Look at Lucy!

by Ilene Cooper

  Shawn pulled an entry form from his own pocket. “I picked this up when I bought Twitch. I guess Lucy and Twitch will both be in the contest.”

  “What about Butch?” Candy asked. “I’ll enter him in the contest, too. Butch would make a great spokespet!”

  Out in the yard, Lucy was trying to get Butch to play. But Butch was on his back, staring up at the sky. He gave himself a hard scratch. Then he rolled over, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

  Bobby figured there’d be lots of pets in the contest. Lucy would have plenty of competition. But he didn’t think he had to worry much about Butch.

  Mrs. Lee’s Room

  There was a funny feeling in the pit of Bobby’s stomach. And it wasn’t a ha-ha funny feeling. It was a weird, unsettled feeling. It had been there since he got out of bed.

  Bobby put on the new clothes his mother had laid out for him the night before and went downstairs. He knew she would want him to eat, but breakfast seemed like a bad idea.

  Lucy was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. She wasn’t her usual bouncy self. Maybe she knew it was the first day of school, too.

  Mr. and Mrs. Quinn were drinking coffee at the table. Bobby’s mother had made his favorite, pancakes. He wished he felt like eating.

  “Hey, Bobby,” his father said. He looked over the top of his newspaper. “You’re a third grader. How does it feel?”

  “Not too good,” Bobby told him. “I’m not hungry, Mom. I don’t feel well.”

  Mrs. Quinn touched her hand to Bobby’s forehead. “You don’t have a fever. I think you might be nervous about school, that’s all,” she said.

  Bobby nodded. He picked up Lucy and put her on his lap. Lucy licked Bobby’s cheek.

  “Well, it will be a big change for both of you,” his mother said. “Just remember, Lucy and I will be waiting here when you come home at three o’clock.”

  Bobby thought three o’clock seemed like a long way off.

  Since his mother insisted, Bobby ate a few bites of his pancakes and drank some of his milk. Lucy sat on his lap the whole time. Usually his mother wouldn’t have allowed that, but she looked like she felt sorry for both of them.

  After breakfast, Bobby gave Lucy a kiss on the top of her head. Finally he told his father, “I’m ready.” Wildwood School was close enough to walk to, but today Bobby’s father was going to drive him and Shawn.

  When Shawn got in the car, he was just as quiet as Bobby. Mr. Quinn looked at them in the rearview mirror. “I think you boys are going to have a great year!” he said.

  Bobby nodded, and Shawn said, “Yes, sir.” Bobby hoped his father was right.

  Mr. Quinn dropped them off in front of Wildwood. The schoolyard was full of kids laughing and talking. Bobby walked slowly toward the school. Shawn was right beside him.

  “Do you know any of these kids?” Shawn asked.

  Bobby spotted a few boys and girls from his class last year. He sure didn’t feel like going up to them and saying hi. What if they didn’t remember him? What if they did remember him and thought he was a dope? “Uh …”

  Just then, Shawn and Bobby heard a familiar voice. “Hi, guys!”

  Candy came hurrying up to them. Her smile was almost as bright as the stars on her shiny blue backpack.

  “Hey, this seems okay,” she said, looking around. “Good playground, lots of kids. Who’s in our class?”

  Bobby hesitated, but Candy was waiting. He pointed to the kids he had spotted before. “There’s Carrie, Dexter, Jessie, and Robin. They might be in Mrs. Lee’s room with us,” he mumbled.

  Candy gave Bobby a funny look. “Let’s go say hi.”

  “Aw, I don’t feel like it right now,” Bobby protested.

  But Candy wasn’t the kind of girl who took no for an answer. And she certainly was not shy. “Come on,” she said to Bobby and Shawn.

  Keeping a few steps behind her, Bobby and Shawn watched Candy walk up to Carrie, Dexter, Jessie, and Robin. “Hello, I’m Candy. I’m new this year,” she said.

  At first the four kids seemed surprised. Then Candy started asking them what Wildwood was like. For once, she let other people talk, too. Soon everyone was eager to tell her about Wildwood School.

  “Hey, Bobby, Shawn,” Candy said, calling them over. “You know Bobby, right?” she asked her new friends. “He was in your grade last year. You don’t know Shawn, though. He just moved here this summer.”

