Sophie Under Pressure

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Sophie's World (Book One)

Sophie's Secret (Book Two)

Sophie Steps Up (Book Four)

Sophie's First Dance (Book Five)

Sophie's Stormy Summer (Book Six)

Sophie's Friendship Fiasco (Book Seven)

Sophie and the New Girl (Book Eight)

Sophie Flakes Out (Book Nine)

Sophie Loves Jimmy (Book Ten)

Sophie's Drama (Book Eleven)

Sophie Gets Real (Book Twelve)

Nonfiction

Beauty Lab

Body Talk

Dear Nancy

Everybody Tells Me to Be Myself but I Don't Know Who I Am

Girl Politics

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ZONDEVAN

Sophie Under Pressure
Previously titled
Sophie and the Scoundrels
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 August 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-57584-9

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 and the scoundrels]

Sophie under pressure / Nancy Rue.

       p. cm. — (Sophie series) (Faithgirlz!)

Previously published under title: Sophie and the Scoundrels.

Summary: Worried that her parents are breaking up, Sophie gets lost in an imaginary world again as she and her friends transform Fiona's tree house into a space station as a school science project, despite sabotage and jealousies.

ISBN 978-0-310-71840-6 (softcover)

[1. Space stations—Fiction. 2. Science projects—Fiction. 3. Family problems—Fiction. 4. Best friends—Fiction. 5. Friendship—Fiction. 6. Imagination—Fiction. 7. Christian life— Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.R88515Sju 2009

[Fic]—dc22                                                                                                2008041509

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

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

S
unlight hit Sophie LaCroix smack in the eyes as she and her dad stepped from the NASA building.

Solar rays
, Sophie corrected herself. If she was going to make a movie about outer space, she was going to have to start thinking more scientifically.

Her dad grabbed her elbow — just before she stepped off the curb into the employees' parking lot.

“Let me at least get you to the car before you go off into La-La Land,” Daddy said.

Sophie gave him her wispy smile. Not because he was right about La-La Land. Her daydreams were much more sophisticated than that. She grinned because he was grinning, instead of scolding her for not paying attention to her surroundings, the way he used to do.

“Sorry,” Sophie said. “Did I almost get run over?”

“Not this time,” Daddy said. He imitated her high-pitched voice, but that was okay too. His eyes were doing the good kind of teasing.

Sophie hoisted her pretty-skinny, short self up into Daddy's black Chevrolet pickup that he called the Space Mobile and whipped the light brown strands of her down-to-the-shoulders hair off her face.

I'm going to have to wear it in a braid if I'm going to play an astronaut in the movie
, she thought.
You can't have a bunch of hair flying around in your space helmet.

Did they call them helmets? Would hair actually fly around with that no-gravity thing they were talking about?

Sophie sighed as she adjusted her glasses. There was so much she was going to have to find out.

“All right, dish, Soph,” Daddy said. “Your mind's going about nine hundred miles an hour.”

“No, the speed of light — which is faster than anything.”

Daddy arched a dark eyebrow over his sunglasses as he passed through the NASA gate. “Somebody was paying attention.”

“Okay, so what does NASA stand for again?” Sophie said.

“National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”

“Oh.” Sophie spun that out in her head. “Then it should be NAASA.”

Daddy shook his head. “That would sound like a sheep.
Naaa
.”

“What's ‘aeronautics'?” She knew she could ask her best friend, Fiona, who knew what every word in life meant, but there was no time to waste. There was a film to be made.

“It's anything that has to do with making and flying aircraft,” Daddy said.

Sophie decided she and the Corn Flakes would probably stick to the space part, which had real possibilities.

“Anything else you need to know for your report?” Daddy said.

“My what?”

“Your report. You know — Kids Go to Work with Dads Day. Don't you have to write up something for school?”

“Oh,” Sophie said. “Yeah.”

Daddy gave her a sideways glance. “Don't think I don't know what's going on in there,” he said. He tapped her lightly on the forehead. “You can make your movie. Matter of fact, I WANT you to so you won't leave the planet when you're supposed to be doing your schoolwork.”

Sophie nodded. The only reason he had given her the video camera was so she would spin out her dreams on film instead of letting them draw her right out the window when she was in class.

“Can I trust you to do your report as soon as you get home, without my having to check it?”

“No,” Sophie said. “You better check it.”

Dad chortled. That was the way Fiona always described it when Sophie's dad laughed.

Yeah, Fiona was definitely good with words. Sophie wanted to get her started writing the script right away. And Maggie would need plenty of time to work on costumes. And Kitty had to get the graphics going —

“Earth to Sophie.” Daddy landed the truck in the driveway, and Sophie reentered the atmosphere.

“The report. By nineteen hundred hours.”

Sophie did a quick calculation in her head. “Seven o'clock,” she said.

“Roger,” Daddy said.

“Over and out.”

Sophie tried to keep a very scientific face as she ran into the house, headed for the stairs. If she didn't stay completely focused, nineteen hundred hours was going to come and go — and so would the video camera. “Hi, Mama, how are you?” Sophie's mom said sarcastically from the kitchen doorway. “Let me tell you about my day.”