by Ilene Cooper
Lucy was interested in that ghost. She tugged Bobby toward it. He didn’t mind. He wanted to see it, too.
When they got closer to the porch, Lucy ran up the stairs. Just then, the ghost let out a loud “Boo!”
Lucy jumped! She ran down the stairs much faster than she had gone up. Now she pulled Bobby away from the brick house, trotting quickly along.
By the time they arrived at the library, she was panting hard.
“I’m going to mail some letters at the post office,” Mr. Quinn said. “Be as quick as you can.”
Bobby nodded. He hurried inside the library and headed to the Children’s Room. He liked it there. A small fireplace ringed by several comfortable chairs made it a good place to read. But he didn’t have time for that tonight.
He knew he should ask the librarian for help finding the book he needed. He couldn’t. He felt too shy.
Maybe the librarian knew how he was feeling. She came over to him and asked, “Are you looking for something special?”
Bobby nodded. “A book on drawing horses,” he said quietly.
The young librarian smiled at him. “I think I know just which book you mean.”
She walked over to the shelves and found the drawing books. She pulled out one called The Art of the Horse. Then she found another, Simple Ways to Draw Animals.
“These might help,” the librarian said.
“Absolutely!” Bobby agreed.
He took his books to the checkout desk. He was so busy looking through the pages he didn’t notice the boy in line in front of him.
Then he saw that the boy had long hair. He was checking out books about Paul Revere.
Bobby caught up to Jack on the way to the door. He tapped him on the shoulder.
Jack looked around. When he saw it was Bobby, he nodded.
Bobby pointed to Jack’s books. “Have you decided what your report will be about?”
Jack said, “I’m going to talk about Paul Revere when he was a silversmith. My mom has a Paul Revere silver cup. I’m going to bring it in.”
“A real one?” Bobby asked, his eyes wide.
Jack shook his head. “She got it at a gift shop in Boston. It’s a copy of a cup he made.”
Bobby nodded. “Sounds good,” he said. He hoped his horse would work out as well.
Mr. Quinn was waiting with Lucy when they got outside. Bobby wasn’t very good at introducing people. He waved goodbye to Jack.
Lucy liked meeting new people. She ran toward Jack and blocked him from leaving.
Jack leaned over and patted Lucy.
“Hello,” Mr. Quinn said. “I’m Bobby’s dad. And this is Lucy.”
“I have a dog, too. His name is Prince.” Jack spotted a red car. “There’s my mom. I gotta go.”
“I didn’t catch that boy’s name,” Mr. Quinn said as they headed for home.
“It’s Jack. He’s new,” Bobby replied.
“Do you like him?” Mr. Quinn asked.
Bobby thought about that question. Jack had seemed a little friendlier tonight. But did Bobby like him?
He wasn’t sure.
“Mom, it’s show-and-tell today,” Bobby said.
He gulped down his milk and shoved a piece of toast in his mouth. There hadn’t been time to walk Lucy. And if he didn’t find something right away to bring to school, he was going to be late.
Mrs. Quinn frowned. “Why did you leave this until the last minute?”
Bobby jumped out of his seat. “Sorry, I forgot.”
“Shawn will be here anytime now,” his mother informed him.
Bobby ran up to his room. He’d find something in there he could use.
Lucy ran right behind him. Usually running went on outside. Running indoors was a treat.
Looking around his room, Bobby tried to figure out what to bring.
His soccer ball? Too big.
His lucky penny? Too small.
The postcard his cousins had sent him from their vacation in California? Too boring.
A photograph on his dresser caught Bobby’s eye. His dad had printed some of the photos he had taken on his phone. One of them was the picture of Lucy in her pirate costume.
The class could have a sneak peek at Lucy in her costume!
Then he had another good idea. A great idea! He could bring Lucy’s costume so everyone could see it close up.
Bobby grabbed the photo and bounded downstairs. Lucy bounded after him.
“Mom,” he said, a little out of breath. “I’ve got this picture of Lucy as a pirate.” He waved it in the air.
“Oh, that will be good,” she said, looking at the clock.
