Max冬冬

小男孩Lee有一只宠物猫Flora，他很喜欢自己的小猫。每晚睡觉的时候小猫都陪着他。可是，一天晚上，小猫却不见了……

Flora is Lee’s cat. She is as soft as silk.
Flora sleeps on Lee’s bed. Lee likes it that way.
When Lee moves his feet under the quilt, Flora jumps on them. Thump!
When Lee wiggles his fingers under the sheet, Flora tries to catch them. Swish!
When Lee pets her, Flora purrs. Purrrrrrrr…
When Lee sleeps, Flora sleeps, too.
One night, Lee had a bad dream.
He wanted Flora. She wasn’t on his quilt.
He moved his feet, but Flora didn’t jump on them.
He wiggled his fingers, but Flora didn’t try to catch them.
He wanted to hear her purr, but Flora was not there.
The next day, Flora was not in Lee’s room.
She was not on Lee’s bed.
Lee didn’t know where Flora was.
“You should try to look for her,” said Mama.
“We’ll help you,” Papa said.
“She’ll come home when she needs to eat,” said Grandma.
Lee looked for Flora in the house.
Mama looked all around the garden.
Papa looked in the trash bins.
Grandma looked up in the peach trees.
Flora didn’t come home. Lee was very sad.
His eyes were full of tears.
If only Flora would come back!
“Please come home,” Lee cried.
“We could put an ad in the newspaper,” Papa said. “What should we write?”
“Write this,” said Lee. “‘We lost our cat, Flora. If you find her, please call.’ Then give our number.”
Lee didn’t hear anything about Flora.
No one found Flora, and she didn’t come home.
Days and weeks went by.
Then one night, Lee felt something on his bed.
He moved his feet under the quilt.
Thump! Thump, thump, thump, thump!
He wiggled his fingers under the sheet.
Swish! Swish, swish, swish, swish!
Lee sat up and turned on his lamp.
“Flora is home!” Lee yelled. “And that’s not all!”
Mama, Papa, and Grandma all ran to see.
There was Flora – with four kittens!
Now Lee has a bed full of cats, and he likes it that way.
Those cats are as soft as silk.
They are also fun.
Thump, thump. Swish, swish. Purrrrr!

Chapter 4 What a Mess!

The next time we had art class, the news-paper ball that Ms. Hannah had been making was huge! It was about as high as a desk. Everybody wanted to touch it. Everyone except for me, that is. I remembered that somewhere inside that ball was my booger.
The art room was filled with all kinds of junk kids brought in from home. There were old musical instruments, broken toys, soda cans, plastic wrap, and all kinds of garbage. You should have seen it! Some kid brought in a tennis racquet with no strings.
“What a mess!” Emily said.
“If my bedroom looked like this, my mom would go crazy,” Michael said. “You should throw half this stuff in the garbage, Ms. Hannah.”
“Oh dear, no,” she said. “I don’t like to throw things away. In fact, at home the garbagemen bring me garbage so I can use it in my art. When I have a day off, I go to junkyards looking for treasures.”
Ms. Hannah is bananas!
She had some sticky glue that sticks to everything. She told us to make a sculpture out of the junk kids brought in from home.
“Express yourself!” Ms. Hannah said.
“Show your creativity! Remember, art is everywhere. Art is light. Art is air. Even things that are invisible can be art.”
Michael started making a robot out of toilet paper tubes. Emily made a doll out of buttons.
I didn’t know what to make. I think I’m just not very artistic. I didn’t feel like gluing a bunch of junk together. Ms. Hannah walked around looking at everyone’s sculptures and telling them how wonderful they were. I hoped Ms. Hannah wouldn’t come over to me.
“A.J. isn’t making a sculpture,” Andrea said, and she stuck her tongue out at me. I hate her.
“Why aren’t you making anything, A.J.?”
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I had to think fast. “I did make a sculpture,” I said. “This is an invisible sculpture. I call it ‘The Invisible Sculpture.’”
“Very clever, A.J.!” Ms. Hannah said. “That’s using your creativity!”
I stuck out my tongue at Andrea.
“I have an announcement, second grade,” Ms. Hannah said after clean-up time. “Mr. Klutz has agreed to sponsor a big art contest. There will be a prize for the winner in each grade.”
“What’s the prize?” Ryan asked.
“A gift certificate for a hundred dollars to an art supply store.”
Everybody went “ooh” and “wow.” It didn’t seem like a great prize to me. I don’t like art. What would I do with a bunch of art supplies?
Ms. Hannah said we had to create our artwork at home and bring it in two weeks later if we wanted to be in the contest.
“You can make anything you like,” Ms. Hannah said, “and use whatever materials you want. Freely express yourselves! Creativity is the most important thing.”
“Can we just draw pictures?” Michael asked.
“Of course!” said Ms. Hannah.
“I hope I win,” I heard Andrea whisper to Emily. “I’m going to make a sculpture with butterflies.”
I hate her. I wonder if there are poisonous butterflies that bite people.
“So who thinks they might enter the contest?” asked Ms. Hannah. Everybody raised their hands except for me.
“What about you, A.J.?”
I didn’t say anything. But I’ll tell you what I was thinking: I hate art! Art is stupid!