  “Where did you come from?” Jessie asked.

  In a soft voice, Shawn said, “Chicago.”

  Bobby was worried that no one had heard Shawn, but Dexter said, “My grandma lives in Chicago. We visited her in July.”

  That broke the ice. Shawn and Dexter started talking about Chicago. They both liked the Chicago Cubs.

  Bobby felt a little jealous. He liked the Cubs as much as Shawn did. He wanted to join the conversation, too. He just didn’t know how.

  Then Robin turned to him. “What did you do over the summer, Bobby?”

  “I … I got a dog,” Bobby said.

  “Yeah? What kind?” Robin seemed interested.

  Before Bobby could answer, the first bell rang. Everyone began hurrying toward the big double doors. “I know where our room is,” Bobby told Candy and Shawn. “Follow me.”

  Room 102 was down a long hall. “That’s the learning center.” Bobby pointed it out. “And the gym is back there.”

  When they got to Room 102, they chose three seats together near the windows. Bobby liked looking outside if things got boring.

  However, it didn’t look like Mrs. Lee’s class was going to be boring. After they said the Pledge of Allegiance, Mrs. Lee took attendance. Then she talked about all the interesting things she had planned for the year. They were going to learn about the pioneers and visit a real-life pioneer cabin. In math class, they’d be spending time on long division.

  When Jessie called out, “Long division is hard,” Mrs. Lee laughed.

  “You’ll like it, you’ll see,” she said. She also listed some of the books she was going to read aloud. One was The Mouse and the Motorcycle!

  “Wait until she finds out you have a mouse,” Bobby whispered to Shawn.

  “Maybe we’ll have a motorcycle for Twitch by then. We’ll bring him to school,” Shawn whispered back.

  Pretty much everything Mrs. Lee described for the coming year sounded fine to Bobby. Maybe his father was right. Maybe this was going to be a good year. Then Mrs. Lee said something that made Bobby’s heart beat faster. Something that didn’t sound good at all.

  “One more thing. We’re going to be doing lots of oral reports. We’ll report on books we’ve read, and the work we’re doing. I think sharing with your classmates will be lots of fun, don’t you?”

  Standing up, talking in front of twenty-five kids? Bobby had trouble telling Robin he had gotten a dog this summer. How in the world could he give an oral report? Lots of oral reports.

  No, Mrs. Lee, oral reports will not be fun, Bobby thought. Absolutely not.

  Troubles

  There were some things Bobby liked about school. He liked Mrs. Lee. He liked having Shawn and Candy in his class. He liked listening to The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

  Lucy didn’t like anything about Bobby spending the day at school. Mrs. Quinn said she moped around the house while Bobby was gone. When he came home, Lucy went crazy. She barked. She ran around in circles. She grabbed shoes, magazines, and clothes and chewed them. She hadn’t done that in weeks. One day, Bobby came home from school and found Lucy chomping on one of his best sneakers.

  “Hey, Lucy! Quit that!” Bobby ran over to her. He tried to pull the blue sneaker from Lucy’s mouth.

  Lucy pulled right back. It was a tug-of-war. Finally Lucy let the shoe drop. It was too late. Bobby stuck his finger through a big hole near the toe.

  “What are we going to do about Lucy?” Mrs. Quinn fretted.

  “Bobby, you have to walk her as soon as you get home from school,” his father told him tha
t night. “Exercise will help her get rid of some of that energy.”

  Bobby was happy to walk Lucy every day. She pranced around the neighborhood. In the yard, she caught sticks and balls when Bobby threw them. She let off lots of extra steam. If Lucy was in a cartoon, she’d have steam coming out from under her long, floppy ears.

  But she still liked to chew shoes.

  Bobby had been in school for about two weeks when Mrs. Lee made an announcement. “Class, it’s time to start thinking about our oral reports,” she said.

  Uh-oh, Bobby thought. He had hoped Mrs. Lee had forgotten about those stupid oral reports. He glanced over at Shawn. Shawn looked like he had just swallowed a hot pepper.

  “For the first report,” Mrs. Lee went on, “I want you to talk about a very special subject. You.”