“And I want to take Lucy’s costume to school, too,” Bobby added.
Mrs. Quinn shook her head. “It might get dirty, Bobby.”
“I’ll be really careful,” Bobby pleaded.
“I’m not even sure where it is,” said his mother.
“It’s in the hall closet,” Bobby told her. “I saw it there yesterday.”
The doorbell rang. Mrs. Quinn opened the door.
“Hi, Mrs. Quinn,” Shawn said.
“Bobby is almost ready,” she answered. She looked around to make sure that was true.
Bobby hurried into his jacket and pulled his backpack out of the closet. He also took out Lucy’s costume, still in its Pet-O-Rama bag. “Mom, please? It would be so cool.”
“All right, take it,” Mrs. Quinn said. “But leave the boots. They’d be easy to lose.”
Bobby grabbed the boots out of the bag and handed them to his mother. The T-shirt and the hat were on the little plastic hanger. He could just hold it up during show-and-tell.
“Be careful with it,” his mother reminded him.
“I will!” Bobby yelled as he rushed out the door. “Thanks, Mom.”
The boys had to practically run to beat the school bell. They didn’t have much time to talk.
Bobby held up the bag from Pet-O-Rama. “Show-and-tell,” he gasped as they raced toward school. “Lucy’s pirate costume.”
“Awesome,” Shawn said. “All I came up with was a video game. And it’s not even new.”
Bobby and Shawn got to their room just as the bell was ringing. Bobby put the costume in his cubby with his jacket. Show-and-tell wasn’t until the afternoon.
Bobby figured Mrs. Lee thought the class had most of its brainpower in the morning. That’s when she taught the harder subjects, anyway.
After lunch, Bobby laid out the photograph and the bag with Lucy’s costume on his desk.
Jack was walking by. He stopped to look at the picture.
“That’s your dog, Lucy,” Jack said.
Bobby tried to be friendly. “Yes, she’s going to be a pirate for Halloween.” He took the costume out of the bag. “Here’s her costume.”
Jack picked it up and looked at it. “Nice. Prince is about Lucy’s size. He would look good in a costume like this.”
He put down the pirate outfit. But he took another glance back at it as he walked to his seat.
Bobby was glad Jack liked the costume. Still, he hoped that Jack wasn’t going to buy Prince a pirate costume. He wanted Lucy to be the only dog wearing that costume on Halloween.
Later in the afternoon, Mrs. Lee clapped her hands. “Time for show-and-tell. I know you have interesting things to share.”
Bobby enjoyed show-and-tell. Sometimes kids brought really neat stuff. Last week, Dexter had brought his grandfather’s ball made of gum wrappers. It had taken years to collect the wrappers and weave them together. And it wasn’t the size of a baseball. It was the size of a beach ball.
Today, Marta was first up. She had brought the electric pan her mother used to make tortillas. It was one of the family’s favorite foods. The machine looked a little like a waffle iron. Marta explained how her mother made the tortilla mix and put it in the pan. Then Marta took a tortilla out of a little brown bag and showed it to the class.
“You can wrap it around all kinds of food,” Marta told t
hem.
Bobby wished Marta could have done an eat-and-tell. A tortilla would taste good about now.
Candy was up next. To Bobby’s surprise, for once she didn’t have much to say.
She went to the front of the class and held up a stuffed sock monkey. “My mom said I should bring this,” Candy began. “She said it shows how you can recycle things like old socks. She made this for me when I was little.”
Candy made a face at the monkey. “I never really liked it. It kind of scared me.”
And with that, she sat down.
Mrs. Lee looked around the class. “Bobby, how about you?”
Bobby felt a few butterflies in his stomach. But he was eager to show the class Lucy’s pirate costume.
“I’m going to be a pirate for Halloween and so is my dog, Lucy,” Bobby said in a voice he hoped was loud enough for the class to hear.
Before he could say one more word, a loud ringing broke into the room.
This wasn’t the regular bell. This was the fire-alarm bell. Once before when Bobby had to speak in class, the fire alarm had rung. Then he had been happy. Now he wasn’t. He had wanted to show Room 102 Lucy’s costume.
