Piles of Pets Page 4

  “Yeah,” said Sonny. “We get to take your old dog to our farm. He’ll be just like my dog. I’ll get to play with him when we go there, and feed him and run him. We might even change his name!”

  Molly wanted to give Sonny a shove. She wanted to tell him to keep his hands off her dog. How could they change his name? Skippy knew his name! He came when he was called. If he got another name now, it would confuse him!

  “I think I’ll call him Sport,” said Sonny, pulling Skippy onto his lap.

  “It will be a nice pet for Sonny,” said Mrs. Stone, patting her son’s head. “Even though we can’t have one at home with the babies.”

  “It’s just what he needs,” agreed Mrs. Peters. “Since he is still a little j-e-a-l-o-u-s,” she spelled.

  How could Mrs. Peters agree to let Sonny take her lovely puppy away? Mrs. Peters was a traitor!

  “I’ll give your mother a call,” said Sonny’s mother, “and we can take him off your hands tonight.” She went to use Mrs. Peters’s phone.

  Sonny began to pull Skippy’s tail.

  Didn’t his mother realize what a brat Sonny could be? She had thought having a brother and sister would help Sonny grow up, but it hadn’t. Sonny was as much of a baby as ever. A mean, nasty baby! Rat’s knees! Why had Molly ever felt sorry for him?

  On the way home with Skippy, Molly thought about hiding her pet. She thought about running away to Africa with him. Tears ran down her face.

  Still, she had known Skippy was temporary. That was the agreement she’d made with her family. She’d find a home for the pets. The whole idea of taking them in was to find new homes for them. And now she had. Every one of the animals was adopted. It was what she’d wanted. The thing she had not counted on was love. Molly had no idea a person could love a little wiggly puppy so much.

  “Aren’t we lucky?” asked her mother that evening. “To find such a good home! A hobby farm! With room to run and play.”

  Molly nodded and tried to keep the tears back. She took Skippy to her room to say good-bye to him.

  Sport! What an awful name for her dog. She hugged him and squeezed him and stroked his golden body. Never again would she ever take in animals. Never again would she let herself love anything this much. This was the hardest badge she’d ever earned. If she had taken a strange dog for one walk as Rachel did, this never would have happened.

  Molly heard the Stones downstairs. She didn’t want to see them. She said good-bye for the last time and put Skippy out in the hall and closed her door tightly.

  She fell onto her bed and cried.

  “She must be asleep,” whispered her mother, looking in.

  But Molly wasn’t sleeping. She was crying into her pillow.

  “Give me my dog!” she heard Sonny shout as they went downstairs.

  The voices got quieter as they left.

  At breakfast Molly could not eat.

  “Mrs. Stone said you could see Skippy whenever you want,” said Mrs. Duff kindly.

  “We could even bring him home for a day now and then,” said her father.

  “I don’t want to see him!” shouted Molly. “I don’t want to see him ever again!” She got up, kicking over her chair, and ran out the door to school.

  “I got Molly’s dog,” sang Sonny on the playground. “Hey, Sport’s out chasing squirrels right now,” he added.

  Skippy would not chase squirrels. He was a good, kind puppy. Or had been until Sonny’s mean uncle got him.

  “You can come and play with my dog,” said Mary Beth, putting her arm around Molly after school. But Molly shook her head. She would try to forget about her pet. She would be glad when they got their badges and moved on to something new besides pets.

  At home that night Molly found Skippy’s ball under her bed. She had forgotten to send it with him. Before bed, she stepped on a piece of Pup Chow. She threw it away. There were things all over that reminded her of Skippy.

  Molly’s mother came in to tuck her into bed.

  “I miss him too,” she said. “He was beginning to feel like part of the family.”

  She turned out Molly’s light.

  Molly tossed and turned and finally fell asleep and dreamed about Skippy. The dream was so real that she actually heard him bark! She woke up and sat up in bed. She still heard the bark! How could it be a dream if she was wide awake?

  “Yip! Yip! Yip!” Molly got up and looked out the window. Then she went downstairs to the back door. Something was scratching the door!

  Molly left the safety chain on and looked out.

  “Mom! Dad! It’s Skippy!” she called. She opened the door and gathered the puppy in her arms. His heart was beating fast.

  “Why, he must have come back home all the way from Sonny’s uncle’s!” said Mr. Duff.

  “That was a long walk!” said Mrs. Duff.

  Molly poured him a saucer of water. He lapped it up quickly. His little tail wagged and wagged and he licked his family.

  “He doesn’t like it out there,” said Molly.

  Mr. Duff looked thoughtful. He looked at Mrs. Duff.

  “I think,” he said, “since Skippy walked all that way home to find us, he must really want to live here. I say we keep him.”

  Molly couldn’t believe her ears! Skippy was hers! Not Sonny’s!

  “I’ll call Rick in the morning and see if it’s okay,” he said.

  Molly crossed all her fingers for luck. She even crossed her legs and arms.

  In the morning her dad called Sonny’s uncle. His uncle said he could get another dog! A bigger one!

  Skippy was really and truly hers! It was like a miracle.

  On Tuesday Mrs. Peters said, “We have all worked very, very hard on our Be Kind to Animals good deed. But I think Molly has worked hardest of all.”

  All of the Pee Wees cheered. And clapped. Even Sonny.

  “We have all helped pets, and we have all learned a lot about animals,” Mrs. Peters went on. “And now I will pass out the badges.”