  Bobby was surprised. He thought Mrs. Lee would want the class to give reports about history. They were studying the Pilgrims. They were learning about the Native Americans who were already living in this country when the Pilgrims got here. Wasn’t that the kind of thing reports were about?

  Mrs. Lee explained. “I think it will be fun if everyone gets up and speaks for a few minutes. Introduce yourself to the class. Tell us a little about your family, your pets, your hobbies. Just get up and talk.”

  Just get up and talk? Bobby thought. Just jumping out of an airplane might be easier for him.

  Some kids raised their hands. Mrs. Lee called on Dexter.

  “Can we read our reports?” he asked.

  “Maybe later in the year. Then the reports will be longer. They’ll have more facts in them,” Mrs. Lee answered. “I don’t think you’ll need any notes for this one. It will be easy. You don’t need to write down the names of your brothers and sisters, do you?”

  Bobby was glad he didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Their names would be one more thing to remember.

  Candy was waving her hand.

  “Yes, Candy,” Mrs. Lee said.

  “Will you give a report about yourself, Mrs. Lee? Since we’re all finding out about each other, I want to learn some things about you. Like are you married? Well, I guess you are ‘cause your name is Mrs. Lee….”

  The class giggled.

  Mrs. Lee, however, nodded and said, “All right. I guess that’s fair. I’ll give an oral report about myself, too, Candy. In fact, I’ll go first. Let’s start on Friday afternoon. That will give you a few days to think about what you want to say.”

  After school, Bobby and Shawn walked home together. They didn’t talk much.

  Finally Shawn suggested, “Maybe we should practice.”

  “Practice what?” Bobby asked.

  “Our reports. We could try them out on each other,” Shawn said.

  Bobby thought about that. “Okay, that’s a good idea.”

  Giving his report to Shawn wouldn’t be the same as getting up in front of the class. It would be much, much easier. Shawn was right, though. Practice couldn’t hurt.

  “Is Lucy ready for the Pet-O-Rama contest?” Shawn asked, changing the subject. “It’s this Saturday.”

  “I know.” Bobby didn’t want to admit it, but Lucy wasn’t quite ready. He had to have a photograph of the pet along with the entry form. His father had tried to take a picture of Lucy, but she wouldn’t sit still. So far, the only picture they had was of Lucy’s backside as she ran away. Bobby hoped Lucy wasn’t getting too wild to be the Pet-O-Rama spokespet.

  The boys came to Shawn’s front door. “Twitch is all ready to go,” Shawn told Bobby. “I’ve got the cutest picture of him to bring. He’s standing up in his cage. He looks like he’s smiling.”

  Bobby sighed. It probably wasn’t too hard to take a picture of a little mouse who had nowhere to run.

  “How was school today?” Mrs. Quinn asked when Bobby walked into the house.

  “Okay,” Bobby said.

  As soon as Lucy heard Bobby’s voice, she came bounding out of the television room.

  Bobby leaned down to give her a pat. “Hi, girl,” he said. He took her leash off its hook.

  “Bobby, you don’t sound like things at school are okay,” his mother said.

  How did his mother always know when something was wrong? Bobby wondered.

  “Can I walk with you and Lucy?” Mrs. Quinn asked.

  “Sure.” Bobby shrugged. They were hardly out the front gate when Bobby spoke up. “I have to give a report on Friday. I have to talk about myself.”

  His mother put her arm around Bobby’s shoulders. “I know that seems hard for you, Bobby. But you’re not as shy as you used to be.”

  It was true. He talked to Shawn and Candy. He even talked to some of the kids in his class now. That didn’t mean he could stand up and talk in front of twenty-five students and one teacher, though.

  His dad was wrong. This wasn’t going to be such a great year after all.

  The Dreaded Oral Report

  “Lucy, look over here.” Bobby had his dad’s camera. He was trying to take Lucy’s picture for the contest on Saturday.

  Lucy was curled up on the couch. Mrs. Quinn didn’t like Lucy sitting on it. Bobby knew he should shoo her off, but this was the best chance he’d had for a photo all afternoon. When he saw Lucy sitting still for once, Bobby had run upstairs to get the camera. It was a new one, a Father’s Day gift from Bobby and his mother. Mr. Quinn had shown Bobby how to use it once or twice.

  Lucy tilted her head, watching Bobby. Meanwhile, Bobby fumbled with the camera.

