Super Special Read online

  For my parents, Steve and Gladys, who took me places, showed me the world, and taught me how important coming home again can be—NK

  For James B—SB

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Penguin Young Readers Group

  An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Nancy Krulik. Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Sebastien Braun. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  eBook ISBN 9780515156492

  Version_1

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  Fun Facts about Sparky’s Visits to the Serengeti and Agra, India

  The Serengeti

  Mount Kilimanjaro

  The Migration of the Wildebeests

  Rock Gongs

  Hippos

  The Legend of the Jinn

  Mankameshwar Temple

  The Taj Mahal

  The Agra Fort

  About the Author and Illustrator

  CHAPTER 1

  “GRRRRRRR! GET THIS THING OFF OF ME!”

  My eyes fly open. I leap onto my paws.

  I was asleep. But that barking woke me right up!

  “I said, GET THIS THING OFF OF ME!”

  It’s coming from my next-door neighbor, Frankie. He’s a German shepherd. When he barks like that, the whole neighborhood can hear him.

  What’s going on?

  I walk over to my fence and peer through the holes.

  Frankie’s two-leg is trying to take something off his back. It looks like a coat that is tied to a leash.

  “Get this harness off of me!” Frankie sounds really mad.

  Frankie’s two-leg unstraps the coat-leash thing. She takes it inside.

  “That’s better,” Frankie says, shaking his body. Then he spots me peeking through the fence. “What are you staring at, Sparky?”

  “Nothing,” I tell him. “I just wanted to say hi.”

  “Hi,” Frankie grumbles back. “Did you see that awful thing? There is no way I am ever going for a walk with that harness on again. Ever.”

  “What’s wrong with a harness?” I ask him.

  “Are you nuts?” Frankie yells at me.

  “No, I’m Sparky,” I tell him. “Remember?”

  Frankie frowns and grumbles something under his breath.

  “I like when Josh and I go for a walk with my leash,” I continue. “That way I know we’ll stay together.”

  “Dogs are supposed to run free,” Frankie tells me. “My two-leg is so slow. Sometimes I have to pull her just to get her moving.”

  “Sometimes I pull Josh, too,” I admit. “And sometimes he pulls me. But the best time is when we walk side by side.”

  “Yeah, well, my two-leg can never keep up with me,” Frankie says. “Now she’s making me wear this ridiculous harness instead of a collar when we walk.”

  “Why does she do that?” I ask him.

  “Why do two-legs do anything?” Frankie asks me.

  I don’t have an answer for that.

  “I’m telling you, one day I’m going to break free of that thing,” Frankie says. “Then I’m going to run and run and run. Like a dog is supposed to.”

  I do not think dogs are meant to run like that. What if I ran really far away, and Josh couldn’t find me? That would be awful.

  But I don’t say that to Frankie. I don’t think he is in the mood to hear me argue with him.

  Frankie lies down under the tree in his yard.

  Snore. Snore. Snore.

  Frankie isn’t talking anymore. He’s asleep.

  Now I have no one to talk to.

  Josh is not home. He went away in his metal machine with the four round paws.

  So I have no one to play with, either.

  I have nothing to do. Unless . . . Wait! I know something fun I can do all by myself. I can dig!

  I race over to the place where Josh keeps his flowers. Diggety, dig, dig. Dirt flies everywhere. I am digging a really big hole. I am a great digger. Diggety, dig . . .

  Hey. What’s that in the middle of my hole?

  It’s a bone. My bone. My big, bright, sparkly bone.

  “Hello, bone!” I bark.

  The bone doesn’t answer. Bones can’t bark.

  Sniffety, sniff, sniff. The bone smells so meaty. I just have to take a bite.

  CHOMP!

  Wiggle, waggle, whew. I feel dizzy—like my insides are spinning all around—but my outsides are standing still. Stars are twinkling in front of my eyes—even though it’s daytime! All around me I smell food—fried chicken, salmon, roast beef. But there isn’t any food in sight.

  Kaboom! Kaboom! Kaboom!

  CHAPTER 2

  The kabooming stops.

  I look around. I see trees.

  But none of them are my tree!

  I see rocks.

  But I don’t see my fence.

  Or my house.

  I don’t know where I am, but I know where I am not. I’m not home anymore. I’m somewhere I’ve never been before.

  How did I get here?

  Then I remember the meaty-smelling bone I am holding between my teeth.

  That’s right! My bone kaboomed me to this place. It can do that because it is a magic bone! It can kaboom me anywhere!

  The first time I took a bite of my magic bone, it took me all the way to London, England. London was fun—and yummy, yum, yum. Two-legs there drop all kinds of food: sausages, cheese, fish and chips. They’re all just waiting for a dog like me to scoop them up!

