by Lara Bergen
SOPHIE the
HERO
by Lara Bergen
illustrated by Laura Tallardy
To my heroes, Parker and Sydney
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Preview
Also Available
About the Author
Copyright
Sophie was a hero. No joke. A real live hero! And it was all anyone could talk about on the bus to school.
Especially Sophie.
“Mrs. Blatt! Have you heard? I’m a hero!” she told the bus driver as soon as she got on. “Just call me Sophie the Hero from now on! Right, Ella?”
She turned to Ella Fitzgibbon, the little kindergartner behind her.
“Right!” said Ella. “Sophie the Hero — my hero!”
Sophie smiled. Then she patted Ella’s head. This was something the old, boring Sophie never would have done. But she was not the old, boring Sophie anymore.
The old, boring Sophie had thought that her next-door neighbor Ella was a pest. She never left Sophie alone, even when Sophie was playing important third-grade games with Kate Barry, her very best friend.
But things had changed. Now Sophie was Ella’s hero! And thanks to Ella, Sophie had a great new name. A name that made her special. A name that said it all — just what Sophie had been hoping for!
So what if it was not “Sophie the Awesome”? That was the name she had first thought of. But being awesome all the time was kind of hard, Sophie had learned. Being a hero was fine with her. Great, even!
“Hero?” Mrs. Blatt said. She reached over and closed the bus door. “You don’t say! Well, have a seat, girls, and tell me more. On your bottoms back there!” she hollered to the kids in the rear of the bus.
Quickly, Sophie, Kate, and Ella slid into the first seat behind Mrs. Blatt. Usually, Sophie liked to sit in the back of the bus with Kate. Not with Ella. But this was not a usual day. Ella had already told Sophie’s story at the bus stop, to all the kids who had missed it. And Sophie could not wait to hear it again!
“Go ahead, Ella,” Sophie said.
“What happened,” Ella said, “is that I tripped and all my Slinkys spilled. Right into the street!”
“And Sophie caught them all?” said the bus driver. She hit the gas and the bus rolled forward. “Why, that is heroic, isn’t it?”
But all three girls shook their heads.
“No. Sophie caught Ella!” Kate said. She patted Sophie’s shoulder proudly.
“I was going to try to catch my Slinkys. But Sophie stopped me from running into the street,” Ella said.
“And don’t forget the part about Mrs. Dixon driving by in her car right then,” Sophie reminded them.
“Right!” said Ella. “And Mrs. Dixon drove by in her car! Right then!” She turned to Sophie and hugged her hard. “You saved my life!”
Mrs. Blatt’s eyes grew wide in the rearview mirror. “Wow, Sophie. You really are a hero!”
Sophie beamed proudly as Ella reached down and pulled a piece of paper out of her backpack. She handed it to Sophie. It was a drawing of a girl with two straight lines of brown hair. She was standing on a line of green grass with heart-shaped flowers all around her. There was a line of blue sky above, a yellow sun in the corner, and big rainbow letters that spelled out “SOFEE THE HE.”
Sophie started to smile, but her mouth ended up crooked. And not just because the picture made her look like a scarecrow wearing too much makeup.
“This isn’t what I told you to write, Ella,” Sophie said, pointing to the letters on the paper.
“Oh, I ran out of room,” Ella said. She grinned. “The rest is on the back.”
Sophie turned the page over. There was a giant R, and an O. Plus an “I love you, Ella. XXXOOO.”
“See!” said Ella. She looked at Sophie with big brown eyes. Sophie noticed a spot of purple jelly on her chin. “Don’t you like it?” Ella asked her.
Sophie sighed.
“I think it’s great,” Kate said. She smiled at Sophie over Ella’s head. “And it looks just like you, Sophie … the He!”
Sophie rolled her eyes, but she had to grin.
“It’s … very nice, Ella,” she said.
