Liz and the Nosy Neighbor

by Callie Barkley

  “I couldn’t come up with anything,” Liz explained. “When you asked me, I made it sound like I knew. But I didn’t.”

  Ellie gave her a playful nudge. “It’s no big deal,” she said. “So octopus, huh? How are you going to make it?”

  Liz was quiet a moment. She was thinking about the sparkly sand at the pet store.

  “I think I have an idea,” Liz said.

  Chapter 7

  Backyard Spy!

  Liz sat down at a free computer. It was Tuesday—computer lab day. Amy took the computer to Liz’s left. Dylan sat down to her right.

  “Hi,” he said to Liz.

  It was the first time he’d said it first.

  “Hi!” Liz replied.

  Now that she’d picked an animal, Liz felt a lot better. She’d told Mrs. Sienna her choice. She was excited to do octopus research. And she didn’t feel as weird around Dylan.

  They were neighbors. Shouldn’t they be friends?

  “Library voices in here,” Mrs. Sienna reminded the class.

  The room quieted down. But the sound of fingers on keyboards tapped on.

  Liz typed in the address of an animal website Mrs. Sienna had given them to do research.

  As the page loaded, she sat back in her chair. She noticed Dylan talking to Joey on his other side. Dylan was whispering and pointing to something on Joey’s computer. Joey nodded and whispered back.

  Liz leaned over toward Dylan. “Hey. What animal did you decide on?” she whispered.

  Dylan didn’t answer. He didn’t even turn to look at her.

  “Dylan?” she tried again.

  But he just kept on talking to Joey.

  O-kay, thought Liz. Busy, I guess?

  But then at dismissal, it happened again.

  Liz had ridden her bike to school. Across the schoolyard, Liz saw Dylan at the bike rack, unlocking his own bike. Cool! They were headed to the same place.

  Liz stepped up her pace. “Hi, Dylan!” she called out to him. “I’ll ride with you.”

  Dylan didn’t look up. He tucked his bike lock into his backpack. He clicked his helmet strap. Then he hopped on his bike and rode away.

  “Hey!” Liz yelled as she reached the rack.

  He had totally ignored her. Again!

  Liz slowly pedaled home. Maybe Dylan didn’t want to be friends.

  Liz cheered herself up by starting on her diorama.

  She found an old shoebox in her closet. It seemed like a good size for a diorama. Liz picked two shades of blue paint from her art case. She grabbed a paintbrush.

  In the kitchen, she found a bag of sparkly fish tank sand next to her mom’s purse. “Thanks for getting the sand, Mom!” Liz called out. It was part of Liz’s plan.

  “You’re welcome!” Mrs. Jenkins called from upstairs.

  Liz carried everything out onto their back porch. She sat down on the porch steps. She opened the paints and dipped in her brush. Liz coated the inside of the box with a thick layer of blue paint.

  Then Liz opened the bag of sand. She dropped handfuls of sand into one corner of the box. That was going to be her ocean floor. The wet paint would act like glue. Later, she could shake out the extra sand.

  But for now, Liz set it down to dry.

  Just then, she heard a noise.

  Rattle. Rattle-rattle. Liz stared at the backyard fence—the part that divided her backyard and Dylan’s.

  Rattle-rattle. The fence gate was rattling. Like someone was shaking it from the other side.

  Liz couldn’t see over the top. The fence was too high. So she put down the shoebox and paintbrush. Then she got up and walked over to the gate.

  Through the gap at the gate latch, Liz could see part of a face. There was an eye. There was a nose. Someone was peeking through the fence!

  Liz reached for the latch. She flung the gate open.

  Dylan fell through, into the Jenkins’ backyard.

  “What are you doing?” Liz cried.

  Chapter 8

  Not So Loud and Clear

  Flat on his stomach, Dylan looked up at Liz. She loomed over him, hands on her hips.

  Liz could not figure this kid out.

  Ignoring her twice in one day? And just now, had he been spying on her? Or what? Liz didn’t get it.

