Lucy on the Ball

by Ilene Cooper

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2011 by Ilene Cooper

  Interior illustrations copyright © 2011 by David Merrell

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  SteppingStonesBooks.com

  www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cooper, Ilene.

  Lucy on the ball / by Ilene Cooper; illustrated by David Merrrell. — 1st ed.

  p. cm. — (Absolutely Lucy ; #4)

  “A Stepping Stone book.”

  Summary: Lucy, the beagle, does not mind her humans very well until third-grader Bobby joins a soccer team, Lucy becomes the mascot, and the coach gives Lucy obedience training.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89820-4

  [1. Dogs—Training—Fiction. 2. Beagle (Dog breed)—Fiction. 3. Soccer—Fiction.] I. Merrell, David Webber, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.C7856Lor 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010005183

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For Mary Frances Wilkens:

  friend, colleague, and soccer mom extraordinaire.

  And thanks to Keir Graff for his soccer expertise.

  —I.C.

  For my wonderful wife and our children

  —D.M.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. Soccer? Soccer!

  2. Big News

  3. Kick It!

  4. The Baby Lady

  5. Practice

  6. First Game

  7. Second Game

  8. Three Beagles

  Other Books in This Series

  Soccer? Soccer!

  Bobby Quinn put a few finishing touches on his drawing of his superhero. “Looks great, huh, Lucy?”

  He didn’t really expect an answer from Lucy, his pet beagle. She might be the smartest, cutest dog ever, but she couldn’t talk. At least not yet.

  Bobby was sprawled on the floor of his bedroom. Lucy was sprawled next to him. Lucy was brown and white with a few black spots. Her brown eyes reminded Bobby of chocolate candy.

  “This is Planet Man,” Bobby informed Lucy. “He’s absolutely the best superhero ever.” “Absolutely” was one of Bobby’s favorite words.

  Planet Man had big muscles, feet like flippers, and hands like claws. He wore a bright yellow suit with PM on the front. Bobby was drawing Planet Man for art class. The assignment was to draw something about the environment. “Planet Man’s job is to save the Earth,” Bobby added.

  Maybe Lucy couldn’t speak, but she could bark. She barked a lot. She also liked to howl. She raised her head and glanced at Planet Man. “Ho-o-wl.” Then she gave Bobby’s arm a sloppy lick.

  Bobby sat up and stretched. “Yep. You like Planet Man, too.”

  Bobby had been on a roll lately. Things were absolutely going his way.

  He used to be so shy he would barely look at people when he spoke to them. Thanks to Lucy, he had made new friends, some young, some old. He was having lots of fun now. The more fun he had, the less shy he was. He hadn’t even minded—too much—giving a report in front of his class.

  “You’re sure a good girl,” Bobby said. He patted Lucy on the head.

  “I wish that was always true.” Mrs. Quinn, Bobby’s mother, walked into his bedroom. She held a chewed-up slipper in her hand.

  Bobby knew who was responsible. “Lucy!”

  “I’m afraid she’s up to her old tricks,” Mrs. Quinn said with a sigh.

  Lucy liked to chew things. She had gotten better for a while. But lately she seemed to remember how much she enjoyed tearing up shoes and socks—and slippers.

  “We’re going to have to do something about Lucy’s chewing,” Mrs. Quinn said.

  Lucy gave another little howl. Then she got up and walked away. Both Bobby and his mother laughed.

  “Well, I guess Lucy didn’t think much of that idea,” Mrs. Quinn said.

  “Can I go over to Shawn’s house?” Bobby asked. Shawn was one of Bobby’s new friends. “I want to show him my drawing of Planet Man.”

  Mrs. Quinn nodded. She walked Bobby to the front door. “Don’t be too long. It’s almost time for lunch.”

  “Okay,” Bobby said. He opened the door. To his surprise, there stood Shawn. He was about to ring Bobby’s doorbell.

  “Hey, I was just coming to see you,” Bobby told Shawn. He held up the picture of Planet Man.

