Sophie Mercer

A young person with a say

Sophie is twelve, curious about the school and small robots, and honest about the friends and familiar places she is leaving behind. Her parents bear the responsibility for family decisions, but they make room for her view.

In the classroom, Sophie learns that a pattern becomes useful only when someone can test it without forcing the answer.

She wants a place in Mars’s first class, enjoys working with small robots, and resists the easy story that every child should greet a new world without loss. Earth friends, grandparents, a familiar school, and a lake remain part of what she has left behind. That honesty makes her curiosity more specific: she is looking for a life she can recognize, not merely an adventure adults have chosen for her.

Sophie’s relationships with Claire and Nathan give her a voice without assigning her adult responsibility. Her friendship with Imani makes the school a place where observations can be compared, questioned, and set aside when another family’s emergency needs quiet.