Sophie the Zillionaire

by Lara Bergen

  SOPHIE the

  ZILLIONAIRE

  by Lara Bergen

  illustrated by Laura Tallardy

  To Syd, for a zillion reasons

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  Preview

  Also Available

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Sophie stared at the thing in her hand. She turned it over carefully. It was paper, and it was green, and it had the number fifty all over it.

  That was because it was fifty whole dollars!

  Sophie could not believe it.

  “I can’t believe it!” she said to Kate Barry, who was standing beside her. Kate was Sophie’s very best friend. “It’s fifty whole dollars!”

  Sophie looked down at the grass next to the sidewalk. That was where she had picked up the fifty-dollar bill. She hoped that there was even more money there! But there was not.

  Still. She had fifty whole dollars. She was probably the richest girl in the whole world, she guessed.

  (Well … maybe she wasn’t richer than a princess. But she was richer than any ordinary girl in Ordinary, Virginia, she bet!)

  Sophie wanted so badly to be special. Now she really was! And to think all she had to do was look down as she walked home from the bus stop.

  “Where do you think it came from?” Kate asked her as they started to walk.

  Sophie shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Then she got a feeling. It was not good. For Sophie to find money, someone else must have lost it first. But there was no one else around.

  Sophie started to feel better. There wasn’t anybody to ask. Plus didn’t her big sister, Hayley, always say, “Finders keepers, losers sweepers”?

  Sophie wasn’t sure why losers had to sweep. But that was their problem. The fifty dollars was hers!

  “So what are you going to do with it?” Kate asked. She grinned and licked her lips. “I think you should buy lots of gum!”

  Sophie knew that Kate liked gum. A lot. This was mostly because her mom did not buy it — not since Kate chewed some, then tried to keep it behind her ear. It worked for a girl in a movie they saw. But it did not work for Kate. It got stuck in her hair, and her mom had to cut it out. Kate looked funny for a while. But she still liked gum just as much after all that.

  Sophie thought about gum for a minute, then shook her head. “I’m going to keep the money. And tomorrow at school I’m going to tell everyone about it!” she said.

  Sophie could picture the kids in her class. They would be amazed that she was so rich. They would never again call her just plain Sophie … or Sophie M…. or even Sophie Miller.

  Sophie waved the bill. “Thanks to this, I will be Sophie the Rich. No, wait!” She thought of something even better. “I will be Sophie the Zillionaire!” Sophie gave the fifty dollars a big kiss. “What do you think?” she asked Kate.

  Kate shrugged. “I’d still buy gum. But it is a better name than Sophie the Honest,” she said, grinning.

  Sophie smiled back. Kate was the best. Sophie was very, very, very glad that they were friends again. Luckily, Kate had forgiven her for spilling a secret. Sophie had just been trying to be Sophie the Honest. That was the special name she had tried out before. Who knew it would cause so much trouble?

  Sophie would not make that mistake again. One thing was for sure: Secrets would be safe with Sophie the Zillionaire!

  Then suddenly, a thought popped into Sophie’s head. This fifty dollars wasn’t all the money she had. She had a bank full of money in her room.

  Sophie grabbed Kate’s arm. “Come on!” she said. “Let’s go to my house and see how much there is in my bank to add to this!”

  Kate shifted her backpack to the other shoulder. “Sounds good!” she said. Then she stopped. “Ohhh, I can’t.”

  “Why?” Sophie asked. Kate wasn’t still mad at her, was she?

  Kate made a blah face. “I have to get home for my piano lesson.”

  “Aw.” Sophie nodded. She was disappointed. (But very relieved that Kate wasn’t mad, too!)

  She wondered if you could pay a piano teacher not to teach. Did she have enough money for that? Hmm …

  “Mom, I’m home! And I’m rich!” Sophie yelled as she burst through the kitchen door.

  Her mom stopped pouring iced tea. She held a finger to her lips. “Sophie, please — keep it down!” She nodded at the ceiling. “Max is napping upstairs,” she whispered.

