Lara Bergen: Sophie the Snoop

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 grinned 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 !