying to sound official. “It has the approval of Sophie the Awesome.”

Kate’s eyes got wide. “Is that your ‘the’ name? Really?” she asked.

“Really!” said Sophie.

“Oh.” Kate twisted her mouth to the side. Sophie knew that this meant she was thinking hard. “Are you sure?” Kate said after a minute.

“Sure I’m sure,” said Sophie.

“But what’s so awesome about you?” asked Kate.

Sophie stared at her. She was shocked! Appalled! “What do you mean?” she said. “I thought you were my best friend, Kate!”

“I
am
!” Kate told her. She laid her arm across Sophie’s shoulders. “And you are for sure the most awesome best friend in the whole world. Except when you make me listen to you sing.”

Kate giggled, but stopped when she saw that Sophie wasn’t smiling.

“You could definitely call yourself Sophie the Awesome
Friend,
if you wanted,” Kate added quickly.

Sophie thought about it for a second. “No.” She shook her head. “I think just ‘Sophie the Awesome’ is better.”

But Kate looked doubtful. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It’s just, when you say that someone is plain awesome, you expect them to really be awesome … in every way.”

Sophie shrugged. “Maybe I
am
awesome in every way,” she said. She turned to the back of the room and pointed to Toby and Archie. They were bombing chessmen with dice and colored dominos. “I know I am, compared to them!”

Then Sophie reached for her library book. “And how about
this
?” she said. “I can draw awesome animals. Check it out!”

She opened the book to a page about horses and drew carefully, step by step. Then she showed Kate the awesome finished product.

“Ta-da! A horse!” she said.

Kate frowned. “It looks more like a cat.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Sophie said. She had to agree. “I guess I better practice.”

“All I’m saying,” Kate went on, “is that if you want people to call you awesome — especially people like them—you’re going to have to prove
it.” She pointed her thumbs in two directions. One toward Toby and Archie, and the other toward Mindy and Lily Lemley, Mindy’s copycat friend.

Sophie looked in one direction, then the other. Kate was right. Sophie could totally see Toby and Archie making fun of her new name, unless she had proof of her awesomeness to back it up.

As for Mindy, anyone sneaky enough to steal a library book was sneaky enough to try to steal an awesome name, too. Sophie had to make her name her own. It was true.

Sophie looked back down at her writing. She guessed it would take more than words on paper to get “Sophie the Awesome” to stick.

Just then, Ms. Moffly clapped her hands. “Time for music,” she called.

Sophie stood up, took a deep breath, and looked hard into Kate’s eyes. “Okay,” she said solemnly. “If I need to prove I’m awesome, then that’s exactly what I’ll do!”