Mrs. Lee stood up. “Class, this is a fire drill. Move quickly and quietly. Then line up.”
Bobby shoved Lucy’s picture and the costume in the bag. He grabbed his jacket and tossed the bag into his cubby. Mrs. Lee’s class was out the door in no time flat.
He heard the librarian whisper to Mrs. Lee, “It’s such a strange time for a fire drill. We never have one this late in the afternoon.”
That made Bobby wonder. Could this be a real fire? He looked around, but he didn’t see any flames. He sniffed. No smoke. At least none that he could smell.
As soon as he was outside, he did hear something. The wail of the fire engine. Uh-oh!
Room 102 went to their assigned spot outside the school.
“Line up, children,” Mrs. Lee said. “I’m going to do a head count.”
All the heads were watching the fire engine that had just pulled up to the curb. Several firefighters in full gear piled out and rushed into the school.
Candy was right behind Bobby. “This is kind of scary,” she said. “I don’t want to see any flames shooting out the window. I don’t want my stuff to get burned. Even that stupid sock monkey.”
“I still don’t see anything that looks like fire,” Bobby whispered to her.
What he did see was the principal, Ms. Alma V. Ross, standing on the steps of the school. She paced back and forth for a few moments. Then a fireman came out of the building. He talked to Ms. Ross, who nodded.
“Children,” Ms. Ross said in her loudest voice, “this was a false alarm.”
“Oh, good,” Candy said with a sigh.
“The firefighters are double-checking to make sure everything is safe. When they are done, you can return to your classrooms.”
It took a while longer, but finally, a fireman came out and gave everyone the thumbs-up sign.
Ms. Ross said, “Thank you. Students, let’s all give our fire department a round of applause, shall we?”
After the applause, the kids headed back to their rooms. The getting back was not nearly as orderly as the going out had been.
Finally the third-graders were in their seats again.
Mrs. Lee looked at the clock. “Oh dear. The dismissal bell is going to ring soon. Let’s spend the last few minutes clearing our spaces.”
Bobby put his books in his desk. Then he looked around for the bag with Lucy’s costume and his photo.
What had he done with it? He tried to remember.
The bell rang. Bobby made his way to his cubby. He had tossed the bag in there, hadn’t he? But when he looked inside, all he saw were a couple of books, a pair of gym shoes, and an old lunch sack.
Lucy’s costume was gone.
Bobby worried all the way home about telling his mother Lucy’s costume was missing. He thought she would be mad. After all, she hadn’t wanted him to take it in the first place.
But when he told her the story, she put her arm around him. “Let’s get you some milk and cookies,” she said. “It sounds like you had a rough day.”
“I’m pretty sure I put it in my cubby before we left during the fire alarm,” Bobby told her. He took a couple of cookies from the red jar on the kitchen counter.
Mrs. Quinn brought over a glass of milk. “You looked there?”
Bobby nodded. “I told Mrs. Lee. She helped me look around. It wasn’t in the cubby, and it wasn’t on the floor. She said we could look more tomorrow. She’ll ask if anyone saw the bag.”
“Maybe someone saw it and kept it for you on their way out during the alarm,” Mrs. Quinn said. “I’m sure no one took it on purpose.”
Bobby put his head down and ate his cookies. He certainly didn’t want to think that anyone had taken Lucy’s costume on purpose.
On the way home, Bobby had remembered what Jack had said about his own dog looking cute in a pirate costume. That wasn’t proof of anything, of course.
The pencil with the bear-head eraser? Jack certainly could have found it on the floor.
And the fact that Jack wasn’t friendly didn’t mean anything, either. Bobby was sure that plenty of kids had pegged him as unfriendly when he was only shy.
“Bobby,” his mother asked, looking at him carefully, “you don’t think someone took it, do you?”
Bobby shook his head. “Nope.”
That night at dinner, Mr. Quinn had an idea about what to do next.
“Why don’t we let Lucy sniff around the classroom?” he asked. “She loved burying her nose in that costume. And beagles are known for being able to find things.”
Bobby looked back and forth between his dad and his mom. He was pretty sure his mother wouldn’t agree.
