Free The Case of the Library Monster by Dori Hillestad Butler, Jeremy Tugeau, Dan Crisp

1
What Is THAT?
    Hello!
    My name is Buddy. I’m a therapy dog. That means I get to go to school with Mom and Connor every day. I lie down on a pillow in Mom’s office, or here in the library, and people come and pet me all day long. I LOVE being a therapy dog. It’s a very important job!

    I’m not just a therapy dog, though. I’m also a detective. A detective is someone who solves mysteries.
    There are a lot of mysteries to solve around a school. Right now I’m working on a case I call: The Case of the Four Lakes Elementary School Ghost.
    I don’t know if there’s really a ghost at this school. I don’t even know if I believe in ghosts.
    Connor believes in ghosts. Connor is my human. He says a girl named Agatha went to school here a long time ago. She got burned in a fire and now her ghost haunts the school.
    Here are some reasons I think there could be a ghost here:
    I’ve seen doors close all by themselves.
    I’ve felt cold air ripple through my fur.
    And just eleventy-two days ago (or maybe yesterday) I heard strange noises under the floor in the library. Like a ghost was trying to get out!
    But all of that could have been caused by:
    The wind
    My imagination
    I’ve never seen or smelled a ghost before.
    Some of Connor’s friends say they’ve seen Agatha. But they weren’t telling the truth when they said it. A dog always knows when a human is telling the truth and when a human is lying.
    Cat with No Name says he’s seen Agatha, too. Unfortunately, there’s no way to know if a cat is telling the truth.
    But my friend Jazzy also says she’s seen the ghost. Jazzy is a dog. Dogs don’t lie. If Jazzy says she saw a ghost, then she probably saw a ghost.
    Except ... I’m still not sure I believe in ghosts.
    “Mrs. Christie?” a small voice cuts through my thoughts. “I don’t think Buddy is listening.”
    The voice belongs to a girl who smells like orange juice, toast, peanut butter, and dog. I think Mrs. Warner said the girl’s name was Jemma. Mrs. Warner is the alpha human at the library. Mrs. Christie is next in command.
    “He’s listening,” Mrs. Christie says. “Just because he’s not sitting up doesn’t mean he’s not listening.”
    Mrs. Christie is right.
    But so is Jemma. I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about ghosts.
    I’m supposed to listen when kids come to the library to read to me. It’s another one of my jobs at this school.
    Mom and Mrs. Warner and Mrs. Christie all say it’s good for kids to read to dogs. Especially if those kids aren’t good readers. They say kids who read to dogs:
    Feel more relaxed when they read
    Enjoy reading more
    Become better readers
    Are more willing to read out loud in class
    Start doing better in other subjects, too
    I feel very good about myself when I hear humans say that.
    But there’s something Mom, Mrs. Warner, and Mrs. Christie don’t know about me:
    I don’t know how to read!

    When kids read to me, I don’t know if they’re getting all the words right. So I just listen. And look at the pictures. Sometimes the pictures tell me if the words are right.
    Jemma reads, “empty yellow buses cross the town.”
    Hmm. I think those are yellow buses in that picture. Some colors are hard for me to see. The buses look empty. Unless there are ghosts inside them? And the buses look like they’re crossing the town. I think Jemma read those words right.
    “You’re so smart!” I tell Jemma, licking her cheek. Mmm. Peanut butter! I LOVE peanut butter. It’s my favorite food!
    Jemma giggles. “Don’t lick me!” She wipes her cheek with her arm, then points to the book in her lap. “Just listen to the story.”
    “Okay.” I rest my chin on her knee.
    I like this book. It’s all about school buses and what interesting lives they have driving around town, going this way, going that way. It would be fun to be a school bus, I think.
    All of a sudden, I hear a strange rustling sound. It’s coming from those bookshelves over there.
    I raise my