Amelia Bedelia & Friends #2 Page 4
They checked every corner of the room. They looked under the bed and behind the dresser. They searched the closet. Finally they had to admit it—Pumpkin was not there.
“Mom!” yelled Amelia Bedelia. “Did you let Pumpkin out?”
“No, cupcake,” answered her mother. She came upstairs. “I haven’t opened the door of your room all day, except to put the clean laundry on your bed.”
Amelia Bedelia, Penny, Joy, and Skip looked at each other.
“I bet Pumpkin snuck out when your mom brought the laundry in,” said Penny. “My cats are really good at sneaking out like that.”
“Pumpkin must be somewhere else in the house,” said Amelia Bedelia.
“Please find her!” said Amelia Bedelia’s mother. She sneezed three times.
Amelia Bedelia and her friends split up to search the house. But Pumpkin was not stretched out on the couch in the living room . . . or trying to poke her nose into the kitchen cupboards . . . or lurking under the dining table. She was not hiding in the bathtub or snoozing in the coat closet. Pumpkin had vanished.
Finally kept whining at the back door, scratching to go out. “Hey, girl, you could help us search for Pumpkin, you know,” said Amelia Bedelia, patting Finally on the head. “But go outside first.” When she opened the door, Finally shot out into the yard with a joyful bark.
Amelia Bedelia saw a flash of orange and black and white dive into the hedge that separated their yard from the neighbor’s.
“Pumpkin is outside!” she shouted to her friends. “Come on!”
The four friends raced into the yard. Amelia Bedelia pointed to the hedge where Pumpkin had vanished, and they all ran to the neighbor’s yard. But by the time they got there, Pumpkin was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh, no!” wailed Penny. “This is utterly cataclysmic!”
“It sure is,” agreed Amelia Bedelia. “But we’ll find her. We need supplies.”
Amelia Bedelia hurried back to her house and told her mother where she and her friends were going. She grabbed a container of tuna fish out of the refrigerator and Finally’s leash from the hall closet.
“Finally loves Pumpkin,” she told her mother. “I bet she can find her.”
They looked under bushes and up in the trees. They searched flower beds and recycling bins. But there was no sign of Pumpkin.
“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!” Amelia Bedelia called. She held a morsel of tuna in front of her and waved it around.
They hurried down the sidewalk, stopping everyone they ran into. “Have you seen a lost cat?” they asked, over and over. “Black and orange and white.”
But no one had seen Pumpkin.
Penny began to look worried. “What if she goes out in the street?” she asked anxiously. “And gets hit by a car? Or meets a mean dog? She probably thinks all dogs are as friendly as Finally, but some of them don’t like cats. What if we can’t find her at all?”
“We’ll find her, Penny,” said Amelia Bedelia. “We found her once. We can do it again.”
Suddenly, Finally started to prance and wag her tail. She stuck her nose up in the air and sniffed.
“Look!” said Amelia Bedelia. “I bet Finally can smell Pumpkin!”
Finally definitely smelled something. She pulled hard on her leash, towing Amelia Bedelia in the direction of Oak Tree Elementary.
But Finally wasn’t headed to the front entrance of the school. Or the playground. Instead she pulled them around the outside of the playground. Along one side of the street was the playground, and on the other side of the fence was the tree where they’d first found Pumpkin. Across the street were the backyards of many different houses.
Finally dragged Amelia Bedelia to a gate that led into one backyard. Finally put her nose to the space where the gate met the ground and sniffed hard.
“Look, there’s a hole where she’s sniffing,” said Joy, pointing.
It was a hole about the size of a young, small cat.
Finally whined and pawed at the hole. Pretty soon she’d dug a hole the size of an excited small dog.
“Finally, no!” said Amelia Bedelia, pulling her back. “Come on!” she said to her friends. “Maybe Pumpkin is in there!”
Amelia Bedelia unlatched the gate. She hoped that the people who lived there would not mind four kids and a dog barging into their backyard. After all, this was a genuine emergency.
The backyard had tomato plants and a big patch of mint around a stone patio with a picnic table. But it had no orange and black and white cat anywhere that the four friends could see.
Still, Finally was so excited that she danced up on her hind legs, spun in a circle, and yanked her leash right out of Amelia Bedelia’s hand. She raced up to an open window, barked, then sat with her nose in the air, sniffing as hard as she could.
Something was cooling on the windowsill. It was a pie with a crispy brown crust. It smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg and something else. Pumpkin!
Finally had led them to pumpkin, just as Amelia Bedelia had known she would—but not Pumpkin the cat. She had led them to pumpkin the pie!
Amelia Bedelia looked at Skip, Joy, and Penny in dismay. She’d been so sure that Finally would lead them to the right place. But it hadn’t worked. Instead of finding a cat, they’d lost lots of time. By now Pumpkin might have wandered far away. How would they ever find her?
The patio door slid open.
“Hello? Hello?” said the woman who had opened it. She had curly white hair and glasses and smudges of flour on her purple sweater. “Can I help you? Are you looking for something?”
Amelia Bedelia nodded. “I’m sorry we came into your yard without permission,” she said. “We’re looking for a lost cat. We thought she was back here, but she’s not.”
“Oh, dear,” said the woman. “What a shame. I’m so sorry. I lost a cat myself not long ago, and I know how worried you must be. But my cat came home this afternoon. Such a surprise! Maybe your cat will do the same thing. Would you like a piece of pumpkin pie before you go on looking?”
“Yes!” said Skip.
“We should keep searching,” said Joy. “We need to find her.”
