Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Amy on Park Patrol
Chapter 2 Growing Doubts
Chapter 3 Tiny Workers, Big Job
Chapter 4 Pollinator Party
Chapter 5 Name That Flower!
Chapter 6 Sign Here
Chapter 7 Interest from Someone Interesting
Chapter 8 The Sting of Defeat
Chapter 9 Hummingbird Central
Chapter 10 A Surprise for Amy
‘Ellie Steps Up to the Plate’ Excerpt
About the Author and Illustrator
Amy on Park Patrol
Amy Purvis spotted an empty plastic water bottle under a tree.
“Found another one!” she called out. She picked it up and put it in her recycling bag.
Amy was volunteering with Park Patrol, a group that cleaned up the Santa Vista Town Park. They met there one Saturday a month. Then they split up into teams to cover different areas.
Another volunteer on Amy’s team, Kayla, had a bag for trash.
Jonah had a bag for food waste, like banana peels and apple cores. They would go in the park compost heap.
Amy was in charge of the recycling bag. So far she had found ten empty bottles and cans. The group leader, Mr. Schultz, would turn them in for the bottle deposit. The money would buy more bags and other cleanup supplies.
When the team was done with their rounds, they all gathered around Mr. Schultz.
“Great work, everyone!” said Mr. Schultz.
Amy smiled proudly. She knew lots of wild animals lived in the park, like birds, squirrels, groundhogs, and foxes, so it was important to keep it clean. That morning, her team had even seen a duck nest by the pond. Those baby ducks could have gotten sick from eating people’s trash!
Amy checked her watch. It was almost time for her to meet Ellie, Liz, and Marion over at The Critter Club. That was the animal rescue shelter they ran together in their friend Ms. Sullivan’s barn.
“Sorry! I have to leave a little early,” Amy told Mr. Schultz. “I’ll see you next month.”
“Okay. Thank you, Amy,” said Mr. Schultz. “Next month we’ll meet at the other end of the park. There will be some construction starting at this end.”
“Construction?” said Jonah.
Mr. Schultz nodded. “The town has decided to build some stores here.”
Amy was confused. “But Santa Vista has lots of stores already,” she said. “We only have one town park.”
“What kind of stores?” a boy named Liam asked.
“I don’t know much,” said Mr. Schultz. “But I’ve heard that there will be a health-food store, a frozen yogurt shop, and a bookstore, plus others.” He sighed. “At least most of the park will still be here.”
Amy froze. Had Mr. Shultz said “bookstore”?
She loved bookstores. The hushed voices and swoosh of turning pages. The smell of brand-new books. Plus, there were sometimes books at the bookstore that the library didn’t even have yet.
And this section of the park was kind of wild. It didn’t have bike paths or playgrounds or picnic areas. But to Amy, that’s what was beautiful about it.
Amy didn’t know what to think about this news.
Was it good . . . or bad?
Growing Doubts
Amy’s mom gave her a ride over to The Critter Club. She found Ellie, Liz, and Marion in Ms. Sullivan’s garden.
They didn’t have any animal guests to take care of, so the girls had offered to help Ms. Sullivan plant some flowers. She had a brand-new hummingbird feeder. But so far, no hummingbirds had come to use it.
Ms. Sullivan had bought some flowers to plant around the feeder. She hoped it would help attract the birds.
The girls took a break from digging holes as Amy shared the news about the park.
“Mr. Schultz said there would be a bookstore. And then on the ride over here, my mom told me it’s going to be a children’s bookstore,” Amy said, staring dreamily into the distance. A whole bookstore filled with kids’ books!
“Won’t all those new stores make the park smaller?” Liz asked.
“Yes. But it is a part of the park that people don’t use very much,” Amy said timidly. She still wasn’t sure that was a good reason to get rid of it. “Maybe a new bookstore will get kids excited to read!” Amy added.
Ellie, Liz, and Marion nodded.
“But why do they have to build it there?” Marion wondered.
That was the big question. And Amy did not have a good answer.
The girls continued to work in the garden. They planted red lobelia, California fuchsia, and three different kinds of sage.
As Ellie patted the soil around the last flower, Ms. Sullivan came out to check on their progress.
“Beautiful!” she cried. “Thanks for your help, girls. If I were a hummingbird, this is where I’d want to be. I hope they will come and find it.”
“Maybe they’ll decide to build a nest nearby,” Marion said.
Nest. Amy thought about that duck nest in the park.
Then she gasped as she realized something. To build the stores, they’d have to cut down trees and clear out bushes.
What about all the animals that lived there?
What would happen to all the ducks and squirrels and groundhogs and foxes?
Tiny Workers, Big Job
At school on Monday, Amy was still thinking about the park. She, Ellie, Liz, and Marion had agreed: They wanted to do something to stop the construction.
But what?
Amy sighed and turned her mind to schoolwork. Mrs. Sienna was starting the science lesson.
