Look at Lucy! (7 page)
Authors: Ilene Cooper
about Bobby and Lucy!
Absolutely Lucy
Bobby’s mother smiled. “Now it’s time for your special present,” she said.
His father said, “Close your eyes.”
Bobby was glad to close his eyes. It would be easier to look surprised when he opened them.
“Okay, Bobby,” his father called, “you can look!”
Bobby opened his eyes. He didn’t have to pretend to be surprised. Or happy. In his father’s arms was a puppy. The cutest, squirmiest little dog Bobby had ever seen.
“Ben!” Shawn said. “What happened to Lucy?”
“She… she ran away!” Ben said in a shaky voice.
Bobby jumped up. “Ran away? Where?”
“That way.” Ben was confused. He pointed in one direction. “Or maybe that way.” He pointed in the other direction.
“Which way was it?” Shawn demanded.
“I’m not sure.” Ben was almost crying. “But she was chasing a big orange C-A-T!”
When Ilene Cooper started thinking about her third Lucy book, she came up with the title first—
Look at Lucy!
Then she had to figure out why everyone was looking at the little beagle. Soon she had the idea that Lucy could be part of a pet contest, but how would Lucy’s owner, Bobby, feel about that when he’s so shy?
Ilene Cooper is the 2007 winner of the Prairie State Award for her body of work and has written more than twenty-five books for children, including
The Golden Rule
, which won a gold recommendation from
Parents
magazine; and
Jack: The Early Years of John F. Kennedy
, an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book. Of course, she also wrote the first two books about Bobby and Lucy,
Absolutely Lucy
and
Lucy on the Loose
.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2009 by Ilene Cooper
Interior illustrations copyright © 2009 by David Merrell
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cooper, Ilene.
Look at Lucy! / by Ilene Cooper; illustrated by David Merrell. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Stepping Stone Book.”
Summary: Entering his beagle, Lucy, in a contest to be “spokespet” for Pet-O-Rama helps shy, nine-year-old Bobby get over his anxiety about speaking in front of groups of people, from his third-grade classmates to the contest judges.
[1. Bashfulness—Fiction. 2. Anxiety—Fiction. 3. Contests—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Beagle (Dog breed)—Fiction. 6. Dogs—Fiction.] I. Merrell, David Webber, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.C7856Loo 2009 [E]—dc22 2008036312
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eISBN: 978-0-307-47789-7
v3.0