Animal Rescue Team: Special Delivery! - Hardcover

Stauffacher, Sue

 
9780375858482: Animal Rescue Team: Special Delivery!
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0375858482 ISBN 13: 9780375858482
Verlag: ALFRED A KNOPF, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Keisha and her family are just sitting down to Saturday-morning breakfast when the phone rings. Uh-oh! There seems to be a skunk at the community garden, and it's dug a hole under the shed. At the same time, Mr. Sanders can't deliver the mail to a certain house: crows keep dive-bombing him when he gets near the mailbox. Time for the Animal Rescue Team to spring into action! This time they've got two mysteries to solve: What could crows have against mail delivery? And what really dug that hole at the community garden--as Mama knows, it's too big to have been dug by a skunk. Once again, it'll take the whole team, along with help from some new friends, to sort out what, and who, is creating all this mayhem around town.
 
Sue Stauffacher turns to her first series effort with Animal Rescue Team. With compelling plots based on actual events in her community, Sue has created a lovable cast of characters of boys and girls, kids and adults, who feel like people you'd meet at your neighborhood block party. Written in an accessible and engaging style meant to appeal to independent readers looking to be excited and entertained, and with subplots about friendship, siblings, the environment, and animal conservation, along with plenty of humor, these will be a hit with teachers and librarians, and parents, as well as kids themselves.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sue Stauffacher lives with her husband and sons in a 150+-year-old farmhouse in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Over the years, possums, bats, raccoons, mice, squirrels, crows, ducks, woodchucks, chipmunks, voles, skunks, bunnies, and a whole bunch of other critters have lived on the property. Though Sue is not a rehabilitator herself, she is passionate about helping kids know what to do when the wild meets the child.

