Princess Read Free Page A

could hardly believe hiseyes — the puppy’s teeny-tiny toenails were painted pink, too!
    “And here,” Angela said as she handed a thick stack of stapled-together papers to Mom, “is the List.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    FEEDING: Part One
    A) Princess eats one food and one food only: Marvelous Morsels.
        The Beef-Bacon Bonanza flavor in the pink can is the only one she likes.
    B) Don’t even try to give her the Creamy Chicken Carnival (yellow can) or the Luscious Lamb (green can) flavors. She will not eat them.
    “Well, that’s just ridiculous!” Mom said. “For one thing, three cans of Marvelous Morsels cost more than a steak!”
    “Our puppies have never eaten that fancystuff,” Lizzie agreed. “I don’t even think it’s good for them.”
    “Still,” Charles said, “Angela left us a few cans, so we might as well use them up.” He didn’t know what the big deal was. Sure, it would be easier if Princess just ate Baxter’s Beefy Chunks, which Buddy seemed to like just fine. But they had promised to take care of Princess the way Angela wanted them to. Or, at least,
Charles
had promised. He wasn’t sure Angela would have left Princess with them if he hadn’t. And he really, really wanted to foster Princess.
    The tiny puppy was sitting on his lap right now, while the Petersons gathered in the living room. Aunt Amanda had gone home, and the rest of them were looking over Angela’s List. “You’ll get your Marvelous Morsels,” Charles told Princess. He stroked her silky ears. “Don’t worry.”
    Princess did not seem the least bit worried. She just sat there, accepting Charles’s pats. Whenever he stopped for even a second, she looked up athim with expectant eyes, lifting one tiny paw and tapping Charles’s arm, until Charles started patting her again. Once, when he was saying something to his mom and didn’t pay attention to her paw, she gave three short, sharp barks.
    Hey, you! More patting, less chatting! Did you forget about me, here on your lap?
    “Oops! Sorry!” said Charles as he resumed his patting. Angela had probably patted Princess every time she barked, and now the puppy expected that. It was just like Aunt Amanda had said: It wasn’t
Princess’s
fault that she was spoiled. Maybe, since she was so young, she could learn to be
un
spoiled — not that Charles knew how to teach her.
    Charles gazed down at Princess. He still could not get over how little she was! Tiny nose, tiny ears, tiny, tiny paws. How could any dog
be
so small? She was smaller than Huey, his class’sguinea pig! And she hardly weighed a
thing.
If he closed his eyes, he would barely know she was in his lap. But Princess had a big, big personality.
    “I don’t know how she does it,” Lizzie said, shaking her head as she looked at Princess. “She’s no bigger than a rat, but it’s obvious that she thinks she’s better than everyone else, like she’s doing us a favor by letting us be in the same room with her.”
    “Rat?” asked the Bean, who was sitting on the floor with Buddy sprawled across his lap. He stared at Princess, too. “Pincess not a rat! Pincess is a
uppy!
“
    “Lizzie didn’t mean that Princess
is
a rat,” Dad told the Bean. “Princess is definitely a puppy.” He made a face. “Sort of,” he added under his breath. Like Lizzie, Dad was not a big fan of little dogs. He always said they were “kind of
like
dogs,” but “not really good for anything.”
    “Well,” said Mom, who had been reading more of Angela’s List, “it’s dinnertime, for people
and
puppies. I’m going to start our supper, and Charles, if you’re going to feed Princess, you’d better get started, too. It’s going to take a while to do it the way Angela spells it out on the List.”
    “What do you mean?” Charles asked.
    Mom didn’t answer. She just handed Charles the stack of papers. He groaned. There was no way he had time to read through the whole List right now. He’d better stick to the parts about