Gator on the Loose! by Sue Stauffacher Read Free Book Online Page B

she jumped on top of the basket and sat cross-legged just to make sure this crafty alligator couldn’t escape again.
    Yawk!
He sounded very sad. Keisha bet that he wanted his mother. Poor thing. It reminded her of the way the rescued puppies at the pet-food store whimpered and howled, hoping someone would take them home. Just like the Razi sounds that were coming from the bedroom.
    “Sweet.” Zack and Zeke were hanging over the window ledge, watching. “Can we come down now and see him?”
    “I told you it was right here,” Grandma said, out of breath. “Why doesn’t anybody ever listen to me?”

Chapter Seven
    Mama called out to Keisha.
    Keisha looked at Zeke, who was better at remembering directions. “First, take Paulo upstairs and put him in his crib. Then unroll Razi and put the sheets in the dirty laundry,
and then
…” She was going to tell them to put their belts back on, but the buckles were stuck inside the basket, so that would have to wait.
    Normally, two ten-year-old boys might not listen to directions when there was an alligator sighting, but Zeke and Zack heard Mama’s voice, too. They ran upstairs.
    “Mama, Daddy, over here!” Keisha waved her arms. “I think I got it.”
    “Gracious heavens,” Mama said when they reached Keisha. “What is my new laundry basket doing in all this dirt?”
    Daddy squatted down. “Well, I see one dirty alligator underneath it, ready for a bath.”
    “Why do they keep playing that same song on the radio?” Grandma wanted to know. “Frankly, I’m sick of it.”
    “It’s not the radio, Grandma,” Keisha said as the last strains of “Possums in Love” died away. “It’s the cereal toy Mr. Sanders gave Razi. You pull on a string and then it plays until the string goes back inside. Baby Paulo threw it out the window, and the way the music kept moving around, I was afraid the alligator had swallowed it.”
    Keisha leaned over and looked through the plastic slots of the laundry basket. The little alligator was moving its head back and forth as if it were saying to Keisha,
No music toy in here
.
    “Keisha, my girl,” Mama said, “you need to come away from that alligator. Even baby alligators can bite off fingers and toes.”

    Keisha peered through the slots once again. The alligator was still shaking its head. She just
had
to solve this mystery.
    “The music doesn’t play for very long and then you have to pull the string again. But if he’d swallowd it, the alligator couldn’t have been pulling the string. So how did the music keep playing? And why has it stopped now?”
    “I missed a chapter,” Grandma said. “But if you have the alligator, then I suggest we rummage through the cupboards and find something for dinner. I’m starving.”
    Grandma was always starving.
    “Maybe we could make s’mores tonight,” she suggested. “In honor of the Great Alligator Hunt.”
    Grandma was always thinking of excuses to make s’mores, her favorite dessert. But Keisha was not going to be distracted—even by the promise of s’mores. This was a puzzle and she was trying to put the pieces together. The music stopped when they dropped the basket. Was that a coincidence, or …
    Of course. That was it! When an alligator moves, most of it goes on the ground. Some part of the alligator must have gotten stuck on some part of the music player—maybe the little ring used to pull the string—and dragged it along.
    “Mama, Daddy, that music player is in here somewhere. Some part of it is stuck on some part of our alligator.”
    “Stuck on
the
alligator,” Mama corrected Keisha. “This is not our alligator, Key.” Mama pulled up her skirt so she could kneel on the grass and look in herself.
    “Fred,” Mama said after squinting at the alligatorfor a long time, “do you know what this child is talking about?”
    Daddy squatted down next to Mama. “No, Fay, I don’t. But like most things, the answers will be revealed in the bath.”
    “The bathtub with