“We’ll have more energy after pumpkin pie,” said Skip. His stomach growled.
“Amelia Bedelia, what do you think?” asked Penny.
The pie smelled very good indeed.
“Maybe just a teeny-weeny slice,” said Amelia Bedelia.
Amelia Bedelia and her friends sat down at the picnic table while the woman, whose name was Mrs. Larkin, went inside. She came out again in a moment, carrying the pumpkin pie in one hand and a stack of paper plates in the other.
Two cats came outside with her, circling her legs and meowing as if they were begging for a bite of pie. “Cinnamon and Nutmeg, you silly girls!” said Mrs. Larkin. “This pie is not for you!”
Both cats were black and white and orange. One of them spotted Finally and backed away with her ears down. The other trotted right over to Finally and touched her nose to Finally’s nose. Then she rubbed her face against Finally’s cheek and purred.
“It’s Pumpkin!” yelled Amelia Bedelia. Pumpkin jumped right into Amelia Bedelia’s lap. She purred some more and nuzzled her head under Amelia Bedelia’s chin.
“Is this the cat you were looking for?” asked Mrs. Larkin.
Amelia Bedelia and her friends laughed and explained everything—how they’d found Pumpkin in a tree in the corner of their playground, how the fire department had rescued her, how they’d been looking for a home for her ever since. Now a reporter from the newspaper wanted to write a story about her. But she’d gotten lost, until Finally had finally led them right to her.
“What a story!” said Mrs. Larkin. “What an adventure!”
“And it has a happy ending,” said Penny. She reached out to pet Pumpkin—or Cinnamon—who was snuggled in Amelia Bedelia’s arms.
“We tried so hard to find a home for her,” said Skip. “And it turns out she found home for herself.”
; “A perfect home—her own home!” said Joy.
“Pumpkin—I mean Cinnamon—definitely thinks it’s purrfect,” said Amelia Bedelia. “Listen to her!” Then she opened her eyes wide. “But what about Lieutenant Johnson? She wants Pumpkin—I mean Cinnamon—to be the fire station cat!”
They explained to Mrs. Larkin how Lieutenant Johnson, who had rescued Cinnamon from the tree, now wanted to adopt her.
“Well, my goodness. That certainly puts the cat among the pigeons!” said Mrs. Larkin.
Amelia Bedelia held Pumpkin tight. “Somebody pick up Nutmeg!” she said. “And hold on to Finally’s leash!”
“I’m so happy to have Cinnamon back. I can’t possibly give her away,” said Mrs. Larkin. “But I do feel bad for that nice firefighter. What a pickle! What a problem! What should we do?”
Amelia Bedelia had an idea.
The next day, Amelia Bedelia’s parents drove her to the animal shelter where they had adopted Finally. Slowly and carefully she looked at all the cats that were available. One was smoky gray . . . one was soot black . . . and one was fiery orange.
“That one,” said Amelia Bedelia. “That’s the right one!”
Amelia Bedelia and her parents explained the situation to the volunteers at the shelter. Amelia Bedelia promised to bring Lieutenant Johnson back to the shelter to meet everyone. Then she gave the animal shelter all the money that the class had raised for an ad in the paper, and they gave her the orange kitten. She sat in the back seat of the car and snuggled the cat on her lap as her parents drove her to the fire station.
Mrs. Larkin was already there, and she’d brought Cinnamon with her. So was Lydia Scoop from the newspaper. So was Mrs. Shauk. And Mr. Jack. So were Skip, Joy, Penny, Angel, Dawn, Cliff, Wade, Clay, and all the other kids from Mrs. Shauk’s class.
“Lieutenant Johnson,” said Amelia Bedelia. “We’re sorry that you can’t adopt Pumpkin—I mean Cinnamon—after all. But we think this cat is perfect for the fire station, and she needs a home. Will you adopt her instead?”
Lieutenant Johnson nodded as the other firefighters cheered.
“You bet!” Lieutenant Johnson said, and she reached out and took the orange cat from Amelia Bedelia’s arms. “She’ll be the perfect fire station cat, and I think Pumpkin is the perfect name for her. You kids really are the cat’s pajamas!” She looked at Amelia Bedelia’s long, fleecy pants and soft, fuzzy shirt. She blinked. “Wait a minute. Are you wearing . . .”
Amelia Bedelia laughed. “Yep!” she said. “My cat pajamas!”
“Picture time!” called out Lydia Scoop.
They gathered around Lieutenant Johnson. Lieutenant Johnson held up the fire station’s brand-new cat, and Lydia Scoop raised her camera high.
Everybody smiled. Even Cinnamon and Pumpkin and Finally looked as though they were smiling. But Amelia Bedelia, standing between Mrs. Larkin and Lieutenant Johnson with all her friends, had the widest smile of all.
Meee-oooo-wwww! Cat Facts!
Meet Amelia Bedelia
Two Ways to Say It
Back Ads
Spot the Difference
Copyright
Art was created digitally in Adobe Photoshop.
Amelia Bedelia is a registered trademark of Peppermint Partners, LLC.
AMELIA BEDELIA & FRIENDS #2: AMELIA BEDELIA & FRIENDS THE CAT’S MEOW. Text copyright © 2019 by Herman S. Parish III. Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Lynne Avril. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art © 2019 by Lynne Avril
Cover design by Sylvie Le Floc’h
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019944438
ISBN 9780062935229 (hardback) — ISBN 9780062961822 (paper-over-board) — ISBN 9780062935212 (paperback)
Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-293523-6
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-293521-2
1920212223PC/BRR10987654321
Greenwillow Books
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