Sophie the Snoop

by Lara Bergen

  Suddenly, Sophie heard a sneeze. She turned. Was it Kate? Did she have a code note for Sophie? Maybe she had some kind of lead!

  But no. Kate made an “ew” face. She wiped her arm and scooted her chair back. The sneezer was Dean, sitting next to her. He closed his eyes and sneezed again.

  Poor Kate. And her poor paper. It looked like it got wet.

  Sophie’s seat, next to Toby, was definitely the worst. But even though Dean was nice, it looked like Kate’s seat was almost as bad.

  And poor Sydney, Sophie thought as her eyes moved across the room. She had to sit next to Archie today. That was almost torture!

  There was nothing nice about Archie, as far as Sophie could tell. He was loud and rude and he picked his nose. Plus he had that dirty-sock smell.

  And not that it mattered, but he also stole friends.

  Of course, Sophie didn’t care about that.

  Not much, that is.

  A thought suddenly hit her. What if Archie was the thief?

  Wow! Sophie started to smile. How great would that be?

  Then she could tell Principal Tate. And he could kick Archie out of school. Then Archie could never pick on Sophie — or anybody else.

  And he could never, ever go and steal another friend….

  Not that Sophie cared about that.

  Not much, that is.

  But a snoop had to work with the facts. Hopes were not enough, she knew. Sophie needed to make a list of suspects and their motives. (“Motives” was a word for “reasons,” she was pretty sure.)

  Sophie pulled out her notebook so she could write Archie’s motives down. But — oh, yeah — she still had not sharpened her pencil. She could not write until she did. So she kept tiptoeing slowly toward the pencil sharpener and made a quick list in her head instead.

  Archie would do anything to get Dean’s trading cards. (Everyone knew that.)

  He had threatened to take Ben’s Tweety Bird lots and lots of times.

  Plus nothing of Archie’s was stolen. What about that!

  Okay, maybe that wasn’t a motive. But it sure was a fact. And facts didn’t lie. They spoke for themselves!

  On the other hand, there were Mindy’s lip-gloss phone, Grace’s shoes, and Sophie A.’s book. Why would Archie want those?

  He read only comics. And he never dressed up.

  Oh, who cared? Maybe why wasn’t important. There was another question, though. How? How had Archie stolen everything while they were at gym?

  Sophie sighed. She needed more facts.

  Archie’s table was near the reading corner. Slowly, Sophie tiptoed toward it. As soon as she got to the bookcase, she crouched down and held her breath.

  Sophie didn’t move a muscle. She was like a statue (of a snoop!).

  She leaned her ear against the big book Ms. Moffly had read to them about verbs. (Hey! she thought. “Snoop” is a verb and a noun, too!) Then Sophie listened as hard as she could.

  “Stop looking at my paper, Archie. Or I’m going to tell,” Sophie heard Sydney say.

  Aha! Archie was a cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater. More proof that he was a thief!

  “I’m not looking at your paper,” Archie said back. “I’m just looking at the spider crawling over it.”

  “Aghhhh!” Sydney screamed.

  Archie laughed. “Gotcha!”

  The rest of the class started laughing, too.

  “Um … quiet. Everyone. Right now,” Ms. Steele said. “Do I need to separate you two?” she asked Sydney and Archie.

  “Yes!” they both said.

  “Okay … um … then I will?” Ms. Steele said.

  Sophie heard the sub get up and walk — clack, clack, clack — across the room.

  “Um … Cindy? Please switch seats with Sydney?” Ms. Steele said.

  “Who? Me?” That was Mindy.

  This time Sophie laughed.

  Oops. She shouldn’t have.

  The next thing Sophie knew, the sub was leaning over her. “What are you doing now?” asked Ms. Steele.

  “Uh …” Sophie tried to think. “I dropped my pencil?” she said, looking up.

  She did not expect to see the sub smile. (After all, she hadn’t smiled all day.) But it sure looked like Ms. Steele was smiling now. Halfway, at least.

  But that was not what surprised Sophie. That was not what made her eyes pop.

  What really surprised Sophie was the way Ms. Steele’s lips looked. They were pink and shiny … like she had put on lip gloss!

