Forget-Me-Not Lake

by Poppy Green

  “First, we’ll all stay in the shallow water,” Hattie was saying. “Second, we must stick together. Third, either Owen or I will have our eyes on Sophie whenever she is trying to swim.”

  “Agreed!” said Owen.

  Sophie took a deep breath. I can do this, she told herself, and tried to believe it.

  With her friends on either side of her, Sophie slowly waded into the lake. It was cool on her legs as she went deeper and deeper.

  When Sophie was waist deep, Hattie stopped. “This is good,” she said. “Let’s get you used to this depth.”

  Sophie smiled uncertainly. The water felt really . . . wet. A shiver went up her spine.

  “Now let’s try floating.” Hattie suggested.

  Hattie demonstrated. She lay back on the surface of the water. She stretched her arms and legs out to the sides and—ta-da!

  Owen was also floating on the surface. “The water holds us up,” said Owen.

  Doubt crept into Sophie’s mind. “Hmm. That looks tricky,” she said.

  Hattie stood up. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll help you.”

  Sophie’s friends stood close on either side of her. They held on to her as she started to lie back into the water. “Good,” said Hattie. “We’ve got you. Tilt your head waaaaay back.”

  Sophie got about halfway there. But she just couldn’t lie all the way back. It didn’t feel natural. Plus, she was worried about getting water in her ears!

  Sophie jumped up suddenly. “Um, I’m not sure I can do that . . . yet,” she said.

  “That’s okay!” said Hattie. “We’ll try something else.”

  They showed Sophie how they could dunk their heads underwater and try to sit on the bottom of the lake. “Take a deep breath,” said Owen.

  “And hold it!” added Hattie.

  “And just sit down in the water!” finished Owen.

  Hattie and Owen did it. They made it look so easy!

  Sophie’s friends popped up. Now it was her turn. She took a deep breath and held it. She got ready to go under and . . .

  She couldn’t do it.

  “How about just getting wet up to your neck?” Owen said.

  Sophie nodded. “One . . . two . . . three . . . ,” she counted.

  Then she froze. Her knees wouldn’t bend.

  Sophie’s shoulders drooped. “Oh,” she groaned, feeling frustrated. “This isn’t going to work. Thanks for trying, you guys.” She turned and leaped out of the lake.

  “Sophie, wait!” Hattie called after her.

  “Come back!” cried Owen.

  But Sophie hit dry land and ran all the way home.

  A Sophie-Size Surprise

  At home Sophie’s dad was reading a book in the living room. She changed out of her swimsuit and flopped onto her bed.

  By then, Sophie was all out of tears. When George Mouse knocked to see if she was okay, she said she was fine.

  “I’m just painting,” Sophie called to him.

  But really, she lay there, staring at the ceiling. She was painting a picture in her mind.

  It was a sunny-day scene of Forget-Me-Not Lake. A frog and a snake were racing each other across the lake.

  On the shore, one little mouse was waiting for them.

  Sophie looked over at her easel. A blank canvas sat there, waiting. She had the painting all worked out. But she didn’t actually want to paint it.

  She realized she hated the idea of going underwater. Even if mice could learn to swim, Sophie didn’t want to. Not anytime soon. She wasn’t going to be the Incredible Swimming Mouse, after all. And she still didn’t have any exciting mouse facts to include in the presentation.

  Sophie moped in her room. At one point she heard her mom’s and Winston’s voices downstairs. She figured they were home from the bakery.

  A little while later there was another knock at Sophie’s bedroom door. “Come in,” Sophie called.

  The door opened and Hattie and Owen stuck their heads in.

  Sophie sat up straight. “Oh!” she said, surprised. “W-what are you two doing here?”

  Owen wiggled forward. “We’re sorry the swim lesson didn’t go so well,” he said.

  Sophie shrugged. “That’s okay,” she said gloomily. “Guess I’m just not a swimmer.”

