Lulu and the Brontosaurus
Judith Viorst
ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people,
or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents
are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events
or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2010 by Judith Viorst
Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Lane Smith
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The text for this book is set in Officina Sans.
The illustrations for this book are rendered in pencil on pastel paper.
Manufactured in the United States of America
0810 FFG
First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Viorst, Judith.
Lulu and the brontosaurus / Judith Viorst ; illustrated by Lane Smith. —1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Lulu’s parents refuse to give in when she demands a brontosaurus for her
birthday and so she sets out to find her own, but while the brontosaurus she finally
meets approves of pets, he does not intend to be Lulu’s.
ISBN 978-1-4169-9961-4 (hardcover)
[1. Behavior—Fiction. 2. Apatosaurus—Fiction. 3. Pets—Fiction. 4. Birthdays—Fiction.]
I. Smith, Lane, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.V816Lul 2010
[Fic]—dc22
2009031664
ISBN 978-1-4169-9963-8 (eBook)
BOOK DESIGN BY MOLLY LEACH
For Nathaniel Redding Gwadz Viorst
and Benjamin Carlo Gwadz Viorst,
who helped me write this story
—J. V.
For Molly
—L. S.
OKAY! All right! You don’t have to tell me! I know!
I know that people and dinosaurs have never lived on Earth at the same time. And I know that dinosaurs aren’t living now. I even also know that paleontologists (folks who study dinosaurs) decided that a dinosaur that was once called a brontosaurus (a very nice name) shouldn’t be called brontosaurus anymore, and changed it to apatosaurus (a kind of ugly name). But since I’m the person writing this story, I get to choose what I write, and I’m writing about a girl and a BRONTOSAURUS. So if you don’t want to read this book, you can close it up right now—you won’t hurt my feelings. And if you still want to read it, here goes:
There once was a girl named Lulu, and she was a pain. She wasn’t a pain in the elbow. She wasn’t a pain in the knee. She was a pain—a very big pain—in the butt.
Now, Lulu was an only child, and her mom and her dad gave her everything she wanted. And guess what? Lulu wanted EVERYTHING. Tons of candy. Tons of toys. Tons of watching tons of cartoons on TV. And if her mom and her dad ever said (and they hardly ever said it), “Sorry, darling, we think you’ve had enough,” Lulu would screech till the lightbulbs burst and throw herself down on the floor, and then she would kick her heels and wave her arms. And pretty soon her mom and her dad would say, “Well, just this once,” and let her have whatever it was she wanted.
Two weeks before Lulu’s birthday, she announced to her mom and her dad that she wanted a brontosaurus for her b-day present. What did she say? What? A brontosaurus? Yes, she wanted a brontosaurus for a pet. At first Lulu’s mom and her dad just thought she was making a little joke. And then they saw—oh, horrors!—that she was serious.
They patiently explained that a brontosaurus is a quite enormous dinosaur who lives in forests, not in people’s houses.
(Is that where a brontosaurus would live? In a forest? I’m afraid that I’m not absolutely sure. But since I’m the person writing this story, I’m putting this brontosaurus in a forest, along with a lot of other wild beasts that I’m absolutely sure did not live on Earth when dinosaurs were there.)
Anyway, Lulu’s mom and her dad continued explaining to her, although a brontosaurus is into eating plants, not animals (including human animals like Lulu), and although it is cute (in a long-necked, pinheaded way), it is much too huge and too wild to be a good pet.
A dog,
a cat,
a goldfish,
a bird,
a gerbil,
a guinea pig, yes.
A brontosaurus?
Definitely no.
No? Her mom and her dad were telling Lulu no? Lulu wasn’t used to hearing no. And she hated—she really hated—hearing no. To show how much she hated it, she screeched and screeched and screeched till all the lightbulbs in the living room burst. “I WANT A BRONTOSAURUS FOR MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT,” she said in between screeches.
“I WANT A BRONTOSAURUS FOR A PET.”
“Well, maybe we could get you a nice pet rabbit,” said her mom.
“Or even,” said her dad, “a nice pet rat.”
“Nonononononono!” screeched Lulu.
“I WANT A BRONTOSAURUS FOR A PET.”
Then she threw herself down on the floor and kicked her heels and waved her arms and screeched some more.
Four days, eight days, ten days, twelve days passed. Lulu kept saying, “I WANT A BRONTOSAURUS.” Her mom and her dad just kept on saying no. Lulu kept screeching and throwing herself on the floor and kicking her heels and waving her arms. Lulu’s mom and her dad kept saying no. Until finally, on the thirteenth day, the day before Lulu’s birthday, right after lunch, Lulu said to her mom and her dad, “Okay then, foo on you.” (She had terrible manners.) “If you aren’t going to get me a brontosaurus, I’m going out and getting one for myself.”
Lulu packed a small suitcase, said good-bye to her mom and her dad, and walked out the door.
