Sophie the Zillionaire (4 page)

B
y Monday morning, Sophie still had $81.80. (Her loose tooth had not fallen out yet.
Sigh.
)

Plus it was still raining. And her left rain boot was missing. But at least her stomachache was gone.

If only Sophie were richer than Mindy already. It was hard to wait to be special. She wanted to be special right now!

Sophie wondered if she was rich enough, at least, to buy a new pair of rain boots. Her sneakers were all squishy by the time she got to school.

In room 10, she hung up her raincoat. Lily had just hung up Mindy’s coat for her.

“How does Mindy get her to do all that stuff?” Kate whispered to Sophie. “You so couldn’t pay me to!”

I know
, Sophie thought. Then, suddenly, she froze.

Hang on!

Getting paid to do things for people? She could do that! Why not?

Sophie looked at the other kids walking into the classroom. She thought about what Hayley had said about a little money adding up to a lot.

There were twenty-four kids in Sophie’s class. What if she could make a dollar from every one of them?

She did the math. (That was another thing about being rich that was fun.) If she added $24.00 to her $81.80, she’d have more than a hundred dollars. Way more!

But wait. She couldn’t count herself. Of course. And she couldn’t count Kate, either. So
that was not as much. But it was still more than a hundred….

What am I waiting for?
Sophie thought.

She ran up to Ben as he walked through the door. “Hi, Ben!” she said.

“Hi, Sophie,” Ben answered. He looked very happy to talk to her. And a little surprised, too.

“Can I hang up your coat for you?” Sophie asked.

“Uh, sure …,” Ben said. He looked even more surprised as he passed his coat over.

“Great!” Sophie took his drippy raincoat in one hand. “That will be one dollar,” she said, holding out her other hand.

Ben looked a lot surprised now. “A dollar? For what?”

“For hanging up your coat,” Sophie said. She smiled at him, really big.

But Ben frowned at her. “You never said anything about having to pay.”

Oops.
Sophie had forgotten that part. But why else did Ben think she would hang up his coat?

“Sorry,” she said. “You’re my first customer.”

But Ben took back his coat. “I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head.

Sophie sighed. She watched Ben walk off. But she wasn’t going to give up. Zillionaires never gave up!

So she went over to Sophie A.

And Eve.

And Dean.

And Mia.

And Jack.

But they did not want to pay her to hang up their coats, either.

Or shake out their umbrellas.

Or tie their wet shoelaces.

Or pull out their chairs.

Or sharpen their pencils.

Sophie could not believe it!

There was only one person who offered to pay her. That person was Toby Myers.

“I’ll give you a dollar to pick Archie’s nose,” he said.

Sophie shot him a look.

“No way! I like to pick my own nose!” Archie declared.

Boys!
Gross!

Still, Sophie kept trying.

“I’ll pick out a book for you. For a dollar,” she said to Sydney later in the library.

Sydney frowned. She shook her head.

“Fifty cents?” Sophie said.

Sydney’s head kept shaking.

“How about a quarter?” Sophie asked. She tried to look super-helpful, like a great book-picker-outer.

“Why would I pay you to do something that I like to do myself?” Sydney finally asked.

Hmm.
Sydney had a point. Maybe Sophie had a better chance of making money if she offered to do things that people
hated
doing.

Sophie picked out her own library book and thought about that a little more.

She was still thinking back in room 10 as Ms. Moffly wrote on the board. The teacher was
writing vocabulary words for the class to copy later.

They were supposed to write in their journals first. But Sophie’s journal page was still blank. She leaned on her hand. Sure, she had things to write about. But all she could think about was being Sophie the Zillionaire.

“Has anybody paid you yet?” Kate whispered, leaning over.

“No. Not yet,” Sophie told her. “But if I could just think of something that nobody wants to do …”

Kate pointed to the blackboard. Ms. Moffly had made a
looong
list. “Like copying vocabulary words,” Kate groaned.

“Hey!” Sophie suddenly said.

“Hay is for horses!” Kate said back.

“No! Hey is for ‘That’s what I can do to make money!’” Sophie said.

I
t was perfect! The class had the rest of the day to copy their vocabulary words. That meant Sophie had plenty of time to put her plan into action!

She started by asking Grace and Sydney. It was easy. They sat at her table.

“Hey, Grace. Hey, Sydney,” she whispered. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll write down your vocabulary words … for a small fee.” That sounded very professional, she knew. She’d heard it on a real commercial.

“You want us to pay you?” Grace stared at Sophie. It was like Sophie had asked to cut off her head.

But Sydney slowly rubbed her chin. “How much?” she asked.

Good question
, Sophie thought.

She looked back at the vocabulary list. Twenty-five words.
Ugh.
That was a lot!

She wanted to say, “Fifty dollars.” But she guessed that was too much.

“Five dollars,” she told Sydney.

“Five dollars!” Sydney said. Now it was like Sophie had asked to cut off
her
head. “How about fifty cents?”

“Four dollars?” Sophie asked, trying again.

“Seventy-five cents,” Sydney said. She crossed her arms.

Sophie sighed. Sydney drove a hard bargain.

“Okay. A dollar. But that’s my final offer,” Sophie said.

Sydney held out her hand. “Deal.”

They shook on it.
Yes!

Then Sophie turned to Kate and smiled. If she could have winked, she would have. Maybe when she was a zillionaire, she would get that fixed.

