The Case of the Library Monster (3 page)

“Would you like another one?” Ellie reaches into her jar of treats and tosses me another liver treat.

“You bet!” I catch that one in my mouth, too.

“That’s all for now,” Ellie says, closing up the jar.

“Okay.” I turn back to Mom. “Can I please go to the library with you?”

But Mom is already gone.

“So, how was the presentation?” I ask Mom when she comes back a hundred years later. “What did you see? What did you do? Did you meet the snake? Did you see the monster?”

Mom doesn’t answer any of my questions. She takes me back to her office and sits down at her desk.

I think she has work to do.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “We can talk later.”

I turn one, seven, four circles on my pillow and plop down. Work time for Mom means nap time for me. But just as I’m getting settled, the light on the ceiling flickers.

Mom and I both raise our eyes. The light flickers again.

“Are the lights flickering out there?” Mom asks Ellie.

“No,” Ellie says. “Are they flickering in your office?”

“Yes,” Mom says. “Maybe the bulb is loose.” She drags a wooden chair under the light, climbs up, and tightens the bulb.

“Hopefully that’ll take care of it,” Mom says. Then she goes back to work and I go back to my nap.

After school, Connor stops into the office. His friend Michael is with him. Michael is my friend Mouse’s new human. They live on our street.

“Hi, Connor! Hi, Michael!” I say, sniffing them all over. “I’m happy to see you! I’m happy to smell you!” They both smell like ... Bob, the Reptile Guy!

“Hi, Buddy,” Connor says, scratching my ears. Michael pats my back.

“Mom, can I go over to Michael’s house?” Connor asks.

“For a little while,” Mom says. And then she says my favorite words: “Do you want to take Buddy with you?”

Please, please, PLEASE say you want to take Buddy with you!
I tell Connor with my tail.

“Sure,” Connor says. “Buddy likes Michael’s dog.”

Oh, happy day! I get to go with Connor and Michael. I get to go to Michael’s house. I get to visit Mouse.

On the way to Michael’s house, Connor and Michael talk about all the animals Bob, the Reptile Guy brought to school. Snakes, tortoises, iguanas, and lizards.

“Which one was your favorite?” Michael asks Connor as we cross a street.

“I liked the bearded dragon. He was cool,” Connor says.

“Yeah,” Michael agrees. “But I think I liked the lizard with the horns better. I’ve never seen a lizard like that before.”

Connor snorts. “Did you meet Toby Bower before he moved?”

“Is he that kid in Mrs. Adler’s class who brought three lizards to school last week?” Michael asks.

“Yeah,” Connor says. “He had some of the weirdest lizards I’ve ever seen. And he had to give them away because his mom said he couldn’t take them when they moved. I wonder if he found people to take them all.”

Michael shrugs. “I wanted to take them, but Mrs. Larson wouldn’t let me. She said I already have a lizard.” He rolls his eyes. “Like a person can only have one lizard.”

Michael is what humans call a “foster kid.” That means he lives with the Larsons, but he’s not really their kid.

“Can I see your lizard?” Connor asks.

“Sure,” Michael says.

“I want to see your lizard, too,” I say. I’ve never met a lizard before.

But when we get to Michael’s house, Michael and Connor put me in the backyard with Mouse and close the gate.

“HI, BUDDY!” Mouse says, bounding over to me.

“Hi,” I say. I let Mouse sniff me as I paw at the fence. “Hey, Connor! Can Mouse and I come in and see Michael’s lizard, too?”

Connor doesn’t pay any attention. He and Michael go in the house and close the door behind them.

My tail droops.

I shouldn’t be surprised. Mouse is an outdoor dog. He hardly ever gets to go inside.

“WHY DO YOU WANT TO SEE MICHAEL’S LIZARD?” Mouse asks. He doesn’t mean to yell. He’s just so big that when he talks, it sounds like yelling.

“Because I’ve never seen one before,” I say.

“IT ISN’T VERY INTERESTING,” Mouse says. “AND IT DOESN’T DO MUCH. I DON’T THINK IT CAN EVEN TALK.”

“Does it, by any chance, have a blue tongue?” I ask.

“A BLUE TONGUE? I DON’T THINK SO. WHY WOULD YOU ASK THAT?”

I tell Mouse all about the monster in the library.

“STRANGE,” Mouse says. “AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MONSTER IS OR WHERE IT CAME FROM?”

“No,” I say.

“You dogs are so dumb,” says a smug voice in the tree.

I look up. It’s Cat with No Name. I don’t like it when Cat shows up in the middle of my conversations with Mouse. I
really
don’t like it when he calls me dumb.

“There are only about four or five animals in the whole world that have blue tongues,” Cat says as he licks his paw. He doesn’t tell us what any of those animals are. I think he wants us to ask so he can talk about how dumb we are some more.

“Don’t ask,” I tell Mouse with my eyes.

He nods at me.

I clench my teeth together.
Don’t ask ... don’t ask
, I tell myself.

But I can’t stop myself. “Okay, what animals have blue tongues?” I say really fast. I hate that I said it at all.

Cat jumps to the next branch. “Giraffes and polar bears have bluish-black tongues,” he says.

“It wasn’t a giraffe or a polar bear,” I say.

“WHAT OTHER ANIMAL HAS A BLUE TONGUE?” Mouse asks.

“There are dogs that have blue tongues,” Cat says.

He must be talking about Chows. Or Shar Peis. Those dogs have dark tongues. “The Monster I saw was definitely not a dog,” I say. “And his tongue was bluer than a Chow’s tongue. Or a Shar Pei’s tongue. It was bright blue.”

“Then it must be a blue-tongued lizard or skink,” Cat says. “There are actually six different species of them. They live in Australia.”

“IS THIS AUSTRALIA?” Mouse asks.

“No,” Cat says, rolling his eyes. “It’s Minnesota. I can’t stand to be around such dumb dogs.” He leaps to the ground, then slips through a hole in the fence.

Mouse and I look at each other.

“I’ve never heard of a blue-tongued skink,” I say.

“ME, EITHER,” Mouse says.

“Maybe it’s not a real animal,” I say. You can’t believe everything a cat tells you.

“SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAVE A NEW CASE TO SOLVE,” Mouse says. “THE CASE OF THE LIBRARY MONSTER.”

I guess I do.

Here is what I know about the monster so far:

It’s small.

It has legs and a tail.

It also has fingers and toes.

Its skin is scaly.

It’s fast.