The Waffler Read Online Free PDF Page B

the little guy in his cage. Through the glass, the rat looked at him, and Monty looked back at the rat, with its white fur and brown patches, munching its ratty food. It was so cool the way the rat’s paws worked. He could pick up the tiniest seed and hold it while he nibbled. After a while the rat stood up on its hind legs, stretching its whiskery nose toward the cage lid. The guy from the Pet Emporium had given Monty a long lecture about proper animal care, going on and on about how rats were like little Houdinis. They loved to escape from their cage.
    Monty unclipped the lid from the cage and lifted out the rat. He bit off a tiny piece of sweet, crunchy apple and held it out. Would the rat eat from his hand? He held perfectly still while the rat looked at the apple, then looked up at Monty. Looked at the apple again and sniffed. And then—yes!—the rat reached out its tiny paws to take the piece of fruit! Victory!
    Monty didn’t want to make a mistake on something as important as a name—like naming a boy Montana—but he couldn’t just keep calling his pet “the rat,” either. The rat liked apples. Maybe
apple
? No, that wasn’t quite right. How about
McIntosh
?
Mack
for short.
    When the apple was all gone the rat—Mack—scritch-scratched his way up Monty’s arm, scrambled down his other arm, and came to the two Band-Aids. He sniffed them and looked up at Monty, as if he was asking,
what are these things?
    Monty was glad he didn’t have to explain the decision-aids to Mack. He ripped them off—one, ouch! two, ouch!—and threw them on the floor so he wouldn’t have to explain them to his dad, either. Unless Sierra told. Or unless Mrs. Tuttle called home. He wondered which house she’d call, if she did call. His dad’s or his mom’s?
    Which reminded him of something he didn’t want to think about. Today was Monday. That meant two days to go until Wednesday. Wednesday was Switch Day, when he and Sierra would go to their mom’s house. The house where there were already enough creatures, according to his mom.
    Monty picked up the rat. “Mack,” he said. “We’re in trouble, my friend.”

T he next morning Mrs. Tuttle saw that Monty’s arm was bare. She put three new decision-aids on him and pulled one off later when he got up in the middle of Quiet Reading to pick a different book. By Wednesday, Monty knew the drill. He went straight to Mrs. Tuttle’s desk, where she said, “Good morning, Monty!” and added as many decision-aids as he needed to start the day with three. After she threw the wrappers in the trash, she clapped her hands.
    â€œOne two three, eyes on me!” she chirped. “As you know, today we’re kicking off our Learning Expedition. We will be going to Mrs. Calhoun’s classroom to meet our Reading Buddies!”
    â€œMrs. Tuttle, Mrs. Tuttle!” cried Jasmine Raines, waving her hand back and forth. As usual, she had about a hundred barrettes in her hair. Today they were all butterfly barrettes, which made Monty think of a flower covered with butterflies, like the orange monarchs that had been stopping to feed from the sunflowers in his mom’s garden, hurrying south before winter came. Monty had learned all about monarch butterflies in their third-grade Expedition on
Migrations
, which he thought was a way cooler subject than
Hidden Treasures
.
    Because it turned out that
Hidden Treasures
was actually just Kindergarten Buddies! And their kickoff field trip was going out to the satellite classroom to meet their Buddies! Monty should have suspected something was wrong when Mrs. Tuttle didn’t send them home with permission slips. Because you didn’t need a signed note from a parent to walk across the playground! What kind of an Expedition was that? But according to Mrs. Tuttle, there were treasures hidden inside of books and inside of people, too. Their job would