Then she slipped the picture into her own backpack. Okay. So it was not exactly the hero portrait she had hoped for. But Sophie did not need a picture to prove she was a hero. The facts spoke for themselves. And so did the cheer that Kate and Ella started on the bus ride:
Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate?
Sophie!
Sophie!
Sophie the Hero!
At school, Sophie dropped Ella off at her kindergarten classroom. (Ella clung to her arm the whole way there, which was kind of cute … and kind of not.) Then she and Kate hurried to their third-grade class in room 10.
Sophie was just about to walk through the door when she stopped short.
“Oof!” grunted Kate as she bumped into Sophie’s backpack. “Why did you stop here?”
Sophie pulled Kate away from the door. “You need to introduce me!” she told her.
Kate’s forehead made a wrinkle. “But everybody already knows you,” she said.
Sophie lowered her voice. “Not as Sophie the Hero,” she said.
“Oh, right!” Kate waggled her eyebrows and grinned. Then, slowly, her grin got smaller.
“What?” Sophie asked.
“Well …,” Kate began. She shrugged. “It’s just … it’s great that you’re a hero. But I feel a little left out.”
“Oh, don’t!” Sophie said. She put her hands on her friend’s shoulders. She had never thought that her being a hero would be hard for Kate.
“Don’t forget,” Sophie told her, “you’re the best friend of a hero. In fact —” A thought suddenly hit her. “You’re like my … What do they call them?”
“Sidekick?” said Kate.
Sophie beamed. “Exactly! You’re like my sidekick!” And how perfect was that? Every hero needed one of them!
Kate thought about it for a second and her grin came back even bigger.
“Feel better?” said Sophie.
“Much better!” Kate said. “Sidekicks get the coolest jobs, and they’re funny, like me. Now for that introduction!”
With that, Kate left Sophie in the hall and stepped into room 10.
“Ladies and gentlemen! And everyone else, too,” Kate declared. (Sophie bet she was talking to yucky Toby Myers and Archie Dolan.) “May I have your attention, please?”
Sophie heard the class get quiet, no kidding. Wow! How lucky was she to have Kate for a sidekick? Kate was very good at it already!
“What is it?” someone said.
That was when Kate grabbed Sophie and pulled her into the room.
“I’d like you to meet the one, the only … Sophie the Hero!” Kate cried.
“Sophie the who?”
“Sophie the what?”
Sophie took a bow and cleared her throat. “Sophie the Hero,” she said.
And just as Sophie had hoped, she and Kate got to tell the Slinky story all over again.
And again!
“Wow, you are a hero!” said Eve, Mia, Sydney, and Grace when it was over.
“Maybe we should call you Sophie H. instead of Sophie M.,” said Sophie A., the other Sophie in her class. “For ‘Sophie the Hero.’”
Sophie thought about it for a second, then shook her head. No. “Sophie the Hero” was better. She was pr
etty sure of that.
“I am happy to sign autographs,” Sophie said. “Does anyone have a pen?”
“Wait a minute,” said a snooty voice. It belonged to Mindy VonBoffmann. Her name would be Mindy the Meanie if Sophie had anything to say about it.
“What happened to the Slinkys?” Mindy asked. Sophie shrugged. “Mrs. Dixon picked them up.”
“Then isn’t she the real hero?” Mindy said. She crossed her arms and made a face that Sophie’s mom would have called sassy.
“Yeah,” Lily Lemley chimed in. She liked to copy Mindy, so she made her face look just the same. “If Mrs. Dixon saved the Slinkys, she’s the real hero,” Lily said.
“What are you talking about?” Kate said. “Sophie saved a kindergartner! Who cares about the Slinkys?”
“They only cost a dollar or something,” Ben added. “Kindergartners cost a lot more.”
Good old Ben. Sophie turned to smile at him.
She truly felt like a hero. And that felt really good!
But Mindy just shrugged. “I guess,” she said. “Still, it’s only one kindergartner. It’s not like she saved five kittens from a burning building, like Scarlett the cat. Remember? Now, that’s a real hero.”
