Free Bear by Ellen Miles Page A

“Labrador!”
    “I win!” Lizzie threw her fists in the air. “Whoo-hoo!”
    “It was a tie.” Charles stared at her in disbelief.
    “No way!” Lizzie wasn’t about to give up her big victory. “I said my breed first.”
    Charles shook his head. “I said ‘Lab’ at the same time,” he insisted.
    Lizzie started to say something, but Momturned around in her seat. “No fighting, you guys, okay? You’ve been doing great so far. Call this one a tie and move on.”
    Lizzie grumbled, but she knew there was no point in arguing with Mom. Anyway, now they could both read the information on the back of their cards. That was the best part of the game. She turned her card over and started reading out loud. “‘Husky,’” she read. “‘A breed well suited for northern climates, with its thick undercoat for warmth and wide paws for good traction on snow.’” Lizzie practically knew all this by heart, even before she’d copied it off her “Dog Breeds of the World” poster. But she still loved reading it. “‘Huskies, both the Siberian and Alaskan types, are known for their stamina and are widely used as sled dogs.’”
    “What’s ‘stamina’?” asked Charles.
    Lizzie rolled her eyes. “It’s, you know . . .” She knew what it meant, but she couldn’t exactly put it into words.
    Dad came to her rescue. “It means energy that lasts and lasts.”
    “Like the Bean when he doesn’t want to take his nap and he’s acting like a
jumping
bean,” Mom added with a smile.
    “Yeah!” The Bean bumped up and down in his car seat. “I’m a
jumpin’
bean!”
    Charles flipped his card over. “‘Labrador retriever,’” he read. “‘A strong, athletic dog with a friendly temperament. This breed is used as a hunting dog, a guide dog, and a family pet. Labs can be black, brown (also known as chocolate), or yellow.’”
    “Like Honey!” said the Bean.
    “Did you hear that?” Lizzie was impressed. “The Bean really knows his dog breeds.” She beamed at her little brother. The Bean actually remembered that Honey, the last puppy the Petersons had fostered, was a yellow Lab!
    The Petersons took care of puppies that needed homes, keeping each one until they could findit the perfect forever family. That’s what fostering meant. Honey was one of their biggest success stories. She was going to learn how to be a service dog who could help a person in a wheelchair!
    Buddy, the Petersons’ own puppy, was another foster puppy success story. Once, Lizzie and her family had taken care of Buddy, his two sisters, and his mother. Four dogs! That was quite a responsibility. They had found other homes for Buddy’s mom and his sisters, but they had all fallen in love with Buddy. Now Buddy was the Petersons’ forever dog!
    Lizzie felt sad thinking about Buddy. That was the only bad part about this vacation: Buddy could not come. He was staying with Lizzie’s aunt Amanda, who ran a doggy day-care center and had four dogs of her own. Buddy loved Aunt Amanda, and staying with her and her dogs would be like a fun vacation for him. Lizzie knew he would be totally safe and very happy, but shestill missed him. Right at that moment she would have loved to kiss his little nose and stroke his soft brown fur. She wished she could trace the white heart-shaped patch on his chest.
    Lizzie looked out the window to distract herself. Eventually Dad turned off the interstate onto a smaller road, and suddenly everything started to look different. “Hey.” Lizzie sat up straight. “Snow!” There was tons of the stuff! White, white, white, as far as her eyes could see. The sides of the road were piled high with snow. It covered the trees and the hills and even the tops of other cars that passed them.
    “Yeah!” Dad said from up front. “Looks like they got walloped up here.”
    “Walloped!” yelled the Bean. Lizzie was sure her little brother had no idea Dad was saying that the area had been hit hard by a snowstorm. The Bean just