But for now, she had a paying customer!

“Oh, okay. I’ll do it, too. For a dollar,” Grace said.

Oh, boy! Sophie had
two
paying customers. The money was starting to roll in!

“There’s just one problem,” Sydney said then. “I don’t have any money with me.”

“Me neither,” Grace added.

Sophie frowned. So she had customers. But they were not paying. Now what?

Then Sydney did something interesting. She wrote three letters on the top of a piece of paper.

I O U
$1
Sydney

“What’s this?” Sophie asked.

“It’s an IOU,” Sydney said. “It means I owe you a dollar. I’ll give you this today and bring the money tomorrow.”

“Me too!” Grace said.

Hmm …

Sophie guessed that was okay. And it turned out that Sydney and Grace were not the only ones who said they would hire Sophie. (
Hooray!
) And they were not the only ones who could not pay her that day. (
Oh, well.
)

By lunchtime, Sophie had twelve orders for vocabulary lists. And twelve IOUs.

She had hoped for a lot more. But there were some kids — like Sophie A. — who liked copying their own lists. And there were some kids — like Toby and Archie — who she’d rather not work for. They could copy their own lists. (And pick their own noses, for that matter.)

And then there was Mindy. She did not need a list copied, either. That was because Lily had already copied one for her. For free.

By the end of lunch, though, Sophie had decided that twelve lists was plenty. In fact, she was a little worried. What if it was too much? She had copied and copied all through lunch. Now it was time for recess, and she only had six lists done.

Sophie was a very, very fast reader. But she was a very, very slow writer.

She shook out her hand. It was sore. Her pencil was dull. And worse than that, her stomach was empty. She had not stopped to eat at all.

“Come on,” said Kate. “Let’s play. Haven’t you written enough?”

Sophie gave a big sigh and held up a stack of blank paper. “No,” she said. “I’m only half done.”

So instead of playing in the gym during recess (since it was still raining), Sophie sat on the bleachers and copied
more
words.

Sophie wished she had picked something else to help her earn money. Something quick. Like cleaning out cubbies. She could have done twelve of those in no time. Oh, well. She could do that the next day. If her hand still worked.

Before Sophie knew it, recess was over. She still had three more lists to go. And that wasn’t the worst part. Sophie had been so busy writing that she had missed seeing Dean’s bloody nose!

“I can’t believe you didn’t see that!” Ben said. “He ran right into the goalpost!”

Sophie could not believe it, either. It was not every day she got to see a good bloody nose! It was all anyone could talk about.

And when Ms. Moffly said the class could play charades at the end of the day, Sophie could not believe that, either.

“
If
you don’t still have to copy your vocabulary list,” the teacher added.

Sophie plopped her head into her hands — for two reasons.

One was that she was the only person who still had a list to copy. And the other was that she loved charades. And she really hated to miss it.

At least by the time school was over, she had all the lists done. She passed them out to her friends. They passed their IOUs to her.

She counted them. Twelve. And she felt a little better. No, it wasn’t money. But it was close.

Sophie smiled and climbed onto the bus with Kate. They walked to their favorite seat in
the back. Sophie sat down. She shook the rain off her coat and rubbed her sore hand. But she forgot to scrunch down to hide from Ella Fitzgibbon … until it was too late.

“
SOOO-PHIE!
” called a squeaky voice. It was Ella’s. Of course.

The kindergartener ran down the aisle to them and hugged Sophie. Hard. “My hero!” she said.

Sophie sighed. She couldn’t help it. Ella’s hug was sticky, as usual. But that day it was also drippy wet, from all the rain.

“You know, you don’t have to call me that anymore, Ella,” Sophie told her.

Sure, Sophie had saved Ella’s life the week before. But that seemed so long ago now. Being a hero had been fun — for a while. But it was hard to keep up!

Ella plopped down in the seat across from Sophie. “Aw, but I like it!”

Kate leaned over. “Sophie’s a
zillionaire
now, Ella,” she said.

“Really?” Ella’s eyes got big. “How much money do you have?”

Sophie sat up straight. She looked down at Ella. “Almost a hundred dollars,” she said.

She waited for Ella to say, “Wow!” Or “Whoa!” Or “Oh, boy!”

But Ella just stared.

“
One
hundred dollars? Is that all?” she said.

What?

Sophie guessed that Ella had not learned big numbers, like one hundred, yet.

“That’s one
hundred
. One zero zero.
Dollars
,” Sophie said.

“I know what a hundred is,” Ella told her. “I can count all the way there. Want to hear? One, two, three, four, five, six, sev —”

“That’s okay,” Sophie said.

Ella shrugged. “I bet I have a hundred hundred dollars!” the kindergartner said.

Sophie turned to Kate and made a “what is Ella talking about?” face.

Then Sophie started to get a feeling. It was cold. And it wasn’t from her wet shoes.

Sophie was so close to having more money than Mindy. She was so close to being the richest girl she knew. But if little Ella had so much more money than Sophie did … then Sophie’s great new name was never going to work!

But no! What was she worried about?

Ella was no zillionaire. Everyone knew that. Plus everyone knew that kindergartners loved to lie. (Back when she was five, Sophie had told some good ones herself.)

Sophie smiled at Kate. Her cold feeling warmed up. (But her shoes didn’t.)

Then she patted Ella’s hand. “Good for you, Ella. I’d love to see all that money sometime,” she said.