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  ZONDERVAN

  Sophie and the New Girl

  Previously titled Sophie Tracks a Thief

  Copyright © 2005, 2009 by Nancy Rue

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

  ePub Edition September 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-56847-6

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are products of author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Rue, Nancy N.

  [Sophie tracks a thief]

  Sophie and the new girl / Nancy Rue.

  p. cm. (Sophie series ; [bk. 8]) (Faithgirlz!)

  Originally published in 2005 under the title, Sophie tracks a thief.

  Summary: As the Corn Flakes and other members of the Film Club work on a school project about Cuban refugees in the 1980s, a newcomer’s prejudices hurt Maggie and challenge Sophie’s ability to understand and practice Jesus’ teachings.

  ISBN 978-0-310-71843-7 (softcover)

  [1. Prejudices—Fiction. 2. Cuban Americans—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Imagination—Fiction. 5. Christian life—Fiction. 6. Family life—Virginia—Fiction. 7. Virginia—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.R88515Sjt 2005

  [Fic] — dc22 2009004129

  * * *

  All Scripture quotations unless otherwise noted are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

  Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers printed in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 ­Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920. www.alivecommunucations.com

  Zonderkidz is a trademark of Zondervan.

  Interior art direction and design: Sarah Molegraaf

  Cover illustrator: Steve James

  Interior design and composition: Carlos Estrada and Sherri L. Hoffman

  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen,

  but on what is unseen.

  For what is seen is temporary,

  but what is unseen is eternal.

  — 2 CORINTHIANS 4:18

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Glossary

  About the Publisher

  Share Your Thoughts

  One

  First we’ll go to the cheerleaders’ booth,” said Sophie LaCroix’s best friend, Fiona Bunting. The breeze loosened a strand of her golden-brown hair, and she tucked it behind her ear. “They’ve got corn dogs. And then we’ll hit the Film Club — they’re selling flan over there. And then we can stop off at the Round Table booth for kabobs — ”

  Sophie squinted at Fiona from behind her glasses while Fiona sucked in a breath. She hadn’t taken one for a while.

  “We’re supposed to be filming the booths.” Sophie nodded at the video camera in their friend Darbie O’Grady’s hand. “Not pigging out at them.”

  Fiona grabbed a handful of candy corn from the chorus booth. “Who says we can’t film and eat at the same time?”

  Darbie O’Grady grinned, dark eyes dancing beneath her fringe of reddish bangs. “You’re foostering about,” she said. Although Darbie had lived in the United States long enough for her Irish accent to fade some, she still used her Northern Ireland expressions. So did Sophie.

  “I guess I don’t blame you for foostering,” Sophie said. “Documentaries are boring.”

  “It’s all about facts,” Fiona said, her mouth stuffed.

  “Facts aren’t very creative.” Sophie pushed her glasses upward on her nose. “I wish we were working on a real movie again.”

  “Uh-oh,” Darbie said to Fiona. “She’s got that look in her eye.”

  “You know it,” Fiona said. Her own gray eyes were shining.

  Sophie didn’t need to see her brown ones to know what “look” they meant. She could feel it from the inside: that dreamy thing that happened when her mind started to wrap itself around a new character. If she still had her long hair, she would this very minute pull a strand of it under her nose like a mustache. That always helped her sort her thoughts. But it was impossible now that her hair was two inches high in fuzziness — although it was long compared to two months ago when she’d first shaved it off.

  Sophie ran her hand over her fuzzy head. Closing her eyes, she saw herself as the tall, statuesque (that was one of Fiona’s many impressive words) Liberty Lawhead, swinging her briefcase as she marched briskly up the courthouse steps, heels clicking on the marble —

  “Hel-lo-o, So-o-phie.” Darbie tugged playfully at Sophie’s earlobe. “Miss Imes will eat the heads off us if we don’t get this film done for Film Club.”

  “Then we’ll tell her how we really want to do movies,” Fiona said. “Corn Flakes Production – style.”

  Sophie nodded as she followed Fiona and Darbie and the smell of corn dogs across the field to the cheerleaders’ booth. There Willoughby Wiley was practically doing a handspring waiting for them. “The Corn Flakes” was what the four of them, plus Maggie LaQuita and Kitty Munford, had called themselves ever since the Corn Pops, the popular girls in sixth grade last year, had told them they were “flakes.”

  That means we aren’t afraid to be just who we are, the Corn Flakes had decid
ed. So it only made sense that the movies they created from their amazingly intense daydreams were called Corn Flakes Productions.

  But making a documentary about Great Marsh Middle School’s Fall Festival for the new Film Club wasn’t anything like making their own “flicks,” as Darbie called them. Sophie sighed as she caught up to Darbie, who was already setting up the shot, and Fiona, who was already munching on a corn dog.

