Effie Starr Zook Has One More Question - Hardcover

Martha Freeman worked as a reporter and teacher before becoming a full-time writer of books for young readers, including the Edgar Award­–nominated Zap!, The Secret Cookie Club series, Who Stole Halloween?, and Effie Starr Zook Has One More Question, which School Library Journal called “accessible and exciting” in a starred review. She also collaborated with NASA astronaut Mark Kelly on the Astrotwins books. Martha lives in Colorado. Learn more at MarthaFreeman.com

Effie Starr Zook Has One More Question CHAPTER

1

Effie Starr Zook looked out the bedroom window, and what she saw made her heart go thud. There in the pen with Alfred the Goat stood a little boy.

Alfred the Goat was big and black with a devilish beard, a devilish temperament, and devilish big horns, too. So far, busy at his hayrack, he hadn’t noticed he had company. When he did, there would be trouble.

This happened on a Thursday afternoon in June. Effie was spending the summer with her aunt and uncle. She had been there only since Sunday, but already she knew all about Alfred the Goat. One time he had knocked Uncle Ted flat in a dispute over hay. Another time Aunt Clare had been cleaning his hooves when he twisted free, turned around, and butted her. Aunt Clare said the bruise lasted for weeks. She wouldn’t say where the bruise was.

Effie’s bedroom window was in the back of her aunt and uncle’s pretty yellow farmhouse. The window overlooked the goat pen, the brick-red barn, a grassy field, and the woods beyond. I bet that little boy will be fine, she thought. I bet I can just go back to reading my book. Anyway, it’s not my fault if little kids go climbing into pens with goats. Little kids are not my responsibility.

This last sentence was barely formed when Alfred the Goat swung his head around, noticed the intruder, and raised his horns.

Effie thought, This is not good.

Then she closed her book and ran downstairs.

Effie Starr Zook had lived her whole life in New York City. She knew in what year the French gave Lady Liberty to America. She knew a smoothie from a lassi, a cemita from a torta, and a latte from a cappuccino. She knew where to catch the jitney for the Hamptons.

She did not know much about goats.

As she fiddled with the latch on the gate to Alfred’s pen, she reassured herself: Things usually turn out fine. Soon I’ll be back to my book.

But when the latch gave way, her knees turned watery. At the same time, a voice rang out in the distance: “Scaredy-cat! Scaredy-cat! Scaredy-scaredy-scaredy-cat!”

Effie looked and saw a second boy across the field, a boy about her own age. He was looking at the little one, who now stood in the opposite corner of the pen. He didn’t seem to see Effie at all. Maybe that’s the big brother, Effie thought, and the big brother has dared the little one to climb in with Alfred the Goat and do something. But what?

This question was soon answered. The little boy took three giant steps, reached forward, tugged the goat’s pointy black beard, then turned and ran like crazy.

Alfred was surprised but hesitated only a second before putting his head down to charge. He moved fast, but Effie moved faster. She leaped and landed squarely between the advancing goat and the retreating boy.

Elsewhere at that same moment other things were happening.

In the nearby town of Penn Creek, the owner of the bookstore took a sip of coffee and started a new chapter of Anna Karenina. In the state capital eighty miles away, a newspaper reporter tapped her pencil, waiting for her editor to say she could have extra time to work on a big story. Across two oceans, Effie Starr Zook’s pioneering aviator parents haggled with a taxi driver over the fare to a remote desert airfield.

And the Earth spun and the universe expanded, and Effie Zook braced herself. She had never been butted by a goat before. She had no idea what it would be like.