小商贩巴尼每天驾着马车出售水果和蔬菜，火车的出现改变了这一切！巴尼和他的马能接受这巨大的变化吗？

Long ago horses pulled wagons up and down the streets.
There were even horses that pulled streetcars.
Barney the peddler rode down the street with his horse and wagon, shouting,
“Apples! Onions! Potatoes! Get your apples, onions, potatoes, right over here.”
Ladies came out of their houses to buy from him.
Barney’s horse stood at the curb, waiting.
He swished his tail to chase away the flies.
Children petted him.
They fed him sugar cubes.
“That’s good, children. Always be kind to animals,” said Barney the peddler.
Barney let them sit on his horse’s back.
He let them ride on the wagon around the block.
Then Barney would ride off to another street.
“Good-bye, children,” called Barney. “I will see you tomorrow.”
One day men came with picks and shovels.
They started to dig.
Barney and his horse stopped at the curb and watched.
“Soon people will be riding on trains over our heads,” said Officer Muldoon.
“A city has to grow,” said Barney the peddler, and he petted his horse.
All day Barney sold fruits and vegetables all over town.
When it got late, people heard clippety-clop clippety-clop as Barney headed back to the stable.
Barney brushed his horse and put a blanket on him.
“Good night, sleep tight,” said Barney.
He went to sleep next to his horse.
It was the day the trains started running.
People climbed the stairs to get on them.
Men with pushcarts stared up at them.
Dogs and cats were staring, too.
SCREECH! SCREECH! went the wheels on the tracks.
The trains swayed. The ground shook.
“Runaway horse! Runaway horse!” someone shouted.
Down the street ran Barney’s horse, pulling the wagon.
“Whoa! Wait for me!” shouted Barney.
But Barney’s horse ran faster and faster.
Children tried to catch him.
But Barney’s horse was too fast for them.
Officer Muldoon stepped off the curb and waved his arms.
“Whoa, old feller, whoa,” he said softly.
“Nobody wants to hurt you.”
Barney’s horse came to a halt.
He let the policeman hold him and pet him until Barney caught up with them.
“I guess your horse will have to get used to the trains,” said Officer Muldoon.
“We will all have to get used to them,” said Barney the peddler.
Barney petted his horse. He gave him a big juicy apple.
Then he got back on the wagon and rode off, shouting,
“Apple! Onions! Potatoes! Get your apples, onions, potatoes, right over here.”
The city grew and grew. More and more trains ran. The ground shook under them.
But Barney’s horse did not seem to mind. He never ran away again…
Well, almost never.
He knew Barney needed him.

