The Backyard Animal Show, Page 3

  “My mum is awesome,” Ziggy admitted.

  The two boys made sure the fawn had fresh leaves and pine chips to lie on, left it some solid food, made sure the shed door was locked, and trudged back to Ziggy’s house.

  “Dino is growing so fast. We’re going to have to make him a bigger space to play in,” Rashawn said, a slight frown on his face.

  “My yard is huge, and completely fenced in, mon,” Ziggy said thoughtfully. “Maybe we can let Dino run free in the yard.”

  “Do you think that’s safe?” Rashawn asked. “He can’t get out, can he?”

  “Not unless someone opens our back gate,” Ziggy replied. “Nobody goes in the backyard during the day except my mum.” He paused. “How much longer do you think we can we keep Dino, mon? He needs to be able to run free with other deer.” They had reached Ziggy’s back door.

  “The Ohio Wildlife Refuge Center guy said Dino will be old enough to go there soon,” Rashawn said sadly. “But I hope it’s not too soon. Let’s make sure he’s strong enough to make it on his own.” Rashawn sounded like a worried parent.

  “You think the kids at school will believe we have a real baby deer?” Ziggy asked.

  “No way! I can’t wait till we tell them about Dino!” Rashawn said eagerly.

  “They’ll never believe what we’ve done, mon,” Ziggy said.

  “Maybe we can invite them to come over and see him,” Rashawn suggested.

  “Great idea! Tomorrow let’s tell Rico and Jerome and see what they think,” Ziggy said, jumping with excitement. They headed for bed for a few hours’ sleep.

  Jerome and Rico took the Saturday morning eight a.m. feeding, so when they finished, they headed up the stairs to Ziggy’s room and woke the other two up.

  Jerome, his camera dangling from his neck, told the others, “Dino is getting so big! Look at these cool pix I took. He’s almost outgrown the shed.”

  “He’s healthy and strong—we’re doing a good job,” Rico said with pride as he glanced at the images on the camera screen.

  “I’ll print these out when I get home,” Jerome promised.

  “Remind me never to have a real baby,” Rashawn said sleepily as he pulled the covers over his head.

  “Dino is the best baby in the world, mon!” Ziggy said as he bounced out of bed. “Let’s share him with the kids at school!”

  “You mean take him to school with us? That won’t work,” Rico reasoned.

  “No, mon! Let’s invite people over to see our fawn,” Ziggy said.

  “That might be fun—but they probably shouldn’t touch him. Dino wouldn’t understand a lot of strangers,” Jerome said.

  “It would be like the zoo,” Rico added.

  “A backyard zoo, mon!” Ziggy said excitedly.

  “With one animal?” Rashawn sounded doubtful.

  “Why don’t we ask other kids to bring their pets, mon?” Ziggy suggested. “You could bring Afrika.”

  “We could charge admission!” Jerome said with excitement. “Ten dollars each!”

  “That’s too much. How about five dollars?” Rico said.

  “Still too much. Three dollars? Two?” Rashawn scratched his head.

  “How about a dollar, mon? And let’s give all the money to the Ohio Wildlife Refuge Center! I bet they could use the cash!”

  “Great idea, Ziggy!” Rico, who worried the most about the destruction caused by the construction, seemed really pleased.

  “You think kids will come—and bring animals?” Rashawn asked, still sounding unsure.

  “Absolutely, mon!” Ziggy said with confidence. “Roscoe, the boy who sits behind me in math, has hamsters.”

  “Mimi has gerbils.”

  “Tiana has two cats,” Rashawn said, looking up at the ceiling.

  “Elizabeth has a parrot,” Jerome said. “She says it can talk.”

  “Well, we’d better keep it away from the cats, mon, or it will be talking about what those kitties want for dinner!” Ziggy said with a laugh.

  “I think Bill has a snake,” Rashawn said.

  “For a pet? Ick!” Jerome replied. “But it sounds like something Bill would like.”

  “I bet every kid in our class has at least one pet,” Jerome said. “If everyone comes, it will be like a huge animal show.”

  “We’ll call it the Black Dinosaurs Backyard Animal Show,” Ziggy said as he finished getting dressed. “People can see Dino, help the Ohio Wildlife Refuge Center, and show off their pets at the same time, mon.”

  “Awesome!”

  “When will we have this show?” Rashawn asked. “We need time to plan.”

