Scout by Ellen Miles

CHAPTER ONE
    “Let’s see, are we about to miss the exit for the airport?” Meg squinted at a sign. “No, there we are. It’s coming right up.”
    “I can’t wait to get there!” Lizzie bounced in her seat. She could hardly believe that Meg had invited her along on this trip. They were going to pick up a very special puppy.
    Meg Parker, who was on the Littleton fire squad with Lizzie’s dad, was one of Lizzie Peterson’s favorite people. Meg was a “dog person,” just like Lizzie. They both loved dogs and everything about them.
    “Tell me again,” Lizzie asked Meg. “Tell me everything you know about this puppy.”
    “Well, she was born on a farm in Ohio, and hername is Scout,” Meg said. “She’s named after a character in one of my favorite books,
To Kill a Mockingbird
.”
    “Scout,” Lizzie repeated. She’d never read the book, but she liked the name. It was perfect for a young German shepherd puppy. “And you said she’s four months old?”
    “That’s right,” said Meg. “She’s the same age Casey was when I rescued her.”
    Casey was Meg’s five-year-old German shepherd. Casey had been abandoned as a puppy, and Meg had given her a home. That’s what Meg meant by “rescued.” Lizzie knew that there were lots and lots of puppies and dogs that needed homes. Meg loved German shepherds, and she liked to help them find perfect homes. Sometimes that meant working with other German shepherd lovers all over the country. Meg’s German shepherd rescue group passed the word whenever a dog or puppy needed a home. Today, Meg had invited Lizzie to come with her to pick up Scout,who was arriving by airplane all the way from Ohio!
    Meg knew of three different families who were hoping to give a German shepherd puppy a home. That’s why Lizzie and Meg were zipping along the highway in Meg’s bright blue van. The van had a special area in back for Casey, with a box called a crate where she could be safe. Meg had left Casey at Lizzie’s house so the new puppy, Scout, could ride in the van today.
    Meg and Casey traveled in the bright blue van a lot, because Casey was a search-and-rescue dog. Meg had trained Casey for years, and now they worked together as a team. “Maybe it’s because she was rescued herself,” Meg had told Lizzie, “but she really seems to love rescuing others.”
    Lizzie knew that search-and-rescue dogs and their owners went everywhere they were needed. They went to national parks if a child was lost in the woods. They also went to places where there had been earthquakes and people needed help,and to snowy areas where skiers got trapped by avalanches. Dogs like Casey were trained to use their sense of smell to track down people, no matter how lost they were. Working with Meg, Casey had saved the lives of many people. She was a hero.
    Casey was smart and beautiful, and she was one of Lizzie’s favorite dogs. Lizzie had
lots
of favorite dogs. In fact, she loved pretty much every dog she met. But certain dogs were special. Like Casey. And like Buddy, the puppy that Lizzie’s family had adopted not long ago.
    Buddy was one of the many puppies that the Petersons had fostered. Being a foster family meant that they took care of puppies who needed homes, just until the perfect forever families came along. Lizzie and her younger brother Charles had convinced their parents that fostering puppies was a great family activity. The Bean, their toddler brother (whose real name was Adam), did not need any convincing. He
loved
puppies — infact, he seemed to think he
was
one. He loved to pretend he was a dog. Sometimes Lizzie thought that the Bean believed Buddy was his little brother instead of a puppy!
    Buddy was tan, with some brown markings and a white heart-shaped mark on his chest. He had been a tiny puppy, the runt of his litter. (That meant he was smaller than his two sisters.) But by now he had grown into a happy, healthy puppy. He was the sweetest guy! Lizzie loved to cuddle with him