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  ZONDERKIDZ

  SOPHiE Steps Up

  Previously titled Sophie’s Irish Showdown

  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 July 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-56865-0

  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’s Irish showdown]

  Sophie Steps Up / Nancy Rue.

  p. cm. — (Sophie series ; bk. 4) (Faithgirlz!)

  Summary: As the Corn Flakes and a new student from Ireland prepare for a “Performance Showcase,” tempers flare and Sophie retreats to her imagination again, but a Bible story recommended by Dr. Peter helps her pull the group together.

  ISBN 978-0-310-71841-3

  [1. Talent shows—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Irish Americans—Fiction. 4.

  Orphans—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Imagination—Fiction. 7. Christian life—Fiction. 8. Virginia—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.R88515Sjr 2009

  [Fic] —dc22

  2008047113

  * * *

  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.

  Cover illustrator: Steve James

  * * *

  09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 • 24 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Glossary

  About the Publisher

  Share Your Thoughts

  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

  One

  Sophie LaCroix could not believe what she had just heard.

  There was no way Miss Blythe had just announced that the sixth-grade class was going to get to do a performance showcase — on the stage — on a Saturday night — in front of a REAL AUDIENCE. And that the top three performing groups would each get a prize.

  In Sophie’s world, dreams like THAT just didn’t come true every day.

  Sophie’s best friend, Fiona, grabbed her hand and squeezed it until Sophie’s fingers looked like red lipsticks.

  “Do you think she’ll let us pick our own groups?” Kitty whispered on Sophie’s other side. Her robin’s-egg-blue eyes were nearly bulging, the way they always did when she was nervous. Which was a lot.

  “She would be nonsensical not to,” Fiona whispered back. “We’re the Corn Flakes.”

  “So?” That came from their other friend, Maggie, whose voice thudded across the table they shared. “Teachers don’t care about that.”

  Sophie looked at Miss Blythe, who had her back to them, writing dates and times and requirements on the board with squeaky chalk. She was their arts teacher, and Sophie had often thought she couldn’t have been anything else.

  Miss Blythe was tall and wore long skirts and bracelets that bounced with bright-colored charms. She swayed like a new tree when she walked, the strands of her waist-length blonde hair streaming down her back as if they were rays of sunlight. With her long fingers constantly punctuating her sentences in the air, Sophie had a hard time imagining her as a lawyer or a greeter down at Wal-Mart. And Sophie could imagine just about anything.

  Is Miss Blythe the type to let friends — best friends who can’t bear to be separated — work together? Sophie thought. Or would she subject her students to pure torture at the hands of girls like the Corn Pops? They’d only had arts class for about a month. It was hard to say.

  “I can’t work with Julia and them!” Kitty was whining. She did that a lot too. “She and B.J. and Anne-Stuart and Willoughby — they would be so mean to me!”

  “Yeah, they would torture you,” Maggie said in her usual flat, factual voice. “Any of us.”

  Sophie could tell by the way Kitty was whimpering that none of that was making her feel any better. It wasn’t doing much for Sophie either, for that matter. She shook her acorn-colored hair off her shoulders and adjusted her glasses as she leaned into the table. The rest of the Corn Flakes leaned in with her.

  “We just have to pray really hard,” she said. “We have to squeeze our eyes shut and whisper to God in our heads.”

  “That’ll look weird,” Maggie said. Sophie saw that she was on the point of rolling her very dark eyes. Maggie was Cuban, so everything on her was dark except her extra-white teeth.

  “Corn Flakes are weird,” Fiona told her. “That’s what makes us unique. Close your eyes.”

  They all did, clutching each other’s hands under the table. Just before she shut hers, Sophie saw the Corn Pops clinging to each other too, but she was pretty sure they weren’t pra
ying.

  In fact, Sophie wondered if the Corn Pops EVER prayed. What they did do, as far as Sophie could tell, was think they were better than everybody else because they had more money than rock stars and could get their way no matter what. “No matter what” included cheating, lying, gossiping, and teasing people about anything they thought was too weird.

  And since the Corn Pops considered everything the Corn Flakes did way too weird, Sophie and Maggie and Kitty and Fiona were their favorite targets.

  At least we used to be, Sophie thought now. Until they got in so much trouble for doing bad stuff and blaming it on us.

