Free Sadie and Ratz by Sonya Hartnett Page A

do that!”
    But neither of them looked very sure about anything.
    Something peculiar was going on in our house.
    That night, Sadie and Ratz wanted to rub Baby Boy’s ears, nose, hair and chin right off his head. But I knew that would cause more strife. Baby Boy knew it too. Baby Boy was little, but he was crafty.

    I said, “Sadie and Ratz, you must go on vacation.” It was the best idea I had. If Sadie and Ratz were far away, Baby Boy couldn’t get them into trouble.
    Sadie wanted to go where they make movies.
    Ratz wanted to go where there were pinball machines.
    They waved good-bye, and set off on vacation.
    The next day, I was lonely. I was sad at school. At home, I lay on my bed and drew pictures, and ate some cheese sticks. I took Pin out of his cage and let him wobble up my arm.

    When Pin had had his exercise, I put him back in his cage.
    I sighed.
    I missed Sadie and Ratz already.

    Suddenly Baby Boy bellowed. Mom, Dad and I followed the sound. Baby Boy was standing in the sitting room, pointing to Mom’s precious clock. It was a tiny clock. It was a hundred years old. It lay on the floor in a hundred pieces. It wasn’t making its usual ticking noise.

    Mom’s eyes made circles. “What happened?” she asked.
    “Sadie and Ratz,” said Baby Boy.
    “That’s not true!” I shouted. “Sadie and Ratz are on vacation!”
    “I didn’t do it!” said Baby Boy.
    Mom and Dad looked at me, and then at Baby Boy. Mom picked up some bits of clock. The bits were tiny. The biggest bit was the clock’s round face.

    The small hand was pointing to the number 2.
    The big hand was pointing to the number 12.
    Mom said, “The clock stopped ticking at two o’clock.”
    At two o’clock, Sadie and Ratz had been playing pinball, and I had been at school.
    Dad wouldn’t break Mom’s clock, and Mom wouldn’t either, and neither would Pin.
    Which left only one suspect.

    But Baby Boy was a good boy. At least, that’s what everyone thought.
    And then we guessed who had
really
been drawing on walls, spilling milk, stealing legs and breaking clocks.
    We all looked down at Baby Boy’s hands. Baby Boy smiled like a happy, crazy monkey.

    “Oh dear,” said Dad.
    “Oh no,” sighed Mom.
    “Hooray!” I said. Because when Sadie and Ratz came home from vacation, they were going to meet two new friends.
    Baby Boy said their names were

Sonya Hartnett is the acclaimed and award-winning author of several novels for older readers, including
The Midnight Zoo, Thursday’s Child, What the Birds See, Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf, The Silver Donkey, The Ghost’s Child, Butterfly,
and the Michael L. Printz Honor Book
Surrender.
About
Sadie and Ratz,
her first illustrated chapter book, she says, “My niece Hannah gave names to her hands when she was only two. They are the toughest, roughest pair of hands a little girl could have. Everyone is scared of them. . . . But Hannah loves them, and they love her.” Sonya Hartnett lives in Australia.
    Ann James is the award-winning illustrator of more than sixty books for children, including
The Midnight Babies, Little Humpty,
and
Lucy Goosey,
all written by Margaret Wild, and
The Way I Love You
by David Bedford. About
Sadie and Ratz,
she says, “My hands, both of them, are nearly always well behaved. But they can be naughty too. What they are really best at is patting dogs and cats, and drawing dogs and cats, though we (my hands and I) loved this story about Hannah’s hands.” Ann James lives in Australia.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
    Text copyright © 2008 by Sonya Hartnett
Illustrations copyright © 2008 by Ann James
    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior