Gooney Bird and All Her Charms by Lois Lowry

by one and shake Napoleon’s hand if you want to, and tell him goodbye. We’re going to miss him. But my Uncle Walter needs him back.”
    â€œJust a minute!” Dr. Oglethorpe, wearing a suit and tie, suddenly came jogging up the walkway that led from the school parking lot. “Sorry I’m late!”
    He introduced himself to all of the parents. “I’m out of breath from hurrying,” he said. “Huffing and puffing! But you already know about the lungs, right?”
    Nicholas’s father groaned. “I
said
I’m quitting!”
    â€œI’m gonna bug you, Dad,” Nicholas said.
    Dr. Oglethorpe turned to Napoleon and smiled as if he were greeting an old friend. Then he sniffed. “What . . . ?”
    Gooney Bird explained quickly, in a low voice. “He got Gooched. It will wear off.”
    â€œGooched?”
Dr. Oglethorpe whispered.
    â€œI’ll explain later,” Gooney Bird whispered back.
    Dr. Oglethorpe lifted Napoleon’s right arm and bent the wrist back and forth so that Napoleon seemed to wave. “I imagine he’ll be sorry to leave the school,” he said. “I bet he has had a lot of adventures here!”
    The children nodded. “He read a book and ate and drank and played basketball and blew up balloons,” Barry said.
    â€œAnd he got stolen,” Malcolm added.
    â€œStolen?”
Dr. Oglethorpe repeated. He looked down at the long bone in Napoleon’s arm. “I find this humerus,” he said.
    Everyone groaned.
    â€œOkay,” Dr. Oglethorpe said. “I agree. Dumb joke. You know what is going to be humorous, though? Watching me drive away with Napoleon, because when my car broke down I had to borrow my neighbor’s. We’ll have to fold Napoleon carefully at his joints and he’ll sit beside me in a tiny VW Beetle on the way home.”
    â€œTa-da!” Gooney Bird said, and jingled her charm bracelet.

About the Author

    Â 
    L OIS L OWRY is known for her versatility and invention as a writer. She was born in Hawaii and grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, and Japan. After several years at Brown University, she turned to her family and to writing. She is the author of more than thirty books for young adults, including the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader’s Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels,
Number the Stars
and
The Giver
. Her first novel,
A Summer to Die
, was awarded the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award. Ms. Lowry now divides her time between Cambridge and an 1840s farmhouse in Maine. To learn more about Lois Lowry, see her website at www.loislowry.com .