Read How to Look for a Lost Dog Online
Authors: Ann M Martin
How to Look for a Lost Dog
11-year-old Rose is autistic and struggles to understand her classmates. But when her father gives her a stray dog who she names Rain, the dog becomes her best friend â her anchor in a confusing world. So when Rain goes missing during a storm, Rose refuses to stop looking for herâ¦
A touching story from the beloved author of
The Baby-Sitters Club
.
“If you can read, you'll love this book.”
New York Times
1. Who I am â A Girl Named Rose (Rows)
4. Some Things About My Father, Whose Name, Wesley Howard, Does Not Have a Homonym
9. Mrs Leibler, Who Sits Next to Me
10. Anders Isn't Following the Rules
PART TWO: THE PART ABOUT THE HURRICANE
14. The Storm on the Weather Channel
16. How to Get Ready for a Hurricane
19. Rain Doesn't Come When I Call
20. Why I Get Mad at My Father
23. Why My Father Gets Mad at Me
25. How to Look For a Lost Dog
27. My Story Is Such a Sad One
29. What Not to Do When You Think of a New Homonym
32. The Happy Tails Animal Shelter in Elmara, New York
36. Mrs Kushel's Helpful Suggestions
38. The General Store in Gloverstown
41. My Father Makes a Mistake with Pronouns
46. My Father Has an Argument with His Brother
47. In the Middle of the Night
48. What Happened to My Mother
A Guide to the Measurements in this Book
Ann M. Martin is the author of the bestselling
Baby-Sitters Club
series, which sold 176 million copies worldwide. In addition, she is the author of over thirty critically-acclaimed novels, including
A Corner of the Universe
which won a Newbery Honor in 2003.
In memory of sweet Sadie,
March 11, 1998 â October 7, 2013
This story happens in America, where we use imperial units of measurement. Please
turn to the back for a guide
to help you calculate them in metric.
The First Part
Who I Am â A Girl Named Rose (Rows)
I am Rose Howard and my first name has a homonym. To be accurate, it has a
homophone
, which is a word that's pronounced the same as another word but spelled differently. My homophone name is Rows.
Most people say
homonym
when they mean
homophone
. My teacher, Mrs Kushel, says this is a common mistake.
“What's the difference between making a mistake and breaking a rule?” I want to know.
“Making a mistake is accidental. Breaking a rule is deliberate.”
“But ifâ” I start to say.
Mrs Kushel rushes on. “It's all right to say âhomonym' when we mean âhomophone'. That's called a colloquialism.”
“âBreaking' has a homonym,” I tell her. “âBraking'.”
I like homonyms a lot. And I like words. Rules and numbers too. Here is the order in which I like these things:
1. Words (especially homonyms)
2. Rules
3. Numbers (especially prime numbers)
I'm going to tell you a story. It's a true story, which makes it a piece of non-fiction.
This is how you tell a story: First you introduce the main character. I'm writing this story about me, so I am the main character.
My first name has a homonym, and I gave my dog a homonym name too. Her name is Rain, which is special because it has two homonyms â rein and reign. I will write more about Rain in Chapter 2. Chapter 2 will be called “My Dog, Rain (Reign, Rein)”.
Something important about the word
write
is that it has
three
homonyms â right, rite, and wright. That's the only group of four homonyms I've thought of. If I ever think of another four-homonym group, it will be a red-letter day.
I live with my father, Wesley Howard, and neither of his names has a homonym.
From our porch you can see our front yard and our driveway and our road, which is called Hud Road.
Road
has two homonyms â rowed and rode. On the other side (sighed) of the road is a little forest, and through the trees you can see the New York State Thruway. The word
see
has a homonym â sea. But even better,
sees
has two homonyms â seas and seize.
I'm in fifth grade at Hatford Elementary. There's only one elementary school in Hatford, New York, and only one fifth-grade classroom in the school, and I'm in it. Most of my classmates are ten years old or about to turn eleven. I'm almost twelve because no one is sure what to do with me in school. I've stayed back for two semesters, which is a total of one year.
Some of the things I get teased about are following the rules and always talking about homonyms. Mrs Leibler is my aide and she sits with me in Mrs Kushel's room. She sits in an adult-sized chair next to my fifth-grade-sized chair and rests her hand on my arm when I blurt something out in the middle of maths. Or, if I whap myself in the head and start to cry, she'll say, “Rose, do you need to step into the hall for a moment?”
Mrs Leibler tells me that there are things worth talking about besides homonyms and rules and prime numbers. She encourages me to think up conversation starters. Some conversation starters about me that do not have anything to do with homonyms or rules or prime numbers are:
I live in a house that faces north-east. (After I say that, I ask the person I'm trying to have a conversation with, “And which direction does
your
house face?”)
Down the road, 0.7 miles from my house is the J & R Garage, where my father sometimes works as a mechanic, and 0.1 miles further along is a bar called The Luck of the Irish, where my father goes after work. There is nothing between my house and the J & R Garage except trees and the road. (“Tell me some things about
your
neighbourhood.”)
I have an uncle named Weldon, who is my father's younger brother. (“And who else is in
your
family?”)
My official diagnosis is high-functioning autism, which some people call Asperger's syndrome. (“Do
you
have a diagnosis?”)
I will finish up this part of my introduction by telling you that my mother does not live with my father and me. She ran away from our family when I was two. Therefore, the people living in my house are my father and me. The dog living in our house is Rain. Uncle Weldon lives 3.4 miles away on the other side of Hatford.
The next part of my introduction is the setting of my story. I've already told you my geographic location â Hud Road in Hatford, New York. The historical moment in time in which this story begins is October of my year in fifth grade.
Now I will tell you something troubling about fifth grade. It isn't as troubling as what happens later in the story when my father lets Rain outside during a hurricane, but it is still troubling. For the first time in my life I'm being sent home with weekly progress reports that I have to give to my father. The reports are written by Mrs Leibler and read and signed by Mrs Kushel, which is my teachers' way of saying that they're in agreement about my behaviour. The reports list all of my notable behaviours for Monday through Friday. Some of the comments are nice, such as the ones about when I participate appropriately in a classroom discussion. But most of the comments make my father slam the reports onto the table and say, “Rose, for god's sake, keep your mouth closed when you think of a homonym”, or, “Do you see any of the other kids clapping their hands over their ears and screaming when they hear the fire alarm?”
In the last report Mrs Leibler and Mrs Kushel asked my father to schedule monthly meetings with them. Now he's supposed to go to Hatford Elementary on the third Friday of every month at 3.45 p.m. to discuss me. This is what he said when he read that: “I don't have time for meetings. This is way too much trouble, Rose. Why do you
do
these things?” He said that at 3.48 p.m. on a Friday when there was no work for him at the J & R Garage.
Uncle Weldon heard about the monthly meetings on October 3rd at 8.10 p.m. when he was visiting my father and Rain and me.
My father was standing at the front door, holding the letter in his hand and gazing out at the trees and the darkness. “These meetings are crap,” he said.