And they let her go! Partly because they thought she’d change her mind and come running back home in about two minutes. And partly because it was nice to not have her screeching and kicking and waving and being a pain.
“Let’s have a cup of tea and a couple of cookies,” Lulu’s mom said to her dad.
“Excellent idea,” her dad replied.
So they went into the kitchen and started munching on some cookies and sipping tea. And pretty soon they’d forgotten all about Lulu.
But Lulu hadn’t forgotten that she was going to get herself a brontosaurus. And luckily for Lulu, there was a great big forest not too far from her house. The animals in that forest had never bothered anybody, because nobody had ever bothered them. But—watch out, creatures!—here came Lulu, trudging through the forest, swinging her small suitcase back and forth, and—in a quite loud voice that was sure to wake the napping animals from their naps—singing this song:
I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna, gonna get
A bronto-bronto-bronto
Brontosaurus for a pet.
I’m gonna, I’m gonna,
I’m gonna, gonna get
A bronto-bronto-bronto
Brontosaurus for a pet.
The forest that Lulu was trudging through was overgrown with trees whose branches scratched her face and whose roots she tripped over. But Lulu hardly noticed, because she was thinking just one thought, and you know what that was.
So on she went, swinging her suitcase and singing her song too loud and annoying all the creatures in the forest, and being the same big pain out there that she was back home in her house,
until …
Slithering down from the branch of a tree came a long, fat, brown-black snake, who had been peacefully snoozing till Lulu woke him up. Sleepy and grumpy and hissing an exceedingly nasty hiss, he wrapped himself around Lulu, around and around and tighter and tighter, and told her she’d really be sorry that she had awakened him.
“I’m going to squeeze you dead,” he said.
(Okay, so snakes don’t talk. But in my story they do.)
And Lulu said, “Not if I squeeze you deader.”
So Lulu squeezed the snake—hard!—and the snake yelled, “Ow!” and quickly unwrapped himself from Lulu. And Lulu, wiping some snake sweat from the palms of her snake-squeezing hands, went on trudging deeper into the forest.
I’m gonna, I’m gonna,
I’m gonna, gonna get
A bronto-bronto-bronto
Brontosaurus for a pet.
I’m gonna, I’m gonna,
I’m gonna, gonna get
A bronto-bronto-bronto
Brontosaurus for a pet.
Singing her brontosaurus song in a louder and louder voice, Lulu was waking up nappers all over the forest. Some were annoyed. Some were extremely annoyed. Among the extremely annoyed was a silky, slinky lady tiger, who yawned and stretched and rubbed her bright green eyes, and then, with a ferocious roar, sprung out from behind some trees and pounced on Lulu.
“You’re a big pain,” the tiger said, “so I’m going to eat you up for my afternoon snack.”
“Uh-uh,” said Lulu. “I’m bonking you on the head.” And swinging, swinging with all her might, Lulu bonked the tiger with her suitcase.
The tiger yelled, “Ow!” and fell down in a pitiful black-and-orange-striped heap on the forest floor. Lulu brushed off a few tiger hairs that were stuck to the side of her tiger-bonking suitcase and went on trudging deeper into the forest.
As the afternoon turned into late afternoon and then into early evening, Lulu trudged ever deeper into the forest. When she felt hungry, she opened her suitcase and took out a pickle sandwich.
When she felt cold, she took out a sweater and socks. And when it got buggy, she opened her suitcase and took out some bug spray and sprayed. She was feeling a little tired, but she kept trudging, and swinging her suitcase, and singing her song.
I’m gonna, I’m gonna,
I’m gonna, gonna get
A bronto-bronto-bronto
Brontosaurus for a pet.
I’m gonna, I’m gonna,
I’m gonna, gonna get
A bronto-bronto-bronto
Brontosaurus for a pet.
Now, a big black bear who liked listening to the music that insects make in the early evening couldn’t hear their song because Lulu’s was louder. Plus, a lot of the insects were deader because Lulu kept on spraying them with her spray. This made him mad. Then madder. Then madder than that. He growled a thunderous growl, and then he lumbered heavily down the forest path and stood on his two hind legs in front of Lulu. Waving a big claw-y paw in her face, he said, “You’re interrupting my favorite program.” (Please don’t give me an argument. In my story, bears are allowed to have favorite programs.) “So I’m going to scratch you to pieces with my claws.”
Lulu glared at the big black bear and put her hands on her hips. “Nobody’s scratching me,” she told the bear. Then she jumped—as high as she possibly could—in the air. Then she landed—as hard as she possibly could—on his foot.
The bear yelled, “Ow!” and went limping away, as fast as a bear could limp with one stomped foot. And after shaking some broken bear toenails off the bottoms of her bear-stomping shoes, Lulu went trudging deeper into the forest.
Lulu was now in the deepest, darkest, quietest part of the forest. It was getting quite late and she was getting quite tired. She took her sleeping bag out of her suitcase, spread it on the ground, and lay down to sleep. But before she slept, she sang her song once more.