  Another time my bone kaboomed me to Paris, France. I got to dance around in puddles of paint, which was a lot of fun—even if the paint turned my paws purple.

  I’ve been to a lot of different places with my magic bone. But the best place my bone takes me is home. Whenever I’m ready to leave a place, I just take a bite and my bone brings me right back to the house I share with Josh.

  That is why I have to keep my magic bone safe. I do not want some other dog getting its teeth on it. I will need my bone when I am ready to leave this place.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  Wiggle, waggle, weird. It sounds like it’s raining. But I don’t feel any water on my fur.

  I turn and look around.

  Wiggle, waggle, weirder. Those
rocks behind me are drooling water. Lots and lots of water. There’s a big pool of rock drool underneath them.

  Sometimes I drool when I’m hungry.

  But I’ve never seen rocks drool before.

  I think I’ll bury my magic bone next to this big pile of drooling rocks. That will make it easy to find when I want to go home again.

  I look around to make sure no one is watching where I bury my bone. All I see are trees, bushes, flowers, and rocks. There’s no one here but me.

  So I start to dig.

  Diggety, dig, dig. Dirt flies all around. I am making a big hole.

  I drop my bone into the hole and pushity, push, push the dirt back over it. Now no one will be able to find my bone—except me, of course.

  “What you got there?”

  Uh-oh. There’s someone else here. And that someone else is another dog. I can tell because she’s speaking dog.

  But I don’t see the other dog. She must be hiding.

  “Um . . . nothing,” I say quickly.

  Just then the other dog comes walking out from behind a big bush. She is all wet. There are leaves in her short brown-and-tan fur.

  “You were pretty busy burying something,” she says.

  Gulp.

  “Was it food?” she asks me.

  I shake my head. “No. It was . . . nothing.”

  “Okay.” She shrugs. “I’m not hungry, anyway. I just caught a giant fish and ate the whole thing.”

  Fish. Yummy, yum, yum. I love fish. Now I’m kind of hungry. And thirsty, too. All that digging is a lot of work.

  I walk down to the pool of water below the drooling rocks. I start to lap up some water. Slurp, slurp, slurp.

  Yum! The water is nice and cool. Which is great, because this place—whatever it’s called—is really, really hot.

  “I’ve never seen a dog like you before,” the other dog says.

  “I’ve never seen a dog like you before, either,” I tell her.

  “You haven’t run into a pack of African wild dogs in the Serengeti before?” she asks, sounding surprised.

  The Serengeti. That must be the name of this place.

  “What kind of dog are you, anyway?” she asks me.

  “I’m a sheepdog puppy,” I tell her. “My name is Sparky.”

  “I’m Rehema,” she says. Then she looks around. “Where’s the rest of your pack?”

  My pack? I don’t have a pack. It’s just me and Josh.

  But I don’t want to tell her about Josh. I don’t want to say that he went away for a little while in his metal machine with the four round paws and left me in our yard.

  Because then she might ask me where my yard is. And how I got here.

  I do not want to tell her about my magic bone.

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “I won’t tell anyone else that you’ve run away from your pack. I’ve run away from my pack, too. I do it all the time. Sometimes a dog’s just got to run free, you know?”

  “I guess,” I say.

  “I mean, I don’t need some other dog telling me where to hunt. Or when to sleep, or . . .” Rehema keeps talking. I’m having a hard time keeping up with her. She talks really fast.

  “If I want to catch my dinner in the morning, then I should be able to catch my dinner in the morning,” Rehema continues. “And if I want to climb to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, then I should be able to—”

  “Mount Kili-what?” I interrupt her.

  “Mount Kilimanjaro,” Rehema repeats. “It’s a mountain that’s pretty far away from here. It is so tall, you can’t see the top.”

  “Why would you want to climb that?” I ask her.

  “I don’t know.” Rehema shrugs. “Because it’s there, I guess. No one should tell me what I can or can’t do. Like, right now, I want to swim. So I’m gonna swim.”

  The next thing I know, Rehema is in the big pool of water, paddling around.

  “Come on in,” she says. “The water is fine.”

  I shake my head. I like to put water in my inside. I don’t like to feel it on my outside.

  “Rehema! Rehema!” Another dog is calling Rehema’s name.

  “Who’s that?” I ask.

  Rehema paddles back to the land and walks out of the water. “Shhh . . .” she whispers. “Be quiet. We don’t want him to know we’re here. Believe me.”

  She shoots me a look that tells me I better not ask any more questions. So I just stand there. I don’t move. I don’t speak.

  “Rehema, let’s go.” The dog barks even louder. “Now!”

  Gulp. That dog sounds really angry. And scary. So scary that I forget I’m supposed to be quiet.