A longtime advocate for literacy, Sue speaks around the country, connecting kids with books to help grow lifelong readers. She is a former book reviewer, and her novels for young readers include Harry Sue, Donutheart, and Donuthead. To learn more about Sue and her books, visit her on the Web at www.suestauffacher.com.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1    
At ten, Keisha Carter, the oldest Carter child, knew about a lot of things. But she did not know what ricotta was, and she did not want to ask. In the container on the counter, it had looked suspiciously like cottage cheese. In Keisha's experience, cottagecheese was lumpy and yucky. It was very hard to sit at the intake desk and feel hungry for the pancakes Grandma Alice was making, which Keisha could now hear sizzling in the pan, and imagine cottage cheese inside them.   Normally, Grandma staffed the intake desk at Carters' Urban Rescue in the mornings, but she was better at pancakes than Keisha, and Mama and Daddy were trying to get an enclosure ready for a pair of injured ducklings that had been found by a fishermanat the Grand River boat launch.   Keisha was almost glad when the phone rang because then she didn't have to think about her breakfast being ruined by cottage cheese's evil twin--ricotta.   "Carters' Urban Rescue," Keisha said in her grown-up voice (the very same voice she used when counting double Dutch).   "Is this Carters' Urban Rescue?" Keisha heard a man's voice along with a bunch of crackly and windy noises.   "Yes."   "Sorry. You're breaking up. Is this the place where you report wild animals?"   "It depends on what they've done," Keisha said. "If they've broken the law, you should call the police department."   Of course, this wasn't true. Keisha was using one of her father's jokes. The person at the other end of the line did not laugh.   Keisha heard more whistling sounds and also what sounded like water splashing on the ground. She really didn't like it when people called her from the great outdoors because it was so hard to hear.   "I'm over here at the community garden," the man shouted into the phone. "It smells awful! A skunk has been here and left a trail of his stinky skunk stuff."   "Do you mean the skunk sprayed?" Keisha asked.   "Hold on, hold on. Jane's got a point to make." The phone got all muffly as if the man who was talking had pressed it to his chest.   The community garden sat next to Hillcrest School. It was a big flat area that used to be a baseball diamond, but since the school closed, the city had turned it into a community garden. Keisha loved to ride her bike past it and look at the sunflowers.By this late in summer, they were taller than Daddy. And Daddy was taller than almost everything.   Keisha heard a scraping noise. The caller had put the phone back to his ear. "My wife, Jane--Mrs. Peters--saw the skunk yesterday afternoon strolling through the nasturtiums. She thought it was odd at the time. And then this morning when Jane and I cameto get our tools, all the other gardeners were standing around the shed with their noses plugged. Talk about making a stink! And it was coming from inside the shed. That's where he did it."   "And you're sure it was skunk spray?"   "Sure I'm sure. When I was a kid, I got sprayed by a skunk. My mother washed me in a bathtub of tomato juice. Who could forget that?"   It was Keisha's job--or anyone's job who sat at the intake desk--to figure out if the people who called Carters' Urban Rescue had a real problem that needed attention or they just needed information about what to do next. A problem meant that someone fromCarters' Urban Rescue drove over in the old truck to check out the situation. A question meant that no visit would be made, but Keisha might be able to educate the man on the other end of the line to help himself.   As far as possible, the Carters liked to help people take care of their own problems. Besides, today was a very busy day because at 4 p.m., her little brother, Razi, was going to become the next new member of their 4-H Wild 4-Ever Club. You couldn't bea member until you turned six. And Razi turned six last month.   Keeping the phone pressed to her ear, she pulled the skunk file out of the drawer with her right hand and an intake form out with her left. Even if the Carters didn't go out to the community garden, they still needed to know who called about what. Mamawas very clear about this.   "Just a few questions," she said. "Can I have your name and telephone number?"   "Peters, Albert Peters. Five-five-five-six-two-seven-four."   "Look, it says here in the phone book Carters' Urban Rescue. All I'm asking is, come out and rescue us from this skunk!"   "Usually, it's wildlife we rescue, not people, Mr. Peters." Keisha paged through her skunk file. "It's strange that a skunk would spray in its own den," she said. "You're sure no one else saw it? Skunks usually have a reason to spray."   "You don't need to see a skunk, miss, to know where it's been. Jane thinks he dug a hole under the shed. She's showing me the dirt right now. Yep. There it is."   Keisha didn't want to sound too big for her britches by telling Mr. Peters many animals could have made that hole. Foxes, groundhogs and ground squirrels dug holes. Her brother, Razi, dug holes.  Even baby Paulo could make a serious hole if you set himin the sandbox after breakfast with a soup spoon.   "I have an idea, Mr. Peters."   "Well, give it to me, young lady, because I am fresh out of ideas . . . and I'm starting to get a headache."   "If that skunk was traveling through the garden, it won't be back to spray again. But if . . . if it is living there like you think, there's a way to find out."   "I'm all ears."   "All you have to do is sprinkle a fine coating of flour around that den you found and look at it tomorrow morning. If you find little paw prints, call us up and we'll help you identify them."   "Flour, you say. Do you provide that or do we?"   "Well, it would help if you did, Mr. Peters. Carters' Urban Rescue is a not-for-profit organization."   "All right, then. We have our marching orders. Jane makes an excellent apple tart. I'm sure she won't mind sacrificing a little flour to the effort. In the meantime, I'll finish watering my tomatoes with one hand and pinching my nose with the other."   As Keisha hung up the phone, Alice passed the desk with a plate of steaming pancakes. "Breakfast!" she shouted out the door.   It was as if the whole Carter family had been sitting outside the back door waiting for Alice to call. Keisha pushed the button that transferred the ringing phone right to the voice mail and headed to the bathroom to wash her hands.   Before the water was warm, Razi had pushed his head through the circle of Keisha's arms and said: "Me first."   Razi was just about to start first grade. Keisha felt a little sorry for Mrs. Jenkins, who would be his teacher. A few months into kindergarten last year, the teachers had presented Mama with the all-day Razi award. Half days with Razi could be a challenge,so the teachers felt taking care of Razi 24/7 deserved a special certificate.   "You can't be first because my hands are already clean," Keisha said, taking Razi's hands between hers and helping him rub-a-dub-dub them clean.   "Ugh. Your fingernails, Razi."   "We were looking for snails and grubs for the ducks."   Keisha grabbed a towel and dried Razi's hands before he could wave them all over the floor. He tugged away from her and rushed to the table.   Baby Paulo wasn't dirty. Though he was big for almost one and a half, he could still ride with Mama in the sling. You didn't get very dirty if you were pressed up against Mama. She set him in the high chair and swiped his hands with the dishcloth. Aliceput the big steaming plate of pancakes in the middle of the table.   Keisha leaned forward to see if lumps of ricotta cheese poked through. She tried not to be obvious about it. Alice didn't like anyone inspecting the food. Daddy was serving Keisha three pancakes--her normal amount.   She might have to fake it.   "The secret...

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Verlag
ALFRED A KNOPF
Erscheinungsdatum
2010
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0375858482
ISBN 13 
9780375858482
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Zeichner
Lamont Priscilla
Anzahl der Seiten
164
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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