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"I can't believe this!" Mrs.
Peterson rushed frantically around, pushing buttons on the cell phone.
"Fred promised to be on time just this once!
The shop is supposed to open in ten
minutes!"
She was referring to the
Peterson's family-owned pet shop on the first floor of their house.
"And my plane leaves in one hour!"
"You should have known better, Mom,"
said her son, Milo. He was munching on
his breakfast of peanut-butter and toast, however, so his sentence sounded more
like "Oo 'ould 'ave own 'ettah'". He
swallowed and went on, "Uncle Fred's always late."
Their uncle was much younger than their mother, and
wasn't always the responsible sort.
And he never could manage to be on time for work, or anywhere else.
"He's 'punctuality challenged'," added
Milo's older sister Mia, who sat next to him at the table, polishing her
nails. She loved to use big words. She thought they made her sound smart. Milo didn't agree.
"You'd think just once he could have
made an effort," grumbled Mrs. Peterson, zipping up suitcases. "I can't miss that plane!"
"So go already, Mom!" said Milo. "Mia and I can run the shop until Uncle Fred
gets here. She's thirteen and I'm
twelve. We're not babies!"
"Of course you're not," agreed his mother. "You're both very responsible young
adults. But maybe not quite ready to
run a whole store."
"There's probably a law against it or something,"
Mia added.
"You just want to spend the whole day on the phone,
talking to your dumb friends," said Milo.
"Milo, compared to you, my friends are geniuses."
answered Mia. She held up her hands to
admire them. "Isn't this an awesome
shade of pink?" she said, to no one in particular.
"Gross," said Milo. "It looks like Pepto-Bismol."
"It does not!"
"You see?" said Mrs. Peterson. "If I put you two in charge of the store,
you'd probably just fight instead of taking care of things."
| A car horn sounded outside. Mrs. Peterson looked out the window again
and groaned. "That's Dottie," she said,
referring to the neighbor who was giving her a ride to the airport. "O.K., look, kids, just keep the closed sign
up on the door until your uncle gets here. The customers will have to wait." She hugged them both and said, "Take care of yourselves, and be
good for your uncle. And please, both
of you, do your chores and take care of the animals like you're supposed
to. Fred will have enough to do,
just running the shop." |
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Great, thought Milo. Mia
will probably spend the whole week with her dumb friends and make me do all the
work. But if she thinks she's going to
get out of cleaning cages, she better think again. But out loud, he only said, " O.K. Bye Mom. Have fun at your conference."
As soon as their mother's car pulled away, he turned
to his sister. "Good job,
Mia," he said sarcastically.
"We could have had a chance to run the shop all by ourselves for a
while, if you hadn't come up with all that 'laws against it' stuff."
"Don't be silly, Milo," said his sister
calmly, putting all her assorted nail polishes into a basket.
"Of course we're going to run the
shop."
"We what?"
Milo stared at her.
"But Mom said--"
"I know.
But we're perfectly able to do a little thing like run a pet shop.
Uncle Fred probably won't be all that late
anyway, so it'll just be for a little while."
She put the basket away and opened the door to the stairs.
"Come on, let's go down and get
started."
"Why didn't you say that to Mom?" asked
Milo, following her down.
"Are you kidding?
She'd never have let us," answered Mia.
Besides," she added, "I didn't
want to worry her."
| "Sure you didn't," said Milo.
They opened the door to the shop, and were
immediately greeted by a chorus of barks, whines and chirps.
They also smelled that familiar pet shop
smell--a mixture of animal scents, alfalfa pellets, bird seed, and dog and cat
food, all mixed together. Milo wrinkled
his nose. "I get to run the cash
register." he said. |
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"Forget it" said Mia.
"You're too young.
And you're lousy at math.
You'd probably give everybody the wrong
change."
"I would not!" said Milo.
He ran for the cash register, but Mia's legs
were longer.
"Get out of my way, beagle breath!" panted
Milo, struggling with her..
"Sorry, dinosaur brain.
I'll handle the sales.
You clean cages."
"No way!"
Milo was really getting mad now.
"I'm not going near those stupid stinky cages.
You clean them out."
"Uh-uh.
It's your turn. I did it last
time, and that was a whole week ago.
They need cleaning, and you're elected."
"You can't make me!" challenged Milo.
"I hate cleaning up after these dumb
animals. They stink!
I'll give them food and water, but that's
all. The rest can wait until Mom gets
home."
