Karen's Dinosaur Read online

  This book is for

  Nora Godwin Allen

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 Waiting for the Bus

  2 Mrs. Hoffman

  3 Class Trip

  4 Two by Two

  5 Dinosaur Skeletons

  6 The Dinosaur Hall of Fame

  7 Wanted!

  8 Ornitholestes

  9 Greedy Guts

  10 Butterflies

  11 The Best Bus

  12 Skyscrapers

  13 Hello, Maxie!

  14 Central Park

  15 Picnic in the Park

  16 The Biggest Museum

  17 The Dinosaur Halls

  18 Lost

  19 Ornitholestes to the Rescue

  20 A Present for David Michael

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Waiting for the Bus

  Stegosaurus. Tyrannosaurus. Diplodocus. Allosaurus. Apatosaurus. I was thinking about dinosaurs as I stood at the school bus stop. I was waiting for the bus. I was also waiting for my best friend, Hannie Papadakis. Actually, Hannie is one of my two best friends. The other one is Nancy Dawes. Hannie and Nancy and I call ourselves the Three Musketeers. We are in Ms. Colman’s second-grade class at Stoneybrook Academy here in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. And we are studying dinosaurs.

  I am Karen Brewer. I am seven years old. So are Nancy and Hannie. I have long blonde hair, blue eyes, and some freckles. I wear glasses. I even have two pairs. The blue pair is for reading. The pink pair is for the rest of the time.

  “Hi, Karen!” Hannie called. She was running across the street toward the bus stop. She was carrying a big book.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  Hannie held it out to me. “It is about dinosaurs,” she replied. “I took it out of the library yesterday. Look at this.”

  Hannie opened the book. I saw rows of pictures of dinosaurs. Under each picture was the dinosaur’s name.

  “Wow. Some of these names are hard to say.” I peered at them. I tried to sound them out. The first one was pachycephalosaurus. “Pack-ee-cef-a-la-sor-us,” I said slowly. The next one was dromiceiomimus. “Drom — drom — ” I could not say that one at all.

  “We will have to ask Mrs. Hoffman about it,” said Hannie.

  Mrs. Hoffman is our substitute teacher. She has been our substitute teacher for quite awhile. That is because Ms. Colman just had a baby. Ms. Colman will come back to school in June. (It is May now.) Mrs. Hoffman is the one who has been teaching our class about dinosaurs.

  “Hey, what is David Michael doing?” asked Hannie.

  David Michael is my stepbrother. He goes to a different school, Stoneybrook Elementary. (He is in second grade, just like I am.) He waits at a different bus stop. It is farther down the sidewalk from ours. Usually, David Michael fools around with the other kids at his bus stop. But that morning, he was sitting on a big rock. He kept turning the pages of a book, then writing in a workbook.

  “He must be finishing his homework,” said Hannie.

  “No. Last night he said he did not have any homework.” I frowned. Then I yelled, “Hey, David Michael, what are you doing?”

  “None of your business!” he yelled back, which was very rude.

  “It is homework, isn’t it?”

  “I said, none of your business!”

  “What a grouch,” I said to Hannie. “He is probably mad because he had homework last night and he forgot about it. The same thing happened on Tuesday.”

  Hannie opened the dinosaur book again. “Well, anyway,” she said, “here is a dinosaur called di — dinon — Hmm. I am not sure what it is called. But its name means ‘terrible claw.’ Isn’t that cool?”

  “Let me see it,” I said. I could not pronounce its name either. But the picture of deinonychus looked quite fierce.

  Our bus arrived then. I took one last look at David Michael sitting on that rock, trying to finish his homework. Then I scrambled onto the bus after Hannie.

  Hannie and I used to be afraid of the big kids on the bus, but we are not anymore. We opened Hannie’s book and looked at the dinosaurs again. We looked at them as the bus lurched its way to Stoneybrook Academy.

  Mrs. Hoffman

  When the bus stopped in the school parking lot, Hannie snapped her book shut. We hopped off the bus. We ran to the front door of our school. Then we walked to our classroom. (We are not allowed to run in the halls.)

  “Good morning, Hannie. Good morning, Karen,” said Mrs. Hoffman.