  “Sorry,” Dylan said sheepishly. “I was looking for my pet. Somehow she got out and I can’t find her. I just thought maybe she got into your yard. I was trying to see.”

  A missing pet?

  “What kind of pet?” Liz asked.

  “A chinchilla,” Dylan replied. “Her name is Nugget.”

  Aw, Liz thought. “That’s a type of rodent, right?” she asked.

  Dylan nodded. “She looks like a big mouse with extra-big ears,” he said. “She’s pretty adorable.”

  Liz didn’t think she’d ever seen a chinchilla in real life.

  “I’ll help you look for her!” Liz offered.

  “Really?” Dylan said. “That would be great.”

  They went back into Dylan’s backyard and started there. They searched under shrubs. They poked around in the flower garden. They looked along the fence for signs that Nugget had tunneled out.

  Dylan frowned. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “Chinchillas are really good climbers.” He looked up and around. “We have a bunch of tall trees back here. Nugget could be . . . anywhere.”

  Now he sounded really worried.

  “And it rained last night,” Dylan continued. “Her fur isn’t supposed to get wet.” He looked nervously up at the sky. “Are those more rain clouds?”

  Liz tried to calm him down. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I really think we’ll be able to find her.” Liz thought for a moment, then said, “Especially if we get more help!”

  Liz explained her idea to Dylan. Then she ran home. She called Ellie, Amy, and Marion and asked if they could come help. Then she headed back to Dylan’s yard to keep looking.

  Within a half hour, Liz heard the doorbell—ding dong—through Dylan’s back screen door.

  “That must be them!” Liz said to Dylan.

  Dylan looked at her, confused. “What?” he said.

  “Your doorbell,” Liz said. “I think the girls are here.”

  “Oh! The doorbell rang?” Dylan replied. “I’ll go let them in!” He headed for the house. “I guess I didn’t hear it. I can’t hear much in my right ear,” he added.

  Liz stood frozen to her spot, thinking about what Dylan had just said.

  Chapter 9

  Find That Critter!

  While Dylan went to let the girls in, Liz’s mind was racing. Suddenly, things seemed to make so much sense!

  The times she thought Dylan had ignored her? He probably just hadn’t heard her, since he was turned away from her!

  Liz’s conversation with Mrs. Sienna? Dylan probably didn’t hear it, after all. So he wasn’t teasing her at the grocery store.

  Liz thought back to Friday. The girls brought over cookies and rang the doorbell so many times. I guess my son didn’t hear the bell, Mrs. Knight had said.

  It all made sense. Liz felt a little bad. She had jumped to conclusions about Dylan.

  But now she knew better.

  Dylan came out of the house, followed by Ellie, Amy, and Marion.

  “Okay!” Ellie exclaimed. “Let’s find this Nugget!”

  Amy had brought binoculars. She aimed them up into the trees, looking for signs of the chinchilla.

  Ellie searched in muddy areas for chinchilla tracks.

  Marion had her clipboard. She wrote down all the chinchilla information Dylan could think of.

  “There is also that gap in the fence by the gate,” Liz said. “She could have squeezed through there.”

  So they started searching Liz’s backyard too.

  “If they hate to be wet,” Liz said, “then how do you give Nugget a bath?”

  “I don’t,” Dylan said. “Nugget gives herself a bath in dust. Or sand.”

  Sand, thought Liz. Th
at big bag of sand was still sitting on her back porch.

  Liz hurried over, just to check it out.

  The bag was just as she had left it—next to the paint and the shoebox. Liz didn’t see any sign of Nugget.

  Then, out of the corner of her eye, Liz saw the shoebox move.

  She did a double-take. What was that?

  Liz stared at the box.

  It shook again! And now a small cloud of sand dust was rising out of the box.

  “Guys!” Liz shouted to her friends. “My project! My project is alive!”

  Dylan and the girls came running. Liz pointed at the box. They saw it too! The shaking! The dust cloud! They craned their necks to peer inside the box.

  Suddenly, a tiny face with oversize ears popped up.