Chapter 3 Weird People

In the lunchroom I got to sit next to Ryan and Michael. I gave my apple to Ryan, and he gave me his yogurt with sprinkles in it.
“Ms. Hannah is weird,” I said.
“Artists are always weird,” Ryan said. “My mom has a friend who’s an artist, and she’s really weird. My mom says that’s because artists are creative.”
“Your mom is weird,” Michael said.
“Lots of people are weird,” I told them.
“That doesn’t make them creative. Some people are just weird, and they’re not creative at all. And some people are creative, and they’re not at all weird.”
“You’re weird, A.J.,” Ryan said.
“Anybody who wears a dress made of pot holders is weird,” Michael said.
“Art teachers are supposed to dress funny,” I said.
“If my dad dressed like that, he’d be fired,” Ryan said.
“Your dad is a businessman,” Michael told Ryan. “He has to wear a tie around his neck every day. It doesn’t do anything. It’s just a piece of cloth that hangs around his neck. If you ask me, that’s pretty weird.”
“Yeah,” I said, “which is weirder, wearing a dress made out of pot holders, or wearing a piece of cloth around your neck for no reason at all?”
“They’re both weird,” Ryan said.
“All grown-ups are weird, especially art teachers,” said Michael.
“Ms. Hannah is weird, even for an art teacher,” I said. I noticed that Andrea and Emily at the next table were listening to us. I knew they were listening because they kept shaking their heads and rolling their eyes and snickering at us.
“Maybe Ms. Hannah isn’t really an art teacher at all,” I said, just loud enough so the girls would hear it. “Did you ever think about that? Maybe she’s just pre- tending to be an art teacher.”
“Yeah!” Michael said. “Maybe Ms. Hannah is a thief, and she’s trying to steal all our garbage and take over the world. Stuff like that happens in comic books all the time.”
“Maybe our real art teacher was kidnapped, and she’s tied up to a chair in the teachers’ lounge,” Ryan said.
“And the teachers are shooting BB guns at her,” I added.
“We’ve got to save her!” Emily suddenly said. There were tears running down her cheeks. Then she got up and went running out of the room.
Me and Ryan and Michael laughed our heads off. That Emily is such a crybaby.
“You boys are weird,” Andrea said.

鸭宝宝经历了第一天上学的恐惧。不过，在爷爷一个小小的帮助下，一切都变得很圆满。

Baby Duck could not eat her breakfast.
It was the first day of school,
and her stomach was all jitters!
"Breakfast toast is very tasty," said Mrs.Duck.
"Won't you have a bite?"
"No," Baby said.
"Breakfast juice is very juicy," said Mr. Duck.
"Won't you have a sip?"
"No," Baby said.
"Your sister Hot Stuff is way too small to go to school," Mrs. Duck pointed out.
"She's not brave enough, either. Aren't you glad to be big and brave?"
"No," Baby said.
Baby Duck sat under the table with her blue school bag.
Baby loved her school bag, and the important things inside:
one favorite book, a sandwich with jam,one tall pad,
and one yellow pencil (a special going-to-school present from Hot Stuff).
"Button up your new school sweater!" called Mrs. Duck. "Hurry, Baby!"
Baby buttoned. It took a long time.
"Buckle up your new school shoes!" called Mr. Duck. "Hurry, Baby!"
Baby buckled. It took a long time.
Mr. Duck looked at his watch.
"Time to go!" he cried.
Mr. and Mrs. Duck bustled out the front door, swinging Hot Stuff in the air.
Their feet crunched on dry leaves.
"Come, come!" they cried.
"School, glorious school!"
Baby Duck dragged behind.
"Good-bye, house," she whispered in a little small voice.
The Duck family waddled down the road.
"Hop to it, Baby!" called Mr. Duck.
Baby could not hop. Her feet felt too heavy.
"Chin up, Baby!" called Mrs. Duck. "Skip along!"
Baby could not skip. Her school bag was bumping. Bumpity bumpity bump.
The Duck family waddled to the big schoolhouse.
Baby's buckle popped open and now her shoe was flapping.
Flappity flappity flap.
"Calling all babies! Here I am!"
Grampa was waiting on a bench.
Baby sat right up close to Grampa.
"Rough day?" he whispered.
"Yes," Baby said.
"Long walk?" whispered Grampa.
"Yes," Baby said.
"Scared about school?" whispered Grampa.
"Yes," Baby said. "Yes, yes, yes!"
"Sometimes it helps to sing a song," Grampa said. "You sing nice songs, Baby."
"Yes," Baby said. "I do." Then Baby sang a song.
"Please don't make me go to school.
My teacher will be mean.
I won't have any fun or friends.
And who will buckle my new shoe?"
"I will," Grampa said. And he buckled Baby's shoe.
After that Baby showed Grampa the important things inside her school bag.
He liked the pencil from Hot Stuff.
"You draw nice pictures, Baby," Grampa pointed out.
"Yes," Baby said. "I do."
Then Baby drew a picture.
Davy Duck took little steps toward Baby.
He looked at Baby's picture.
Baby felt proud.
Miss Posy came across the schoolyard.
"My name is Miss Posy." she said.
"I'm the teacher."
"Are you mean?" Grampa asked.
"Oh, no!" said Miss Posy.
"Do you sing songs in that schoolhouse?" Grampa asked.
"Oh, yes!" said Miss Posy.
"Do you read books in there?" Grampa asked.
"Oh, yes!" said Miss Posy.
"Do you like sandwiches with jam, and yellow pencils?" Grampa asked.
"Oh, yes!" said Miss Posy.
Miss Posy rang the bell.
"Good luck," Grampa said, shaking Baby's hand.
Then Mr. and Mrs. Duck took turns kissing Baby on both cheeks.
"We'll be right here," they promised, "when school lets out."
But Hot Stuff cried, "Wa, waa, waaaa!"
Baby Duck put her arm around Hot Stuff.
"Little small babies have to wait," she said.
She gave Hot Stuff the picture she had made. "Chin up!" Baby said.
Then Baby Duck hopped and skipped into the big schoolhouse with her new friend Davy Duck.
She sang a pretty song.
"Off to school, Baby Duck!
I am big and brave.
I like Miss posy, Davy Duck too.
And I'll have fun in school!"