  “Why are we hiding?” I whisper to Rehema.

  “Shhh . . . ,” my new friend warns. “He’ll hear us. African wild dogs have really good hearing.”

  That’s no big deal. I have good hearing, too.

  But I don’t say that. I’m trying to shhh.

  Just then a brown, black, and tan dog peers through the bushes. He is much bigger than Rehema and me, and he does not look happy.

  “The pack is back from the hunt, Rehema,” he growls. “So we’ve got food—no thanks to you.”

  “I already ate,” Rehema tells him. “I caught a fish.”

  “I’m hungry,” I say.

  The big dog looks at me. “Who’s this?” he asks Rehema.

  “I’m Sparky,” I tell him.

  “He’s a stranger,” the big dog says.

  “He’s my friend,” Rehema insists.

  “He’s not one of our pack,” the big dog tells her.

  “He’s a dog,” Rehema says. “And he’s nice.”

  “He’s a different kind of dog,” the other dog grumbles.

  “We’re all different, Amiri,” Rehema says. “You have brown and black spots. I have brown and tan spots. Sparky’s practically all white. So what?”

  Amiri shakes his head. “You know how risky it is to be around someone who isn’t in the pack,” he says. “The Serengeti is filled with dangerous characters.”

  “I’m not dangerous,” I tell him.

  “Where’s your pack?” Amiri asks me.

  “At home,” I say.

  “He’s alone.” Rehema smiles at me.

  Grumble rumble. That’s the sound of my tummy telling me that it’s hungry.

  “Sounds like you could use some food,” Rehema says. “Let’s go have dinner.”

  “Oh brother,” Amiri says. “Another mouth to feed. Just what we need.”

  CHAPTER 3

  There’s not much meat left when we get back to Rehema’s pack.

  “Take mine,” Rehema offers. “I already ate. You guys should have seen the fish I caught. It was this big!” She spreads her paws wide on the ground.

  “Sure, Rehema,” a dog with small black spots on her back says.

  “I mean it, Zahra,” Rehema tells the dog. “You guys should go on adventures sometime. You would be surprised what food you can catch. Like, I remember one time . . .”

  “Here she goes again,” Amiri growls.

  Rehema shoots him an angry look. Then she smiles at me.

  “It was when I was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro,” she tells me. “This hornbill came flying over my head. I leaped up in the air and caught it in my bare paws.”

  The other dogs in the pack stare at her.

  “That’s pretty high,” one of them says. “I mean, birds can fly, and dogs don’t have wings or—”

  “I caught it, Mahir,” Rehema insists.

  “That’s amazing,” I say. “I never met any dog who could jump that high before.”

  “You still haven’t met one,” Zahra says. “Rehema is always telling stories, but they’re never true.”

  “Remember that time she sai
d she fought off a lion with her bare paws?” Amiri says. He starts to laugh.

  Rehema’s eyes grow small and angry. “Go ahead and laugh. But I bet none of you ever did that.”

  “Neither did you,” Zahra insists.

  Rehema gives Zahra a dirty look. But she smiles at me. “You should have seen that lion, Sparky,” she says. “He was huge. His fangs were dripping. He wanted to eat me.”

  Gulp. I don’t know what a lion is. But I wouldn’t want to be near anything that wanted to eat me.

  “You didn’t run away?” I ask her.

  “Nope,” Rehema says proudly. “I bit him on the back. Then I wrestled him to the ground. He didn’t bother me after that.”

  Zahra laughs loudly.

  “You’d be better off spending your time helping us hunt than making up stories,” Amiri tells Rehema angrily. “Especially if you’re going to bring friends here to share in our catch.”

  He gives me a dirty look.

  “Imagine how much more food we could have had if you all had tried a different giant water puddle to fish in,” Rehema says. “You guys never want to do anything new.”

  “Our usual water puddle is pretty big,” Mahir says. “And it has fish.”

  “It doesn’t have giant fish like the one I caught this morning,” Rehema tells him.

  “Stop, Rehema,” Amiri barks at her. “We all know you didn’t catch anything.”

  “That does it!” Rehema growls angrily. “I’m out of here. I’ll show you all.”

  With that, Rehema takes off. She runs faster than any dog I’ve ever seen.

  I could never catch up with her.

  Which means I’m stuck here with a bunch of dogs I don’t know.

  And who don’t seem very friendly.

  At least not to me.

  “Rehema!” I call out to her. “Come back.”

  Zahra shakes her head. “Don’t worry. She’ll come back in a little while.”

  “It just means more food for us,” Amiri adds. He takes another bite of meat.

  Well . . . that is true. I open my mouth to take another bite, too. But Amiri grabs it out from under me.