  “Nugget!” Dylan cried out joyfully.

  The chinchilla’s whiskers twitched. She clawed her way out of the box. Dylan scooped her up.

  “She must have gotten a little muddy,” he said. “Then she found a nice place to take a sand bath!”

  Liz checked the damage in her diorama. “Oh boy. I might have to start over!” she said with a laugh.

  The girls gathered around Dylan and Nugget. They took turns petting her gently. “Her fur is so soft!” Amy said.

  Dylan looked so happy and relieved to have her back, safe and sound.

  “So, Dylan,” Liz said, a little unsure of how to phrase what she wanted to ask. “You can’t really hear out of your right ear?”

  Dylan smiled. “Well, usually I can. When I have my hearing aid in that ear. But the battery died the day we moved, and I’m waiting for my new doctor to get the prescription.”

  Liz nodded, understanding. “Well, if you need any help until you get your prescription, we’re all here for you!” she told him.

  “Thanks, you guys,” Dylan said. He looked around at each of them. “We barely know each other. But you’ve already really helped me out. Nugget, too.”

  Liz smiled. It was true—they barely knew Dylan. But she had a feeling they were going to get to know him!

  Chapter 10

  Diorama Day

  On Friday, Mrs. Sienna’s class handed in their dioramas. She asked each student to stand and show their work to the class.

  “How did you choose your animal?” Mrs. Sienna asked them.

  Amy said that she’d read about arctic wolves in her wildlife magazine. Drifts of cotton balls made her diorama look cold and snowy. “Arctic wolves have two layers of fur to keep them warm,” Amy said.

  Ellie’s toucan diorama was alive with color. “Toucans are tropical birds like my Nana’s parrot, Lenny,” she said. “But guess what? They are not very good at flying. They mostly hop from branch to branch.”

  Marion held up her zebra diorama. “I chose zebras because they are related to horses,” she said. “Did you know that zebra stripes are like human fingerprints? No two patterns are exactly alike.”

  Soon it was Dylan’s turn. He explained that he had moved to Santa Vista from Colorado.

  “That’s why I chose the bighorn sheep,” he said. “Where I used to live, we would see them along the road all the time.”

  Liz stood up to show her diorama.

  She had made a new one, thanks to Nugget. But she was glad. This time, she had used darker blue paint to make deeper-looking water. She had glued on clear glass beads to look like bubbles.

  And for the octopus, Liz had wrapped a ball in metallic fabric. She had attached eight wide ribbons for the tentacles. Thin strips of bubble wrap on each tentacle looked like rows of suckers.

  “Some octopuses have two hundred and forty suckers on each tentacle! They are really strong. Large suckers can hold up to thirty-five pounds!” Liz told the class. “One time, at the beach, I took care of a baby octopus that washed ashore. That’s how I got the idea to choose the octopus. They are so amazing!”

  Mrs. Sienna winked at Liz. “Sometimes the best ideas take time to figure out,” she said. “Right, Liz?”

  “Yep,” Liz said with a smile. “And sometimes they’re right under your nose!”

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Callie Barkley loves animals. As a young girl, she dreamed of getting a cat or dog of her own until she discovered she was allergic to most of them. It was around this time that she realized the world was full of all kinds of critters that could use some love. She now lives with her husband and two kids in Connecticut. They share their home with exactly ten fish and a very active ant farm.

  Tracy Bishop has loved drawing since she was a little girl in Japan. She spends her time illustrating books, reading, and collecting pens. She lives with her husband, son, and hairy dog, named Harry, in San Jose, California.

  Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids

  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Callie-Barkley

  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Tracy-Bishop

  Little Simon

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  CritterClubBooks.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  LITTLE SIMON

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division · 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020 · www.SimonandSchuster.com · First Little Simon hardcover edition September 2018 · Copyright © 2018 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. LITTLE SIMON is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and associated colophon is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com. The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. Designed by Laura Roode.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data for this title is available from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-5344-2969-7 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-5344-2968-0 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-5344-2970-3 (eBook)