Chapter 2 Finger Painting with Ms. Hannah

Emily was the door holder. My friend Michael who never ties his shoes was the line leader. The art room was all the way on the other side of the school. We had to walk about a million hundred miles to get there. Michael told Miss Daisy it was like walking across the Grand Canyon, so she let us take drinks from the water fountain outside the art room.
That’s where Ms. Hannah was standing. She was the funniest-looking lady I ever saw. She was wearing a dress that looked like it was made from a bunch of different-colored washcloths that were sewed together. On her hands were these big mittens that my mom uses when she has to take hot dishes out of the oven.
Ms. Hannah looked weird.
“Good morning, second graders,” she said as we filed into the art room. “Do you like my new dress? It’s made from used pot holders that I bought on eBay. I stitched them together.”
Ms. Hannah spun around so we could get the full effect of her new dress.
“It’s beautiful!” Andrea said. She is always complimenting (that’s a big word!) grown-ups on everything. Andrea was born old. Personally I thought it was the stupidest-looking dress in the history of the world. I went to sit with my friends Michael and Ryan, but Miss Daisy stopped us.
She told Ms. Hannah that certain people should not sit next to other certain people. I knew what that meant.
“Boy-girl-boy-girl,” Miss Daisy said, pointing to where we should sit. I had to sit at a table between Andrea and her crybaby friend Emily.
Miss Daisy gave each of us a name tag to wear so Ms. Hannah would know our names. Then she told Ms. Hannah she would be in the teachers’ lounge in case there was any trouble.
The teachers’ lounge is where the teachers go when they don’t have to teach.
I’ve never been in there. No kid has ever been in there in the history of the world, because kids aren’t allowed inside. The teachers’ lounge is like a secret clubhouse for teachers only.
My friend Billy from around the corner who was in second grade last year told me that they have big parties in the teachers’ lounge all day long. He said the teachers dance around and play Pin the Tail on the Donkey and eat cake and take target practice with BB guns. Then they try and think up new punishments to give us kids when we misbehave.
That sounds cool. Maybe when I grow up, I’ll be a teacher so I can hang out in the teachers’ lounge all day and have fun.
After we sat at our tables, Ms. Hannah took off her pot-holder mitts and picked up a piece of black paper.
“Can anyone tell me what this is?” she asked.
Any dumbhead knows that. I raised my hand, and she called on me. “It’s a piece of black paper,” I said. “Duh!”
“It could be a piece of black paper, A.J.,” Ms. Hannah said. “But maybe it’s a black cat in a coal mine. Maybe it’s a crow flying in the middle of the night.”
It was a trick question! I hate trick questions! My ears felt like they were on fire. I didn’t look at anybody, but I knew everybody was looking at me and laughing to themselves.
It wasn’t fair! That stupid thing was a plain old piece of black paper, and everybody knew it.
“It looks like a piece of black paper to me,” my friend Ryan said. Whew! I knew
I could count on Ryan. I turned around and gave him the thumbs-up sign.
“I want you to open your imaginations, second graders,” Ms. Hannah said. “Art is everything and everywhere! It’s all around us! We are all artists. A dentist is an artist. Your mouth is your dentist’s canvas. A man fixing a roof is an artist. You can be an artist too.”
Not me, I thought to myself. Art is stupid.
Ms. Hannah put a big sheet of newspaper in front of each of us to cover the table. She took a bunch of old T-shirts out of the closet and gave one to every- body to wear so we wouldn’t get paint all over ourselves. Then she put paint in the middle of all the tables and gave each of us a piece of white paper.
“Today we are going to finger paint,” she said.
“I’m not painting my fingers,” I said. Some of the kids laughed, even though I didn’t say anything funny.