  Sophie frowned. She did not understand. “Is he sick?”

  Max was her brother. He was two. And he never took naps.

  Her mom shook her head. “No. But he yawned, so I thought I’d try,” she said. Then she took a sip of tea and smiled. “So, what do you mean by ‘I’m rich’?”

  Sophie held up her new fifty-dollar bill with both hands. “I mean this! It’s fifty dollars!”

  She thought her mom’s smile would get bigger. But instead, it started to shrink. Her mom’s eyes sure got bigger, though. “Where did that come from?”

  “The sidewalk,” Sophie said.

  “You mean you found it?” her mom asked.

  Sophie nodded proudly. “Yep!”

  Sophie’s mom didn’t look any happier. “Well, someone must have dropped it. Did you ask everyone on the street?” she asked.

  Sophie shrugged. “I wanted to. But there wasn’t anyone to ask,” she said.

  BAM!

  THUD!

  THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP …

  Sophie looked up. She knew those sounds well. They were the sounds of Max jumping out of his crib and knocking things down.

  Her mom looked up, too, and sighed. She turned back to Sophie.

  “That’s a lot of money to find, Sophie,” she said. “But it’s a lot to lose, also. I think you should ask all our neighbors if they lost fifty dollars. If they say yes, you’ll have done a good thing by returning it. If they say no, you can keep the money.”

  THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP …

  CRASH!

  Sophie’s mom put down her glass and stood up. “Here I come, Maxie!” she yelled.

  A little while later, Sophie left the house with heavy shoulders. But she came back with a big smile.

  She had asked all the people on her street if they had lost money. And they had all said no!

  Plus she had gotten lots of “What a good girl you are to ask’s”!

  It almost made her think her name should be Sophie the Good. But “Good” was so boring compared to “Zillionaire.” No. She would stick with the name she had picked. Especially now that she was allowed to keep the fifty dollars.

  At last, it was time for Sophie the Zillionaire to see how much money she had!

  Sophie ran up to her room. She shared it with her sister, Hayley, who was ten. It had been all Hayley’s room until Sophie was born. And Hayley always reminded her of that.

  Sophie went to the bookcase that was all hers. She grabbed her horse bank off the shelf.

  Sophie’s horse bank was one of her favorite things. She had painted it at her friend Eve’s birthday at the pottery-painting place. That was the day she decided that horses were her favorite animal. After dolphins. And kittens. And meerkats.

  The horse’s legs were folded, like it was lying on the ground. It was mostly brown, like a real horse, but it had a long rainbow tail. It made Sophie very proud.

  The horse bank was much better than the coffee mug she had painted
another time. That had been for her dad. She had tried to paint a picture of him on it, but he thought it was Tiptoe, their kitten. She just decided to let him think that.

  Sophie yanked the rubber patch out of the horse’s tummy. Then she shook the bank — hard — so all the money fell out.

  “One, two, three …”

  First Sophie counted all the dollars. They were mostly from her grandparents. For her birthday they always gave her as many dollars as her age. And since she had not spent that year’s dollars yet, there were at least eight of them.

  There were also some dollars from the tooth fairy. Plus tons of coins. Sophie added them all up.

  Nineteen dollars and forty-nine cents — pretty good.

  Then she added the fifty dollars.

  That came to $69.49!

  Sophie pushed a loose tooth with her tongue. As soon as it came out, the tooth fairy could leave her another dollar. Or maybe even two.

  Sophie could not believe it. She was even richer than she had thought!

  Plus she was a very good adder, which a zillionaire should be, for sure.

  Sophie started to count her money one more time, just to make sure she hadn’t missed any.

  That was when Hayley walked in.

  “What are you doing?” she asked Sophie.

  “Counting my money. That’s what zillionaires do,” Sophie said. It was a fact.

  “There is no such number as a zillion,” Hayley said. She sounded bored. But she looked a tiny bit interested. “Hey, how much do you have?” she asked.

