The Backyard Animal Show by Sharon M. Draper

Author:Sharon M. Draper
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Aladdin

WHEN THE BOYS GOT HOME FROM SCHOOL THAT AFTERNOON, DINO’S SHED WAS A DISASTER. He had eaten all his food, ripped the insulation out of one wall, torn down all the tools that Ziggy’s mom kept in there, and had strewn the pine chips and straw all over the floor of the shed.

“Would you look at this, mon,” Ziggy said when he saw the mess.

“What’s wrong, Dino?” Rico asked the fawn gently. “Did you miss us?”

As if in response, the fawn nuzzled Rico’s hand. “He’s really hungry,” Jerome said. “Let’s feed him right away.”

“Then we’ll get this mess cleared up,” Rashawn said.

“Before my mum sees it,” Ziggy added.

The fawn guzzled the milk greedily as Jerome fed him, ate four whole apples Ziggy sliced for him, and then fell asleep, his head resting on Jerome’s lap. Jerome rubbed the fawn’s soft fur gently.

“He looks like he’s grown since this morning when we went to school,” Rico observed quietly, not wanting to awaken the deer. He was sweeping the floor of the shed.

“He doesn’t like being alone,” Rashawn added.

“He missed us, mon,” Ziggy said.

“What are we going to do?” Rico asked with concern. “We have to go to school every day, and Dino is getting to be too big for this shed.”

“Do you think it’s safe now to just let Dino run in the backyard while we’re gone?” Rashawn asked.

“Well, we can’t keep him cooped up anymore. He’ll go nuts!” Jerome said.

“I think we’ll have to leave him out in the yard when we’re at school, mon,” Ziggy said with a sigh. “Tomorrow we’ll try it and see what happens.”

The other three boys agreed. None of them wanted to admit that caring for the fawn was getting to be a problem.

Ziggy did the midnight feeding by himself that night. “Hey, Dino,” he said softly as the deer nuzzled his hand. The fawn dipped his nose into the pocket of Ziggy’s bathrobe and gobbled the apple slices he’d hidden there.

“You miss your mum?” Ziggy asked the deer as he fed it from the bottle. “I don’t know what I’d do without my mum,” he admitted. “It must be awful for you.

“You know, Dino,” Ziggy continued sadly, “you’re a deer, not a person, mon. You’ve got to go and live with other deer soon, so you can learn how to do deer stuff, like running through the woods, growing antlers, and finding a girl deer to marry.” The deer burped. “Of course, if they keep on building houses around here, you won’t have any woods to run in, anyway.” The fawn fell asleep then, but Ziggy sat there in the shed a long time, wondering what would become of the little deer.

The next morning, after Rico had come over to give Dino his morning feeding, the four boys, for the first time, did not lock the fawn in the shed.

“You gonna be okay, mon?” Ziggy asked as he gave the fawn more apple slices.

“You behave yourself, you hear?” Rico said sternly as he petted the little deer.

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