  Lucy looked at Bobby for a few seconds longer. Just as he found the right button to push, Lucy jumped off the couch. Bobby checked the screen. He had taken a picture of the pillow Lucy had been lying against.

  “Oh, Lucy,” Bobby groaned.

  Bobby grabbed his notebook and went out to his patio. Lucy was right behind him. Shawn was coming over. They were going to practice their oral reports. Bobby had just sat down when his mother stuck her head out the door. “Visitors, Bobby,” she said.

  Instead of Shawn and Twitch, out came Candy and Butch.

  “Hey, Bobby,” Candy said. “Butch and I were taking a walk, and we decided to come see you and Lucy.”

  Candy bounced across the patio. Butch walked as he usually did—slowly.

  Candy saw the camera on the patio table. “Are you taking pictures?” she asked.

  “I’m trying to get one of Lucy to bring to the contest on Saturday,” Bobby told her. “She keeps running away, though.”

  “I took a couple of pictures of Butch,” Candy said. “I had a different problem. He was asleep in every one of them.” Candy sighed. “So, are you and Shawn doing something special this afternoon?”

  “We’re going to practice our oral reports,” Bobby mumbled. He didn’t want to talk about it.

  Candy was surprised. “How come? I mean, they’re not even real reports. You just have to say a couple of things about yourself. I probably won’t even have enough time to say all the things I want to say.”

  I bet you won’t, Bobby thought. “Well, uh, Shawn and me, we just don’t like getting up to talk.”

  Candy nodded. “Yeah, my dad had to give a big speech at a company dinner one time. He told me he was scared to death.”

  “I get that,” Bobby replied. If only he had something interesting to say. That might help.

  “Hi, guys.” Shawn came out to the patio. He was carrying Twitch in his cage. “Hey, it’s a regular pet contest out here.”

  “This might be the only contest Lucy goes to,” Bobby said gloomily. “She just won’t sit still for her picture.”

  “And Butch won’t stay awake long enough for me to get a good shot of him,” Candy added.

  Shawn put Twitch down on the patio ledge. He looked at Candy a little nervously. “Are we still going to practice, Bobby?” he asked.

  “I guess so.” Bobby didn’t really want to practice in front of Candy. But if he couldn’t give a simple speech in front of her, how could he get up in front of the class? “You can start,” he t
old Shawn politely.

  “No, that’s all right. You go ahead,” said Shawn.

  Just then, Candy noticed something. “Look. Look at the dogs and Twitch.”

  Shawn and Bobby turned and saw what Candy was seeing. Both Lucy and Butch were staring at Twitch in his cage. They seemed spellbound by the mouse running on his little wheel.

  “I’ve never seen Butch so interested in anything,” Candy said.

  “Lucy hardly ever stays still for so long anymore,” Bobby said.

  “Hey…,” Candy began.

  Bobby picked up on her thought. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “I’ve got the camera right here.”

  “Can I go first?” Candy asked.

  “Yeah. Lucy’s been jumpy lately, I don’t want to scare her away,” Bobby replied.

  “Butch barely moves,” Candy said. “But at least he’s awake now.”

  Butch certainly was awake. He couldn’t keep his eyes off Twitch.

  Candy whispered, “Here, Butch. Look at me.” And he did turn his head long enough for Candy to take his picture. She handed the camera to Bobby. “Your turn.”

  Bobby knew that Lucy would be trickier. She might run away when she saw the camera. Then he had an idea. “Shawn, pick up Twitch’s cage. Slowly,” he said.

  Shawn did what Bobby asked. Lucy got an intense look on her face. It was as if she were saying, Hey, where’s that thing going? Bobby got the picture.

  “Let’s download the pictures on the computer. We can see what they look like,” Candy suggested.

  The kids downloaded the pictures and printed them out. Then it was time for Shawn and Candy to go home.

  “Thanks, Bobby. This is a great picture,” Candy said as she snapped on Butch’s leash.

  It was a nice picture. Butch looked wide-awake. The photo of Lucy was even better. She had a cute, curious expression. It would be a good picture to bring to the contest.

  After Candy left, Shawn said to Bobby, “That was fun. Still, we didn’t get to practice our oral reports.”