Treasure Hunt Read online

  I sat. Cassie opened her lunchbox and took out a little snack-pack filled with cubes of cheese. She gave one to me.

  Yum. Cheddar.

  “Now, if you have a question,” Cassie said to me, “you need to raise your paw.” She held up another piece of cheese. “Show me your paw, please.”

  I raised my paw.

  “Very good, Princess Coco. But I won’t be able to call you ‘Princess,’ ” she said sadly. “In first grade, make-believe is only for recess and choice time. So in class, I will just call you Coco.”

  Cassie backed up a few steps and patted her thighs. “Come, Coco,” she called.

  I trotted over and nudged her hand with my nose. She gave me another piece of cheese.

  “Now for the fun part,” Cassie said. She went to the supply closet and found her old backpack from preschool—the one that looks like a ladybug. I’d worn Cassie’s ladybug backpack before, like the time we ran away to the barn.

  Dash looked at Leopold. Leopold looked at Dash. Whiskers looked a little nervous. But I was curious. What was Cassie up to now?

  “Sit please, Princess Coco. I mean, just Coco.”

  I sat.

  “Show me your paw, Coco.”

  I raised a paw. Cassie held it in her hand. She gently guided my paw through the shoulder strap of the backpack. Then she guided my other paw through the other strap. The backpack was a little wobbly, so Cassie tightened it up.

  “Cassie!” Mom called from upstairs. “Did you remember to brush your teeth?”

  “Oops,” Cassie said. “I’ll be right back,” she whispered to me. “You stay here.” She tossed me another cube of cheese. She put the snack-pack back into her lunchbox and set it next to the sofa. Then she ran up the stairs.

  I plopped down on the floor.  Whew! That was a lot of activity for so early in the morning.

  Shadow came out from her hiding spot behind the sofa. “What’s with the ladybug?” she asked me. “Are you and Cassie running away again?”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. “It’s a school day.”

  “Then why are you wearing a backpack?” asked Whiskers.

  “Cassie put it there,” I said.

  “We know that,” said Shadow. “But why?”

  “It appears Cassie is bringing Coco to school today,” said Dash.

  “I agree,” said Leopold. “Weekly job assignment. Question protocol. Make-believe-play rules.”

  “Well, I’m glad I’m not the one going to school,” said Whiskers.

  “I am not going to school,” I said. I stretched out in my sunny spot. “I am going to take a nap.”

  PAUL DUBOIS JACOBS & JENNIFER SWENDER are a husband-and-wife writing team and authors of many books for children, including Count on the Subway, My Subway Ride, My Taxi Ride, and Fire Drill. Paul has also cowritten four books with musician Pete Seeger, including Abiyoyo Returns and The Deaf Musicians, winner of the ALA’s Schneider Family Book Award. Paul and Jennifer have appeared at Lincoln Center, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the Virginia Festival of the Book, as well as countless schools, libraries, and museums. They live in Massachusetts. Visit Paul and Jennifer at jacobsandswender.com.

  Aladdin

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Paul-DuBois-Jacobs

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Jennifer-Swender

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Stephanie-Laberis

  Read more Animal Inn books!

  BOOK 1: A Furry Fiasco

  Coming soon:

  BOOK 3: The Bow-wow Bus

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALADDIN

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  First Aladdin hardcover edition December 2016

  Text copyright © 2016 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Stephanie Laberis

  Also available in an Aladdin paperback edition.

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  Jacket designed by Jessica Handelman

  Interior designed by Greg Stadnyk

  The illustrations for this book were rendered digitally.

  Library of Congress Control Number 2016936119

  ISBN 978-1-4814-6227-3 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-6226-6 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4814-6228-0 (eBook)