Free Natalie Wants a Puppy by Dandi Daley Mackall

ZONDERKIDZ
    Natalie Wants a Puppy
    Copyright © 2009 by Dandi Daley Mackall
    Illustrations © 2009 by Lys Blakeslee
    All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.
    ePub Edition MARCH 2010 ISBN: 978-0-310-87669-4
    Requests for information should be addressed to: Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
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    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
    Mackall, Dandi Daley.
    Natalie wants a puppy / by Dandi Daley Mackall ; [Lys Blakeslee, illustrator]. p. cm.– (That’s Nat!)
    Summary: When six-year-old Natalie learns her parents are adopting a baby from another country, she is not sure she will like being an older sister and she would much rather get a puppy.
    ISBN 978-0-310-71571-9 (softcover)
    [1. Adoption—Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 3. Family life—Fiction. 4. Christian life–Fiction.] I. Blakeslee, Lys, 1985-ill. II. Title.
    PZ7.M1905Nr 2009
    [Fic]–dc22 2008049739
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    All Scripture quotations unless otherwise noted are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
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    Zonderkidz is a trademark of Zondervan.
    Editor: Betsy Flikkema
    Art direction & design: Merit Kathan
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For Grace Eberhart

Chapter 1
Detective Nat
    My name is Detective Nat. That’s what.
    Only you might know me as Natalie 24.
    Or Nat 24.
    Or Nat.
    Or maybe Natalie Elizabeth, if you heard my mom calling me when she was aggravated.
    But today I am mostly Detective Nat. On account of there’s a mystery going on around here.
    “Come on, Percy,” I whisper to my white, fluffy cat, who is also my mom and dad’s cat. “You can be my helper detective.”

    Percy prances to my bed and jumps up. Then he curls himself into a white, fluffy ball on my pillow.
    I tiptoe out of my bedroom and look both ways down and up the hall. I can hear my mom talking on the phone in the kitchen. I can’t hear her words, but she is laughing at the phone.

    This is an okay thing. ‘Cause I am looking for clues. Clues are like hints that help detectives find out what that mystery is all about. I already have some of those clues.
    Mom got a phone call yesterday and screamed her head off…in a happy way.
    She called Daddy, and I heard him scream his head off, all the way through the phone.
    When I asked why people were screaming their heads off, Mom said, “We have some good news.Daddy and I will tell you later. Be patient.”
    When I asked Daddy why people were screaming their heads off, Daddy said, “We have some good news. Mommy and I will tell you later. Be patient.”
    Daddy came home with packages and hid them.
    One of those packages is in our closet that lives in our hall. And that’s the clue I’m going for right now.
    If you are also a detective, you maybe thought those packages are Christmas presents. Only you are wrong about that. I have one more week of kindergarten, and then it’s summer. And Christmas isn’t in summer.
    Or, you maybe thought those packages were secret birthday presents for me. But the two and four in my “Natalie