I’m gonna, I’m gonna,
I’m gonna, gonna get
A bronto-bronto-bronto
Brontosaurus for a pet.
I’m gonna, I’m gonna,
I’m gonna, gonna get
A bronto-bronto-bronto
Brontosaurus for a pet.
Actually, she never even got to sing the last line because, before she could get to it, she was sleeping.
At dawn Lulu woke to the sound of birds calling to one another, and the dusky-musky smell of the forest floor, and the feel of a gentle late-summer breeze blowing across her face, and the taste (because she hadn’t bothered to brush her teeth before bedtime) of yesterday’s pickle sandwich. She also woke to the sight of something so huge, so enormous, so utterly gigantic that she thought—no, she was sure—that she was still dreaming. It looked like a mountain, except this mountain had legs, a very long neck, and a very small head. It was (as I’m sure you’ve already figured out) the brontosaurus that Lulu had been searching for.
Lulu closed, then opened, then closed, then opened her eyes again, and decided she wasn’t dreaming after all. She quickly climbed out of her sleeping bag and announced to the brontosaurus, “It’s my birthday today and—just in time!—I’ve found you.”
“No, I’ve found you,” the brontosaurus told Lulu. “And I’d like to wish you a very happy birthday.”
“Oh, it will be very happy,” Lulu said to the brontosaurus, “because you”—she patted his ankle, because his ankle was as high as she could reach—“you are the pet I’m getting for my birthday.”
The brontosaurus bent down his neck so his face was close to Lulu’s. He looked at her back to front and head to toes, sniffing at her carefully with his brontosaurus nose and making a rumbling noise (nobody knows how dinosaurs sound, but in my story they rumble) and slowly nodding, nodding his pinheaded head.
“A pet,” he said to Lulu, after he’d nodded for a while, “is a very good thing.”
“A very, very good thing,” Lulu replied. She opened up her suitcase and went digging around inside and pulled out a white leather collar, which she fastened around the brontosaurus’s neck.
“Now I’ll just attach this leash”—she dug some more and found a long, long leash in her suitcase—“and take you home with me.”
Lulu attached the leash to the collar, feeling so pleased with herself that she sang a whole new brontosaurus song.
I got it! I got it! I got
What I wanted to get,
A bronto-bronto-bronto
Brontosaurus for a pet.
I got it! I got it! I got
What I wanted to get,
A bronto-bronto-bronto
Brontosaurus for a pet.
She would have kept feeling pleased with herself, except now the brontosaurus was shaking his head. And now, in his rumbling voice, he was saying, “No.” He was saying no and shaking his head till the collar and leash flew off. “No,” he said, “I don’t wish to be your pet.”
Lulu, remember, hated hearing no. She really, really hated hearing no. So she screeched till all the birds fled from the trees, and then she threw herself down on the forest floor, and then she kicked her heels and waved her arms.
The brontosaurus waited patiently, without saying one more word, until she had stopped with the screeching and kicking and waving. “Finished now?” he quite politely asked.
“Maybe I am,” Lulu said. “And maybe I’m not. It all depends”—and here she shook a finger right in the brontosaurus’s face; this girl was a pain, but she wasn’t a scaredy-cat—“it all depends on whether you stop saying no and start saying yes to being my pet.”
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The brontosaurus shook his head no some more. Lulu thought about screeching and so forth some more. But instead she said, in a very snippy voice, “Now listen here, you were the one who said to me just a minute ago that—and I quote—’A PET IS A VERY GOOD THING.’”
“That’s what I said,” the brontosaurus admitted.
“So what,” Lulu asked, “is your problem, Mr. B?”
“No problem,” he answered. “Just a misunderstanding. Because when I said that a pet is a very good thing, I didn’t mean I wanted to be your pet. I meant that you’d be a very good pet for me.”
Lulu’s eyes were two round Os of amazement. She tried to speak, but at first no words came out. Then finally she was able to say, in a squeaky, amazed kind of voice, “I don’t think I heard what I think I just heard, Mr. B.”
“You did indeed,” the brontosaurus replied.
“Well, if I did”—Lulu’s voice was back to being its old bossy self again—“well, if I did, I’ve got some news for you. A person HAS a pet. An animal IS a pet. A person can’t be an animal’s pet, EVER.”
“And I have some news for you,” the brontosaurus said to Lulu, except that he spoke more politely than Lulu had done. “You’re about to be the first person—ever—to be an animal’s pet. Congratulations and, once again, happy birthday.”
He reached out a hand (or whatever you want to call it) and gently scooped Lulu off the forest floor.
He then plunked her gently down where his back met his neck. “Hold on tight, little pet,” he said to Lulu. “I’ll pull off some leaves from the tops of the trees for your breakfast. And then I’m taking you home to live with me.”
