Fuzzy's Great Escape by Bruce Hale

Author:Bruce Hale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Of course, it was one thing to watch people on TV making bold escape attempts. It was a whole other thing to try making one yourself.

“I still don’t get it,” Mistletoe said at their Monday Class Pets Club meeting. “Why do we have to make dummies?”

“Because we don’t want anyone to notice we’re gone,” said Fuzzy.

She wrinkled her brow. “And how does that work again?”

Fuzzy tried not to grind his teeth. “You leave the dummy behind in your cage when you go.”

“With Mistletoe, who could tell the difference?” drawled the iguana.

Cinnabun frowned. “Now, Brother Igor.”

“And if the students see a little Mistletoe-shaped lump in your cage,” said Fuzzy, “they’ll think you’re only sleeping, not gone.”

“Oh,” said the mouse. “Okay.”

Cinnabun frowned. “I worry about my artistic skills.”

“Why’s that, Missy Miss?” asked Luther.

“I don’t think I can make a dummy pretty enough for them to believe it’s me.”

With a sigh, Fuzzy said, “It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just needs to be the same size and shape. Hopefully no one will check too closely.”

Discussion was lively. But Fuzzy felt relieved that it was mostly about how to work their escape plan, not whether to escape at all. It seemed like the pets had taken his idea and were running with it.

After they’d talked things out, the rest of Monday afternoon was spent raiding classrooms for dummy-making supplies. Room 2-A yielded plenty of paper, sticky tape, and twine. Room 3-C provided a set of paints and brushes just small enough for Sassafras and Fuzzy to drag up to the clubhouse.

“All right, y’all,” said Cinnabun when they’d gathered everything. “Who here is artistic?”

“I’ve always felt like an artist,” said Sassafras. “I’m colorful, after all.”

“So’s a sunflower,” said Igor. “That doesn’t mean it can paint a picture.”

In the end, everyone decided to create his or her own decoy dummy. Most of the pets used crumpled-up paper or cloth for the body, and twine for the tail. Tape held the whole thing together—although in Mistletoe’s case, she got as much tape on herself as she did on the decoy.

Sassafras and Fuzzy did their best to paint the dummies the same color as the pets they represented. But Marta’s shell was tricky to match, and Luther’s body was even harder. Since the snake had no hands to work with, the other pets made his decoy with socks salvaged from the Lost & Found and stuffed with paper.

The boa cocked his head to look at it. “Hmm,” he said.

“Something wrong?” asked Marta.

“Not at all,” said Luther. “I just never knew I had athletic stripes.”

“When it’s painted over, the kids will hardly spot the difference,” said Fuzzy. He hoped this was true.

When he finally laid down his brush and stretched, their clubhouse looked like an explosion in an artist’s studio. Bits of colored paper lay here and there, and paint spatters covered everything, even the presidential podium.

“Looks like rainbow barf,” said Igor with a snide chuckle.

“Language,” said Cinnabun.

But seven dummies lay in a row, the result of hours of work.

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