Notes From a Liar and Her Dog by Gennifer Choldenko Read Free Book Online Page B

jacket pocket and search for his belly, which I rub, hoping he won’t groan.
    “So this is them?” a khaki lady with very short black hair asks Just Carol.
    “Ant, Harrison, this is Mary-Judy,” Just Carol says. Mary-Judy is short for an adult—a lot shorter than I am. She has big solid legs like a rhino’s, perfect white teeth, and a pink strawberry mark on her cheek. Iwonder at the name Mary-Judy. It doesn’t sound like two names that usually go together.
    “You know,” Mary-Judy says, eyeing Harrison and me suspiciously, “I don’t normally take kid volunteers on my string.”
    “What about Zoo Teens?” I ask Just Carol.
    “That’s a Children’s Zoo program,” Mary-Judy says. “It’s only because Carol here has volunteered for me for so long. She persuaded me that you two were really nice kids, extra conscientious, and good at following rules. That’s the only reason I agreed to take you on.”
    Harrison and I look at Just Carol. No one has ever described us as extra conscientious and good at following rules. Just Carol is nodding her head, though her smile looks a little wobbly.
    “Oh yes,” I say. “We never do anything we aren’t supposed to do.”
    “Never,” Harrison agrees.
    “Never,” Mary-Judy repeats, staring at a hole in Harrison’s pants where the end of his pocket is sticking through. “Look, let’s get this straight, you listen to what I say and you do exactly what I tell you. I don’t give second chances. Not when your safety, my safety, and the safety of my animals are involved.” Mary-Judy gives me a mean look. I take my hand out of Pistachio’s pocket. I feel guilty about having him here, then I realize Mary-Judy is looking after her animals, just like I’m looking after mine. Mary-Judy would do the same thing if she were me.
    “In fact,” Mary-Judy says, “I don’t give firstchances. If you give me the slightest reason to boot you off my string, I will in a hot second, without thinking twice about it. Understand?”
    I nod my head. Harrison is nodding his head over and over again, as if someone has turned on his nod button.
    “They’ll be fine, Mary-Judy,” Just Carol says as her hand disappears in a big Tupperware tub filled with cardboard egg cartons and reappears with a handful of live worms. I shudder. I’m not squeamish, but I never expected there to be a big bin of worms sitting right on the desk like that.
    Just Carol tosses the worms in a small silver bowl half filled with cut-up oranges and apples and bananas. One of the worms tries to crawl out, but Just Carol pushes him back. She is casual about this, as if she has done it one hundred times before.
    “They better be,” Mary-Judy says as she opens the handle of a large walk-in refrigerator and comes out with a bucket filled with dead rats. “All right, let’s get a move on,” she says. I try not to look at the dead rats. But I can’t help it. I check to see if their eyes are open. No. Thank goodness for that.
    Mary-Judy and Just Carol are walking together now and Harrison and I are behind. I put my hand in my pocket to pet Pistachio. He is still anxious, though it’s better now that we are outside, walking behind the Do Not Enter sign and up into the main zoo.
    Harrison is searching in his pockets as we walk. First the easy ones in front. Then the hard-to-reach cargo ones down his leg. This slows us down and welag behind Just Carol and Mary-Judy. They stop and wait for us. Harrison is half hopping, half walking, trying to hurry and hunt at the same time. Mary-Judy gives Harrison a strange look.
    “Why is it you guys call Carol
Just
Carol?” she asks when we are caught up.
    “Because she’s Just Carol, not Miss or Ms. or Mrs. Anything,” I explain as Mary-Judy unlocks a big brass padlock and unwinds a thick metal chain from around a chain-link fence.
    “Cute,” Mary-Judy snorts, though I can’t tell if she means this is cute or not cute. She turns over a plastic-covered sign attached to