  “Good morning,” we replied.

  Guess what. When I first met Mrs. Hoffman, I did not like her. In fact, I hated her. So I called her Hatey Hoffman. But that did not last long. Now my classmates and I understand Mrs. Hoffman, and she understands us. She is our favorite substitute teacher ever.

  Hannie and I put our things away in our cubbies. Then we went to the back of the room to wait for Nancy Dawes. Hannie and Nancy sit together in the back row. I used to sit with them. That was before I got my glasses. When I got my glasses, Ms. Colman moved me to the front row with the other glasses-wearers. She thinks I can see the board better from there. Ms. Colman ought to know. She is a glasses-wearer herself.

  While we waited for Nancy, I watched my classmates enter the room. I saw Ricky Torres and Natalie Springer. They are the other glasses-wearers. I saw Terri and Tammy Barkan, the twins. I saw Sara Ford, who was new this year. I saw Addie Sidney in her wheelchair. She was new this year, too. I saw Pamela Harding, Jannie Gilbert, and Leslie Morris. They are best friends, but I call them my best enemies. I saw Omar Harris and Chris Lamar, Audrey Green and Hank Reubens, and Bobby Gianelli and Ian Johnson. Eighteen kids in all.

  Nancy was the last one to arrive. I looked at the clock. Goody. Five more minutes until the bell would ring. We had a little time to play with Hootie and Evelyn. They are our class guinea pigs. Hootie and Evelyn live in separate cages. That is because Hootie is a boy and Evelyn is a girl. They used to live in the same cage, but then Evelyn had babies. That was fun, but Ms. Colman said we could only let it happen once.

  Hootie and Evelyn were still scurrying around on the floor when the bell rang.

  “Okay, class!” called Mrs. Hoffman.

  We put the guinea pigs in their cages.

  My classmates and I hurried to our seats. “ ’Bye, you guys,” I said to Nancy and Hannie. “See you at lunchtime.” I sat down. My desk faces our teacher’s desk. It is smack in front of it. That is so our teacher can keep her eye on me. In case I get out of hand. (I have a little trouble remembering to raise my hand. Also a little trouble settling down.)

  I sit between Ricky Torres and Natalie Springer. Ricky is my pretend husband. We got married on the playground one day. Natalie is nice, but her socks are always falling down.

  “Natalie,” said Mrs. Hoffman, “would you take attendance today?”

  Mrs. Hoffman handed the roll book to Natalie. Natalie took it proudly. Then she made a check mark for each person who had come to school that day. Since no one was absent, she made eighteen marks. She handed the book back to Mrs. Hoffman.

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. Hoffman. “Now, how many of you will be buying lunch in the cafeteria today?”

  Nine people raised their hands.

  “And how many of you still need to talk to me about the after-school clubs?”

  Four people raised their hands.

  “Okay,” Mrs. Hoffman went on. “Let me see. Jannie and Ian, you need to hand in your reading worksheets.”

  “Here is mine!” called Jannie.

  “And mine!” called Ian.

  “Thank you. And now,” said Mrs. Hoffman, “I have an announcement to make.”

  Class Trip

&
nbsp; Mrs. Hoffman was going to make an announcement. Hmm. Whenever Ms. Colman makes an announcement, I get very excited. She usually makes Surprising Announcements. They are about good things. She might tell us we are going to put on a play. Or begin an art project. Or plant a garden of our own. Once she told us we were going to adopt grandparents. Then there was the time she told us she was going to have a baby.

  I wondered if Mrs. Hoffman’s announcement would be as wonderful as Ms. Colman’s Surprising Announcements.

  It was.

  “Girls and boys,” began Mrs. Hoffman, “we have, as you know, just begun learning about dinosaurs. In the next few weeks we will learn lots of things about them. Then, at the end of our unit, we will take a field trip.”

  “Yea!” I cried.

  “A field trip to where?” asked Bobby.

  Mrs. Hoffman smiled. “A field trip to New York City.”

  “To New York City?” repeated Sara. “Cool.”

  “Very cool,” added Pamela.

  I turned around and grinned at Nancy and Hannie. They grinned back.

  “Why are we going to New York?” asked Omar.

  “Good question,” said Mrs. Hoffman. “We are going to New York to visit the American Museum of Natural History. It is a wonderful place. At the museum you can learn about nature, animals, rocks and minerals, history, people, and lots more.”

  “Can you learn about dinosaurs?” I asked.

  “You certainly can. On the fourth floor are the dinosaur halls. You will find displays, things to touch, computers you can talk to, fossils, and even dinosaur skeletons.”

  “Skeletons?” cried Ricky.

  “Of whole dinosaurs?” asked Tammy.

  “Yup,” said Mrs. Hoffman.

  “Is there an apatosaurus?” asked Chris.

  “I believe so,” replied Mrs. Hoffman.

  We were so excited that Mrs. Hoffman had to ask us to settle down, please. Then she said something that was so surprising and wonderful I could not believe it.

  “Guess who will be going with us to the museum.”

  “The room parents?” suggested Natalie.

  “Well, yes. But also … your pen pals in Miss Mandel’s class.”

  This was too much for me. I leaped out of my seat. “I will get to see Maxie again!” I cried.

  “Indoor voice, Karen,” said Mrs. Hoffman.

  Everyone in our class has a pen pal in a second-grade classroom in New York City. Our pen pals’ teacher is Miss Mandel. She is a friend of Ms. Colman’s. We write letters to our pen pals, and once they visited our school here in Stoneybrook. My pen pal is named Maxie Medvin. She lives in an apartment in the city. She is already eight years old. She has older sisters who are twins, and younger brothers who are adopted. Maxie and I are very good friends. I was glad we would get to see each other again.

  “On the day of our trip,” Mrs. Hoffman said, “the bus will take us to your pen pals’ school. You will meet your friends and see their classroom. Then, together, we will walk to Central Park for a picnic lunch. After that, we will go to the museum where each of you will work on a dinosaur project with your pen pal. Your pen pals have been learning about dinosaurs, too. I am not going to tell you much about the project yet. For now, all you need to know is that you and your pen pal must choose a dinosaur ahead of time. So keep your eyes open for a dinosaur you especially like or think is interesting.”

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Hoffman?” said Addie. “I have a problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “I do not have a pen pal.”

  Two by Two

  It turned out that Addie did not have a problem after all.

  “I know you joined our class after your friends met their pen pals,” said Mrs. Hoffman. “But guess what. Miss Mandel’s class has a new student, too. His name is Jamal, and he will be your pen pal.”

  Addie smiled. And that was the end of her problem.

  * * *

  That afternoon, Hannie and I bounced home together on the rattly schoolbus. I was still excited about our field trip. I could not wait to tell my two families about it.

  Why do I have two families? Well, it is like this:

  A long time ago, when I was still in preschool, I lived with one family. Mommy, Daddy, Andrew, and me. (Andrew is my little brother. He is four going on five now.) We lived in a big house here in Stoneybrook. I thought Mommy and Daddy were happy, but I guess they were not. They decided to get a divorce. They said they loved Andrew and me very much, but they did not love each other anymore.

  After the divorce, Mommy moved to a little house. Daddy stayed nearby in the big house. (It is the house he grew up in.) Later, Mommy and Daddy each got married again. Mommy married Seth. He is my stepfather. Daddy married Elizabeth. She is my stepmother.

  So now Andrew and I have two families. Every other month we live with Daddy at the big house. During the in-between months we live with Mommy at the little house. These are the people and pets in each of my families:

  In my little-house family are Mommy, Seth, Andrew, me, Rocky, Midgie, Emily Junior, and Bob. Rocky and Midgie are Seth’s cat and dog. Emily Junior is my pet rat. Bob is Andrew’s hermit crab.

  In my big-house family are Daddy, Elizabeth, Kristy, Sam, Charlie, David Michael, Emily Michelle, Nannie, Andrew, me, Shannon, Boo-Boo, Crystal Light the Second, Goldfishie, Emily Junior, and Bob. (Emily Junior and Bob go back and forth with Andrew and me.) Kristy, Sam, Charlie, and David Michael are Elizabeth’s kids, so they are my stepsister and stepbrothers. (Elizabeth was married once before she married Daddy.) Kristy is thirteen, and one of my favorite people in the world. Sam and Charlie are old. They go to high school. And as you know, David Michael is seven like me. Emily Michelle is two and a half. Daddy and Elizabeth adopted her from the faraway country of Vietnam. I love Emily. That is why I named my special pet rat after her. Nannie is Elizabeth’s mother. That makes her my stepgrandmother. Nannie helps take care of the house and all us kids.

