Lara Bergen: Sophie the Awesome

Sophie closed her book and sighed.

Leo the Lionhearted: Bravest Kid Ever.

It just wasn’t fair!

Sophie was sick and tired of reading about other people who were so much more … more everything than her.

Then it hit her. She knew exactly what she needed.

A name.

Of course! But not just any old name. She had one of those already: Sophie H. Miller. (The H stood for Hamm — yes, Hamm. Enough said.)

Big deal. So what? Boring.

What Sophie needed was a name that described her perfectly. She needed a name that said it all. A name that was not boring.

She looked across the library table, took a deep breath, and sighed again.

“What?” said her friend Kate Barry. Her face popped up from behind her book. “Are you okay?”

But Sophie sighed a lot. So Kate wasn’t too concerned.

“No. I am not okay,” said Sophie. Now she crossed her arms.

“Why?” Kate looked around. “Is Toby bugging you again?” She scrunched her mouth into a small sour-lemon frown. Then she glared at the boy sitting at the next round table. Sophie’s eyes followed hers.

Toby Myers was very freckled, very redheaded, and — if you asked Sophie — very hard to lo ok at for very long. So she didn’t.

Instead, she shook her head. “No. That’s not it.”

“Then why?” asked Kate. Beneath her long brown bangs, her forehead made a wavy wrinkle.

“Because I’m nothing,” Sophie told her. This time, she gave an extra-long, I’ll-never-be-anything sigh.

Kate looked at her funny.

“I’m talking about this,” Sophie said. She picked up her book and jabbed her finger at the cover.

“You’d rather be a book?” Kate said. She scratched the freckle on her neck. “Can’t help you there. Sorry.”

“No,” groaned Sophie. That wasn’t it at all. She ran her finger along the book’s title. “I want to be Sophie the … something, too! All the great characters have names like that. And I’m a character. Ms. Moffly says so all the time. Think about it!” Sophie grinned at her best friend. “Nate the Great. Ramona the Brave. Harriet the Spy …”

“Winnie the Pooh,” added Kate. There was a twinkle in her eye.

“Exactly!” Sophie nodded. Then she frowned. “Very funny.”

Kate giggled and Miss Elaine, the librarian, swooped over.

“Shhh!” warned Miss Elaine. “It’s quiet reading time. Remember?”

Kate nodded and buried her nose back in her book. Sophie could tell she was still laughing.

“You’re no help at all,” Sophie whispered. But she had to giggle a little, too.

They watched the librarian zip off to Toby’s table. “Please sit down,” she told him and his super-annoying, new best friend, Archie Dolan. Someone was always telling the two of them to sit down.

Kate patted Sophie’s hand. “Sorry,” she whispered. “You know, I’m not anything, either. Though ‘Kate the Great’ is kind of catchy.”

Sophie slumped down and opened her book again. But she didn’t try to read it. She filled her cheeks with air and thought very hard instead.

Sophie the …

Sophie the …

Sophie the … what?!

She couldn’t really be Sophie the First, because she was not the first in her family. Her older sister, Hayley, never let her forget that.

And she couldn’t be Sophie the Last, because of Max, her little brother. Which was fine. She didn’t really want to be last, anyway!

She couldn’t even be the only Sophie in Ms. Moffly’s third-grade class, thanks to Sophie Aarons. Or Sophie A., as everyone called her.

That was another reason Sophie needed a special name. Being called Sophie M. was just plain silly.

So what else was there?

Sophie couldn’t be anything that rhymed with her name, like lucky duck Kate the Great. Nothing rhymed with “Sophie.” At least, nothing that made sense.

She couldn’t be the Tallest. That was Grace.

She couldn’t be the Smartest. That was Sophie A., too. (So unfair!)

She couldn’t even be the Meanest. (Not that she wanted to be.) That was Mindy.

And she couldn’t be the Funniest. That was Kate. Definitely.

“Hey, I’ve got one,” Kate suddenly whispered.

Sophie turned to her, still frowning. “What?”

“Sophie the Grouch,” Kate answered.

Sophie rolled her eyes. Maybe Kate was not that funny after all. But Sophie knew that something would come to her sooner or later.

Meanwhile, Kate kept rambling on softly. “Ramona the Pest … Bob the Builder … Billy the Kid … Marvin the Magnificent … Glinda the Good Witch …”

“What did you say?” Sophie asked all of a sudden.

“Glinda the Good Witch?” Kate repeated. “You know, from The Wizard of Oz. ”

“No, no, no,” said Sophie. She quickly looked over her shoulder. Was Miss Elaine staring at her? She turned back and carefully lowered her head and her voice. “What did you say before that?”

“Uh …” Kate thought for a moment. “Marvin the Magnificent?”

Sophie’s heart began to thump-a-thump-thump. Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of it before?

“So, what?” said Kate. “You want to be Marvin the Magnificent?”

“Of course not,” said Sophie. Her name wasn’t Marvin. And Magnificent was taken. But what about another word that meant the same thing — or even better? Something that wasn’t boring or average at all.

Amazing.

Wonderful.

Marvelous.

Or maybe … Awesome.

That was it! That name was special. For sure!

Sophie felt her heart relax into a smooth and steady beat. She closed her book with a whop as Miss Elaine flashed the lights three times.

Library time was over.

But the time for Sophie the Awesome had just begun!

Sophie walked back to her classroom feeling just as awesome as someone named Sophie the Awesome should. Plus she’d finally outsmarted snappy, snooty Mindy VonBoffmann. Talk about awesome!

Mindy was always doing something to torture her. And lately, her way of torturing Sophie had been to steal her library book right out from under her nose.

At the end of library period, each kid in the class always got to choose one book to check out.

The first time, Sophie had wanted Amazing but True Dolphin Stories. But Mindy got there first.

The second time, it had been The Best Human Body Book Ever — with Deluxe See-through Pages. But Mindy took it while Sophie was getting Toby’s latest spitball out of her hair.

This time, it was almost Awesome Animals You Can Draw.

Almost.

But instead of reaching for the book she really wanted, Sophie knelt down and reached for a thick one called Stamps, Stamps, and More Stamps. And sure enough, Mindy’s sneaky hand swept in to grab it.

“Oh — you didn’t want this book, did you?” Mindy asked, acting surprised.