  Willoughby’s short mane of wavy, almost-dark hair trembled as she let out a shriek that always sounded to Sophie like a poodle yipping.

  “Where have y’all been?” Willoughby said. “I’ve been waiting all day!” She waved her arms in what Sophie figured was a new cheerleading routine. She’d been to enough Corn Flake sleepovers to know Willoughby did cheers in her sleep.

  “Be still, Willoughby,” Darbie said. “Sophie has to interview you.”

  As Darbie started filming, Willoughby snatched up a corn dog in each hand and shook them like pom-poms. Two other cheerleaders posed beside her.

  “What’s the cheerleading booth up to?” Sophie said.

  “We’re selling corn dogs!” they all shouted together.

  “Why?” Sophie said.

  “Because they’re good!” Willoughby said.

  “No, eejit,” Darbie said — using her Irish word for “idiot.” “What are you going to use the money for?”

  It’s a good thing Mr. Stires has editing equipment back at school, Sophie thought. “To go to cheerleading camp this summer!” they all screamed.

  “Thanks, girls,” Fiona said, voice dry. “We’ll call you if we can use you.”

  “Okay!” the squad cried out.

  Willoughby’s going to be great in our Liberty Lawhead film, Sophie thought. She can lead the crowds of protesters in yelling … while the majestic Liberty Lawhead goes into battle for people whose rights are being tromped on. That was what made her a civil rights leader —

  “Beam yourself back down, Soph,” Fiona said. “Let’s hit the Film Club booth before all Senora’s flan is gone.”

  Sophie pulled herself out of the 1960s, where she’d spent a lot of dream-time ever since they’d started studying the Civil Rights Movement in English/History block. When she got to the booth, Fiona was drooling over Senora LaQuita’s shiny squares of sweet flan.

  “I save you some, Fiona,” the senora said. Maggie’s mom was from Cuba, and Sophie loved her special way of speaking English.

  Fiona pulled the plastic spoon out between her lips and closed her eyes. “It is muy bueno,” she said.

  “That means ‘very good,’ ” Maggie informed them. Maggie’s words always fell like thuds, as if each one were a fact you couldn’t argue with. With her steady dark eyes and solid squareness, the Corn Flakes usually didn’t argue with her.

  Right now Maggie nodded toward the camera, her black bob splashing against her cheeks. “Are you going to interview me?” she said. “I wish Kitty was here. She’s better at this than me.”

  Kitty was the sixth Corn Flake, and Maggie’s best friend. She had leukemia and was in the hospital in another town getting more chemotherapy, which, among other hard things, made her hair fall out. Sophie had shaved her head at the beginning of middle school so Kitty wouldn’t be the only bald girl.

  “I’m rolling,” Darbie said.

  “Tell us what the Film Club’s up to here at the festival, Mags,” Sophie said.

  Maggie looked stiffly into the camera. “We’re selling flan.”

  “What’s flan?” Sophie said.

  “It’s like pudding.”

  There was a long pause. Fiona poked Sophie in the side.

  “Have you sold a lot to make money for Film Club supplies?” Sophie said.

  “We did,” Maggie frowned, “until Colton Messik told everybody it was phlegm, not flan.”

  “What’s ‘phlegm’?” Sophie whispered to Fiona.

  “Stuff you cough up when you have a cold,” Fiona said.

  “EWWWW!”

  Darbie focused the camera on Miss Imes and their other sponsor, Mr. Stires. Miss Imes, their math teacher, pointed her dark arrow-eyebrows toward her short, almost-white hair. “Ready,” Darbie said.

  “Senora LaQuita has made some luscious flan for us,” Miss Imes said into the camera. She didn’t miss much, especially if it was some kid doing something wrong.

  Sophie turned to their science teacher, Mr. Stires, who stood next to Miss Imes. He was short, bald, and cheerful, and his mustache stuck out like a toothbrush.

  “Tell us about the equipment we’re going to buy with the flan money,” Sophie said.

  Sophie heard Fiona groan as Mr. Stires launched into a lecture about DVD recorders.

  “Oops, battery running low!” Darbie said after two very long minutes. “I’ll get the extra one.” She darted off.

  “We could have been there for decades,” Fiona said as she and Sophie followed. “Let’s go for the kabobs.”

  Fiona took off for the Round Table booth on legs longer by several inches than tiny Sophie’s, and Sophie hurried to keep up. Since Film Club had turned out to be pretty boring, being on the Round Table was Sophie’s favorite school activity.

  It was a special council of teachers and a few handpicked students who had set up an Honor Code for the school. They were responsible for deciding consequences for people who broke it, things that would help them learn to be better people instead of just punishing them.