  Hattie sat down on the end of Sophie’s bed. “We want to make it up to you,” she said. Then she smiled slyly. “In fact, we have a little surprise for you!”

  Sophie couldn’t help being curious. “A surprise?” she said. “What kind of surprise?”

  Hattie and Owen wouldn’t tell her.

  Instead, Hattie took Sophie’s hand. “Just come with us.”

  So Sophie followed Owen and Hattie outside and toward the town. She didn’t ask any more questions—until they turned down the trail that led to Forget-Me-Not Lake.

  “Are we going back to the lake?” Sophie asked warily. “Because I don’t really want more lessons.”

  Her friends led her on. “Just come on,” said Owen.

  They walked farther. They were nearly at the lake.

  Sophie added, “Mice might be able to swim. But I’ll never be the kind of swimmer you two are. You’ll have more fun without me.”

  “Sophie,” said Hattie, “wait until you see the surprise!”

  They walked a little more. Soon they were standing in some tall reeds on the lake shore. Hattie and Owen parted the curtain of reeds at the water’s edge.

  Floating in the lake was a raft. It was made of twigs tied together with long blades of grass. Resting on top of the raft was a twig paddle.

  Sophie noticed it was just the right size for a mouse.

  Smells Like Trouble

  Right away, Sophie realized what her friends had done—and why.

  Owen smiled. “Just because you’re not a swimmer—yet—doesn’t mean we can’t all have fun together in the water.”

  “Or on the water,” said Hattie. She gave Sophie a nudge toward the raft. “Go ahead! Try it out!”

  Sophie took a hesitant step toward the raft.

  “Oh, wait!” Hattie said. “I made this for you—just to be extra safe.” Hattie placed a vest made of seedpods over Sophie’s head. There was a dangling string that Hattie tied around Sophie’s waist. “It floats!” Hattie explained. “And it would keep you afloat, too—if needed.”

  Sophie smiled and carefully stepped onto the raft. She sat down and picked up the paddle. Hattie and Owen gave the raft a gentle push and she was off!

  Sophie beamed as she paddled around. Hattie and Owen jumped into the water. They swam around her raft. They splashed water at Sophie. She splashed them back using her paddle.

  “Oh, thank you both!” Sophie exclaimed. “This is so much fun! You two are the best friends ever.”

  Then they had a race. Sophie paddled while her friends swam. Hattie won, but Sophie came in a close second.

  “Next time, look out!” Sophie said playfully. “With more practice, I might get even faster!”

  The three friends lost all track of time. They played at the lake for most of the afternoon.

  Suddenly, in the middle of a game of water tag, Sophie froze. Her nose and whiskers twitched. She tilted her head back and sniffed the air.

  “Do you smell that?” she asked Hattie and Owen.

  They sniffed the air too. “Smell what?” asked Owen.

  “I don’t smell anything,” said Hattie.

  Sophie sniffed again, just to be sure. “Yep. It’s about to rain—a lot.”

  Hattie’s brow wrinkled with worry. “We’d better get home then!” she said uneasily.

  The friends tied up the raft along the shore. Then, together, they hurried for home.

  “It’s a good thing you told us!” Owen said to Sophie as they went. “We could have gotten caught in the rainstorm!”

  Sophie stopped in her tracks. “Owen!” she cried. “That’s it! A mouse’s sense of smell is . . . extraordinary! And it’s good for more than just knowing when cakes
are ready!”

  Hattie and Owen looked confused. But Sophie just smiled proudly as they hurried along. She couldn’t wait to tell Winston that she had a great idea for their presentation!

  Fun Facts

  On Tuesday at school, all the students arrived ready to share their projects with the class. Mrs. Wise called each species up, one at a time, to do their presentation.

  Sophie was curious to see what everyone else had done—and surprised to learn many things she did not know about them.

  Of course she knew that most birds could fly. “But did you know that bird bones are hollow inside?” Zoe the bluebird said.

