Free Dinosaur Boy by Cory Putman Oakes

stealthy. But let’s face it, it’s kind of hard to sneak up on someone when your group is made up of a part-dinosaur, a really tall kid, and a girl in a bright orange sweatshirt.
    â€œWe’re like the worst spies ever,” Elliot complained, picking the thoughts right out of my brain.
    â€œShhhh.” Sylvie put a finger to her lips and ducked behind an oversized plant. She nodded to the house I had directed us to.
    â€œYou’re sure that’s it?” she whispered.
    I nodded. I walked by Parker’s house almost every day, but I had only actually been inside of it once. For a birthday party. Two years ago. When Parker’s parents had forced him to invite everybody in the class, including me and Elliot. I remembered the red and blue stained glass parrot on their front door. Parker’s parents were really into bird-watching or something.
    I could see the bird through the branches of the plant we were hiding behind. Sylvie motioned for Elliot and me to stay put. Then she crawled on her hands and knees to peek her head around the side of the foliage.
    Elliot shifted his long legs uncomfortably on the ground beside me. It wasn’t actually raining (which was kind of miraculous, since it was afternoon in Portland), but the ground was still wet and slightly muddy from that morning’s rain. We were all going to have wet butts after this. Mom was probably going to make me hose off my tail before she allowed me in my house.
    Sylvie crawled back around to us.
    â€œThere’s a light in the front hall,” she reported. “That means someone must be home.”
    â€œSee? Allan doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Elliot scoffed. “Can we go home now?”
    â€œWe haven’t seen Parker yet,” Sylvie reminded him. “Which room is his?”
    Elliot looked over at me, and we both shrugged.
    Sylvie gave us an exasperated look.
    â€œWe’ve only been here once,” I reminded her. “And the party was mostly in the backyard.”
    â€œFine,” Sylvie said, and thought for a moment. “We’ll have to sneak around the side of the house then and look in some windows. It shouldn’t take us long to find his room.”
    To me, that sounded like an excellent way to get caught. Why was Sylvie so determined to see Parker? Perhaps she felt some sort of kinship with the kid whose desk she now sat in? I looked over at Elliot. From his face, I could tell he felt the same way I did. But since neither of us had the energy to argue with Sylvie, we got up off the muddy ground and followed her around the bush.
    We were halfway up Parker’s driveway when the garage door started to go up.
    Sylvie motioned us frantically back to the bush. She and Elliot both scrambled back down the driveway and dove to safety.
    I got as far as the edge of the driveway before something suddenly jerked me backward. I looked behind me.
    One of my tail spikes had lost its tennis ball and was now stuck in a flowerbed. I reached back and tried to jerk my tail free, but the spike was buried too deep in the mud and wouldn’t budge.
    The garage door was now a quarter of the way up, and I thought I could hear somebody talking.
    I turned around and tried to reach the end of my tail, so that I could dig it free. But my tail did not want to bend that way. I heard a pop, and I bit my lip to keep from yelling as I felt a sharp stab of pain, just above my spikes.
    A small flash of orange appeared beside me and pulled my spike free. The yank sent another stab of pain racing up my tail, but I ignored it and followed Sylvie back to the safety of the bush.
    I cradled my aching tail in my hands as we peered through the leaves to see if we had been caught.
    A tall woman wearing shorts and tennis shoes walked out of the open garage. She was carrying a large garbage bag in one hand and holding a cell phone to her ear with the other.
    â€œIt’s been difficult, of