  Lip gloss. Just like Mindy’s.

  Sophie’s mouth fell open.

  Archie wasn’t the thief.

  Ms. Steele was!

  It all made perfect sense! It was even right there in her name!

  No one had ever been robbed in room 10 until Ms. Steal showed up. That was why the sub was so nervous — because she was up to no good!

  Why hadn’t Sophie made her a suspect before?

  Sophie wondered if this was the first time Ms. Steele had ever robbed a school. Or did she do it all the time? Maybe she was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list and no one even knew! Maybe she even poisoned teachers so she could come rob their rooms!

  Poor Ms. Moffly. If she was poisoned, Sophie hoped there was an antidote.

  She also hoped that cracking this case would make her even more famous than Sherlock Holmes!

  Sophie was careful to keep her eyes down as she went back to her seat. She was sure that if Ms. Steele saw them, she would know that Sophie was onto her. And Sophie wasn’t ready for that. She had to tell Kate first!

  She sat down at her table to write a note — in code, of course.

  But wait! She still had not sharpened her pencil. The tip was still broken off.

  Great.

  Now she was stuck.

  Sophie couldn’t get up again … but she couldn’t keep this news all to herself, either. Sophie looked sideways at Toby. He might have an extra pencil she could use. She hated to ask. But she guessed she had to.

  “Uh … Toby?” she said.

  Then she stopped. This was hard. Sophie had not asked Toby for anything in a long time — except to mind his own business, that is. But that did not count.

  “What?” Toby said. His face had a “why are you even talking to me?” look all over it. Then he grinned and asked her a question. “Hey, have you solved any of those mysteries yet?”

  That surprised Sophie a lot. Almost as much as Ms. Steele’s shiny lips.

  Then she frowned. Toby was teasing her. He probably thought she was not even close to solving the thefts yet.

  Well, she had news for him!

  “As a matter of fact, I have solved them,” she said. She crossed her arms.

  “Really?” Toby’s eyes got big.

  Sophie smiled. “They don’t call me Sophie the Snoop for nothing, you know.”

  Toby kept staring at her, like he was waiting for her to say more. But Sophie was not about to tell him what she’d found out. Kate had to be the first to know.

  “So?” he said finally.

  “So,” she said back. “So can I borrow a pencil?”

  “That’s it? A pencil?” Toby asked.

  Sophie nodded. “Yes.”

  What did he think she was going to say?

  “Don’t worry. I’ll give it back,” she told him.

  Toby handed her a freshly sharpened yellow pencil. “Keep it.” He shrugged.

  Really?

  “Thanks,” Sophie said, shocked. She tried hard to keep her eyebrows from shooting up.

  Was Toby being nice? For the first time all year?

  “Now that it’s got your cooties all over it, I don’t want it,” Toby added.

  Sophie rolled her eyes. No. He was the same old pain in the neck. Sometimes she could not believe that Toby used to be her friend.

  But at least she had a pencil now. She turned back to her paper and began to write with it.

  After a few minutes — and some erasing — she finished the note. Done! She grin
ned and folded it tight. Then she put it on the edge of the table and fake sneezed with all her might: “A-CHOO!”

  Eve and Sydney were sitting nearby. They both turned and said, “Bless you.”

  “Uh, thanks,” Sophie told them. If only Kate had heard her, too. But no, she did not seem to.

  So Sophie sneezed again.

  And again.

  And again.

  “A-CHOO!”

  “AAA-CHOOOO!!!”

  Eve and Sydney looked at her funny.

  Toby leaned away. “You’d better not sneeze on me like Dean did!” he said.

  Sophie groaned. There was too much sneezing in this class.

  Maybe the owl sound would get Kate’s attention, even if it did sound weird.

  Sophie hooted. “Whoo! Whoo!”

  Kate looked over.

  Yes!

  Kate winked and got up to sharpen her pencil. She took the long way, past Sophie’s desk. She picked up the note as she walked by. Back at her own table, she opened it.

  Sophie watched. It took Kate a whole minute to decode what it said:

  The thief is Ms. Steele!

  At last, Kate got it. She looked up. Her eyes were round. Her mouth shaped the word “Really?”