  Sophie also learned that rabbits’ teeth never stop growing. She learned that frogs can breathe through their skin. And she learned that squirrels sometimes forget where they buried their acorns. “Forgotten acorns can grow into oak trees,” said Ellie the squirrel. “So you could say that squirrels plant trees!”

  Then it was Sophie and Winston’s turn to talk about mice. They proudly showed off the poster they’d made together. Sophie had painted some pictures of mice climbing, jumping, balancing, and squeezing through tight spaces. There was even one of a mouse swimming. “Mice can swim,” Winston said. “But not all mice like to.”

  Sophie looked over at Hattie and Owen. They smiled at her.

  Then Sophie pointed to the last picture—of a mouse sniffing the air. “Mice have a great sense of smell, and their whiskers can sense changes in temperature—which might be why I feel like I can ‘smell’ when the rain is coming!”

  Sophie smiled. It was a really cool fact that she hadn’t even known about herself before they’d done the project.

  That night, in her bedroom, Sophie painted a beautiful scene of Forget-Me-Not Lake. In it, she was paddling across the lake on her raft, with Owen and Hattie swimming behind. They were racing, and Sophie was about to win.

  Sophie stepped back to admire her work. Her new color, cornflower blue, was the perfect shade for the water.

  Here’s a peek at the next Adventures of Sophie Mouse book!

  Looking For Winston

  “Wheeeeeeee!” Sophie squealed with delight. Her voice echoed off the curved wooden walls of the giant tunnel slide. Sophie slid through the darkness. The slide twisted to the right. Then it turned to the left. Sophie grasped the fern she was sitting on. The slide track spiraled around and down, down, down, until—

  Sophie came shooting out of the bottom end. Fwomp! She landed in a soft pile of green leaves.

  High above, on a birch branch, Sophie’s best friends cheered.

  “Whoo-hoo!” cried Hattie Frog.

  “Wow!” Owen Snake called out. “That’s a long way down!”

  Birch Tree Slide was a hollow, twisted branch. It leaned up against the trunk of a huge birch tree. To get to the top of the slide, Sophie, Hattie, and Owen had first climbed way up the tree using its knotholes. Sophie had been excited to go first.

  Poppy Green can talk to animals! Unfortunately, they never talk back to her. So she started writing in order to imagine what they might say and do when humans aren’t watching. Poppy lives on the edge of the woods in Connecticut, where her backyard is often a playground for all kinds of wildlife: birds, rabbits, squirrels, voles, skunks, deer, and the occasional wild turkey.

  Jennifer A. Bell is an illustrator whose work can be found on greeting cards, magazines, and in more than a dozen children’s books. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband, son, and cranky cat.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  LITTLE SIMON

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division · 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020 www.SimonandSchuster.com · First Little Simon paperback edition May 2015 · Copyright © 2015 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. LITTLE SIMON is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and associated colophon is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com. The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Designed by Laura Roode.

  Jacket design by Laura Roode

  Jacket illustrations by Jennifer A. Bell

  Jacket illustrations copyright © 2015 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The text of this book was set in Usherwood.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Green, Poppy. Forget-Me-Not Lake / by Poppy Green ; illustrated by Jennifer A. Bell. — First edition. pages cm. — (The adventures of Sophie Mouse ; #3) Summary: Sophie Mouse wants to prove how wonderful mice are for a school project she is doing with her brother, Winston, but starts to have doubts when, even with Hattie and Owen’s help, she is unable to learn to swim.

  [1. Mice—Fiction. 2. Ability—Fiction. 3. Swimming—Fiction. 4. Frogs—Fiction. 5. Snakes—Fiction.] I. Bell, Jennifer (Jennifer A.), 1977- illustrator. II. Title. PZ7.G82616For 2015 [E]—dc23 2014026233

  ISBN 978-1-4814-3000-5 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-2999-3 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-3002-9 (eBook)