“Today we’re going to find out how flowering plants make seeds through a process called pollination,” Mrs. Sienna said. “That’s when pollen from one flower gets inside of another. But how? Plants can’t just move from place to place!”
The class laughed. Amy pictured a daisy walking through a garden carrying a suitcase full of pollen.
Mrs. Sienna asked the class to line up by the classroom door. “We’re going out to make some observations!” she said.
She led them outside to a flower bed near the playground.
“What if I told you some of these flowers are being pollinated right now?” Mrs. Sienna said. “How? Let’s see if we can solve this mystery.”
Amy perked up. She loved a good mystery!
“How could pollen be moving from flower to flower?” Mrs. Sienna asked.
A breeze blew across the playground. Some of the flowers leaned to one side.
Liz raised her hand. “Does wind move pollen?” she asked.
Mrs. Sienna’s eyebrows went up. “Interesting!” she replied. “Yes. Wind can carry pollen through the air. Any other ideas?”
Amy leaned in to study a lilac up close. She took a big whiff of its strong perfume. Mmmmm.
Suddenly, Amy pulled back. Buzzzzzzz. A bumblebee had landed on the flower. As it crawled around, Amy could see flecks of powder on the bee’s hairy back.
She looked around. There were lots of bees flying here and there, landing on the flowers. Amy spotted a few butterflies, too, doing the same.
“The insects?” Amy guessed. “Are they moving the pollen?”
Mrs. Sienna gave Amy a thumbs-up. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “And they don’t even know it!”
She explained that the insects were just looking for food—the sweet nectar inside the flower. But as they did this, pollen got stuck on their bodies. Then, when they visited the next flower, some of the pollen shook loose.
“Ta-da!” Mrs. Sienna said. “That’s pollination! These insects are pollinators. They are doing a very big job. Without pollinators, these plants couldn’t make seeds. And without seeds, we wouldn’t have these flowers!”
Amy laughed. Ellie was always so dramatic.
But one thing was for sure. Pollinators were teeny-tiny heroes!
Pollinator Party
“Are we almost there?” Marion asked. She shifted the heavy picnic basket from one arm to the other.
“Here, let me help,” said Liz. She took one handle while Marion kept hold of the other.
The girls were tromping through the town park. Ellie carried a big water bottle and cups. Amy led the way, a picnic blanket tucked under her arm.
“There’s a good spot just ahead!” Amy called back.
This after-school picnic had been Amy’s idea. She thought it would be good to know more about the part of the park they were trying to save.
Finally, Amy stopped. She spread out the blanket in a grassy clearing. Golden sunlight shone down on clusters of wildflowers.
“I’ve never been back here before,” Liz said.
“Me neither,” said Ellie. “It’s so pretty.”
“And so quiet,” Marion added.
Amy nodded. “I come back here with Park Patrol,” she told them. “I think it’s one of the most beautiful parts of the park.”
They unpacked the basket and passed out snacks. Marion had brought sandwiches, Ellie had brought fruit, Liz had brought oatmeal cookies, and Amy had brought pretzels and drinks.
They chatted about the school day as they ate. When they were done, they sprawled on the blanket and gazed up at the sky. They played the Cloud Game, trying to pick out shapes in the cloud patterns.
Eventually, they just lay there listening to the sounds of nature around them.
Marion pulled a notebook from the basket. “I’m going to make a list of all the animals we see. Or hear!” she told them.
“Great idea!” Amy exclaimed. “Then we’ll know what sorts of animals and insects live here.”
Marion started by writing down the animals they’d seen on the way.
“I’ve definitely seen foxes around here before,” said Amy.
Marion added foxes to the list.
They were quiet for a minute, waiting and listening.
A chipmunk scurried out of a hollow log at the edge of the clearing. Ellie pointed at it.
Marion wrote it down.
A bird soared high overhead. “I think that’s a crow,” Liz said.
Marion added it to the list.
A butterfly flitted past Amy’s nose. It circled around Liz’s head, over Ellie’s knee, and landed for a moment on Marion’s notebook.
Marion laughed. “Okay, butterfly! You can be on the list too!”
The butterfly took off again, flying to some tall pink flowers a few yards away. It landed there and sat opening and closing its wings.
Moments later, a loud bumblebee buzzed by.
“Bee!” Marion cried, writing it down. “Got it.”
The bee chased the butterfly off the pink flower. It crawled all over, taking time to peek into each bud. Other bees joined. Soon there were four bees buzzing around the same flower.
“What kind of flower is that?” Liz asked. “All the pollinators seem to love it!”
Just then an enormous insect swooped in, chasing all the bees away.
In the blink of an eye, it was gone!
“Whoa!” Amy cried. “What was that?”
With whirring wings, it suddenly returned. A flash of green rocketed toward the flower, then stopped, hovering in midair.
Finally, Amy could see it clearly. She gasped. It wasn’t an insect at all. It was . . .
“A hummingbird!”
