Sophie's Irish Showdown

by Nancy Rue

• ISBN13: 9780310707592
• ISBN10: 0310707595
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-02-01
• Publisher: Harpercollins Christian Pub

Summary

When Sophie and the Corn Flake Girls are barred from using one of their films for the St. Patrick's Day talent show, they embark on writing and performing a drama about Ireland instead. "Excellent for Homeschool Use"

Excerpts

www.zonderkidz.comSophie’s Irish ShowdownCopyright © 2005 by Nancy RueThis is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are products of author’s imaginationand are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, livingor dead, is entirely coincidental.Requests for information should be addressed to:Zonderkidz, 5300 Patterson Ave. SEGrand Rapids, Michigan 49530Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataRue, Nancy N.Sophie's Irish showdown / by Nancy Rue.-1st ed.p. cm.-(Faithgirlz)Summary: As the Corn Flakes and a new student from Ireland prepare for a "PerformanceShowcase," tempers flare and Sophie retreats to her imagination again, but a Bible story recommendedby Dr. Peter helps her pull the group together.ISBN 0-310-70759-5 (softcover)[1. Talent shows—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Irish Americans—Fiction. 4. Orphans—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Imagination—Fiction. 7. Christian life—Fiction. 8. Virginia—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Series.PZ7.R88515Sl 2005[Fic]-dc222004023726All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New InternationalVersion®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used bypermission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, orany other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of thepublisher.Zonderkidz is a trademark of Zondervan.Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 GoddardStreet, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.Photography: Synergy Photographic/Brad LampeIllustrations: Grace Chen Design & IllustrationArt direction/design: Michelle LengerInterior design: Susan AmbsPrinted in the United States of America05 06 07 08 09/.DCI/6 5 4 3 2 1So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.—2 Corinthians 4:181SophieLaCroixcouldn’tbelievewhatshehadjustheard.There was no way Miss Blythe had just announced that the sixth-gradeclass was going to get to do a Performance Showcase—on the stage—ona Saturday night—in front of a REAL AUDIENCE. And that the topthree performing groups would each get a prize.In Sophie’s world, dreams like THAT just didn’t come true every day.Sophie’s best friend, Fiona, grabbed her handand squeezed it until Sophie’s fingers lookedlike red lipsticks.“Do you think she’ll let us pick ourown groups?” Kitty whispered on theother side of Sophie. Her blue-jay-blueeyes were nearly bulging, the way theyalways did when she was nervous.Which was a lot. “She would be nonsensical not to,” Fiona whispered back. “We’rethe Corn Flakes.”“So?” That came from their other friend, Maggie, whose voicethudded across the table they shared. “Teachers don’t care aboutthat.”Sophie looked at Miss Blythe, who had her back to them,writing dates and times and requirements on the board withflowing chalk. She was their arts teacher, and Sophie had oftenthought she couldn’t be anything else.Miss Blythe was tall and wore long skirts and bracelets thatflounced with bright-colored charms. She swayed like a new treewhen she walked, the strands of her waist-length blonde hairstreaming down her back as if they were rays of sunlight. Withher long fingers constantly punctuating her sentences in the air,Sophie had a hard time imagining her as a lawyer or a greeterdown at Wal-Mart. And Sophie could imagine just about anything.Is Miss Blythe the type to let friends—best friends who can’t bearto be separated—work together? Sophie thought. Or would she subjecther students to pure torture at the hands of girls like the Corn Pops?They’d only had arts class for about a month. It was hard to say.“I can’t work with Julia and them!” Kitty was whining. She did thata lot, too. “She and B.J. and Anne-Stuart and Willoughby—theywould be so mean to me!”“Yeah, they would torture you,” Maggie said in her usual flat, factualvoice. “Any of us.”Sophie could tell by the way Kitty was whimpering that none ofthat was making her feel any better. It wasn’t doing much for Sophie,either, for that matter. She shook her acorn-colored hair off hershoulders and adjusted her glasses as she leaned into the table. Therest of the Corn Flakes leaned in with her.“We just have to pray really hard,” she said. “We have tosqueeze our eyes shut and whisper to God in our heads.” “That’ll look weird,” Maggie said. Sophie saw that she was on thepoint of rolling her very dark eyes. Maggie was Cuban, so everythingon her was dark except her extra-white teeth.“Corn Flakes are weird,” Fiona told her. “That’s what makes usunique. Close your eyes.”They all did, clutching each other’s hands under the table. Justbefore she shut hers, Sophie saw the Corn Pops clinging to eachother, too, but she was pretty sure they weren’t praying.In fact, Sophie wondered if the Corn Pops EVER prayed.What they did do, as far as Sophie could tell, was think they werebetter than everybody else because they had more money thanrock stars and could get their way no matter what. “No matterwhat” included cheating, lying, gossiping, and teasing peopleabout anything they thought was too weird.And since the Corn Pops considered everything the Corn Flakesdid way too weird, Sophie and Maggie and Kitty and Fiona weretheir favorite targets.At least we used to be, Sophie thought now. Until they got in somuch trouble for doing bad stuff and blaming it on us.It was a little bit of a comfort that the Corn Pops wouldn’t dare doanything else to the Corn Flakes, at least not anything they couldpossibly get caught at. But Sophie knew the Pops had ways of gettingaway with things that could escape even the really smart teachers. Shesure hoped Miss Blythe knew a Pop from a Flake and wouldn’t try tomix them together.It’s pretty easy to see the differences, Sophie thought.The Corn Pops only wanted to be popular—which was why theywere Pops—and they would do anything to stay the boss of everybodyelse in the sixth grade at Great Marsh Elementary, which waswhere the corn part came from. Sometimes they were so corny inthe stuff they did.Sophie squinted her eyes open a little so she could peek at herfellow Flakes. Fiona, with her rich-brown bob that fell over one ofher gray eyes. Maggie, so serious and stocky and practical. AndKitty, with her curly ponytail and her little nose that looked likeit was made of china.Corn Flakes are corny, too; that’s what everyone says, Sophiethought, just because we like to make up stories and make filmsout of them, and we don’t care what anybody else thinks aboutthat.Once, back when Kitty was still a Pop, the CPs had saidSophie and Fiona were a couple of “flakes.” It was so perfect ithad to be their name. After that, the girls who were all into sportswere the Wheaties and most of the boys were Fruit Loops. Thebest part was that all the group names were a secret among theCorn Flakes.“If everyone is awake, I’ll finish explaining the project,” MissBlythe said.Sophie’s brown eyes sprang open, even though she hadn’t actuallygotten to praying at all. She pulled her elf of a body up as tall as shecould in her chair. It wouldn’t be good to be caught daydreaming, orDaddy would take her video camera away from her, and Corn FlakeProductions would be no more. That was the deal with her father—stay out of trouble and make nothing less than a B in school and shecould keep the camera.

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Excerpted from Sophie's Irish Showdown by Nancy N. Rue
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