Sophie's World - By Nancy N. Rue Page 0,1

on the floor any minute,” said Chaperone Mom. “How about you scoot yourself right back up next to Kitty?”

“What?” B.J. said. She whirled around to Kitty and yanked her shirt away.

“B.J., what’s the problem?” Ms. Quelling said from farther down the aisle.

B.J.’s sofa lip extended into a foldout couch. “If I could just be with my friends in the Colonists’ Group—”

“And if ants could just have machine guns, we wouldn’t step on them!” Ms. Quelling said.

“But they don’t,” Maggie said.

“Exactly.” Ms. Quelling stretched her neck at B.J. over the top of the clipboard pressed to her chest. “I separated you because y’all talk too much, and you won’t hear a word your guide says. You show me my best B.J., and we’ll see about next time.” She smiled like she and B.J. were old pals. “You can start by hiking yourself onto the seat before you break your neck.”

As Ms. Quelling moved down the aisle, Chaperone Mom stepped into her place.

“Maybe you’ll make some new friends today, B.J.,” she said.

“I’ll be your friend!” Kitty piped up.

B.J. glanced at her over her shoulder. “No offense or anything,” she said. “But I already have friends.”

Chaperone Mom gasped. “Now, that isn’t nice!” She patted B.J. on the head and continued down the aisle.

“Busted,” said Colton, wiggling his ears at B.J. Eddie let out a guffaw, and Colton punched him in the stomach.

“Boys are so lame,” Maggie said. Her words placed themselves in a solid straight line, like fact blocks you couldn’t possibly knock over. She looked at Sophie. “How come you hardly ever say anything?”

Sophie pulled her hood over her head, in spite of the Virginia-humid air. She wasn’t sure when she could have squeezed a word into the conversation. Besides, she’d been too busy trying to figure out the possibilities.

Possibilities such as, what does “B.J.” stand for? Bambi Jo? Probably more like Bad Jerky. B.J. looked as if she had just eaten some and was about to cough it back up.

And what about that Kitty person with the freckles? She must be Katherine, kept locked away in a tower, and she’s so desperate to escape she clings to anyone she can reach. I’ll save you! Rescue is my mission in life!

Antoinette tucked her long tresses beneath the hood of her dark cloak as she crept to the castle wall and gazed up at the tower.

“What are you looking at?”

Maggie’s voice dropped on Sophie’s daydream like a cement block. Sophie blinked at the bus ceiling above her.

“You think it’s going to rain in here or what?” Maggie said. “I think you’re a little strange.”

“That’s okay,” Sophie said as she pushed back her hood. “Most people think I’m strange. My sister says I’m an alien from Planet Weird.”

“Is that your real voice?” Maggie said.

Sophie didn’t have a chance to tell her that, yes, the pipsqueak voice was the real thing, because the bus lurched forward and all its occupants squealed.

“Colonial Williamsburg, here we come!” Chaperone Mom shouted over the squeal-a-thon.

B.J. whirled again, her eyes fixed on the back of the bus like a jealous cat’s.

Sophie turned to the window and curled her feet under her. As she watched the yellowing late September trees flip by in a blur, a heavy feeling fell over her head and shoulders, almost like a cloak—and not Antoinette’s beautiful black velvet cape that shrouded her in soft mysterious folds from the dangers of the night.

This cloak felt like it was woven of sadness, and Sophie had been wearing it for six whole weeks, ever since her family had moved from Houston to the small town of Poquoson, Virginia.

Houston was a huge city with parks and museums and big libraries full of dream possibilities. Poquoson was mostly one street with a Farm Fresh grocery store and a Krispy Kreme Donut shop attached to a gas station, where hordes of mosquitoes flew through solid clouds of bug spray to gnaw on Sophie’s legs.

The school was way different too. Here, Sophie had to change classes for every single subject, and that made it hard to keep up. It seemed as if she would just get settled into her seat in one classroom, when the bell sent her running to the next one, hauling her backpack, and leaving her work unfinished.

Of course, her new teachers had already told her—and her parents—that if she didn’t stare out the window and daydream so much, she could get her work done before the end of class. In Houston the other students were used to her going