Chapter One: Asking the Cat
“How about a wheelbarrow ride?” Sam asked. He tamped the earth around the base of the dogwood tree he had just planted.
Maddie looked doubtfully at the dirty wheelbarrow. Is that the way people got around in the country? In Manassas, she and her mother took the bus.
Her mother glanced at Sam. “Doesn’t it look like rain?”
“Let’s ask Abraham. He’ll know.” Sam bent down to the big black cat that lay stretched in the grass.
Maddie and her mother used to have Perfect Days in town. Now Maddie has a new stepfather and a house in the country. It’s a lot of change for a shy eight-year-old. Even though her stepfather Sam can build tree houses, believes in a color called sky-blue pink, and has a cat that can predict the weather, Maddie wonders if she’ll ever have a Perfect Day again.
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“This ... is a book that I would have read and loved with a passion when I was eight years old. I would have kept it on a special place on my shelf ... ”