  Shawn didn’t seem to notice it. Instead, he said, “We’ve got to get over to the park.”

  “Why?” Bobby asked.

  “They’re having sign-ups for the soccer league,” Shawn explained. “It only goes until two o’clock, so we have to hurry.”

  “Soccer?” Bobby asked. He had never played soccer. He had never played any sport except T-ball.

  Bobby liked to watch sports on television with his dad. He especially liked rooting for his favorite team, the Chicago Cubs. He wasn’t very interested in playing sports, though. He didn’t think he’d be very good.

  “I played soccer before we moved here,” Shawn told him happily. “My mom just found out that the park district has a soccer league. Let’s go sign up.”

  Bobby glanced at his mother. His look said “Help!”

  “Do you want to play soccer?” Mrs. Quinn asked him.

  “I never thought about it,” Bobby said.

  “It’s great!” Shawn told him. “Running up and down the field. Kicking the ball. Making goals.”

  Bobby wasn’t sure he could see himself doing any of those things. Especially making goals.

  “I don’t know …” Bobby’s voice trailed off.

  Shawn looked disappointed. “C’mon, Bobby. I don’t want to join a team by myself.”

  Like Bobby, Shawn was shy. And like Bobby, he was getting less shy. Still, joining a team was a big deal. Bobby knew it was important to have a friend along for something like that.

  Bobby’s mother patted his shoulder. “It’s good to try new things, Bobby.”

  “I guess so,” he said uncertainly.

  “Why don’t I call your mother, Shawn, and find out more about the soccer league?” Mrs. Quinn asked. “That is, if you’re sure about joining, Bobby.”

  He wasn’t sure at all, but being on a soccer team with Shawn might be fun.

  Shawn was waiting for an answer. So was his mother.

  “All right,” Bobby said slowly. “I’ll try it.” He put his drawing of Planet Man on the table in the hall. He would show it to Shawn later.

  The rest of the afternoon passed by in a blur. First the boys went over to the big park in the middle of town. It was the park where Lucy had taken her obedience classes along with Butch, the laziest dog in the world. Butch’s owner was also a new friend, a girl named Candy.

  The park was full of noisy kids. Some of them stood in front of a few long tables. Several women from the park district were giving out permission forms. A lady with a name tag that said DEE handed one to Bobby. Dee told him his mother or father would have to sign it so he could play.

  “Now I’ll assign you to a team,” Dee said.

  A t
eam already? Bobby thought nervously.

  “Do you two want to play together?” Dee asked, looking at Bobby and Shawn over the tops of her glasses.

  “Yes,” they both answered.

  “Okay, then, you’ll be on the brown team. Mr. Morris is the coach.” Dee pointed him out. “He’s over there. You can say hello to him when we’re done.”

  Mr. Morris was a big man. Tall and wide. His gray hair was short, in a crew cut. He was not smiling.

  Bobby looked at Shawn. Shawn looked at Bobby. Maybe they would wait to meet Coach Morris.

  “Here’s a list of things you will need for soccer.” Dee handed them each another sheet of paper. “You should have them all for the first practice. The date of the first practice is right there on the bottom of the page.”

  Bobby and Shawn thanked Dee. Then Bobby felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Candy. Candy liked to talk a lot, especially when she was excited. She was excited now.

  “Hey, I didn’t know you guys were trying out for soccer. Maybe we’re on the same team. I’m on the brown team. My dad said boys and girls usually have their own teams. But I guess our town’s too small for that. I hope my team has a lot of girls. Not that there’s anything wrong with boys. I like you two and you’re boys.”

  Bobby and Shawn laughed. “Yes, we know we’re boys,” Bobby said.

  “And we’re on the brown team, too,” Shawn added.

  “Great!” Candy said. “I can’t wait to start kicking the ball around.”

  Candy pretended to be kicking an imaginary ball. Bobby noticed she could kick pretty high.

  Shawn was smiling. He pretended to kick the ball right back at her.

  It’s good to try new things, Bobby reminded himself. That was what his mother had said.

