Sparky! (3 page)

Then he closed them again.

I rubbed his belly, but it was too late.

We stood there for a while, watching him sleep. His fur ruffled gently in the breeze.

“I feel sorry for you,” Mary said. “My cat can dance on her hind legs. And my parrot knows twenty words, including
God
and
ice cream
.

“Sparky knows tricks too,” I told her. But she didn’t believe me.

The next day, I made a poster and nailed it to the tree outside Mary Potts’s house.

All week, we trained in secret.

Sometimes Sparky slept through practice and I had to poke him awake.

Sometimes he forgot what he was doing and we had to start over.

Sometimes he took so long to fetch that I went inside and had dinner while I waited.

I was starting to think the poster had been a mistake. But a promise is a promise.

On the day of the Trained Sloth Extravaganza, my mother set up lawn chairs.

Three people came to see Sparky perform: my mother, Mary Potts, and Mrs. Edwin, the crossing guard.

(Mrs. Edwin approved of Sparky because he never ran in the street.)

“Do I look like a ringmaster?” I asked my mother.

“You look very interesting,” she told me.

I put a little glitter on Sparky just before the curtain went up.

I kept wishing I had written
Two Tricks
on the poster, instead of
Countless Tricks
.

“Play dead, Sparky!” I said, and he did.

“Roll over,” I said, and he didn’t.

“Speak!” I commanded.

We all waited.

And waited.

“Speak?” I said.

Sparky looked at me. The only thing you could hear was the wind in the trees.

“He has a very pretty coat, doesn’t he?” Mrs. Edwin said finally.

“You can’t just invent a brand-new pet like that,” Mary told me. “A pet no one’s ever even had!”

My mother came out with lemonade and cookies, but everyone said they had to be going.

Sparky and I watched them; then my mother

made me put the chairs away.