  Sophie sat up very straight. “Sixty-nine dollars and forty-nine cents,” she said.

  “Really?” Hayley sounded impressed. This made Sophie even happier. “How did you get that much?”

  Sophie told her all about the fifty dollars.

  “Wow! So I guess you won’t mind giving me all your pennies,” Hayley said.

  Sophie’s eyebrows bunched together. “What are you talking about?”

  “My class is collecting pennies all week to help kids. They’re going to build schools in parts of the world where kids don’t have them,” Hayley said.

  “They’re going to build schools out of pennies?” Sophie asked. That sounded like a silly plan.

  “No, the pennies will pay for it,” Hayley said, rolling her eyes.

  “They will?” Sophie said. That plan did not sound much better. What could a penny pay for? Not even a brick, she bet.

  Then Hayley explained that one penny was not much, but a whole bunch could add up to a lot of money.

  “Other schools all over the state are collecting them, too. Last year they raised more than twenty thousand dollars!” Hayley said.

  Twenty thousand dollars! Sophie thought.

  She looked down at her piles of dollars and coins. Then she sighed, scooped the pennies up, and handed all nineteen to her sister.

  “Thanks!” Hayley said, giving her a big smile.

  “You’re welcome,” Sophie told her. And she meant it, too. She was glad Hayley had her brown pennies. Her money looked much more silvery and pretty without them, she thought.

  Then she thought about the kids who would have to go to school — because of her.

  Hmm. Now that Sophie was a zillionaire, she would have to make it up to them somehow.

  The next day at school, Sophie had some questions for her classmates.

  “How much money do you have?” she asked Mia and Eve. They were hanging up their jackets. Sophie tried very hard not to smile too big.

  “I don’t know,” Eve said, shrugging.

  “Me neither,” Mia said. “Maybe twenty dollars?”

  “Oh,” Sophie said. Now her smile was very big. “Well, guess what? I have sixty-nine dollars!”

  “Really?” Eve said.

  Sophie nodded. “And thirty cents!” she added. “I am very, very rich!”

  Then Sydney and Grace walked up to the row of cubbies.

  “How much money do you have?” Sophie asked them.

  Grace frowned. “My dad says it’s not polite to ask that.”

  “Oh, you can tell me. We’re friends,” Sophie said.

  Grace shrugged. “I’m not sure. Why do you want to know?” she asked.

  Sophie stood up a little straighter. “I am glad you asked! It’s just that I found fifty dollars yesterday, and I’m pretty sure that makes me the richest kid in the class! Maybe the whole school!” she said.

  “How do you know?” Mia asked.

  Sophie shrugged. “Well, I know we don’t have any princes or princesses here,” she said. “Who else has that much money?”

  “Hang on,” Grace said. She held up her hand to stop Sophie. “You found fifty dollars?” She looked like maybe she did not believe her.

  Sophie stuck her lip out and nodded hard. “I did! Really!” Then she turned to Kate, who was taking homework out of her backpack. “Tell her, Kate. Didn’t I?”

  Kate looked up. “Yep, she did.” She crossed her heart. “Right there on the sidewalk. Fifty whole bucks.”

  Sophie grinned. Thank goodness for Kate. “See!” she told everyone.

  “Wow. You really are rich,” Eve said. She sounded even more impressed than Hayley had been.

  “I know!” Sophie did not mean to be a show-off. But she guessed that when you were very rich, you couldn’t help showing off sometimes. “Just call me Sophie the Zillionaire from now on!” she said.

  Sophie took a deep breath. She looked at her friends and waited for her great new name to sink in.

  “But I thought you wanted us to call you Sophie the Honest,” Sydney said after a minute.

  “How about Sophie the Hero? What about that?” Mia asked.

  Oh, right. Those other names. She had almost forgotten about them. Yes, Sophie had thought they would be good. But that was before — before she had $69.30!

  Sophie waved her hand. “Forget about that. Besides, zillionaires can change their minds,” she told them.

