Noodle by Ellen Miles Read Free Book Online Page A

dead and he
still
couldn’tfind his charger. That explained why they hadn’t heard from anyone.
    Noodle was kissing Mrs. Rispoli and Sophia back, covering their faces with huge, slurpy licks. His tail was wagging a mile a minute.
    Oh, joy! Oh, joy! My people are here! Oh, joy!
    “Boy, Noodle sure is happy to see you!” Lizzie couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit jealous.
    “Noodle?” Sophia looked confused.
    Lizzie blushed. “Oh — that’s what we were calling him,” she explained.
    “What a
great
name!” Mrs. Rispoli held Noodle up in the air and rubbed noses with him. “We called him Bronson, but it never really seemed to fit. Maybe he really is a Noodle, after all.” She hugged him close again. “No matter what his name is, we are just so, so happy to see him again! I thought he was gone forever.”
    “But if he ran away, why . . .” Lizzie realized it might be rude to ask why the Rispolis had not looked for their puppy.
    “Why didn’t I look for him?” Mrs. Rispoli asked. “I did! I looked and looked!” She put Noodle down and watched with tears in her eyes as he ran off to wrestle with Buddy.
    “I drove up to our house on Loon Lake last Friday morning, just to pick up some extra chairs we needed for a huge surprise party for my mother’s birthday,” Mrs. Rispoli explained. “We’d been planning the party for months. Bronson — I mean, Noodle — came with me. When we left Boston, I couldn’t find his collar, so I just put our old dog Blackie’s collar on him.
    “Up at the lake house, I was loading chairs into my car when that naughty puppy ran off. I tried to follow his tracks, but he was nowhere to be seen.”
    Lizzie had her hand over her mouth. What astory! She would have been
heartbroken
if she ever lost Buddy like that.
    “I called and I called, and I looked all over, but there was no sign of him. I phoned the police and left a description, but they hadn’t heard anything. I even stayed overnight, even though I hadn’t planned to, and looked some more on Saturday morning. My throat was raw and sore from calling for him. But by noon, I couldn’t stay any longer. I had to leave things in the hands of the police and hope for the best so I could get home in time for the party, even though nobody was going to feel much like celebrating.” Mrs. Rispoli blew her nose into the wad of tissues she was clutching. “Oh, how I hated to tell Sophia and her father.”
    Lizzie finished the story. “I guess your information just got lost at the police station, because of the weekend and Sergeant Martin being out and everything. But luckily we found Noodle later onSaturday afternoon, swimming around in a spot of open water, over by the park. He must have spent Friday night outside, wandering around and trying to find his way home.”
    Mrs. Rispoli started crying again. “I know! Your mother just told us all about the rescue! Isn’t it amazing? And he’s perfectly fine!” She shook her head, smiling through her tears. “It’s wonderful.”
    “So —” Lizzie almost hated to ask, mainly because she thought she already knew the answer. “I guess you want to keep him?”
    Mrs. Rispoli stared at Lizzie. “Keep him? Of course! We’ll never let him out of our sight again!” Then her eyes softened. “Oh, I see,” she said. “Did you think he had been abandoned?”
    Lizzie nodded, turning her face away to hide the tears that seemed to be leaking out of her eyes. She couldn’t talk. She reached out to pick Noodle up one last time. She knew she had been silly to even
think
about Noodle being hersforever. That was not how this foster puppy thing worked. It was all about finding the best home for each dog. And Noodle
had
a wonderful home. Lizzie knew that now. She could tell by the way Mrs. Rispoli and Sophia looked at him that Noodle would always be loved and cared for. She couldn’t hold on to him the way the Bean had held on to his Fur. She had to give this puppy up.
    Lizzie buried her nose