  Shannon is not a person. She is one of the pets. She is David Michael’s big, floppy puppy. Boo-Boo is Daddy’s fat old cat. (Sometimes he hisses and scratches.) Crystal Light is my goldfish. And Goldfishie is Andrew’s you-know-what.

  I made up nicknames for my brother and me. I call us Andrew Two-Two and Karen Two-Two. I thought up those names after Ms. Colman read a very wonderful book to our class. It was called Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang. We are two-twos because we have two of so many things. We have two houses and two families, two mommies and two daddies, two cats and two dogs. I have two stuffed cats named Goosie and Moosie. Goosie stays at the little house, Moosie stays at the big house. I have two bicycles and Andrew has two tricycles. In fact, we each have toys and books and clothes at both houses. That is so we do not have to pack much when we go back and forth.

  Do you know what else I have two of? Glasses (I already told you that). And best friends. Nancy lives next door to the little house. Hannie lives across the street from Daddy’s and one house down.

  Sometimes being a two-two is confusing. But mostly it is fine. I like it. I am lucky to have two families who love me.

  Dinosaur Skeletons

  When the bus pulled up to our stop, Hannie and I hopped down the steps.

  “See you later!” I called to Hannie.

  I ran to the big house. I opened the front door. “Hello!” I called.

  “Hello!” replied Nannie and Andrew. I found them in the kitchen. They were fixing snacks. Emily was there, too. She was sitting in her high chair. But she did not say anything. She was sleepy because she had just woken up from her nap.

  “Guess what!” I exclaimed.

  “What?” said Nannie and Andrew.

  “When we finish learning about dinosaurs, we are going to go to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.”

  “In New York?!” cried Andrew.

  “Really?” said Nannie. “That is wonderful. How exciting.”

  “Remember when we went to New York?” said Andre
w.

  “Yup,” I replied. “That was fun.” Last December, Mommy and Seth and Andrew and I went to New York for a whole weekend. We even visited Maxie at her apartment.

  “Why are you going to the museum?” Andrew wanted to know.

  “To see the dinosaurs.”

  “Real dinosaurs?”

  “No, silly. Dinosaur skeletons.”

  “Ew,” said Andrew.

  “Nannie? Can I tell Daddy my news?” I asked. Daddy works at home. His office is right here in the big house. But we are not supposed to disturb him unless it is Very Important.

  “I guess so,” said Nannie. “But be quick. No chattering.” (Sometimes I talk a little too much.)

  I knocked on the door to Daddy’s office. I told him the news.

  “Fantastic!” he said.

  Then I heard David Michael come home. I closed Daddy’s door and ran back to the kitchen.

  “David Michael! Guess what,” I said. “We are studying dinosaurs with Mrs. Hoffman and in a few weeks we are going to go on a field trip. We are going to New York City to the American Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaur skeletons. We will work on a project there.”

  David Michael did not look as happy as everyone else had looked. He narrowed his eyes at me. “You are?”

  “Yup.”

  “We are learning about dinosaurs, too,” said David Michael. “And our teacher did not say anything about going to New York or a museum.”

  “Well — ” I started to say.

  “But she did say,” David Michael went on, “that we are going to have a project at the end of our unit. Maybe we will do our project in the museum. Just like you are going to do.” David Michael was smiling. He loves dinosaurs. And he would especially love a trip to the dinosaur halls.

  “Did your teacher say you are going to take a trip?” I asked.

  “No,” replied David Michael. “She must be planning a surprise.”

  “I don’t know. That sounds — ”

  “Never mind,” said David Michael. “I know it is a surprise.”

  * * *

  That night, I did my homework at the kitchen table. David Michael sat across from me with a worksheet. My homework was about dinosaur footprints. David Michael’s was about subtraction.