  “How about next Saturday?” Jerome suggested.

  “Perfect, mon!” Ziggy said excitedly. “We can make signs and flyers and invite the whole neighborhood!”

  The rest of that afternoon, in between playing with Dino and feeding him, the boys made carefully printed signs, using cardboard and markers.

  COME TO THE BLACK DINOSAURS’ FIRST, LAST, AND ONLY BACKYARD ANIMAL SHOW NEXT SATURDAY AT ZIGGY’S HOUSE—TWO P.M. BRING YOUR PETS TO SHOW OFF, OR JUST COME AND SEE THE ANIMALS. ONLY A DOLLAR TO SHOW AN ANIMAL OR TO SEE THE SHOW. ALL MONEY COLLECTED WILL BE DONATED TO THE OHIO WILDLIFE REFUGE CENTER. SPECIAL FEATURED ANIMAL: DINO THE BABY DEER

  P.S. DON’T FORGET TO BRING A CAGE AND A POOPER-SCOOPER, JUST IN CASE!

  MONDAY MORNING, AFTER AN EARLY FEEDING FOR DINO, THE BOYS HURRIED TO SCHOOL.

  “Do you think Dino will be okay until we get home?” Rico asked worriedly.

  “I’m running home as fast as I can, mon. Just as soon as the bell rings,” Ziggy asserted, showing the same concern. “Little Dino will be lonely without us.”

  “He’ll have plenty of company on Saturday,” Jerome said. “I can’t wait until we have our animal show!”

  “My dad made copies of the ads for the show on the copier down at the police station,” Rashawn added. “I’m giving one to everybody in our class.”

  “I’ll hang up some of the posters,” Rico said as he dragged the clumsy cardboard behind him.

  “I brought pictures of Dino to show everybody,” Jerome put in. “Then they’ll know we really do have a baby deer.”

  “Your backyard is so huge, we’ll have lots of room for all the animals,” Rico said.

  “Yeah,” Ziggy replied enthusiastically. “We can set up card tables and kitchen chairs all over the yard.”

  “This is really gonna be awesome!” Rashawn said, sharing Ziggy’s mood. As they got to the school yard, he called out, “Hey, Tiana, would you like to be a part of our backyard animal show? You can bring your cats.” He handed her a flyer, then looked away quickly. He stooped down to tie his shoe.

  “This sounds like fun,” Tiana answered shyly. “I’ll bring my cats, Sanfran and Cisco.”

  Rashawn seemed to be taking a very long time to tie his shoes.

  “Cool!” Rashawn said as he stood up. “Wait till you see our baby deer. We found a fawn a couple of weeks ago.”

  “You have a real deer? No way.” Tiana looked skeptical but intrigued.

  No longer feeling so nervous, Rashawn continued. “His name is Dino and he drinks from a bottle and we get up in the middle of the night to feed him.”

  “Awesome!” she said. She and Rashawn walked into the school building together.

  “He finds a girl with two cats and forgets all about us,” Rico said with a laugh.

  He and Jerome and Ziggy walked around the school grounds, passing out flyers to kids they knew.

  “So, let’s talk about what happened over spring break,” Mrs. Powell began after she had taken attendance and the normal back-to-the-classroom chatter had died down.

  “I went to California!” Mimi said.

  “I slept till noon, then played video games all day,” a boy named Marco said. “I could do that for the rest of my life!” He sounded sleepy.

  Ziggy jumped out of his seat. “Me and Rico and Rashawn and Jerome found an abandoned baby deer and we’re ra
ising it by ourselves!”

  “What happened to its mother?” the teacher asked.

  “She got hit by a truck at the construction site,” Rico answered. “We couldn’t let the little thing die, so we’re taking care of it.”

  “What do you know about raising a fawn?” Mrs. Powell asked with concern.

  “More and more every day!” Jerome replied with a laugh.

  “I learned that every time it eats, it poops, mon!” Ziggy said. The class laughed.

  “So, what will you do when it gets too large for your backyard?” Mrs. Powell asked.

  “My dad knows the man who runs the Ohio Wildlife Refuge Center,” Rashawn explained. “We hope it can go live there.”

  “While we still have him, we’re having an animal show on Saturday at Ziggy’s house,” Rico explained to the teacher. “Would you like to come?”

  “Sure, Rico. That sounds like fun,” Mrs. Powell said. “I’ll do my best to get there.”

