Sophie the Snoop (5 page)

A
few minutes later, Sophie was glad to be out of the principal’s office.

But she was not glad to be back in room 10. Everyone — except Kate — was talking about all the trouble she was in!

Of course, they weren’t just talking about her. They were talking about Toby, too. He’d given everything back and he’d explained what he’d done.

Archie thought it was hilarious. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked him.

“Tweety!” said Ben. He gave his Tweety Bird a hug.

Mindy was furious. “Don’t you ever touch my lip-gloss phone again!” she fumed. She inspected it for damage. Then she quickly dabbed on some lip gloss.

Sophie, meanwhile, slunk back to her seat. The one next to Toby. (As if things weren’t bad enough.) She really, really wished she could ask to move. But she could not even look at Ms. Steele. How could she speak to her?

Sophie felt awful for making the sub’s first day of teaching so hard. She should have known better. How could someone named Sophie be bad, after all?

Sophie guessed that she was not as much of a snoop as she had thought. She was still just plain old boring Sophie the
Nothing
. As usual.

The good news was that it was almost time for art class with her very favorite teacher, Ms. Bart. So Sophie did not have to stay in her seat next to Toby for long. Art could not come soon enough.

She hoped they would do clay. She felt like squeezing stuff in her hands. Or maybe splatter painting. Sophie could really get into that.

Something — anything — to take her mind off Sophie the Snoop.

But when Sophie got to the art room, she saw that there was a little mirror at each of their seats.

Mindy picked hers up. Sophie rolled her eyes as Mindy blew herself a kiss.

Then Ms. Bart called for their attention. She had her hair in two long, long braids. One had glitter stuck to it. The other looked like it had been dipped in purple paint.

“Hey, everyone,” Ms. Bart said. “Today we’re doing something really cool. We’re going to draw self-portraits. That means
you
draw a picture of
you
!”

Really?

Sophie looked around. Everyone else — especially Mindy — seemed to think that it was a great idea. But drawing a picture of herself was the
last
thing Sophie wanted to do just then.

Kate reached for a pencil and quickly drew something round.

“Aren’t you going to look at yourself first?” Sophie asked.

Kate grinned and shrugged. “Well, I know I have a
head
,” she replied.

Sophie picked up her mirror. She studied her face. It frowned back. She grabbed a pencil and started to draw, then stopped.
Blah
! It wasn’t right.

Sophie knew that she was not a great artist. No, Sophie the Artist would never be her name. (Sydney and Eve were the best in her class. And Jack, too, if you counted cartoons.) But she loved to sculpt. And draw. And paint. She especially loved to glue stuff. What did Ms. Bart call that? Oh, right. Collage.

But Kate wasn’t a great artist, either, and she was doing okay with her self-portrait.

And Lily was almost finished. Her self-portrait looked a lot more like
Mindy
than herself. Sophie wasn’t surprised.

Still, that was better than nothing at all. Nothing at all was what Sophie had.

She tried again. And again. But after twenty minutes, all she had was a paper full of gray smudges. And a lapful of eraser dust.

For the first time ever in art class, Sophie was not having fun.

“Sophie, how are you doing?” Ms. Bart asked as she walked up. She knelt down and looked at Sophie’s blank paper, then at Sophie. “What’s up?”

“I can’t do it,” Sophie said glumly. “I mean, I know what I
should
look like. But when I try to draw it, it comes out wrong.”

Ms. Bart put her hand on Sophie’s shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be perfect,” she said.

“But if it doesn’t look just like me, what’s the point?” Sophie asked.

Ms. Bart smiled. “Come here. Let me show you something.”

She stood up and Sophie followed her to a bulletin board covered with art. Some looked like a real artist had made it. And some did not.

Ms. Bart pointed to a painting of a man. He had one big black eye and one small one. And a very giant nose. “This is a self-portrait by Pablo Picasso — one of the greatest artists in the world,” she said.

Then she pointed to another. “And this is by the artist Marc Chagall.” It showed an artist painting in a bow tie. His skin was blue. And his hair was green. But those were not the strangest things in the picture.

“He has a lot of fingers!” Sophie told Ms. Bart.

The art teacher grinned. “Really, he had just five on each hand, like you and me. But he
chose
to paint more”

He chose to? Really?

“You don’t think he lost count? Or messed up?” Sophie asked.

Ms. Bart laughed. “Maybe, Sophie. But that’s what I mean. These artists didn’t care if their paintings looked
exactly
like them. The paintings showed how they felt. In here.” She pointed to her smock, just above her heart. “You can always
take a picture of the outside with a camera. But a drawing can show what’s inside. Don’t you think that’s the best part?”

Yeah, maybe
. (Unless you were Mindy VonBoffmann. Her outsides were much better than her insides, in Sophie’s opinion.)

But Sophie didn’t see how this solved her problem at all. “So how do I show what’s inside?” she asked Ms. Bart. “I can
see
the outside, and I can’t even draw that!”

Ms. Bart squeezed her shoulder. “It’ll come. Just relax.”

Sophie sighed and looked back at the portraits on the wall. Then she noticed another one. It had every color of the rainbow in it. It was hard to tell exactly what the person looked like. But Sophie could see that she had long hair, and she was happy, and it would be easy to be her friend.

Sophie turned from the picture to Ms. Bart.

“Is that you?” she asked.

Ms. Bart grinned. “It sure is!”

Sophie headed back to her table. Kate was
almost done with her self-portrait. She was adding freckles. “What do you think?” she asked. “Too much?”

Sophie grinned and shook her head. “No. Definitely not.”

Kate had made her hair a little wilder than it really was. And her eyes were kind of far from her triangle nose. But her smile was so big you hardly noticed at all.

Sophie picked up her pencil and thought about how she felt inside. She leaned over her paper and she started to draw.

Ms. Bart came over later, just as she was finishing.

“Sophie,” she said. “That’s wonderful! I can’t wait to hang it up.”

Sophie smiled. It wasn’t perfect. Her ears looked like seashells. And her bangs were way too short. But she liked the way her smile curled up just enough. And her long eyelashes made her light brown eyes stand out.

Some kids had just drawn a face. But Sophie
drew a shirt, too. Not the plain red one she was wearing. No. This shirt was green, and it had a rainbow heart in the middle that got bigger the more she drew. Her smile was not as big as Kate’s. But it showed lots of teeth (and a space for the one she had lost recently).

In fact, the more she looked at her portrait, the more proud Sophie felt. But she wasn’t sure she wanted it hung up.

“Is it okay if I take it with me?” she asked Ms. Bart.

The art teacher nodded. “Oh, yes!” she said. “Of course!”

Sophie had one more thing to add. It was the most important part — a big speech bubble. Because her feelings had something to say to someone.

B
ack in room 10, after art, Sophie walked up to Ms. Steele.

She swallowed. Two times. And she handed the sub her self-portrait.

“For me?” Ms. Steele asked. She gently took it. And something happened to her eyes. They got crinkly at the corners. Sophie got a little worried. Then she saw that it was part of a big smile.

The sub looked down at Sophie’s picture and read the words:

Ms. Steele’s eyes moved to Sophie. “Thank you so much, Sophie. This means a lot.”

Sophie sighed. She felt much better. It was good to have those feelings out.

But she was still feeling other things. They quickly filled her insides up.

She still felt sorry that her snooping had gone so wrong. She had thought she was a natural snoop. Now she guessed that she was not.

And she felt mixed up about Toby. Was he really being mean? Had he been trying to make her look silly when he’d faked those mysteries? Or maybe he didn’t hate her as much as she thought. Maybe he was trying to help her be Sophie the Snoop after all.

It was so hard to know!

She went back to her seat — the one next to Toby.

I should have asked the sub if I could move,
Sophie thought.

She checked the clock. It was almost three.
Phew
. Any minute, the bell would ring. Then she could get up and go.

But maybe, just maybe, she should take this chance. Maybe she should say something to Toby. Maybe she should even thank him.

But how?

Well, there was one way. Sophie swallowed — hard.

“Thank you, Toby,” she said very, very softly.

Toby’s head was down. He’d been pulling rubber off the edge of his shoe. Slowly, he looked up.

“For what?” he asked her.

“Uh …” Sophie bit her lip. Her mind was suddenly blank. What should she say next?

“For getting us both in big trouble today”?

No. That was no good. “For trying to help me be Sophie the Snoop”?

But Toby was looking at her so funny Sophie wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

“Uh, for letting me borrow your pencil. Even if I did get cooties on it,” she mumbled.

“Oh, that.” Toby shrugged. But then he also grinned a little.

Wow. They were almost having a conversation!

And then the bell rang.

Ms. Steele stood up.

“Good-bye, class,” she said. “It’s been a … um … very memorable day.”

Sophie got up along with the rest of the class. Then she turned back to Toby. There were suddenly things she wanted to ask. Did he even know she was playing soccer now? And had he gotten a new dog yet?

But the next thing she knew, Archie was standing next to them. And that wasn’t all. He had her Sherlock Holmes hat!

“Hey, that’s my hat! Hand it over!” Sophie cried.

Archie stuck out his tongue. “Make me!” He laughed.

Sophie glared and tried to grab the hat. But Archie was too quick.

“Hey, Arch!” she heard Toby say. “Pass it. Over here!”

Sophie turned to see Toby waving. She did not know what she was more full of — surprise or happiness.

Archie didn’t know that Toby was on her side again! She watched Archie toss Toby the hat. And she crossed her arms and grinned. She held one hand out and waited for Toby to give her the hat.

Then …
what?

Sophie couldn’t believe it. Toby took the hat and ran out of the room instead!

How could she, Sophie Miller, have been so dumb? Toby Myers had not changed. Not one little bit!

Sophie chased him into the hall and all the way outside, with Archie close behind. “Give
it back, right now! It’s not even my hat. It’s my dad’s,” she called.

“Then he’ll have to make me,” Toby shouted back. “Here, Archie! Catch!”

Ugh
! Inside, Sophie groaned. If there was one game she really disliked, it was keep-away. She hated it so much!

“I’m not kidding, guys,” she yelled. “Give it back!”

By then, the whole class had gathered around.

“You know, the substitute is coming,” Grace warned them.

Archie shrugged. “Oh, all right,” he said to Sophie. “Have your hat back. Here.”

He started to hand it to Sophie. But then he stopped and did something terrible — something that made the whole class go, “Oh, no!”

Archie held up her hat and he
licked
it.

Ew! Gross
! Sophie thought.

She took the hat with two fingers. She didn’t know what else to do. She held it very far away from her. And she wrinkled up her nose.

“Put it on. I
dare
you,” Archie said. He laughed and gave Toby a high five.

Sophie’s nose unwrinkled. She glared her fiercest glare. Had Archie just
dared
her?

How dare he do that!

She looked at the poor hat, all cootied up with Archie’s spit. She did not want to wear it. But now she
had
to.

Sophie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she set the hat on her head.

“Whoa!” her friends gasped.

“Wow! You really did it,” Kate said beside her. She was impressed.

Sophie shrugged. “Well, he dared me, didn’t he? There’s never been a dare I wouldn’t do….” Then suddenly, she smiled. She was getting an idea! “Hey, Kate! Maybe
that’s
it!”

Kate grabbed her hand. She waggled her eyebrows and grinned. “Come on, Sophie the
Daredevil
!” she said. “Let’s go home and wash that hat!”