“You silly dumbhead,” Andrea said. “Finger painting is when you use your fingers to paint pictures.”
I knew that. Andrea thinks she knows everything.
“What should we paint?” Emily asked Ms. Hannah.
“Anything you like! Express your creativity. Paint what you love.”
“I love butterflies,” Andrea said. “I’m going to finger paint a picture of a happy family of butterflies.”
“I’m going to finger paint a picture of a tree in a forest where your butterflies can live,” said Emily.
“I’m going to finger paint a picture of a tree falling in a forest and crushing a family of happy butterflies until they are dead,” I said.
“That’s mean!” Emily said. She looked like she was going to cry, like she does at every stupid little thing.
“Hey, I’m just expressing myself,” I said.
I turned around and saw that Ryan was finger painting an airplane. Michael was finger painting a house. Everybody was hard at work finger painting.
The finger paint looked yucky to me. I didn’t really want to get it all over my hands. It was disgusting. I just sat there watching everybody finger paint. My piece of paper was the only one that was perfectly white.
“Why aren’t you finger painting, A.J.?” Emily whispered to me.
“Mind your own business, dumbhead.”
“Ms. Hannah!” Andrea called out. “A.J. isn’t finger painting.”
Andrea is a big tattletale. She stuck out her tongue at me as Ms. Hannah came over to our table.
“A.J., you haven’t finger painted a thing,” Ms. Hannah said.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I had to think fast. “I did too finger paint something,” I said. “This is a picture of a white polar bear. He’s playing in the snow. White snow. And he’s eating… vanilla ice cream!”
All the kids were looking at me. Ms. Hannah was looking at me. I was afraid she was going to yell or go get Miss Daisy from the teachers’ lounge to take me to the principal’s office.
“Very nice finger painting, A.J!” Ms. Hannah said with a big smile on her face. “That’s using your creativity!”
Hahaha! I stuck my tongue out at Andrea. She folded her arms across her front all mad-like.
It was great. It was not only great. It was the greatest moment in the history of the world. This was the next best thing to an elephant stepping on Andrea’s head.
Pretty soon it was time to clean up. Ms. Hannah taught us a song about cleaning up. The words were, “Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere. Clean up, clean up, everybody do their share.”
It was a pretty dumb song, and me and Michael and Ryan changed the words to “Clean up, clean up, even in your underwear.”
Any time anybody says a word that rhymes with “air,” you should always change it to “underwear.” Everybody will laugh. Believe me, this works every time.
Ms. Hannah peeled the sheets of painty newspaper off our desks and stuck them on a ball that was sitting on the windowsill. The ball was about the size of a beach ball.
“What are you doing, Ms. Hannah?” Michael asked.
“I’m making a newspaper ball,” she said.
“Why?” we all asked.
“Old newspapers with paint all over them can be art. This is my art. Like I said, art is every- where. And this way, nothing goes to waste. I don’t like waste. If you look around, you’ll see that I don’t even have a garbage can in here.”
We looked around. It was true. There was no garbage can in the art room. Ms. Hannah didn’t need a garbage can, because she never threw anything away. “That reminds me,” Ms. Hannah said. “For our next class, I would like you all to bring in things from home that your parents were planning to throw away.”
“What for?”
“So we can make them into art.”
I was still looking around for a garbage can. She had to have a garbage can somewhere. Everybody needs a garbage can.
“It’s a shame when people throw things away,” Ms. Hannah said. “Everything in the world is beautiful. Everything can be used to make some kind of art.”
“Well, I just blew my nose,” I said, holding out a tissue. “Does that make my boogers artistic?” Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny. Ms. Hannah took my tissue and stuck it to her big newspaper ball.
It was disgusting.

