Eager Star by Dandi Daley Mackall Read Free Book Online

wouldn’t obey (not hard enough to hurt!) and shaking her to get her attention.
    â€”K-9
    Around us, birds squawked and dogs barked as Barker wrote his answer:
    Dear K-9,
    You AND your dog will get more out of this relationship if you praise your dog instead of punishing her! Find things she does right and praise her. Dogs are pleasers! I’ll bet yours loves you no matter what. Why don’t you do the same?
    â€”Barker
    Pat finished with a customer and joined us at the computer center. “You got me out of a pickle today, Winnie! Don’t know what I’d done if you hadn’t written my notes back up on the board! Lizzy said you had a photographic memory. I guess you do!” Her denim overalls made it hard to believe she was our teacher.
    While Catman took over at the keyboard, Pat talked with Barker and me. I’d been afraid that having her as a teacher would ruin her as my friend. But she was the same Pat.
    I waited while Catman answered a kid who was worried about his Russian blue cat having six toes, and another kid whose cat kept climbing his mother’s plants.
    Finally it was my turn. I love having people I don’t even know e-mail me at the help line and ask for my help with their horses. I’d probably mess it up if I had to give them advice face-to-face. I tackled the first e-mail:
    Dear Winnie,
    My horse is barn sour! He’s no fun anymore. I have to fight him, kicking and flicking the reins to get him to ride away from the barn. Coming back is great, as long as I don’t try to make him go anywhere but straight home. I’m tired of it. Should I get a new horse?
    â€”Tall in the Saddle
    Dear Tall in the Saddle,
    Don’t give up your horse! I’ll bet he hates disappointing you. When’s the last time you told him what a great horse he is? See, what you’re doing is punishing your horse (kicking, flicking) for heading away from the barn. (Would you want to go somewhere when you knew you’d get kicked all along the way?) And you’re probably rewarding him for racing to the barn by feeding him there. Instead, praise him as you ride away from the barn. Then feed him when you’re out there. Love him every step of the way!
    â€”Winnie
    As I left Pat’s Pets, I tried to think of something to tell Dad about my day. I’d promised this year would be different, and so far it wasn’t. Lizzy said new schools let you start over and be anybody you wanted to be. But it didn’t work that way for me. Every school was different, but I wasn’t. I still got the same quivering stomach when a teacher called on me, when I walked into the lunchroom, or when I stepped into the crowded hall. All I’d wanted to do was bolt like a Mustang.
    Instead of going into the house, I worked with Towaco for an hour. It paid off. Every time he did something right, I praised him. And that made him want to please me all the more.
    The sun had set by the time I finished a quick ride on Nickers. Lightning bugs signaled, flashing on and off as I finished mucking stalls.
    I was hurrying to the house when Lizzy stood up from behind a bush. “Look! I found a friend for Larry!” She pointed to a log, where her latest find—a skinny, reddish-brown thing—lounged side by side with her fence lizard. “She’s a four- toed salamander! I found her in the moss by the pond right next to that rotten log. The perfect ending to the perfect day!”
    What would the perfect ending to my day have been? Getting tarred and feathered?
    â€œLook! She’s waving her tail. That means she’s scared of you.” Lizzy finger-stroked it.
    â€œFeeling’s mutual,” I said, grossed out by the creepy toes.
    Inside the house, Lizzy set dinner on the table while she told Dad and me all about sixth grade. She loved the teachers, the students, the school—everything. During dinner she talked so much Dad barely had time to