"Fine," said his sister sharply.
"Then when Mom calls tonight, you
tell her you didn't do it."
Milo wanted to hurl a bag of Puppy Crunch at his
sister. "All right.
I'll do it," he muttered.
"But you better let me run the register
after that." He stomped over to
the closet in the corner to get clean newspapers.
Passing the front show window, he gazed the sunny street
outside. This would have been a great
day for baseball. Why had he ever
thought he'd want to stay in and run the store?
The letters painted on the outside window mocked him.
Viewed from inside, they were backwards, but
he knew what they said:
LAST STOP PET SHOP
Open 9-5 Monday--Saturday.
The last stop for all your pet needs!
It had been his Mom's idea to rename the shop.
Once it had been just plain "Peterson's Pet
Shop", but she thought the new name was catchier.
Right now Milo felt like the name fit.
It was certainly the last place in the world he wanted to be
right now.
He grabbed a bunch of newspapers and took them over
to the shelf where the hamster, mice and gerbil cages stood.
As he approached the hamster cage, a little
fluffy golden hamster stood up on its back legs and chittered excitedly at
him.
"Oh, shut up," Milo growled, poking the little
creature and sending it scampering a way.
It wasn't that he didn't like animals.
He really liked dogs in the park or cats and hamsters at other people's
houses. Pets were great if you didn't
have to clean up after them. Or even if
you only had to take care of one or two at a time.
When his Mom and Dad had decided to open a pet store, Milo had
really believed it was a good idea. But
he hadn't known how much work it would be, especially after his dad had been
killed in a car accident and his mom had to run the shop alone.
She'd had to depend on Mia and Milo to do a
lot more of the work.
Since she thought they were too young to work at the
counter, it was the dirty work they got stuck with.
Feeding and watering
animals, sweeping floors, taking out trash, cleaning cages.
Milo didn't mind most of it, but he
absolutely hated cleaning all those
cages. If I ever see another mouse dropping or bunny pellet, he thought as
he rolled up damp smelly cedar chips into a newspaper, it will be too soon.
"I'm going to the back for more animal stickers,"
said Mia, referring to the free pet stickers their mother gave out to
children. "Watch the shop for me."
Milo finished the rodent cages and went over to the
dog area. As he reached into the first
cage for the soggy newspapers, a perky black-and-white pup rushed over to him,
barking happily. "Get out of the way,"
Milo snapped, shoving the puppy. He
shoved a little too hard and accidentally smacked it into the wall. The pup
gave a hurt, surprised little yip and backed into a corner.
"Sorry!" Milo muttered.
"Ah, he trusted you, and you let him down." said a
soft voice behind him.
Milo jumped. He hadn't heard the front door open.
"See how he looks at you-as though he lost a
friend," said the voice. Milo turned,
and then stared. Before him stood an
old man, with perfectly snow-white hair that curled to his shoulders, and a
long, long beard. The beard was
snow-white too, and it hung nearly to his knees.
He had brilliant blue eyes and a gentle smile.
"So," he said softly, "you are the one."
"Me?" said Milo, confused.
"What one?" He cleared
his throat. "May I help you. Sir?" he
said in his most professional voice.
"You are Milo, are you not?" said the man.
"Yes, but how did you know?"
Milo hadn't seen this man before.
"I have been told much about you," said the old man.
"About me?"
Who would have told this strange old man about him?
"I-uh,
maybe you have the wrong person. Or
maybe the wrong store."
"No, indeed," said the man.
"The Last Stop Pet Shop.
That is where I was told to come."
"Told by who?
I mean whom?" said Milo.
"I mean-is there something I can do for
you?"
"Actually, my son, there may be
something I can do for you," said the old man.
"You are unhappy, are you not?
You wish to be doing something else-something besides caring for these
animals?"
"Yes, but-how do you know so much about me?"
"I have lived a long time," said the old man, in a
sort of sing-song chant. "And I have
learned many things. I know that you
are angry with these animals. You have
not been kind to them lately. They are
most unhappy about it."
"They-you mean the animals?"
Milo was getting worried now.
Was this old man crazy?
Or was he some kind of wizard who could read
Milo's thoughts-and know what animals were thinking?
He certainly looked like the wizards in Milo's fantasy
books. But wizards weren't real-were
they?
"Of course we are real, Milo," said the man.
"And I can help you.
I can make sure you never, never have to
clean an animal cage again."
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