Chewy and Chica Read Online Free Page A

came from a puppy mill?”
    “Exactly,” said Mom. “And what I’m wonderingnow is, did Mr. Beauregard get a license plate number for that truck?” Lizzie noticed that Mom had that certain look in her eyes — the look she got when she thought about a newspaper article she planned to write. “I’m going to call him tonight. If I can track down that truck and find the puppy mill it came from, maybe I can write an article that will help shut the place down — and maybe even change the laws about puppy mills in this state.”
    “Change the laws?” Dad reached for some more salad. “You’re a terrific reporter, but the
Littleton News
is just a small-town paper. That sounds pretty ambitious.”
    “Oh, it does, does it?” asked Mom. “Okay, then, how about if
we
make a bet, too? I’ll bet I can write an article that makes a difference.”
    “You’re on.” Dad stuck out his hand, and they shook on it. “And personally, I’ll be hoping you can win. Those puppy mills sound like terrible places.”
    Lizzie agreed one hundred percent with Dad. “What’s the bet for?” she asked.
    Mom and Dad looked at each other and laughed. “Junk drawer,” they said together. They made the same bet every time: whoever lost had to clean out the kitchen drawer that always filled up with loose change, stamps, keys to who knew what, paper clips, rubber bands, and other assorted stuff.
    Lizzie laughed. Then, thinking of the kitchen reminded her of the puppy. “I’d better check on Chica.” She jumped up from the table. It was probably time to take her puppy outside for a pee.
    But when Lizzie reached in to take Chica out of the crate, she had a feeling that she was too late. Chica shivered slightly and squinted up at Lizzie with that impish look.
    Yay! It’s you! Are we headed outside again?
    Lizzie patted the red flannel sheet. It was dry where Chewy lay sleeping, but sure enough, underneath Chica it was soaked. Lizzie groaned. A puppy who peed inside her crate. This was not good news. It was not good news at all.

CHAPTER FOUR
    After dinner, Charles cleared the table. As he carried the dirty dishes to the kitchen, he let himself think about how great it would be to get out of that chore for a whole month. Actually, he didn’t even mind the job much — but he was dying to win the bet, just to show Lizzie that she wasn’t the only one who understood dogs and knew how to train them.
    Could he possibly be the first one to find a great home for his puppy? He had boasted that he could, but inside he was not sure. Nobody would want to adopt a puppy who was always chewing things and chomping on body parts.
    How
did
you teach a puppy not to chew? Charles realized he had to find out fast,before Chewy did some major damage. After he took Chewy outside for a pee, Charles brought his puppy upstairs to his room, where he could do some thinking.
    Chewy seemed to like Charles’s room. That is, he liked to
chew
it. He dashed around, sniffing and chomping every thing in sight. In about five minutes, Chewy had left tiny bite marks on the leg of Charles’s desk, shredded the corner of Charles’s bedspread, mangled the shoelaces on Charles’s best shoes, sampled the taste of Charles’s backpack straps, and nibbled on Charles’s rag rug.
    Charles stopped him every time, before he could do too much damage. And every time, Charles took away the thing Chewy was biting on and handed him a puppy-sized chew toy. Charles knew to do that much. You had to teach the puppy that there were some things it was
okay
to chew. But it was exhausting to have to watch Chewy’s every move.
    “I guess you’ll sleep in a crate tonight,” he told Chewy, scooping him up for the tenth time. Charles sat cross-legged on the bed with Chewy and let the puppy chomp on the cuffs of his jeans while he thought about what to do.
    Sometimes, when he was trying to figure out a problem, Charles liked to sit on his bed and toss his favorite old baseball from hand to hand.