The Best School Year Ever by Barbara Robinson

Author:Barbara Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins US

Chapter 7

When Louella McCluskey’s mother went to work part-time at the telephone company, she let Louella baby-sit her little brother, Howard, again during spring vacation.

“Just don’t you let the Herdmans get him this time,” she said. “He’s got hair now so they can’t draw all over his head but I don’t know what else they might do.”

Howard had hair all right, but it was no big improvement because it started way above his ears and grew straight up, like grass.

“If it was up to me,” Louella said, “I’d shave his head and let him start all over.”

“Just mention that to Leroy,” I said.

Louella turned pale. “My mother would kill me, and I’d never get to watch television or go to the movies for the rest of my life.”

Louella kept Howard out of sight for the whole time, but when school started again, the regular baby-sitter quit, so Mrs. McCluskey got special permission for Louella to bring Howard to school—“Just for a few days,” she said. “Just till I find someone else.”

“Now what’ll I do?” Louella said. “I can’t learn compound fractions and watch out for Howard all the time, and he’ll be right there in the same room with Imogene Herdman!”

She was really worried and you couldn’t blame her, so I wasn’t too surprised when she showed up with Howard on a leash.

Miss Kemp was pretty surprised, though. “Is that necessary, Louella?” she asked. “After all, your little brother is our guest here in the sixth grade. Is that how we want to treat a guest, class?”

Some kids said no, but a lot of kids said yes because they figured Howard was going to be a pain in the neck. So then Miss Kemp spent ten minutes talking about manners and hospitality, but I guess she figured Howard might be a pain in the neck too because she didn’t make Louella untie him.

She did make her get a longer leash, though, because Howard got knocked on his bottom every time he tried to go somewhere.

“He better learn not to do that,” Imogene Herdman said. “Claude had to learn not to do that.”

Miss Kemp looked at her. “Not to do what?”

“Not to go past the end of his leash.”

“Why was Claude on a leash?”

“Because we didn’t have a dog,” Imogene said.

Miss Kemp frowned and sort of shook her head—the way you do when you’ve got water in your ears and everything sounds strange and faraway—but she didn’t ask to hear any more and you couldn’t blame her.

Louella poked me. “If they wanted a dog,” she said, “they could just go to the Animal Rescue. That’s where we got our dog.”

That might be okay for Louella, but I didn’t think the Animal Rescue people would give the Herdmans a rescued goldfish, let alone a whole dog, and the Herdmans probably knew it.

Maybe they even went there and said, “We want a dog,” and the Animal Rescue said, “Not on your life.” So then, I guess, they just looked around and said, “Okay,

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