  That was when Sophie A. walked up. She was the other Sophie in room 10. “You know that a zillion isn’t a real number, right?” she asked.

  Sophie wanted to answer, “It is real enough.” But then snooty Mindy VonBoffmann walked up, too, before Sophie could say anything.

  Mindy was with Lily Lemley, her best friend. Mindy handed her jacket to Lily. Lily hung it up on Mindy’s hook.

  “What are you all talking about?” Mindy asked them.

  “Yeah. What are you talking about?” Lily echoed. She fixed her headband. It matched Mindy’s exactly. It always did.

  “Sophie found fifty dollars!” Mia told them.

  “She’s not honest anymore. She’s rich!” Sydney added.

  Sophie smiled and took a deep breath. She let the good feeling inside her spread. At last! She was special.

  She almost said, “Actually, I’m Sophie the Zillionaire.”

  But just then, Mindy wrinkled her nose and curled her lip. “Fifty dollars?”

  Sophie’s good feeling bubbled up. This was getting even better! Mindy VonBoffmann was jealous! Of her! How cool was that?

  Mindy looked at Lily. She raised her eyebrow and they both laughed.

  “Fifty dollars is nothing. My grandmother just gave me a hundred dollars for college,” Mindy said. Then she fluffed her curly blond hair. “Don’t tell my grandmother, but I’m going to buy a cell phone with it instead.”

  The bubbles inside Sophie popped and fizzed away.

  She could not believe it. A hundred dollars? There was just one thing to say.

  Sophie put her hands on her hips. “I don’t believe it.”

  She knew that everyone was looking at her. But she didn’t care.

  (Well, okay, she kind of did.)

  “Fine,” Mindy said. She shrugged. “Lily, hand me my backpack.”

  Lily took Mindy’s backpack off her own shoulder. She unzipped it and passed it to her. Mindy reached into it and moved her hand around. Then she reached in deeper and frowned.

  Aha! S
ophie thought. Mindy did not have a hundred dollars. She knew it. All along.

  But Mindy did not stop looking in her backpack. Instead, she started to pull things out.

  Things like an extra headband, and a hairbrush, and some little white cards.

  “Here. Take one,” Mindy told the girls.

  “What are they?” Mia asked.

  “My parents’ business cards,” Mindy said. Sophie could tell she was trying to sound grown-up and important as she handed them out.

  Sophie read one:

  KEN & CINDY VONBOFFMANN

  —

  NEW & USED CARS

  LET US MAKE YOU A DEAL!

  Then Mindy pulled out a picture of a pretty lady. She had a big smile and a sash that read “Miss America.” And a very, very tall crown. A fancy name was signed across the bottom. Plus lots of Xs and Os.

  Mindy handed the picture to Lily. “Be careful with that,” she said.

  Lily took it very gently with both hands. “I will,” she said.

  Sophie rolled her eyes.

  Then Mindy pulled out a little blue notebook. Her name was written on the front in gold. She smiled a tight Mindy smile. “Here it is!”

  “That’s not a hundred dollars,” Sophie said. She crossed her arms.

  This time, Mindy rolled her eyes. “Of course it’s not. I keep my money in the bank. This is my passbook,” she said.

  Oh … Sophie did not know what a passbook was. So she was happy when Mia asked.

  “It’s how I keep track of my money, of course,” Mindy explained, as if everyone should know that.

  Then she opened the book and pointed to the number one hundred. It was typed in, along with a period and two zeros. Sophie knew that those stood for cents.

  Mindy grinned. Her eyes got squinty. “Need more proof? I can have my grandmother write me a note, if you want,” she said.

  Sophie sighed. “That’s okay.” She shook her head.

  She was very glad that the lights flashed three times right then.

  “Hang up those coats, class,” Ms. Moffly, their teacher, called. “It’s time to get to work.”

  Sophie walked over and slumped in her seat. Ms. Moffly was right: Sophie did have to get to work. She could not call herself Sophie the Zillionaire when Mindy had more money than she did.