  The badge was nice. It had a puppy’s and a kitten’s face on it. With two brown ears sticking up, the dog looked just like Skippy!

  “You should get two badges,” said Mary Beth after they had sung their song and said their pledge.

  “I did get two,” said Molly. “I got a badge and I got a pet. A permanent pet all my own.”

  Rat’s knees, she thought. No one could ask for more than that!

  Be a Pee Wee Scout!

  In Piles of Pets, the Pee Wee Scouts hope to adopt some rare and unusual pets.

  The rarest animals of all are called endangered species. These animals are in danger of becoming extinct. The dodo bird is just one example of an animal that has been lost to us forever. But not every endangered species goes extinct. Sometimes people can work together to save an endangered species!

  The California condor is one scary bird. A big black vulture that eats dead animals, it has the largest wingspan of any bird in North America (about nine feet!).

  They might look tough, but these birds came very close to extinction. In 1987, there were only twenty-two California condors in the entire world! Scientists captured all of them. They hoped that they could keep the birds safe. They also hoped that the birds would lay more eggs in a zoo than they would in the wild. And the zoo could protect those eggs from other animals.

  The scientists were successful, though they had to get creative. At times, they had to raise a baby condor away from its parents, using condor puppets to feed the young bird! They also taught the condors to stay away from power lines, so that the birds would be safer when they left the zoo.

  Today there are over 300 California condors. About half of them live in the wild. They’re still endangered, but they’ve made an impressive recovery. And luckily, they’re not as scary as they look.

  The koala looks like a living, breathing teddy bear. Just over a century ago, millions of the furry animals lived in Australia. Then, in the early twentieth century, people hunted them for their fur unti
l they were nearly extinct.

  The Australian government came to the koala’s rescue with strict laws to protect it from hunters. Those laws are still in place today. It’s also illegal to keep a koala as a pet.

  No one knows for sure how many koalas live in the wild now. But the koala is definitely not in as much danger as it was 100 years ago. In fact, so many koalas live on Australia’s Kangaroo Island that they are considered pests!

  * * *

  The sea otter is another animal that was hunted for its fur. In fact, otter fur was once so valuable that otters’ pelts were nicknamed “soft gold.” Hunters wanted more and more pelts, and the animals became rarer and rarer.

  Finally, in 1911, people realized that otter hunting was a major problem for the whole world. The United States and several other countries signed the Treaty for the Preservation and Protection of Fur Seals. The treaty made it illegal to hunt sea otters. As a result, there are many more otters living in the wild today than there were 100 years ago.

  However, the sea otter is still endangered. Some people hunt the otters even though it’s illegal. Illegal hunting is called poaching.

  Fishing nets also mean trouble for sea otters. Since otters are mammals, they must breathe air. If they get stuck in an underwater net, they can drown.

  But oil spills are by far the greatest danger to sea otters. When its fur is coated with oil, an otter is no longer protected from the cold. And breathing oil fumes is very bad for an otter’s health.

  The good news is that many people work to protect these animals. Some create safer fishing equipment. Others arrest poachers or refuse to buy anything a poacher sells. And many people work to prevent oil spills. But just in case there is a spill in the future, teams of scientists are trained and ready to come to the sea otter’s rescue!

  The American alligator is a survivor. Even when the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, this species lived on. But in the twentieth century, the alligator faced a threat the dinosaurs never did: human beings.

  Alligators used to thrive in the huge Florida swamps called the Everglades. Then, in the 1940s and 1950s, new technology made it possible to change some of the swamps into farmland. Humans moved in and built towns, and the alligators lost much of their habitat. At the same time, people hunted alligators for their skins.

  Fortunately, people realized what they were doing before it was too late. The alligator was named an endangered species. It became illegal to hunt them. Alligator farms were created to protect the animals and their eggs, and to educate the public.

  By 1987, the alligator was no longer listed as an endangered species. Thanks to human teamwork, it looks like the American alligator might just be around for the next 65 million years.

  The Palos Verdes blue is probably the rarest butterfly in the world. It lives only on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, outside Los Angeles, California.

  In fact, this insect is so rare that it was once believed to be extinct! In 1983, construction on the peninsula caused many of the butterflies to die. Scientists feared that none were left.

  But they were in for a surprise. In 1994, a group of Palos Verdes blue butterflies was found—on the other side of the peninsula!

  Scientists took the butterfly off the list of extinct animals—but they put it on the list of endangered species right away. That’s because the problems the butterflies faced back in 1983 are still problems today. The butterfly can only lay its eggs on a plant called common deerweed. And as people in California build more homes, common deerweed is becoming uncommon. That means fewer butterfly eggs.

  Scientists have set up tents where they can grow deerweed and protect caterpillars until they become butterflies. It’s a lot of work, but everyone’s happy that the Palos Verdes blue has a second chance.

  What can YOU do?

  The best thing anyone can do for an endangered species is to cut down on pollution. Changes in the environment threaten every animal, from the pets in our backyards to the creatures of the rain forests and polar ice caps. Take as many steps as you can to reduce, reuse, and recycle … and you’ll be a true friend to animals far and wide.

  About the Author

  Judy Delton was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. She was the author of more than 200 books for children. She was also successful as a teacher, a speaker, and a class clown. Raising a family of four children, she used the same mix of humor and seriousness that she considered important parts of any good story. She died in St. Paul in 2001.

  About the Illustrator

  Alan Tiegreen has illustrated many books for children, including all the Pee Wee Scouts books. He and his wife currently live in Atlanta, Georgia.