Name That Flower!
Ms. Sullivan studied Liz’s drawing of the flower the hummingbird was hovering over.
“You should have seen it, Ms. Sullivan!” Ellie cried. “The hummingbird kept coming back to this flower.”
Amy nodded. “It really seemed to like it!”
“So did the bees,” added Liz.
“And the butterflies,” Marion said.
“Hmm,” said Ms. Sullivan. “Let’s see.” She flipped through her Wildflowers of California field guide. Each page had a full color photo of a different flower. “It does look familiar,” she added.
Ms. Sullivan turned another page and—
“Stop!” all the girls said at once.
“That’s it!” Amy cried.
“ ‘Milkweed,’ ” Ms. Sullivan read from the book. “I think they had some for sale at the plant nursery. But it has pink flowers. And I thought hummingbirds liked red flowers best.”
Marion read over Ms. Sullivan’s shoulder. “It says here they love milkweed. And it’s an important plant for Monarch butterflies, too. They lay their eggs on it. When the caterpillars hatch, they eat the milkweed leaves.”
“‘Many kinds of bees love milkweed nectar,’” Liz read aloud.
They looked up from the book.
“I think I should plant some milkweed!” Ms. Sullivan said.
“It sounds like an important plant,” Amy said. “And we saw so much of it in that part of the park.”
She felt a knot tighten in her stomach.
It was another thing that was going to be lost if they didn’t protect the park!
Sign Here
Marion arrived at school the next day with a piece of paper. She showed it to Amy, Ellie, and Liz at lunch.
Across the top in big letters it read: SAVE THE MILKWEED.
Marion had made it the night before. “This is a petition,” she explained.
“It looks great!” Amy told her.
“So official.” Ellie nodded with approval.
“Let’s see if we can get a bunch of kids to sign it at recess,” Liz suggested.
“Okay!” said Marion. She’d even made copies of the petition and brought clipboards and pens.
On the playground, the girls went up to some kids on the swing set. Amy didn’t love making speeches, so she was glad when Liz dove right in.
“WHO WANTS TO SIGN OUR PETITION?” Liz shouted.
“Petition?” Joey replied as he swung. “Petition for what?”
“To protect the park,” Ellie said.
“And save the milkweed!” Amy chimed in.
Joey frowned. “Milkweed?” he said suspiciously. “You mean ragweed? That makes me sneeze a lot.”
Marion shook her head. “No, not ragweed,” she said. “Milkweed. It’s an important plant for lots of insects.”
“Cool! I like insects,” said Joey. He signed the petition.
But no one else seemed to be listening. They kept on playing.
So the girls walked over to the kids who were playing Four Square. Liz explained what the petition was for.
A few second and third graders signed it. After handing the pen back, one of them said, “Wait. Does this mean they wouldn’t build the yogurt store?”
Amy nodded. “Right. Or they’d build it somewhere else.”
The girl asked for the pen back and crossed out her name. “I want them to build it there,” she said. “It would be so close to my house!”
A boy overheard and crossed out his name too. “I like frozen yogurt,” he said with a shrug. “Sorry.”
The kids went back to their Four Square game.
Ellie sighed in frustration. “There are at least three other yogurt places in town, you know!” she called after them.
The girls tried talking to the kids who were on the playscape. One of them came down to read the petition.
“Weeds?” she said. “I thought weeds were plants that people wanted to get rid of.”
Amy tried to explain that this weed was a good type of weed.
The girl didn’t sign.
By the end of recess, they only had seven signatures—and four were their own.
“This isn’t working,” Amy said gloomily.
Saving the milkweed was going to be a lot harder than she’d thought.
Interest from Someone Inter
esting
On Friday the girls met up in the park after school. They had their clipboards. They were trying to get more signatures for the petition.
The girls had come ready with lots of important facts to share with people.
Liz stopped a man pushing his baby in a stroller. “Did you know that milkweed is an important food for many pollinators?” she asked him.
Marion waved down a cyclist on the path. “Did you know that about seventy-five percent of flowering plants need the help of animal pollinators?” she asked the woman.
Amy went up to parents watching their kids’ soccer practice. “Did you know that bee populations are falling?” she asked them.
Some of the people didn’t sign the petition. “My grandson is allergic to bees,” an older man said. “Why would I want more of them in the park?”
But many of them did sign. “Yes!” one woman said. “We have to protect our pollinators!”
The girls had collected about thirty signatures by the end of the day.
“Not bad,” said Amy. “We can try to get more over the weekend.”
The girls agreed and headed toward their bikes at the bike rack.
As they walked, they passed a woman walking her dog.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Ellie said to her.
The woman stopped. She listened politely as Ellie showed her the petition. “We’re trying to stop the construction in the park,” she said. “Would you like to sign?”
“ ‘Save the milkweed,’ huh?” the woman read.
Marion jumped in to explain why milkweed was such an important plant.
Amy on Park Patrol Page 1
