Sophie Loves Jimmy
Copyright © 2006 by Nancy Rue
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and
are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zonderkidz, 5300 Patterson Ave. SE
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rue, Nancy N.
Sophie loves Jimmy / Nancy Rue.
p. cm. -- (The Sophie series ; bk. 10) (Faithgirlz!)
Summary: Paired with her classmate Jimmy for school and church projects, twelve-year-old Sophie
must find a way to dispel the boyfriend rumors and to stop the cyberbullying campaign directed against
her and a former school bad boy.
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-71025-7 (softcover)
ISBN-10: 0-310-71025-1 (softcover)
[1. Bullying--Fiction. 2. Computers--Fiction. 3. Cliques (Sociology)--Fiction. 4. Schools--Fiction. 5.
Christian life--Fiction.] I. Title. II. Series.
PZ7.R88515Sjp 2006
[Fic]--dc22
2005025259
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, or any other—except for brief
quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL
VERSION ® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of
Zondervan. All Rights Reserved.
Zonderkidz is a trademark of Zondervan.
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite
200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.
Photography: Synergy Photographic/Brad Lampe
Illustrations: Grace Chen Design & Illustration
Art direction: Merit Alderink
Interior design: Susan Ambs
Interior composition: Ruth Bandstra
Printed in the United States of America
06 07 08 09 10 • 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cynthia Cyber, Internet Investigator, leaned toward the computer screen, eyes
nearly popping from her head. Could it be that a kid would actually be
enough of a bully to print something like THAT for all the middleschool
world to see? Impossible—and yet, there it was, a sentence that
was already showing its ugly self on computers in bedrooms all over
Poquoson, Virginia, and maybe even beyond. It was a sentence that
could ravage the social life of its seventh-grade
victim before she even checked her email.
“I cannot allow it!” Cynthia Cyber,
Internet Investigator, cried. She lunged
for the keyboard, fingers already flying—
“It’s a seven-passenger van, Little Bit,” said a voice from the driver’s
seat. “You don’t have to sit in Jimmy’s lap.”
Sophie LaCroix jolted back from Sophie-world at several megahertz
per second—or something like that. She found herself staring
right into Jimmy Wythe’s swimming-pool-blue eyes. She had
no choice. She really was in his lap.
A round, red spot had formed at the top of each of Jimmy’s
cheekbones. Sophie was sure her entire face was that color.
“Do you want to sit on this side?” Jimmy said as Sophie
scrambled her tiny-for-a-twelve-year-old body back into her
own seat. “We could trade.”
“I don’t think that’s what she had in mind.” Hannah turned
around from the van’s middle seat in front of them, blinking her
eyes against her contact lenses practically at the speed of sound.
She was Sophie’s inspiration to keep wearing glasses. “Personally,
I think seventh grade’s a little young to be dating. I know I’m only
a year older, but—”
Mrs. Clayton didn’t turn around in the front seat, but her trumpet
voice blared its way back to them just fine. “There is actually a
world of difference between seventh graders and eighth graders.”
Yeah, Sophie thought, fanning her still-red face with a folder. Eighth
graders think it’s all about the boy-girl thing. I am SO not dating
Jimmy Wythe. Or anybody else! EWWW. She scooted a couple of
inches farther away from Jimmy.
It wasn’t that Jimmy wasn’t a whole lot more decent than most of
the boys at Great Marsh Middle School. He was one of the three guys
who made films with Sophie and her friends. They didn’t make disgusting
noises with their armpits and burp the alphabet in the cafeteria—
like some other boys she knew. But date him—or anybody
else?
I do not BELIEVE so!
“So, are you guys going out or what?” Hannah said.
“Not that it’s any of your business.” Oliver, the eighth grader next
to her, gave one of the rubber bands on his braces a snap with his
finger. Why, Sophie wondered, did boys have to do stuff like that?
“Oh, come on, dish, Little Bit,” Coach Nanini said from behind
the wheel. He grinned at Sophie in the rearview mirror in that way
that always made Sophie think of a big happy gorilla with no hair.
She liked to think of him as Coach Virile.
She had to grin back at him.
“We’re not going out,” Jimmy said. The red spots still punctuated
his cheekbones. “We’re just, like, friends.”
Mrs. Clayton did turn around this time, although her helmet
of too-blonde hair didn’t move at all. “That’s very noble of
you, Jimmy, to get Sophie out of the hot seat like that. You’re
a gentleman.”
“Ooh, Mrs. C,” Coach Virile said, still grinning. “Don’t you
know that’s the kiss of death for the adolescent male?”
“It’s okay,” Jimmy said. He pulled his big-from-doing-gymnastics
shoulders all the way up to his now-very-red ears. “It’s what my
dad’s teaching me to be.”
“Bravo,” Mrs. Clayton said. “I’d like to bring him in and have him
train the entire male population of the school.”
Coach Virile’s voice went up even higher than it usually did, which
was pretty squeaky for a guy whose beefy arms stuck out from both
sides of the driver’s seat. “I thought I was doing that, Mrs. C.”
“I wish you’d step it up a little,” she said.
Sophie glanced sideways at Jimmy, who was currently ducking his
head of short-cropped, sun-blond hair. I guess he is kind of a gentleman,
Sophie thought. She had never heard him imitate her highpitched
voice like those Fruit Loop boys did, or seen him knock
some girl’s pencil off her desk just to be obnoxious. And somehow
10
he managed to be pretty nice and still cool at the same time. The Corn
Pops definitely thought so. The we-have-everything girls were always
chasing after him.
“So if you’re not going out,” Hannah said, “why were you in
his lap?”
She was turned all the way around now, arms resting on the
back of her seat as if she were going to spend the rest of the trip
from Richmond exploring the topic. Oliver groaned.
“Inquiring

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Excerpted from Sophie Loves Jimmy by Nancy N. Rue, Nancy Rue
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