  He hoped she was right.

  Big News

  “Kick it to me, Bobby!” Shawn danced around his backyard.

  Bobby and Shawn had been trying out Shawn’s new soccer ball for the last half hour. And for the last half hour, Bobby had been trying to kick the ball to Shawn. Sometimes it went too far. Sometimes it didn’t go far enough.

  Bobby was surprised that something that should be so simple was turning out to be so hard.

  “Why don’t we rest for a while?” Bobby suggested.

  “Rest? I’m just getting started,” Shawn answered with a grin.

  Bobby knew why Shawn was smiling. He was good at kicking the ball.

  “Boys,” Shawn’s mother called from the back door. “Come in and have some lemonade. It’s hot out there.”

  “I’m pretty thirsty,” Bobby said.

  Shawn looked as if he wanted to keep playing. Then he said, “Okay, let’s get something to drink.”

  Mrs. Taylor poured Shawn and Bobby tall glasses of lemonade. The calendar said September, but it still felt like August outside.

  Ben, Shawn’s younger brother, came into the kitchen. “I’m bored.” He looked at Shawn and Bobby hopefully.

  Bobby knew what that meant. Ben wanted to hang out with them.

  Shawn shook his head. “We’re busy, Ben.”

  Mrs. Taylor said, “I’m going to the garage to pack some summer things away. It’s supposed to get colder this week. I don’t want Ben underfoot, so please watch him.”

  “Mom! Bobby and I are practicing,” said Shawn.

  “Well, Ben can practice with you,” his mother answered.

  Shawn looked at her with horror. “No, he can’t. He’s too little.”

  “I think you were about Ben’s age when you started kicking a soccer ball,” Mrs. Taylor reminded Shawn.

  Bobby was surprised. That meant Shawn had been playing around with soccer for a couple of years.

  “Where’s Sara?” Shawn asked. Sara was Shawn’s older sister.

  “She’s babysitting,” his mother told him.

  “She should be babysitting for Ben,” Shawn muttered.

  “I won’t be long,” Mrs. Taylor said. “Just play upstairs for a while.”

  Bobby followed Shawn up to his room. Ben tagged along. The first thing Bobby saw in Shawn’s room was his soccer gear laid out on his bed. A brown T-shirt. Black soccer shorts. White shoes with spikes. Shin guards.

  Bobby had all the same equipment, but it was at the bottom of his closet. He hadn’t even taken it out of the bag.

  “How come your stuff is on your bed?” Bobby asked.

  Shawn shrugged.

  “Oh, he likes to look at it. He likes to try on his uniform,” Ben said. He stuck his arms up in the air and shouted, “Goal! G-O-A-L.”

  Ben loved to spell.

  Shawn glared at Ben. Bobby walked over to a wire cage on Shawn’s desk. Inside the cage, running on a wheel, was Twitch, Shawn’s white mouse.

  Twitch jumped off the wheel. He came over to Bobby and sniffed at his finger. Then he scampered away.

  Bobby noticed a picture on Shawn’s desk. “Hey, you’ve been working on the Worm,” he said. The Worm was Planet Man’s archenemy. Bobby had told Shawn about his art project. Now he and Shawn were planning a comic book about the adventures of Planet Man and the Worm.

  Shawn nodded. “I’m not done.”

  Bobby could see that. Right now, the Worm just looked like, well, a worm. He had a long, squiggly body and two bulging eyes. He didn’t look like a villain who could destroy the world.

  “Worm. W-O-R-M,” Ben said proudly.

  “Ben. Stop with the spelling, already,” Shawn said.

  The phone rang. Ben ran into his parents’ bedroom to get it. “H-E-L-L-O,” the boys heard him say. Shawn sighed.

  Ben came back, holding the phone. “Bobby, it’s your mom.”

  Bobby’s mother wanted him at home. “I’ve gotta go,” he told Shawn.

  “Too bad,” Shawn said. “I wanted to practice some more.”

  Bobby didn’t say anything to that.

