Marylin heard a peeping noise from the bushes in front of the Fabers’ screened porch. She followed the peeps until she found a nest perched on a tight canopy of branches illuminated by the porch light. In the nest was a tiny gray bird with its mouth opened so wide, Marylin could see all the way down its throat.
“It’s waiting for its mom to come back to feed it,” Kate said, coming up behind Marylin. “It looks really hungry.”
“I don’t think its mom is coming back,” Mrs. Faber said. She patted Kate’s shoulder. “I think the cat got its mom.”
“I guess we’ll have to feed it, then,” Kate said. “We’ll put its nest in a shoe box and keep it inside, where it can be warm at night. We’ll find it some worms.”
“It probably won’t make it, Kate,” Mrs. Faber said. She sounded sad. “I don’t think the little bird will make it without its mom.”
Kate ignored her mother. Turning to Marylin, she said, “Go get Petey. He can help us dig up worms. Tell him to bring a flashlight. And ask your mom if she has an eyedropper. We’ll need an eyedropper.”
Marylin felt like a soldier taking orders from General Patton. “Yes, sir!” she said to Kate, and then she turned and ran through the damp grass toward home, wondering when Kate had suddenly become boss of the world.
The Kind of Friends We Used to Be
Also by Frances O’Roark Dowell
Chicken Boy
Dovey Coe
Falling In
The Secret Language of Girls
Shooting the Moon
Where I’d Like to Be
The Phineas L. MacGuire Books (Illustrated by Preston McDaniels)
Phineas L. MacGuire... Erupts!
Phineas L. MacGuire... Gets Slimed!
Phineas L. MacGuire... Blasts Off!
The Kind of Friends We Used to Be
by Frances O’Roark Dowell
Atheneum Books for Young Readers New York London Toronto Sydney
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
• ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
• An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division • 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020 www.SimonandSchuster.com
• This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
• Copyright © 2009 by Frances O’Roark Dowell
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• First Atheneum Books for Young Readers paperback edition April 2010 -10 987654321-
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Dowell, Frances O’Roark. • The kind of friends we used to be / Frances O’Roark Dowell.—1st ed. • p. cm.
• Summary: Twelve-year-olds Kate and Marylin, friends since preschool, draw further apart as Marylin becomes involved in student government and cheerleading, while Kate wants to play guitar and write songs, and both develop unlikely friendships with other girls and boys.
• ISBN 978-1-4169-5031-8 (hc)
• [1. Best friends—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Middle schools—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction.] 1. Title.
• PZ7.D75455Kin 2009 • [Fic]—dc22 • 2008022245
• ISBN 978-1-4169-9779-5 (pbk)
• ISBN 978-1-4424-0616-2 (eBook)
The Kind of Friends We Used to Be Page 14