“Yeah, that’s a real hero,” Lily echoed.
Sophie remembered the story their second-grade teacher, Mrs. Cruz, had read to them the year before. It was a true story about a stray cat who saved the lives of all her kittens. When the building they lived in caught fire, she carried them out, one by one.
Okay. Yes. Sophie knew that the cat was a real hero. But she was, too!
Before Sophie could say anything, Toby Myers spoke up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told Mindy.
Sophie’s mouth dropped open. She could not believe it. Was Toby standing up for her?
Until the year before, this would not have surprised Sophie. Until the year before, she and Toby had been best friends. But things changed in second grade. Toby started hanging out with yucky Archie Dolan, and Kate moved to town. Now Sophie and Kate were best friends. And Sophie and Toby could not look at each other.
If they did, they had to stick out their tongues.
But maybe things were changing….
Sophie thought of the day before, when Toby had actually done something nice for her. He had not made fun of her name that day—Sophie the Awesome—at all.
Was it possible? Could Toby be coming to his senses?
“Real heroes save the world from evil aliens and giant asteroids and killer robots!” Toby said. Then he looked at Sophie and stuck out his tongue.
No. Sophie sighed. She guessed he had not changed after all.
“Yeah!” said Archie. “And heroes have a mutant power.” He pointed at Sophie with a sticky, stubby finger. “What’s your mutant power, Sophie?” he asked.
Toby held his nose. “Super B.O.!” He laughed. “Not funny,” Kate said.
But Sophie rolled her eyes—and secretly sniffed her armpit, just to be sure.
No, she did not have B.O. And yes, no matter what Toby or Archie or Mindy said, Sophie was a hero.
She stuck her own tongue out at Toby. So there!
Sophie told her hero story so many times that day she was sure everyone had heard it. But she was ready to tell it again the next day as soon as she got to school. After all, it was such a great story! Or maybe she would let other people tell it. She liked that a lot, too.
The only thing was nobody seemed to want to hear her story anymore.
And there was something worse. No one seemed to want to call her Sophie the Hero, either.
Sophie did not understand it!
One day, she was a hero and everyone was talking about her. The next day, they were talking about stuff like Dean’s new haircut. And Eve’s lost tooth. And Sophie A.’s fish, who just had babies. And Ben’s mom, who just had her baby, too.
Okay. So maybe Dean’s haircut was pretty funny-looking. And maybe a fish having babies was cool. But all kids lost their teeth. And all moms had babies. At least one, Sophie thought.
But not everyone was a hero!
How could they have forgotten about her already? Even after she’d drawn a big H for “hero” on her shirt with a marker that very morning.
Even Sophie’s sidekick, Kate, was joking with Dean about his hair.
“You look like a giant toothbrush!” Kate said.
Oh, well, Sophie thought, trying to make herself feel better. Maybe they’d talk about her again once Dean’s hair grew back.
She sure hoped so. She really, really liked being Sophie the Hero. And she really, really did not want to be Sophie the Nothing again.
Then the bell rang and their teacher, Ms. Moffly, wrote two big words on the blackboard. As soon as Sophie read them, the day got brighter again.
LOCAL HEROES
Sophie could not believe it. Ms. Moffly was going to teach about her! And Sophie had not even told her hero story to the teacher yet. Wow! But of course Ms. Moffly had heard it. In fact, it was probably all they talked about in the teachers’ lounge, Sophie bet.
“We have two very special guests today,” Ms. Moffly said.
Hmm …, Sophie wondered. Who was number two? Ella? Mrs. Dixon? They weren’t exactly heroes, like her. But they were part of the story.
“I hope you’ll help me welcome them,” Ms. Moffly went on.
Sophie took a deep breath and got ready to stand up.
“I’d like to introduce … Firefighters Burruss and Jones!” Ms. Moffly said.
Huh?
Sophie sat back and watched as two firefighters walked in.