  It was a little bit of a comfort that the Corn Pops wouldn’t dare do anything else to the Corn Flakes, at least not anything they could possibly get caught at. But Sophie knew the Pops had ways of getting away with things that could escape even the really smart teachers. She sure hoped Miss Blythe knew a Pop from a Flake and wouldn’t try to mix them together.

  It’s pretty easy to see the differences, Sophie thought.

  The Corn Pops only wanted to be popular — which was why they were Pops — and they would do anything to stay the boss of everybody else in the sixth grade at Great Marsh Elementary, which was where the corn part came from. Sometimes they were so corny in the stuff they did.

  Sophie unsquinted her eyes open a little so she could peek at her fellow Flakes. Fiona, with her rich-brown bob that fell over one of her gray eyes. Maggie, so serious and stocky and practical. And Kitty, with her curly ponytail and her little nose that looked like it was made of china.

  Corn Flakes are corny too, Sophie thought. That’s what everyone says just because we like to make up stories and make films out of them, and we don’t care what anybody else thinks about that.

  Once, back when Kitty was still a Pop, the CPs had said Sophie and Fiona were a couple of “flakes.” It was so perfect it had to be their name. After that, the girls who were all into sports were the Wheaties and most of the boys were Fruit Loops. The best part was that all the group names were a secret among the Corn Flakes.

  “If everyone is awake, I’ll finish explaining the project,” Miss Blythe said.

  Sophie’s brown eyes sprang open, even though she hadn’t actually gotten to praying at all. She pulled her elf-like body up as tall as she could in her chair. It wouldn’t be good to be caught daydreaming, or Daddy would take her video camera away from her, and Corn Flakes Productions would be no more. That was the deal with her father — stay out of trouble and make nothing less than a B in school and she could keep the camera. Mess up and it was all history.

  “I want at least four people to a group,” Miss Blythe said. “And I feel very good about letting you choose your own — ”

  The rest was drowned out by shrieks that bounced off the walls and back again. Even as Sophie was hugging Fiona and hoping Kitty wasn’t going to spill off her chair into a puddle of relief, she saw that the Corn Pops were every bit as excited. B.J. — the pudgy-faced one with the swingy blonde hair — was whistling through her teeth. Willoughby, of course, was letting out one of her poodle laughs that could set a person’s fillings on edge, and Anne-Stuart was blowing her nose. Anne-Stuart had sinus issues. She was always blowing her nose.

  Above it all was the Corn Pop Queen Bee, Julia Cummings, tossing her thick, curly auburn hair back from her face and looking as if she had expected nothing else. After all, she always got what she wanted.

  Even as Sophie watched her, Julia turned to meet her eyes. Julia’s went into slits, but she wore a smile that looked as if she’d selected it from a rack of grins and stuck it onto her face. Sophie had learned that every one of Julia’s smiles had a message to send. This one clearly said, Thank heaven I didn’t get stuck with any of you.

  Sophie smiled back — a real smile. People always told her that her smile was wispy, like a wood fairy’s. Sophie didn’t know about that — she just knew that right now, it wiped Julia’s own grin right off her mouth and replaced it with another message, etched into a sneer:

  Don’t even think about getting a prize, Sophie LaCroix, because we are so going to win.

  “All right — let’s settle down,” Miss Blythe called out above the din. “Artists are disciplined people — remember that.”

  She perched on the high stool at the front of the room and began to make periods and commas in the air with her long fingers as she talked.

  “Each group must decide on an idea for a performance that is to last no more than ten minutes at the very most.”

  One of the Wheaties, a softball-playing girl named Harley, poked her arm into the air. “What kinda stuff can we do?” she said. Her group all had their foreheads in twists, Sophie noticed.

  “Anything the audience might enjoy,” Miss Blythe said. Her eyes took on a dreamy look. “You can sing, dance, do gymnastics, present a poem — ”

  That got a couple of snickers from some of the Fruit Loops, but Miss Blythe ignored them.

  “Think about what gifts and talents the members of your group have and put them together into something fabulous. And remember . . .” She arched an eyebrow at the class. “You will be graded not only on the performance itself, but also on how organized you are and how well you are able to work together.”

