Lara Bergen: Sophie the Snoop

Sophie grinned. “Elementary, my dear Kate. Your lips are purple. And there’s syrup on your shirt.”

Kate quickly licked her lips — and the syrup off her shirt. Then she climbed onto the bus behind Sophie.

“Hey, why are you tiptoeing?” Kate asked.

Sophie led Kate to their favorite seat, all the way in the back. “Because I’m a snoop, and snoops tiptoe,” she said. “Everyone knows that.”

Then Sophie told Kate all about her new name.

“Sophie the Snoop … I like it!” Kate said.

Kate was so great! Sophie hugged her.

“There’s just one thing,” Kate added. “I get the tiptoeing. But do you really have to talk like that?”

Was Kate talking about her British accent?

“You don’t like it?” Sophie asked.

Kate twisted her mouth and shrugged.

Sophie shrugged, too. “Okay,” she said in her normal voice. That was a lot easier, anyway. Besides, snoops solved mysteries. What did it matter how they talked?

Sophie just hoped everyone else would like her name as much as Kate did. Then they could call her Sophie the Snoop instead of boring Sophie M. But first she needed to solve more mysteries! So she made an announcement as soon as she got to room 10.

“Sophie the Snoop, at your service!” she said. “There is no mystery I can’t solve!”

“Is that why you’re wearing that funny hat?” Dean asked.

Funny? Sophie straightened it. “For your information, this is the hat the world’s greatest detectives wear,” she said.

“Oh, yeah? I don’t think so.” Grace shook her head. “Nancy Drew is the world’s greatest detective. And she never wears funny hats.”

Sophie frowned. She did not know too much about Nancy Drew. But she bet if she’d had a hat like Sophie’s, she would have worn it, too.

“All I’m saying is I solve mysteries. That’s what I do,” Sophie said.

Sydney got a worried look. “Do we have to pay you?” she asked.

Sophie guessed that Sydney remembered how she’d tried to get rich the other day. She had helped her friends, but only if they paid her.

“Nope,” Sophie told Sydney. “My mystery-solving is all free!”

“Hey! I’ve got a mystery,” Toby Myers said suddenly.

Sophie turned to him. Toby? He was the last person she thought would speak up.

Not that Toby couldn’t have a mystery. Anyone could! It was just that Toby never talked to Sophie. At least not anymore.

From preschool until last year, Toby and Sophie had been best friends. (In fact, Sophie remembered that back when they were four, they had both been Batman for Halloween.) But now Toby hung out with yucky Archie Dolan. And the fact was he was just not the same anymore. But that was fine with Sophie — now she had Kate.

But maybe Toby was changing back. (Some where way down deep inside her, Sophie always kind of hoped he might.)

“What’s your mystery?” she asked him with a big grin.

Toby started to laugh. “Who cut the cheese?” he yelled.

That was when Archie walked up and gave him a high five.

Sophie’s eyes got hot. She crossed her arms and turned away. And the hope she’d had that Toby might change? She pushed it way down deep inside her again.

In the meantime, Kate stepped up. “That’s no mystery, Toby,” she said. “Everyone knows you cut the cheese!”

Ha ! Kate really was great.

The other kids laughed. Sophie grinned and let out a big breath.

Just then, Ms. Moffly waved to them from behind her desk. Sophie thought her dress looked extra-pretty that day. But her hair was kind of a mess.

“Class! Let’s get started,” Ms. Moffly called. Then she blew her nose. “But first, who can tell me who this homework belongs to?”

Ms. Moffly held up a math worksheet. Someone had forgotten to sign his or her name. She waited for an answer, but all she got were shrugs and “Not me’s.”

Suddenly, Sophie realized something. Her first case of the school day had just popped up!

“Ms. Moffly! Ms. Moffly!” she cried. “This is a case for me, Sophie the Snoop!”

Sophie pulled out her magnifying glass. Then she tiptoed up to the teacher’s desk. She held out her hand. “Now I will examine the evidence,” she said.

Ms. Moffly smiled and handed the worksheet over. Sophie could tell she was glad for the help. Ms. Moffly was pretty good at teaching times tables. And she was not bad at all at reading out loud. But she was no detective. They probably did not teach that at teacher school. That was too bad.

“Okay.” Sophie studied the paper. She recognized the math problems they had done the night before. “Aha!” she said. “A clue: Look at all this eraser stuff!”

“Does that tell you something?” Ms. Moffly asked. Sophie thought she looked very impressed.

“Sure!” Sophie said. “It tells me that this homework belongs to someone who has a pink eraser. And who changes their mind a lot.”

Then Sophie pointed to a spot on the paper. It looked like gravy. Or chocolate. Or mud. “And see this?” she asked Ms. Moffly. “This tells me that whoever this paper belongs to is a big slob.”

Ms. Moffly sighed and nodded. “Yes. I see that a lot.”

“Of course, the real clue is the handwriting,” Sophie went on. “So here’s what we do. Have everyone do their homework again, and I’ll compare those worksheets to this one.”

Ms. Moffly clicked her tongue. “Mmm, I don’t know, Sophie. I’m not sure we have time for that.”

Sophie shrugged. “Well … okay. Then I guess I’ll have to work with what we’ve got,” she said. She turned to the blackboard and picked up some chalk. “So, what do we know?”

The Case of the Unsigned Homework

Clue #1 — The suspect uses a pink eraser.

Clue #2 — The suspect eats gravy, chocolate, or mud.

Clue #3 — The suspect writes numbers like this: 1, 2, 3.

All of a sudden, Sophie stopped.

She looked at her 3. And her 2. And her 1.

Then she thought about the pink eraser on her pencil. And the chocolate chip cookies she had eaten the night before … at the very same time she was doing her homework.

Then Sophie looked at the homework paper. Yep. Those looked like the same answers — exactly — that she had gotten.

Sophie put the paper down. She wrote her name at the top. Then she handed it back to Ms. Moffly. “Um, here, Ms. Moffly. Case closed.”

Ms. Moffly smiled and patted Sophie on the hat. “Good work, Sophie the Snoop.”

Okay. So the Case of the Unsigned Homework wasn’t the greatest mystery in the world. But it was something, at least. Bring on the next one ! Sophie thought.

The only thing was that the next mystery did not come. Suddenly, it was three o’clock. School was over, and no more cases had popped up.

That was the problem with school, Sophie guessed. No rich people ever got kidnapped. And no jewels ever got robbed. But still. What good was being a snoop if there was nothing to snoop … at all?

Sophie wondered if Sherlock Holmes had felt the same way when he was in school.

“Hey, I have a mystery,” Kate said as they tiptoed to the bus together.

Hooray ! It was about time!

“What is it?” Sophie asked.

“Where are all the mysteries?” Kate said, laughing.

Sophie grinned. But she also rolled her eyes.

“Hey! Maybe something will happen at soccer practice,” Kate went on. “Maybe someone will kidnap the coach!”

Sophie nodded. Probably not …

But she could always hope.