  “And the whole class is invited!” Ziggy added. “Bring your pet to my house by two o’clock Saturday, and we’ll have a dynamite backyard animal show! It only costs a dollar.”

  “I have a rabbit I can bring,” Brandy said. “I’ve written a whole book of poems about her. Her name is Pixie.”

  “Cool!” Jerome said. “Bring the bunny and the book on Saturday.”

  “She’s brown and white, and super soft and furry. If I can get away with it, I let her sleep in my bed, when my mom isn’t looking.”

  “My cats sometimes sleep with me,” Tiana admitted. “But just at the foot of my bed.”

  “Can you bring them?” Rashawn asked her.

  “Sure, I already told you I would,” she replied. Rashawn, for reasons he could not understand, felt himself blush.

  “Can I bring my iguana?” a tall boy named Brian asked.

  “You have an iguana, man?” Rico asked. “Those things look like little dinosaurs.”

  “Iggy is cool. He walks on a leash,” Brian said proudly. “I’ve had him for two years now.”

  “That’s the kind of pet I need, mon,” Ziggy said. “Ziggy and his pet Iggy. Way cool.”

  “He’s a lot of work to take care of, and he’s not soft and fuzzy like a rabbit, but I can tell he likes me,” Brian said.

  “What does he eat?” Jerome asked.

  “Vegetables, leaves, lettuce—stuff like that,” Brian replied. “He poops green all the time!” The kids in the class laughed.

  “I used to have six hamsters,” Mimi said, “but I gave them away to my cousins. Now I have gerbils—two of them.”

  “Well, you’d better keep them away from my snake!” Bill said, an unpleasant grin on his face. “Bronco eats mice like you eat popcorn. He’s called a rat snake.”

  “My gerbils are NOT mice or rats!” Mimi said strongly. “And you’d better keep that snake of yours far away from my little Mitsy and Bitsy!”

  “Same long tails. Same little mousy bodies.” Bill laughed, aware of Mimi’s discomfort. “But don’t worry. I’ll make sure he’s been fed before we get there on Saturday. Unless, of course, he wants dessert!” He left Mimi trembling.

  “I’ve got hamsters,” Roscoe said. “I’ll bring them to protect your gerbils—okay, Mimi? Hamsters are pretty tough, you know.”

  Mimi nodded, but she didn’t look convinced.

  “Can I bring my goldfish?” a girl named Liza asked.

  “Sure!” said Rashawn.

  “What about a box turtle?” Max wanted to know. “My mother said he’s the only thing she knows that eats slower than I do. It takes him all day to eat a tomato.”

  “Bring him!” Jerome replied. “What’s his name?”

  “I call him Tailgate. Because he’s always at the end of the line. Any line.” He chuckled. “And his tail, like the rest of him, lives inside a gate.”

  “How about a canary?” Rebecca asked. “She sings really pretty when she’s happy. Her name is Mariah Canary.”

  “That’s funny!” Ziggy said, grinning.

  “I’ve got two frogs I can bring,” Patrick offered. “I call them Mutt and Jeff.”

  “Super!” said Rico, his voice bright with excitement.

  “I have a parrot named Pancho,” Elizabeth said, “but I can’t come. It’s my grandma’s birthday.”

  “Sorry you’ll miss it,” Rico said, taking notes on a sheet of paper.

  “I have a spider I can bring—actually it’s a tarantula,” a quiet boy named Tito told the class.

  “A big, hairy tarantula?” Jerome said nervously. “I don’t like insects!”

  “Spiders aren’t insects. They’re arachnids.”

  “I don’t care. A bug is a bug, and if it’s large and covered with hair, I just can’t deal with that.” Jerome scratched his arm as if he had an itch.

  “Harry is really very gentle. He crawls on my hand every day,” Tito said.

  Jerome shivered and walked to the other side of the classroom, shaking his head and scratching himself. “Good for you, man. Good for you,” he whispered.

  “How about dogs? I have a poodle named Pookie,” said a tall, skinny boy named Simon.

  “And I have a golden retriever named Honey,” Samantha said. “She’s the nicest dog in the world. Seriously. She loves everything and everybody. The mailman. The lady next door. Robbers and burglars. She greets them all with a shake of her tail and welcomes them to our house. If it’s possible for a dog to smile, then Honey is an expert.”

  “I think Jerome can handle Honey much better than a spider,” Rashawn said with a grin.