  Sophie sighed happily. Maggie would be in charge of organization. Maggie, herself, and Fiona would do the thinking. And Kitty would do whatever they wanted her to because she always did.

  “We are so going to have the best one,” Fiona whispered to them.

  “I want you to meet with your groups now,” Miss Blythe said, curving a comma with her pinkie finger, “and go to work on coming up with an idea. I need to see it in writing by one week from today. That’s next Thursday. If you don’t have anything by then, I will assign a poem for your group to present.”

  “She’ll have ours way before next Thursday,” Maggie said.

  As soon as Miss Blythe punched out the final period with a deep-purple fingernail, Maggie got out the Corn Flakes’ purple Treasure Book and the special color-of-the-day gel pen, a shade of pale peach. Fiona got her finger around the section of hair that hung over her eye and twirled it. Sophie recognized that as her creative thinking pose. Sophie’s was to tuck her way-skinny legs up under her and gaze at the ceiling.

  It was Kitty, however, who spoke first. “Good thing we already know what our talent is. What can we make a film of?”

  “Film?”

  They all looked up at Miss Blythe, who had stopped beside their table with a swish of her lavender skirt.

  “That’s what we do,” Fiona told her. “We write scripts and make films out of them. They’re always educational. We do our research and we have costumes and — ”

  “I’m impressed,” Miss Blythe said. “But you can’t make a film for the Sixth Grade Showcase. This has to be a live performance.”

  Then she looked at the Corn Flakes as if they obviously didn’t know what art really was and swept off to visit the Wheaties.

  Kitty’s voice immediately spiraled up into a whine. “But what do we do if we can’t make a film?”

  “Not fair,” Maggie said.

  “I’m gonna go talk to her,” Fiona said.

  But Sophie shook her head. “We’ll think of something else,” she said. “I get in trouble when I argue with teachers.”

  Fiona plucked at her little bunch of a mouth with her fingers. “Let’s go around the table and everybody say what their talent is — besides making films.”

  For a long moment, nobody said anything. Finally Fiona snapped her fingers.

  “I used to take ballet,” she said.

  “When?” Maggie said.

  “When I was five. Only my parents had to take me out because the teacher didn’t like me. I kept correcting the way she was pronouncing the positions. She was saying everything wrong.”

  Maggie had the peach pen poised over the blank page. “So Fiona can dance, but I can’t.”

  “Me neither,” Sophie said.

  Ki
tty shook her head.

  “Next,” Maggie said. “I can make costumes, period.”

  “And you’re the best at it,” Sophie said. “Whatever we decide to do, you get to make them for us.”

  Maggie jotted that down and then looked at Kitty.

  “Me?” Kitty said. “I can play the piano. Except the only song I know is ‘You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog.’ My grandma taught me it. She says it’s a classic.”

  “You know my talent,” Sophie said. “I imagine things.”

  “So what are you imagining right now, Soph?” Fiona said.

  “Oh no,” Kitty whispered suddenly.

  Sophie followed with her eyes to where Kitty was pointing. All the Corn Pops were squealing up to Miss Blythe’s desk, and Anne-Stuart was waving around a piece of paper, which she floated down in front of Miss B.

  “They couldn’t have their idea written up already,” Maggie said. She glanced at the wall clock. “It’s impossible.”

  Fiona narrowed her eyes into little points. “They probably cheated.”

  “Class!” Miss Blythe said. She shot her index finger up into an exclamation point. “Julia’s group has already come up with a marvelous idea! They are going to perform a dance with costumes. Doesn’t that sound fabulous?”

  “Fabulous,” said some Fruit Loop in a bored voice.

  “Okay, Flakes,” Fiona hissed between her teeth. “Everybody has to come up with at least one idea by tomorrow morning — even if it’s lame.”

  Maggie wrote that down too.

  “I know your idea won’t just be average brilliant,” Fiona said to Sophie. “Yours will be scathingly brilliant.”

  “Oh, by the way — ”

  That was Anne-Stuart’s voice, coming out of her always-stuffy nose. “We are going to need one more dancer. If you are interested in being in our spectacular production, see me and we will set up an audition for you.”

  Sophie pulled her Corn Flakes in around her with a spread of her arms.

  “I’m glad none of us can dance,” she said. “Because we will always stick together, right?”

  They all agreed that they would. Always.