To his surprise, however, Mrs. Quinn nodded. “I think that’s a great idea! I’ll call Ms. Ross tomorrow and see if I can bring Lucy to school at lunchtime.”
Lucy heard her name. She padded over from her dog dish, where she was eating her own dinner. She hopped up on the empty fourth chair at the table and wagged her tail. It was almost as if she knew she was going to school. And she liked the idea!
Everyone laughed.
“It’s not just for a visit, though, Lucy,” Bobby said. “I hope you can find your costume.”
The next morning, first thing, Bobby went up to Mrs. Lee, who was writing on the board.
“Mrs. Lee, will you remember to ask the class about Lucy’s pirate costume?” he asked.
Mrs. Lee turned to him. “Yes, of course. Ms. Ross told me we’re going to get a visitor at lunch today if the costume isn’t found by then.”
Bobby nodded.
“Well, maybe we can save your mother and Lucy a trip,” she said.
As soon as the class was in their seats, Mrs. Lee explained about the lost bag.
“Has anyone seen it?” she asked.
No one raised a hand.
Bobby turned to look at Jack. But Jack was not at his desk.
A few moments later, when Mrs. Lee took the roll call, she did not seem surprised Jack was absent. She didn’t even call his name.
Halfway into math class, a folded-up piece of paper landed on Bobby’s desk.
Surprised, he opened it. It was a note from Candy. It said, Shawn told me LUCY is coming to school. True or false? Candy had drawn a little picture of Lucy at the bottom of the page. At least Bobby thought it was supposed to be Lucy.
Bobby nodded nervously at Candy. He didn’t want Mrs. Lee to think he wasn’t paying attention.
It wasn’t until they got to the lunchroom that Bobby explained.
“I don’t think you’ll get to see Lucy,” he said.
“Why not?” Candy asked. “I’ve never seen a dog in school. That would be funny.”
“Lucy’s coming here to work, not to play,” Shawn told her before taking a bite of his sandwich.
Candy circled the straw in her juice. “You
’re lucky. Lucy can work and play. I’d be happy if Butch would just sleep less.”
“Have you decided if you’re going to dress Butch up for Halloween?” Shawn asked.
“I’m not taking him out with us,” said Candy. “My mom’s afraid he’ll get into the treats. Candy gives him gas.” She clapped her hand over her mouth. Then she said, “I didn’t mean me, Candy, gives him gas.…”
Bobby and Shawn were laughing. Bobby managed to say, “We know what you meant.”
Mrs. Lee came up to their table. “Bobby, your mother is here. And Lucy, of course. Let’s see if we can find that costume.”
When he got to Room 102, Bobby had to agree with Candy. It was funny—and fun—to see a dog at school.
Lucy certainly understood she was someplace new. She was standing very straight. She looked around, her head held high.
She didn’t jump on Bobby like she usually did when she saw him. She padded over to him and licked his hand as he leaned down to pet her. Then she started sniffing the carpet. Lucy seemed to know she was there to do a job.
Mrs. Quinn pulled a small black boot from Lucy’s pirate costume out of her coat pocket.
“I thought I would let Lucy smell the boot. I hope she gets the idea to find the costume,” she explained.
Mrs. Lee smiled. “Well, that’s the way it works in movies. Let’s see if it works in Room 102.”
Mrs. Quinn gave the boot to Bobby. “You try,” she said.
Bobby had barely leaned down with the boot in his hand when Lucy began prancing. She inhaled the boot’s smell. She seemed happy to just keep doing that.
Bobby looked at his mother.
“Okay, take the boot away,” she told him.
Bobby shoved the boot into his pocket. Lucy looked around, confused. For a minute, it didn’t seem as if anything else would happen.
But as Mrs. Quinn led Lucy around the room, she seemed to get the idea.
She sniffed at desks. She smelled along the walls.
“Take her over to the cubbies,” Mrs. Lee suggested.
That was a good idea.
Lucy became excited as soon as she got close to the wall with the brightly colored cubbies. She stood up and put her front paws against the lowest cubbies. She gave a little howl.