Free How to Outfox Your Friends When You Don't Have a Clue by Jess Keating Page B

great one. It’s lots of schooling, but you’ve definitely got what it takes.”
    I rolled the window back up, poking my fingers with my other hand as the feeling rushed back to them in hot waves. “I like the idea of taking something so… broken ,” I said. “And fixing it. You turned that awful gash into something clean, and from there he can heal and live his life again, you know?”
    She nodded. “I thought about being a veterinarian in school. My first few years were actually pre-vet.”
    I tilted my head at her. I didn’t know any of this. Why was it so hard to picture parents being young , without having kids? It was like opening a book and finding nothing but blank pages. It felt downright wrong . I wondered what Mom did for her thirteenth birthday.
    â€œBut there is more than one way to help save animals too,” she noted. “Your father and I like to think we save them by helping them live happy lives, studying them, and teaching others about them. Your grandfather does the same thing.” She grinned cheekily. “Only he does it in front of a worldwide audience on the big screen. He always was a drama queen.” She clicked her tongue.
    â€œHey,” I ventured. The idea had been sizzling away in my head since I’d met the fox, but now was the first time I’d had a chance to ask. “Do you think that maybe I could help them out?”
    Mom blinked, still staring ahead at the road. “Who?”
    â€œAt the wildlife rehabilitation place, I mean,” I said. “I know the zoo is great, but if the wildlife center will take volunteers…maybe I could go and help out? If it’s close, I mean.”
    Mom’s face broke into a wide smile. “I think that’s a lovely idea,” she said. “I know they’re always extremely busy. I can call my friend Kate. She helps run the place. But so you know”—her voice became low—“it won’t be like working at the zoo, okay, kiddo? It’s very hard work, and messy, and the animals you’ll be with won’t have any history of being around people. You’ll have to be extra, extra careful.”
    â€œI promise,” I said, settling back and snuggling into my jacket. “Thanks!”
    As I watched the trees whip by, I thought about what it might be like to be a grown-up and save things that needed saving. It would probably be the coolest feeling ever, getting to save something that, without you, might not have survived.
    Then I realized that maybe I didn’t need to be a grown-up to save something. There was already a wound in my own life that needed saving, only it wasn’t a paw or a tail or even an animal at all.
    It was a friendship.
    My seat belt tightened as Mom drove faster down the winding highway. Liv and I were like that fox, weren’t we? An unhappy accident—her moving far away so many months ago—had changed things in an instant, like a car hitting an animal. And now we were struggling because we didn’t know how to be friends anymore, just like that fox was struggling to live.
    Mom and her crew had come along to fix him up. But who would fix us up?
    It had to be me.
    Maybe the wildlife rehab place could teach me how.

Chapter 9
    The teeth of gray squirrels never stop growing.
    â€”Animal Wisdom
    I had a dream like this once, where my teeth grew and grew and nothing I did could stop them, so eventually I looked like I was part rodent. I wonder if squirrels have stress dreams?
    Sometimes I wonder how grown-ups expect us to stay on top of our lives when there’s so much going on.
    Like, I bet when my parents were my age, their biggest problem was what to pack for lunch or what outfit to wear at the spring fling. (Or whatever they used to call dances back in the olden days. I have no idea. They were probably filmed in black and white though.)
    But to me, it felt like life was full of one problem after another.