  “I have a German shepherd,” Cecelia added. “But Monster might not like Simon’s little Pookie,” she warned.

  “As long as you have leashes or cages, bring them all!” Ziggy cried with passion. “Even spiders. We’ll introduce you to our baby deer, whose name is Dino. And all the money will go to the Ohio Wildlife Refuge Center.”

  “What a nice thing to do,” Mrs. Powell said approvingly.

  “Well, we’ve been watching the construction on our street, and lots of animals are getting chased out,” Rashawn explained.

  “Like Dino and his mother,” Rico added.

  “So we decided to try to help a place that might be able to make a difference for wild creatures,” Jerome said proudly.

  “That’s really awesome,” Brandy said. “I’ll give you two dollars on Saturday, instead of just one. I hate to think about all those little bunnies that used to live in the woods without a home.”

  Rico passed around a sheet of paper for the kids to sign, so they’d know how many animals to expect on Saturday. Almost every person in the class promised to bring at least one pet.

  Mrs. Powell finally ended the discussion with the reminder that it was time for math class, but the Black Dinosaurs Backyard Animal Show was all the students talked about the rest of the day.

  WHEN THE BOYS GOT HOME FROM SCHOOL THAT AFTERNOON, DINO’S SHED WAS A DISASTER. He had eaten all his food, ripped the insulation out of one wall, torn down all the tools that Ziggy’s mom kept in there, and had strewn the pine chips and straw all over the floor of the shed.

  “Would you look at this, mon,” Ziggy said when he saw the mess.

  “What’s wrong, Dino?” Rico asked the fawn gently. “Did you miss us?”

  As if in response, the fawn nuzzled Rico’s hand. “He’s really hungry,” Jerome said. “Let’s feed him right away.”

  “Then we’ll get this mess cleared up,” Rashawn said.

  “Before my mum sees it,” Ziggy added.

  The fawn guzzled the milk greedily as Jerome fed him, ate four whole apples Ziggy sliced for him, and then fell asleep, his head resting on Jerome’s lap. Jerome rubbed the fawn’s soft fur gently.

  “He looks like he’s grown since this morning when we went to school,” Rico observed quietly, not wanting to awaken the deer. He was sweeping the floor of the shed.

  “He doesn’t like being alone,” Rashawn added.

  “He missed
us, mon,” Ziggy said.

  “What are we going to do?” Rico asked with concern. “We have to go to school every day, and Dino is getting to be too big for this shed.”

  “Do you think it’s safe now to just let Dino run in the backyard while we’re gone?” Rashawn asked.

  “Well, we can’t keep him cooped up anymore. He’ll go nuts!” Jerome said.

  “I think we’ll have to leave him out in the yard when we’re at school, mon,” Ziggy said with a sigh. “Tomorrow we’ll try it and see what happens.”

  The other three boys agreed. None of them wanted to admit that caring for the fawn was getting to be a problem.

  Ziggy did the midnight feeding by himself that night. “Hey, Dino,” he said softly as the deer nuzzled his hand. The fawn dipped his nose into the pocket of Ziggy’s bathrobe and gobbled the apple slices he’d hidden there.

  “You miss your mum?” Ziggy asked the deer as he fed it from the bottle. “I don’t know what I’d do without my mum,” he admitted. “It must be awful for you.

  “You know, Dino,” Ziggy continued sadly, “you’re a deer, not a person, mon. You’ve got to go and live with other deer soon, so you can learn how to do deer stuff, like running through the woods, growing antlers, and finding a girl deer to marry.” The deer burped. “Of course, if they keep on building houses around here, you won’t have any woods to run in, anyway.” The fawn fell asleep then, but Ziggy sat there in the shed a long time, wondering what would become of the little deer.

  The next morning, after Rico had come over to give Dino his morning feeding, the four boys, for the first time, did not lock the fawn in the shed.

  “You gonna be okay, mon?” Ziggy asked as he gave the fawn more apple slices.

  “You behave yourself, you hear?” Rico said sternly as he petted the little deer. “Good grief—I sound like my mother!” The other boys laughed.

  “Don’t open that gate for strangers,” Jerome warned the fawn. “You run and exercise and stay in the yard, okay?” Dino looked at Jerome as if he understood.

  “And don’t try to jump the fence,” Rashawn added. “We’ll be back here as soon as we get out of school.” The fawn blinked its large eyes.