Free Shadow by Ellen Miles

“Charles, why did you move the forks?” Lizzie felt around on the table until her hand touched a pile of silverware. She could tell by the smooth shape that she was feeling spoons. Where were the forks?
    â€œI didn’t move anything,” Charles called from the living room. “I’m not even near the table.”
    Lizzie felt around again. “Ah, there they are!” She picked up the handful of forks and began moving carefully around the table, setting one down at each place.
    â€œTold you,” Charles said. “What are you doing, anyway?”
    Lizzie could hear her younger brother walking into the dining room. “I’m pretending to be blind,”she told him. She had tied a silky blue scarf over her eyes. It made a good blindfold.
    â€œUm, okay,” Charles said. “Why?”
    â€œI want to know what it’s like,” Lizzie explained. “Our class is reading a book called
The Story of My Life,
by Helen Keller. Did you ever hear of her?”
    Charles shook his head.
    â€œWell, did you?” Lizzie asked when she didn’t hear him answer.
    â€œOh —” said Charles when he remembered that Lizzie couldn’t see him shaking his head. “No.”
    â€œI guess you will when you’re in fourth grade,” Lizzie said. She always liked to remind Charles that she was older and wiser. Knowing his sister couldn’t see him, Charles made a face and stuck out his tongue.
    â€œAnyway,” Lizzie went on, “she was this girl who was blind and deaf. She couldn’t talk, either. Can you imagine?”
    This time, Charles remembered to say no as he shook his head.
    â€œWell, I’m trying to,” Lizzie said. “I mean, I’m at least trying to imagine what it would be like to be blind.”
    â€œDid Helen Keller have a Seeing Eye dog?” Charles asked.
    â€œGood question,” Lizzie said. “No, she loved dogs and had lots of them, but no guide dogs. They didn’t really have guide dogs for blind people when she was growing up.” Lizzie heard Charles sigh. She knew he was probably rolling his eyes because she sounded like a book again. Lizzie couldn’t help it. She liked facts. Especially facts about dogs.
    Lizzie and Charles were both crazy about dogs. So was the Bean, their little brother. In fact, the Bean — whose real name was Adam — liked to pretend that he
was
a dog. He liked to play with dog toys and sleep on a dog bed, and he barked more often than he talked.
    But even though the Bean acted like a dog, he was not a dog. So Lizzie and Charles still beggedtheir parents for a dog almost every day. Mr. Peterson, their father, loved dogs, too. But he and Mrs. Peterson — who had always been a “cat person” — agreed that the family was not ready for a full-time dog. As Mom always said, dogs were a big commitment. That meant they were a lot of work and responsibility.
    Lizzie knew that. And she was ready. Ready to walk a dog every day, feed it, groom it, and train it. She had proved it, too. The Petersons had been the foster family for two puppies recently, taking care of them for a little while until they found them forever families. Charles and Lizzie had worked really hard to take good care of the puppies. With help from their parents, they had started to train the puppies, too.
    â€œHow’s Snowball?” Lizzie asked Charles, thinking of their most recent foster puppy. The little west highland white terrier now lived with Mrs. Peabody, who was Charles’s Grandbuddy. Grandbuddies was a school program where kidsvisited with older folks who lived at apartments called The Meadows.
    â€œHe’s great!” Charles reported. “Mrs. Peabody taught him how to put his own toys away. He carries them over to a basket in the corner. Then he comes and waits for a treat.”
    â€œSnowball’s such a little smartie,” Lizzie said. She felt for the stack of