Sophie’s World Read Free Page A

his troops do not arrive in time, it will be us against the Redcoats!”
    Lafayette? Sophie thought. That sounds like a French name.
    “Eyes left! Eyes front! Eyes left!” the sergeant commanded. When he said, “Pick up your arms!” the group scurried for the blue wagon and got their “guns”—long sticks almost twice as tall as Sophie. The sergeant told Eddie and Colton that he would give them one last chance, and they grabbed their sticks to line up with the rest.
    “Left flank!” the sergeant cried, and he showed them how to stand their guns along their left legs. Then he taught them how to “load,” how to shift from “flank” to “shoulder,” how to “make ready” and “present” in one smooth motion, and to “make fire” only when he commanded. At those words, everyone screamed, “Boom!”
    Antoinette had never held a weapon before in her life, but if this was what it took to fulfill her mission, then she could do it.
    “Make ready!” the sergeant cried.
    With her musket firmly in her hands, Antoinette dropped to her knee, waiting for the commands to present and fire.
    “You! You there, soldier!”
    Sophie looked into the sergeant’s face and clung to her stick. “Yes, Sergeant?” she said.
    “You’re a fine soldier. You shame the whole lot of them. You can fight in my company anytime.”
    “Thank you, Sergeant,” Sophie said.
    Afterward, Sophie floated happily down the street with the Patriots. She was now a part of Colonial Williamsburg—one of its finest soldiers.
    “Hey, pipsqueak,” Colton said to her.
    Sophie glared at him. “That’s Corporal Pipsqueak to you, Private .”
    “What’s she talking about?” Eddie said.
    “Nothing,” Colton said. “She’s whacked.”
    But right by Vic’s elbow, with Maggie walking up her calves, Sophie felt anything but whacked as she made Williamsburg her own.
    Inside the houses and shops, every detail swept her back across the centuries: a powdered wig on a dressing table, a quill pen in a china holder, and a four-poster bed with mosquito netting draped down its sides. I want that in MY bedroom , Sophie thought.
    The formal English gardens with clipped hedges helped her picture Antoinette waiting among the flowers for the delivery of a secret message. And the little brick pathways covered in ivy leading down from the streets were custom-made for Antoinette’s getaways.
    She loved it all , including the sign above the jeweler’s that said, “Engraving. Watch-Making. Done in the Beft Manner.”
    “Beft?” Sophie said.
    Of course, B.J. said, “What?”
    “Best,” Maggie told her.
    Sophie decided to start writing all of her S ’s that way from now on. She felt certain that Lafayette, whoever he was, had made his S ’s just like that.
    When they stopped to have a picnic in the Market Square, Sophie inched close to Vic.
    “Could you tell me about Lafayette?” she said.
    “The Marquis de Lafayette was a young French nobleman,” Vic said. “Red-headed, very short, and small-boned. He was only nineteen years old when he bought a ship and left France secretly to help the Colonists. Without him, the patriots might not have won the war, and we wouldn’t be free today.”
    “He bought a whole ship?” Colton said. “He must’ve had cash.”
    “Lafayette used his wealth to help the American colonies because he believed in fairness,” Vic said. “All his life he stood against anything that was more evil than good.”
    “So did he make it to Williamsburg in time?” Sophie said. “The sergeant said if he didn’t get here with his troops, the militia would be on its own.”
    Vic gave her his big watermelon smile. “You were paying attention!”
    “I was too!” B.J. muttered to Kitty. They gave Sophie identical narrow-eyed stares.
    “So did he get here in time?” Sophie said.
    “He did! But there was almost disaster.”
    Sophie felt the flutter in her chest. Disaster always had possibilities.
    “Lafayette moved his advance