Baxter Read Free Page B

Buddy.” She kissed the brown puppy on his noseand petted the white heart-shaped spot on his chest. “You’re the sweetest puppy ever.”
    “Baxter did very well while you were at school,” Lizzie’s mom reported. “He stuck close to me all day. I can tell that he misses Elaina, but his behavior has been perfect.”
    The girls took both puppies out in the fenced-in backyard to play until Maria’s parents arrived. Buddy and Baxter raced around the yard, barking their heads off. First Buddy chased Baxter; then Baxter chased Buddy. Then they started to wrestle, rolling and tumbling over each other in a blur of light brown, chestnut, and white. Every so often, Baxter dashed over to the birdbath to stare at the water in it, and touch it with his paw. Then Buddy would run over to nip at him, and the wrestling would start all over again.
    “It’s probably great for Baxter to be distracted like this,” said Lizzie. “Maybe it will help him miss Elaina a little less.”
    When Maria’s parents arrived, Maria’s mom took off Simba’s harness and let the older dog join Buddy and Baxter in the backyard. The two puppies jumped at the big dog’s legs, growling and chewing on his ankles. Simba stood patiently, nosing at one puppy, then the other. Finally, he wagged his tail and gave each of them a lick on the cheek.
    “See? They get along great.” Lizzie picked up Baxter and brought him onto the deck to meet Maria’s parents.
    “Hey, cutie,” said Mr. Santiago. He thumped Baxter’s sides. “What a good boy.”
    Mrs. Santiago knelt to run her hands over Baxter’s coat and feel the shape of his head. “He’s lovely,” she said. “His fur feels like Maria’s hair did when she was a baby.”
    “His fur
is
hair,” Lizzie explained. “Portuguese water dogs need to be groomed regularly, just like poodles, because instead of having fur thatsheds, they have hair that keeps growing and growing.”
    Maria’s mom kissed Baxter on the head and turned to Lizzie. “Well, I think it would be wonderful to have this boy with us up at the cabin,” she said.
    “Yay!” yelled Lizzie and Maria together.
    “Then it’s settled,” said Maria’s dad. “Shall we go do our grocery shopping?”
    For a second, Lizzie wished she could stay home and play with Baxter. He was such a cute, happy puppy. Also, she was a little worried that he would get that separation anxiety thing. She hated to leave him if she didn’t have to.
    But Mom urged her to go along on the shopping trip. “Baxter won’t be alone. Dad and Charles are at a soccer game, and the Bean is at day care, but I’ll be home working on an article,” she said. Mom was a reporter for the local newspaper. “I’ll take good care of Baxter. I promise. You need to make sure you have some of yourfavorite foods along when you’re up at the cabin. It’ll help you feel less homesick.”
    Lizzie started to argue that she was not going to
be
homesick, but she stopped when Mom handed her a twenty-dollar bill. Twenty whole dollars. Wow. Think what she could buy with that!
    “No junk food,” Mom said, as if she could read Lizzie’s mind. But she must have seen Lizzie’s face fall, since she added right away, “Well, maybe a little. It is a special weekend, after all.”
    Mom did not usually buy chips or soda or sweets. But she wasn’t a total meanie about it. She did let Lizzie and her brothers eat their trick-or-treating loot after Halloween. Also, every year on their birthdays, Mom would wrap a box of sugary cereal in foil and give it to them as a special present. Charles usually ate the whole box that very day, just because he was allowed to. Lizzie liked to make it last for a couple of weeks by having one small bowl a day. The Bean ate his by thehandful, spilling lots of it onto the floor for Buddy to snorf up.
    So Lizzie went along with the Santiagos, and the shopping trip turned out to be fun. Simba led the way up and down the aisles at the store while Maria’s