One was a man. He was tall with lots of whiskers. He looked like Sophie’s dad the time he’d almost grown a beard. The other was a woman. She was short and very pretty. Sophie thought that was good, since she was wearing the same blue shirt and pants and big black boots as the man.
“Hello, everyone,” said the pretty firefighter.
“Hello,” replied the class all together.
That is, everyone in the class but Sophie. She was so surprised she could not talk yet.
“Firefighters Burruss and Jones are here to teach us about fire safety,” Ms. Moffly said. “Pay very close attention. It might save your life one day.”
Sophie sighed. Of course, she knew that she was not the world’s only hero.
She watched the firefighters take off their hats and set up some posters they had brought in. The pretty one smiled at Sophie, and Sophie sat up a little straighter so that the H on her shirt showed above her desk. She wondered if the firefighter guessed that Sophie was a hero, also.
Sophie knew that heroes had to respect each other. So she listened very carefully to all the things the firefighters said.
Things like “Don’t hide; get outside,” for when there was a fire in your house.
And “Stay low and go,” since crawling along the ground was the best way to avoid smoke.
Sophie did not listen that hard when the firefighters told them what number to call in case of a fire or another big emergency. That was because she already knew it: 911. Of course.
But Sophie did listen to them tell how they got to be firefighters. She did not know they had to take tests and then go to firefighter school.
And she listened to them tell what they did at work—besides going grocery shopping in their uniforms and fire truck. (She had seen them at the Shop-Fresh more than once.)
Then came the moment Sophie had been waiting for: question time!
She quickly raised her hand as high as it would go. But if there was one thing Sophie was used to, it was being in the middle. In lines, and races, and question times, too. So she propped her arm up and waited as Toby asked a question first.
“What’s the biggest fire you ever put out?” Toby asked.
The firefighters looked at each other.
“Probably that four-alarmer at the warehouse,” the woman said. “We had to call in all three of our engines and three more from the
next town.”
“Sweet!” said Toby.
Next was Archie.
“Do you sweat a lot in those uniforms?” he asked. “And does it make them stink as bad as my brother’s football pads?”
The pretty firefighter smiled. “Sometimes. Yes,” she said.
Then Grace asked if the firehouse had a Dalmatian.
They did not. But they did have a lizard named Godzilla. It was a thank-you gift from a pet shop they had saved from burning down.
“Are you the same guys who saved my grandma when she got stuck in her old lawn chair?” Ben asked next. “That was so cool! They had to use the Jaws of Death!”
“I think you mean the Jaws of Life,” said the tall firefighter, grinning. “And sorry, no. It wasn’t us.”
“Have you ever rescued a kitten from a tree?” was Mia’s question.
“No, we haven’t,” said the pretty firefighter. “But we did rescue a puppy from a well in the spring.”
Then, at last — finally! — the tall firefighter pointed to Sophie.
Sophie rubbed her tired arm, then smoothed her shirt. And she cleared her throat proudly.
“I just wanted to know …,” she began, “have you ever stopped a little kindergartner from running into the street to catch her runaway Slinkys and saved her from probably being squashed by a car? And wouldn’t you call someone who did that a big hero?”
The pretty firefighter shook her head. “No, I have not,” she said. “And yes! That is very heroic. Isn’t it, Jim?”
Sophie felt her cheeks and ears — and even her insides — get warm and pinkish.
The firefighter with whiskers nodded. “Sure is,” he said. “And it brings up a good point, too. Never run into the street. Not for anything. Ever.”
Then there was a little cough, and Mindy raised her hand. Her face always looked pinchy to Sophie, but it looked extra-pinchy then.
“I have a question in two parts,” Mindy said.
“Okay,” said the firefighter with whiskers. “Go ahead.”
“One,” Mindy began, “have you ever rescued five kittens from a burning building like Scarlett the cat? And two: Do you agree that she is one of the biggest heroes ever?”