Free Sophie the Awesome by Lara Bergen Page A

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 pointwhen 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