How to Look for a Lost Dog Read Online Free Page B

How to Look for a Lost Dog
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a husband and a girl who is six and has the prime number name of Edie (23).
    Mrs Kushel knew last spring that she was going to get me as her student and she scheduled a conference with my father who said, “I promise Rose won’t be any trouble.”
    When Mrs Kushel asked what my father does about my tantrums at home, he said, “Rose doesn’t have any tantrums at home, not while I’m around. She knows better.” And then he said, “Ha ha. Just kidding.”
    I know this because I was sitting in the waiting room outside the school psychologist’s office and I could hear every word of the conference. I hear lots of things I’m not supposed to hear, and lots of things nobody else is able to hear, because my hearing is very acute, which is a part of my diagnosis of high-functioning autism. The clicks our refrigerator makes bother me, and so does the humming sound that comes from Mrs Kushel’s laptop computer. One day in school I put my hands over my ears and said, “I can’t concentrate! Please turn that thing off.”
    â€œWhat? What thing?” asked Mrs Leibler.
    â€œI want Mrs Kushel to turn off her computer,” I said clearly, in the way Mrs Leibler has taught me.
    (“Tell me clearly what you want, Rose,” Mrs Leibler says when I’m out of control.)
    â€œWhy do you want her to turn it off?” asked 4’10’’ Josh Bartel, who sits in front of me.
    â€œBecause of the humming!”
    â€œI don’t hear any humming,” said Josh.
    â€œRose, settle down,” said Mrs Leibler.
    I hear clicks and humming and whispers. And conversations in the psychologist’s office when the door is almost closed.
    Mrs Kushel has been my teacher for 25 school days now.
    On the afternoon of day #25 she announces to our class, “I have an assignment that will be fun for you. You’re going to write a composition about a pet.”
    â€œI don’t have a pet,” says Flo, whose name is easy to remember because of the homonyms flow and floe .
    Mrs Kushel smiles, which is her way of saying that she doesn’t mind that Flo interrupted her. “That isn’t a problem,” she replies, “because you may write about any pet at all. If you don’t have your own pet, you may write about an imaginary one or someone else’s pet.”
    Mrs Kushel passes out paper and I find my pencil and stare (stair) at the door for a while.
    â€œRose?” says Mrs Leibler.
    â€œI’m thinking,” I say, without looking at her.
    I start writing about Rain. I try to remember what Mrs Kushel has said about themes, and what Mrs Leibler has said about not working homonyms into every theme.
    â€œTime’s up,” Mrs Kushel says after 21.5 minutes.
    â€œWho would like to read aloud to the class? It doesn’t matter if your composition is finished. Just read what you have so far. You can finish your work at home tonight.”
    Three girls and two boys raise their hands. Mrs Kushel calls on Flo, who reads about a pet she has made up in her head, called a chickapoo, which is a cross between a chicken and a poodle. Flo says her chickapoo doesn’t cluck or bark, it clarks. Everyone laughs, while I think about the clarking chickapoo just long enough to figure out that chickapoo is not a prime number word, but a word that is 81, which means it’s divisible by 3, so it’s not as good as a prime number, although it’s interesting.
    The next person to read is Josh Bartel, who has written about his four neon tetra fish. “My mom picked out the first fish for my sister and I last summer,” he says.
    I interrupt him right there. “Mrs Kushel!” I cry. “Mrs Kushel, Josh broke a rule. He wrote, ‘for my sister and I’ and that’s not right.”
    â€œRose, what have we said about interrupting?”
    â€œBut he was supposed to write, ‘for my sister and me’. Me .
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