One fine day a fox traveled through a great forest.
When he reached the other side he was very thirsty.
He saw a pail of milk that an old woman had set down while she gathered wood for her fire.
Before she noticed the fox, he had lapped up most of the milk.
The woman became so angry that she grabbed her knife and chopped off his tail,
and the fox began to cry.
"Please, old woman, give me back my tail.
Sew it in place or all my friends will laugh at me."
"Give me back my milk," she said, "and I'll give you back your tail."
So the fox dried his tears and went to find a cow.
"Dear cow," he begged, "please give me some milk so I can give it to the old woman so she will sew my tail in place."
The cow replied, "I'll give you some milk if you bring me some grass."
The fox called to the field, "Oh beautiful field, give me some grass.
I'll take it to the cow and she'll give me some milk.
Then I'll take the milk to the old woman so she will sew my tail in place and I can return to my friends."
The field called back, "Bring me some water."
The fox ran to the stream and begged for some water, and the stream answered, "Bring me a jug."
The fox found a fair maiden.
"Sweet maiden," he said, "please give me you jug so I can fetch some water to give the field to get some grass to feed the cow to get some milk to give the old woman to sew my tail in place so I can return to my friends."
The maiden smiled. “If you find a blue bead for me,” she said, “I will give you my jug.”
So the fox found a peddler and said, “There is a pretty maiden down the road and if you give me one blue bead for her she’ll be pleased with you and pleased with me. Then she’ll give me her jug so I can fetch some water to give the field to get some grass to feed the cow to get some milk to give the old woman to sew my tail in place.”
But the peddler was not taken in by the promise of a pretty smile or the cleverness of the fox and replied, “Pay me an egg and I’ll give you a bead.”
The fox went off and found a hen.
“Hen, dear hen, please give me an egg to give to the peddler in payment for the bead to get the jug to fetch the water to give the field to get some grass to feed the cow to get the milk that I must give the old woman in return for my tail.”
The hen clucked, “I’ll trade you an egg for some grain.”
The fox was getting desperate, and when he found the miller he began to cry.
“Oh kind miller, please give me a little grain. I have to trade it for the egg to pay the peddler to get the blue bead to give the maiden in return for her jug to fetch the water to give the field to get the grass to feed the cow to get the milk to give the old woman so she’ll sew my tail in place, or all my friends will laugh at me.”
The miller was a good man and felt sorry for the fox.
So he gave him the grain to give to the hen to get the egg to pay the peddler to get the bead to give the maiden to get the jug to fetch the water to give the field to get the grass to feed the cow to get the milk to give the old woman to get his tail back.
The Fox returned to the old woman and gave her the milk.
Then she carefully sewed his tail in place, and off he ran to join his friends on the other side of the forest.

Once there were two bears, Big Bear and Little Bear.
Big Bear is the big bear and Little Bear is the little bear.
One day, Little Bear wanted to go exploring.
Little Bear led the way.
Little Bear found Bear Rock.
"Look at me!" Little Bear said.
"Where are you, Little Bear?" asked Big Bear.
"I'm exploring Bear Rock," Little Bear said. "Watch me climb."
"Good job, Little Bear," said Big Bear.
"I need you now, Big Bear," Little Bear shouted. I'm jumping."
"I'm here, Little Bear,"said Big Bear.
Little Bear jumped off Bear Rock into the arms of Big Bear.
"I'm off exploring again!"
Little Bear said, and he ran on in front of Big Bear.
Little Bear found the old bendy tree.
"Look at me!" Little Bear said.
"I'm bouncing about on the old bendy tree!"
Little Bear bounced on the branch.
"Watch me bounce higher, Big Bear!" Little Bear said.
"Well done, Little Bear," said Big Bear.
"Are you ready, Big Bear?"
Little Bear called to Big Bear.
Little Bear bounced higher and higher, and he bounced off the branch...
right into the arms of Big Bear.
"You caught me again!" Little Bear said.
"Good job, Little Bear," said Big Bear.
"I'm going exploring some more!" Little Bear said.
Little Bear found the stream near the shady place.
"I'm going over the stream," Little Bear said.
"Look at me, Big Bear. Look at me crossing the stream by myself."
"Good job, Little Bear," said Big Bear.
Little Bear hopped from one stone to another.
"I'm the best hopper there is!" Little Bear said.
Little Bear hopped again, and again.
"Take care, Little Bear," said Big Bear.
"I am taking care," Little Bear said.
"Little Bear...!" called Big Bear...
Sploosh.
"Help me, Big Bear," Little Bear cried.
Big Bear waded in, and he pulled Little Bear out of the water.
"Don't cry, Little Bear," Big Bear said.
"We'll soon have you dry."
He hugged Little Bear.
"Let's go exploring some more, Little Bear," said Big Bear.
"Exploring where?" Little Bear asked.
"On the far side of the stream," said Big Bear.
"Take care, Big Bear, you might fall in like me," Little Bear said.
"Not if you show me the stone where you slipped," said Big Bear.
"It was this stone," Little Bear said.
"Good job, Little Bear," said Big Bear.
Big Bear and Little Bear explored their way home through the woods, all the way back to the Bear Cave.
Big bear and Little Bear settled down, cozy and warm in the Bear Chair.
"Were you scared, Little Bear?" asked Big Bear.
"Were you scared when you fell in the water?"
"I knew you'd be there," Little Bear said.
"That's right, Little Bear," said Big Bear.
"I'll be there when you need me...
...always."

