Lara Bergen: Sophie the Zillionaire

“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.