  Sophie nodded hard.

  Then Kate bent over the paper. She checked her code key and wrote something down. But Sophie couldn’t get up and grab the note until it was time to put their spelling workbooks away. Ugh!

  Finally, back at her table, Sophie read it.

  She hurried to check her code key.

  You have to tell the pahinciafaab!

  Pahinciafaab? What was that?

  Sophie tried to read it again.

  You have to tell the prinadcipb!

  Sophie sighed and scratched her head.

  Then Toby leaned over. “What do you have to tell the principal?” he asked.

  Sophie turned to him and glared. “Hey! That’s a secret code. You can’t read it,” she said.

  (Still, at the same time, she was kind of glad he did.)

  And Kate was very right. Principal Tate had to be told. And who had to tell him? Sophie the Snoop!

  Sophie could just see it. He would be so proud! He might even make her the official Snoop of the School! With her own desk. In the school office. Wouldn’t that be cool?

  But then Sophie thought of something else. What if Ms. Steele denied the whole thing? What if she lied and said she was innocent? (She was a criminal, after all.) If she did, Sophie would probably need even more proof.

  Just then, Ms. Steele spoke up. “Um … attention, please. It’s, um, time for lunch?”

  Lunch! Sophie had almost forgotten. The class lined up.

  Then, suddenly, a thought hit her. A big one! As soon as they all left, Ms. Steele would be alone in the room again. She could steal more stuff. She might even try to escape with all the stolen loot!

  Sophie could not let that happen. She knew what she had to do. She had to stay in the classroom. She had to snoop on Ms. Steele!

  Besides, it was Meat Loaf Day. Sophie did not mind missing that too much.

  So instead of lining up for the lunchroom, Sophie whispered to Kate, “I’m going undercover!” Then she slipped on her 3-D glasses. (Who knew? They might help.)

  Sophie ducked behind the open classroom door. There! Her trap was set.

  It would have been the perfect place to snoop from, Sophie was sure. Except for one thing: As soon as the class left, the sub closed the door.

  “Sophie! What are you doing now?” Ms. Steele said.

  Sophie peered up, through her 3-D glasses, into the eyes of Ms. Steele. She had never looked at the eyes of a thief before! It made her heart beat very fast. She quickly bent her head to stare at the shoes of the thief instead.

  “Sophie, why didn’t you go to lunch with the rest of the class?” Ms. Steele asked.

  Why? Sophie bit her lip. She could not tell the sub the truth. And she also couldn’t pretend that she was just being slow. If she went to lunch now, she’d be leaving a thief there alone!

  No. Sophie had to stay.

  So she swallowed hard and looked back up. “Can I stay here, Ms. Steele … with you?”

  “Here?” Ms. Steele sounded surprised.

  I’ve foiled her plans! Sophie thought.

  “Please,” Sophie begged. “It would be such a great chance …” She tried to think. “… to do extra reading!” she finished.

  Ms. Steele chewed on her fingernail. Suspicious behavior! Sophie thought.

  “Um, well, okay,” Ms. Steele said. “I was just going to eat my lunch here, myself.” She shrugged. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t try to read with those glasses on,” she said.

  The sub returned to her desk and Sophie sighed with relief. That had been very quick snoop thinking, if she did say so herself.

  Sophie sat down at her table and slipped her glasses off. Then she nibbled on her sandwich and took out her chapter book. She opened it and held it up in front of her face. But did she read it? Nope. She did not.

  What she did was watch the sub. She watched her very carefully. But Ms. Steele did not do much. She just took out her lunch from a green bag behind her desk.

  A big green bag, Sophie noticed. Big enough to hold all kinds of stolen stuff!

  Then, with a smile at Sophie, Ms. Steele took out a book, too.

  Sophie wondered if just maybe it was Sophie A.’s missing book….

  But nope.

  Sophie squinted to read the title: The Cat Who Robbed a Bank.

  Hmm. She had two thoughts. One: That was just the kind of thing a thief would read. And two: It sounded good.

  But maybe, just maybe, the sub was only pretending to read. Of course! Ms. Steele was probably watching Sophie — and waiting for a chance to steal more stuff. Sophie could not help smiling. She was stopping more crimes from being done.

