Free The Boy Who Ate Dog Biscuits by Betsy Sachs Page B

be a terrible afternoon.
    “Sit,” said his father.
    Billy slid into a wooden chair. He lookedfrom his mother to his father. No one said anything. The silence felt scary.
    “How could you do such a stupid thing?” Mrs. Getten finally said.
    “What?” Billy tried to play dumb.
    “You know what.” Mr. Getten’s chair scraped on the floor as he pulled closer to the table.
    “Mrs. Rosa just called,” his mother said. “So we know what you were up to.”
    “Oh.” Billy felt for the dog biscuit in his pocket. He fingered it.
    “This is serious,” Mrs. Getten said. “Frankie could have been hurt.”
    “It was his idea.”
    “What do you mean?” asked Mr. Getten.
    “We didn’t tell him to get on. He just did.”
    “Frankie’s a baby,” Mr. Getten said. “He doesn’t know any better.”
    Billy snapped the biscuit in half inside his pocket.
    “Suppose Frankie had been hurt.” His mother shook her head. “It was very irresponsible of you two.”
    Billy didn’t know what “irresponsible” meant. It didn’t sound like a fun word.
    He leaned under the table, pretending to tie a shoelace. He popped the piece of biscuit into his mouth.
    “Sit up, Billy,” Mrs. Getten snapped. “And stop fooling around.”
    Billy held the dry biscuit under his tongue.
    “The door’s broken,” said Mrs. Getten. “You’ll have to help pay for fixing it.”
    “What!” Billy coughed.
    “I think you should give your allowance to Mrs. Rosa,” said Mr. Getten.
    “My allowance!” Billy choked as he swallowed.
    “You have to learn responsibility, young man!”
    “Boy, I get punished and it wasn’t even my idea.”
    “Howard told his mother it was.”
    “That rat!”
    “Either way. You should have told Howard no.”
    “Da-ad! He’d think I was a big baby.”
    “Sometimes you have to be different from your friends.”
    Billy put his elbows on the table, “But I need my allowance to buy dog biscuits.”
    “You shouldn’t be eating those things anyway.”
    Billy put his head on his arm. “Sarah’s doctor even said they’re okay.”
    “He also said not too many.” Mrs. Getten frowned. “They’re meant for dogs. Not people.”

    “But how can I teach Dr. Mike’s dogs any tricks if I don’t have biscuits?”
    “You should have thought of that first,” his father said.
    “Are you sure Dr. Mike doesn’t mind you playing over there?” asked Mrs. Getten.
    “It’s okay. I checked,” Billy said. “Honest.”
    “You’d better shape up, young man.”
    Billy looked from one parent to the other. “If you’d just get me a dog for my birthday, I’d be real good.”
    Mrs. Getten shook her head. “I think you should be good first.”
    “You don’t seem like you’re ready for a dog, son.”
    “Not ready? That’s all I ever wanted!”
    His mother stood.
    His father said, “If you’d help around here, maybe we’d consider a dog. But not with the kind of stunt you pulled this morning.”
    Billy didn’t dare say what he was thinking. They really should have gotten a dog instead of a baby. What good was a baby? She couldn’t even run after a stick.

4   
    Billy used the shortcut through the empty lot to the next street. He stood at the corner and waited for the light to change.
    How could he teach Dr. Mike’s dogs tricks without dog biscuits? Dr. Mike probably wouldn’t want him to come over without them.
    The traffic on the street went by slowly. Finally it was safe for him to cross.
    By the time he turned the next corner, Billy could hear yelping and barking out in the yard. The sounds made him feel better.
    He cut across the grass and ran the rest of the way up to the blue house. It had a fence all the way around the backyard.
    The sign on the lawn said: DR. MICHAELS, VETERINARIAN . Billy sounded the word out. “Vet-er-i-nar-i-an.” He liked the word. It was a pretty word, and a big one. To Billy it meant someone who liked to take care of dogs as much as he did.
    Billy went through the metal