  No cases had been brought before them yet, and Sophie was anxious for one. It would be a great opportunity to be like Liberty Lawhead …

  Who entered the room with her jaw set, looking down from her impressive height into the eyes of a heinous offender who had stomped on the rights of an innocent person. He looked back at her, his face set with stubborn heinous-ness, but she met his gaze firmly, without wavering. He finally dropped his eyes. He had obviously seen the honor in her face, honor he could never hope to match —

  “What are you looking at?”

  Sophie found herself blinking into an unfamiliar face. Hazel eyes, set close to a straight, very-there nose, blinked back at her. The girl shook sandy-blonde bangs away from her eyebrows and pulled back her upper lip. Sophie wasn’t sure it was a smile, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the gap between the girl’s two front teeth.

  “I said, what are you looking at?” the girl said.

  “Nothing!” Sophie’s high-pitched voice went into an extra-squeaky zone.

  “You were looking at something if you were looking at me,” the girl said. Sophie was sure she smiled then, although mostly it looked like she smelled something funny.

  Fiona and Darbie joined them, Fiona giving Sophie a we-thought-you-were-right-behind-us look. “You’re Phoebe, huh?” she said to the girl.

  “Yeah. Phoebe Karnes. I just transferred into your PE class.” Phoebe tossed her bangs out of her eyes again and licked her full lips. “I was in all the wrong classes — it was all messed up. What are y’all’s names?”

  As Fiona introduced everybody, Sophie studied Phoebe. She had a look Sophie hadn’t seen on many girls in well-off Poquoson, Virginia: faded jeans a little tight and a little short, graying tennis shoes with untied laces, and a long-sleeved T-shirt with ANGEL printed on it in fading glitter. Earrings with rhinestones sparkling down the length of them dangled from her ears.

  She’s definitely not a Corn Pop, Sophie thought.

  “So, if you’re interviewing people, interview me,” Phoebe said. She lifted her lip at the camera before Sophie could even think up a question. “Hi — I’m Phoebe! My opinion of the festival? It’s hilarious. For instance, let me direct your attention to the arm-wrestling booth.”

  Phoebe pointed to several tables set against a display of neon-colored stuffed animals. Members of the GMMS eighth-grade football team were arm-wrestling kids for chartreuse elephants and hot-pink teddy bears.

  “There goes another one down,” Phoebe said to the camera. “Flop — right to the table like a wet noodle.”


  Sophie saw she was right. One after another, kids gripped a football player’s hand and pushed until their faces turned purple and their arms slapped to the table.

  “Get this one on film, Darbie,” Fiona said.

  Sophie felt a smile wisp across her face. Eddie Wornom, a more-than-just-chubby member of the heinous group of boys the Corn Flakes called Fruit Loops, was sitting down across from a fullback almost the size of Sophie’s father.

  Eddie glanced at B.J. Schneider, the Corn Pop standing behind him with her thumbs hooked into her hip-hugger pants. Behind her stood the other three Pops, all in ponchos that obviously didn’t come from Wal-Mart, all with lip gloss shining.

  “You better win this time, Eddie,” Sophie heard B.J. say. Her pudgy cheeks were red, either from the crisp October air or because she was getting impatient with Eddie. He pushed so hard against the fullback’s hand the veins in his neck bulged like ropes.

  “If anybody can beat that football player, it’s that bull Eddie,” Darbie said from behind the camera.

  “Nah, that’s all blubber,” Phoebe said. “See — there he goes!”

  The eighth grader eased Eddie’s arm to the table like he was knocking over one of the teddy bears.

  “Eddie, you loser!” B.J. rolled her eyes with the rest of the Corn Pops.

  “He cheated!” Eddie cried. “That — ”

  Sophie covered her ears so she wouldn’t hear what came out of Eddie’s mouth. It was usually gross.

  “Hey, Jimmy! I bet you could win me a stuffed animal.”

  The Corn Flakes and Phoebe turned toward Julia Cummings, the tall leader of the Corn Pops. She was tilting her head at blond seventh grader Jimmy Wythe, so that her own dark auburn hair fell just so across her face. Jimmy looked as if he’d rather drown at the dunking booth than have Julia look at him that way.

  “She should give up,” Darbie whispered. “Sophie’s the one he likes.”

  “He doesn’t like me like me,” Sophie said, voice squeaking. “Eww.”

  It wasn’t that Jimmy was at all heinous like a Fruit Loop. In fact, the Corn Flakes usually referred to him and his friends as Lucky Charms because they didn’t make disgusting noises with their armpits or make fun of people until they withered. But Sophie just couldn’t see wearing tons of makeup for one of them the way the Corn Pops did. Life was complicated enough.