The Party

Harry was a white dog with black spots.
He loved all his neighbors, all except one.
He did not love the lady next door.
The lady next door sang.
She sang high and loud.
When she sang, Harry’s ears hurt.
She sang higher than the peanut whistle.
When she sang, the peanut man put his hands over his ears.
She sang louder than the siren on the fire engine.
When she sang, the firemen put their hands over their ears.
She sang higher and louder than the cats.
When she sang, the cats ran away.
Harry tried everything to make her stop.
He howled under her window.
His friends howled too.
But it did not do any good.
The lady next door went on singing.
She sang higher and louder than ever.
One day Harry’s family gave a party.
They invited the lady next door.
She came with her music.
When she started to sing, Harry almost bit her leg.
But he bit the leg of the piano instead.
The family sent Harry out of the room.
“You are a bad dog,” they said.
Harry just wagged his tail.
As he walked to the door some people said, “Poor Harry.”
But others whispered, “The lucky dog!”
When Harry pushed the door open the wind blew in.
It blew the pages of music off the piano.
They blew all around the room.
Everyone tried to catch the music but no one could.
The pages blew out the door and into the garden.
They blew over the fence and up into the trees.
Harry caught some of the pages but he did not bring them back.
He ran away with them.

The Contest

A few nights after that, the family took Harry to the park.
They were going to hear the Firemen’s Band.
The family knew that Harry liked the big horn.
They got to the park and sat down.
A light shone on the stage.
The people were quiet.
They waited for the music to begin.
Harry closed his eyes and listened.
He waited for the big horn.
He waited for the soft, low notes.
But the low notes never came.
Instead, a man came out.
“Good evening, friends,” he said.
“The band will not play tonight.
The big horn player is all out of breath.
Instead, we shall have a singing contest.
And here are the ladies who will sing.”
Everyone clapped when the ladies came out.
On the end of the line was the lady next door.
Harry took one look and ran off.
He was almost out of the park when he heard something.
“Blurp Blurp.”
“Blurp Blurp.”
It was low and beautiful.
Harry stopped and listened.
It was even softer and lower than the cows and the big horn.
He wished the lady next door would sing like this.
Then he saw where the sound came from.
It came from inside a watering can.
Suddenly Harry had an idea.
He took the handle of the can in his mouth.
Then he ran with it.
When he got back to the bandstand, he walked quietly up the stairs.
The lady next door was singing.
Harry put the watering can on the floor behind her.
Soon the lady sang a very high note.
Then something happened.
Two frogs jumped out of the can.
One jumped on the lady’s head.
The other jumped on her shoulder.
The other ladies in the contest shrieked and ran from the stage.
But the lady next door went on singing.
She sang higher and louder than ever.
When she finished her song, everyone shouted, “Hooray!”
The judged whispered together.
Then one of them spoke.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said.
“The other ladies in the contest have all gone home.
So the lady next door wins the singing contest!
She is a brave lady.
She wins First Prize.
It means she can study music in a far-off country for a long time!”
Everyone clapped and clapped.
Harry barked and barked.
He was the happiest of all.
In the middle of all the fuss the frogs hopped home.
Soon the time came for the lady next door to go away.
Harry went to the ship with the family to see her off.
“Good-bye! Good-bye!” everyone shouted.
Harry wagged his tail.
The lady next door started to sing a good-bye song.
But no one ever heard her.
Just as she sang the first note, the ship blew its foghorn.
It was a deep, low, wonderful sound.
As the ship moved away from the dock, other boats blew their foghorns too.
Harry thought it was the most beautiful good-bye song he had ever heard.