  Then again, Sophie kind of wanted the sub to steal more stuff. Then Sophie could catch her dead-handed! (Or was it red-handed? She wasn’t sure.)

  That was when Sophie decided it was time to set a trap.

  She had brought her backpack to her desk for lunch. She took out her detective hat and put it on the floor. She pushed it into the aisle very slowly with her foot. Then she crumpled up her brown paper lunch bag. She waved it as she stood.

  “Oh, Ms. Steeeeele!” she called. “I’m going to throw this away. And go all the way over there — to the sink — to get a drink.”

  The sub looked up and smiled. “Okay, Sophie.”

  Sophie turned and tiptoed away, humming softly. Then she stopped and spun around. She was sure she’d see Ms. Steele standing up. But the sub was still sitting down.

  Sophie tiptoed a little more, then turned. Then tiptoed. Then turned. Then stopped. She had reached the sink. Still nothing. She bent to take a drink and sighed.

  She kept peering over her shoulder as the cold water dribbled down her chin.

  Come on, Ms. Steele! she thought. Take my hat. I know you want it!

  All of a sudden, her patience paid off. Ms. Steele got up and walked toward Sophie’s hat, just as she’d hoped.

  Sophie held her breath. She watched the sub bend over and scoop the hat right up.

  Then Sophie bolted across the room. “Gotcha!” she called.

  “Excuse me?” said Ms. Steele. The sub stared at Sophie’s finger. It was pointing at her. “This is your hat, isn’t it?” she asked. “I just found it on the floor. You really shouldn’t leave it there. You should hang it on your cubby hook.”

  Huh?

  Sophie dropped her finger. This was not her plan at all. Ms. Steele was way too sneaky! (Or else she did not like Sophie’s hat enough to really steal it.)

  “Thanks,” Sophie mumbled. She took the hat and hung it up.

  She guessed it was time for Plan B. If only she knew what Plan B was.

  If I could just get Ms. Steele’s bag, Sophie thought, and take it to Principal Tate …

  And right the
n, as if he’d heard her thoughts, the principal appeared in the doorway. Sophie couldn’t believe it!

  “Hello there, Ms. Steele,” he said. “Just checking in.” His eyes fell on Sophie. “Why, Miss Miller. This is a surprise!” Principal Tate looked back at the substitute. “Is this a punishment?”

  “Oh. Um, no. Not at all, Mr. Tate.” Ms. Steele shook her head very fast. “Sophie just wanted to do some extra reading.”

  Principal Tate turned to Sophie. One eyebrow was up, and one was down. “Extra reading?” He looked confused. But that was okay. Sophie knew that it would all make sense as soon as she turned the substitute in. “Well, I’m sure Ms. Moffly would be very proud,” he went on. Then Principal Tate turned back to the sub. “Ms. Steele, could we have a word in the hall?”

  Ms. Steele looked more nervous than ever as she followed the principal out of the room and closed the door.

  Poor Ms. Steele. Sophie almost felt sorry for her. But no! What was she thinking? Sophie tossed that thought away fast.

  Then she got a new one. This was Sophie’s chance to get the sub’s bag full of loot and give it to Principal Tate!

  Sophie didn’t waste a second. She tiptoed — fast — up to the teacher’s desk.

  She bent down beside the big green bag. It was open. Yes! Of course, Sophie knew she’d see Ben’s Tweety Bird, Dean’s cards, and Grace’s shoes. She was sure she’d find Mindy’s lip-gloss phone and Sophie A.’s chapter book, too.

  And who knew? There might be more stuff. Stuff no one had even realized was gone yet.

  But Sophie didn’t see those things when she looked inside the bag. All she saw were:

  a folded-up newspaper — with a crossword puzzle half done

  a big red wallet

  a silver travel mug

  some keys on a keychain that said “I (heart) cats”

  a pack of minty chewing gum

  a tube of plain old lipstick

  Sophie couldn’t believe it. Where was all the stolen stuff? This was even more of a mystery than she’d thought.

  That’s when she spied something else, down at the bottom of the bag….

  Was it? Yes!

  A phone!