  When Bobby got home, his parents were waiting for him. They were sitting on the living room couch. Bobby frowned. The Quinn family hardly ever used the living room except when company came.

  “Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

  “No,” his mother replied. “Of course not. We just have something we want to talk to you about.”

  His parents looked so serious. “Is Lucy okay?” Bobby asked anxiously.

  Right then, Lucy bounded into the living room. She looked fine.

  “Come sit down, Bobby,” his mother said. “We have some big news.”

  Bobby sat down in the large red chair next to the couch. He liked the red chair. It had plenty of room for Lucy to sit next to him.

  He patted the cushion of the chair. That was all the invitation Lucy needed. She jumped up and snuggled next to Bobby. For once, Lucy was quiet. She wanted to hear the big news, too.

  Mr. Quinn cleared his throat. “Bobby, I think you know that your mother and I have wanted to give you a brother or a sister for a while now.”

  Bobby did know that. His parents talked about how nice it would be to have a baby in the house. Bobby always felt a little funny when they mentioned a new baby. It had been just the three of them for a long time. For his whole life! Now, of course, Lucy made four.

  “We thought we would have a baby the way most people do,” his mother went on. “But that hasn’t happened.”

  “So we have decided to adopt a baby,” his father told him. “You know what adoption means, don’t you, Bobby?”

  “Sure,” Bobby said.

  There was a girl in his class who was adopted. Her name was Jade. Her parents had gone all the way to China to adopt her. Jade had told the class about it in show-and-tell.

  “Are you going to China to get a baby? Like Jade?” Bobby asked.

  “No,” Mrs. Quinn said. “People can go to other countries to adopt babies. But we’re going to get ours here.”

  “Mothers can’t always take care of their babies,” Mr. Quinn explained to Bobby. “Then they give the baby to an adoption agency, and the agency finds it a good home. We hope the
adoption agency will find a baby for us.”

  Bobby didn’t know what to say. This was big news.

  “When will we get the baby?” he asked.

  “We’re not sure,” his mother answered. “Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes babies come right away.”

  “We’ve already filled out lots of papers,” his father said. “Next, a person from the adoption agency will come to our house. They’ll make sure we will be a good family for a baby.”

  Bobby frowned. “We’re a good family. Absolutely. We’re a great family.”

  Lucy gave a short bark. Of course we’re a great family, she seemed to say.

  Mr. and Mrs. Quinn smiled. “I’m glad you and Lucy agree on that,” his mother added.

  “Will the baby be a boy or a girl?” Bobby asked.

  “We don’t get to pick,” Mrs. Quinn told him. “But we don’t care if it’s a boy or girl. We just want another child to love.”

  “You’re such a great kid,” his father said with a smile. “We know you’ll be a wonderful big brother.”

  “Do you have any more questions?” Mrs. Quinn asked.

  Bobby felt as if he had lots more questions. He just wasn’t sure what they were yet. He shook his head.

  “Well, if you do, ask them. We’re all in this together,” his father told him.

  His mother held her arms out to Bobby. “Come over here and give me a hug.”

  Bobby gave her a big hug.

  “You’re a good boy, Bobby,” his mother whispered in his ear.

  Bobby started to walk to his room. He wanted to think about all this news. Then he did have a question. “Do I have to share my bedroom with the baby?” he asked.

  “Oh, no,” Mrs. Quinn answered. “Your dad is going to give up his office for the baby’s bedroom.”

  Mr. Quinn frowned. “Well, it might be your sewing room, Jane. We haven’t decided yet.”

  Uh-oh, Bobby thought. He hoped this wasn’t going to turn into a fight.

  Instead, his parents started laughing. “We’ll flip a coin,” Mrs. Quinn said. “But don’t worry, Bobby. Your room is safe.”

  When Bobby got upstairs, he flopped on his bed. He stared at the ceiling.

  Lucy didn’t jump up next to him. She sat on the floor and looked puzzled. Usually Bobby was doing something—drawing, reading, working on the computer, or playing with her. She wasn’t used to seeing him doing nothing.