Tom's Tweet Read online

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Text copyright © 2011 by Jill Esbaum

  Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Dan Santat

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Esbaum, Jill.

  Tom’s tweet / by Jill Esbaum ; illustrated by Dan Santat. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When a cat finds a bedraggled baby bird that has fallen from its nest, an unlikely friendship develops between the two.

  ISBN 978-0-375-85171-1 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-375-95171-8 (lib. bdg.)

  eISBN: 978-0-375-98472-3

  [1. Birds—Fiction. 2. Animals—Infancy—Fiction. 3. Cats—Fiction.] I. Santat, Dan, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.E74458Tp 2010

  [E]—dc22

  2009017262

  The illustrations in this book were created using Photoshop. No cats or tweets were mistweeted in the making of this book.

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  First Page

  About the Author and Illustrator

  While hunting one morning, right after a storm,

  Tom heard an inquisitive “Tweet?”

  And there, to his left,

  in the rain-dewy grass,

  was a flip-flapping, fluttery …

  treat!

  Tom feasted his eyes on the quivering tot.

  “Hello, breakfast,” he said with a grin.

  He opened his chompers to gobble it down, but …

  the thing was so wretchedly thin.

  “Dadburn it!” said Tom. “You’re too skinny to eat.

  Why, you’re nothing but feather and bone.”

  He started to leave …

  but the shivering tweet

  looked so frightened.

  Unhappy.

  Alone.

  “I will not take you back to your nest,” Tom declared.

  But the thing blink-blink-blinked, and …

  egad!

  Tom was half up the tree with the poor little tyke

  when its mama showed up …

  fighting mad!

  Tom mumbled and mumphed, but he couldn’t explain

  with the tweet in his kisser like that.

  Mama Tweet didn’t care; she was too busy pecking

  (and anyway, birds don’t speak Cat).

  Tom ran with the tweet

  through the garden and yard

  in an awkward, undignified crouch.

  He scooted past peonies,

  pansies, petunias,

  and squee-e-e-e-eezed through the rosebushes (ouch!).

  The baby tweet’s black button eyes blink-blink-blinked

  as it swayed on its wee little feet.

  “Consarn it,” Tom grumbled. “Now what do I do?

  Just my luck to get stuck with a tweet.”

  “Tweet!” chirped the baby.

  Tom scowled at the feathery pest.

  What was wrong with the thing?

  What on earth did it want?

  “Will you quit if I build you a nest?”

  Tom braved Mama Tweet for a bundle of twigs.

  She dive-bombed his noggin.

  “Ow! Ow!”

  He dropped the tweet onto the twigs and commanded,

  “Stop tweeting. Be happy. Right now.”

  The tot settled into the nest,

  but its cries didn’t stop.

  And why would they? Unless …

  “Dagnabbit,” Tom muttered. “There’s no way around it.

  I’ll just have to feed you, I guess.”

  Tom scritch-scratched and dug

  in the storm-puddled mud

  for the juiciest worms he could find.

  But the tweet wouldn’t eat; it was waiting for … something.

  Tom gasped, “Are you out of your mind?”

  With his innards in knots, he selected a wiggler

  and gingerly

  chewed

  it

  to

  pulp.

  He passed the mashed worm

  from his mouth

  to the baby,

  who swallowed it gobbledy-gulp!

  Happy at last,

  the tweet hopped up on Tom

  and explored him,

  above

  and beneath.

  It tugged on his whiskers

  and pick-pecked his ears

  as he gritted his (still-wormy) teeth.

  When the little tweet yawned

  and hopped under Tom’s armpit,

  he squirmed away, shaking his head.

  “No snuggling,” he grumped. “I’m not that kind of cat.”

  But the wee thing ignored what he said.

  Tom sat through the long afternoon

  with that tweet wedged in tight

  like an unwanted burr.

  And although he resisted with all of his might,

  from deep down in his chest came a …

  purrrrr.

  Finally, finally,

  Mama flew off

  to find food for the rest of her tots.

  “Now’s our chance,” murmured Tom

  to his wakening guest,

  sneaking peeks between marigold pots.

  “Here you go, little fella,” he said. “Home at last.

  Say hello to your sister and brothers.”

  Its feathers atremble, the tweet sadly blinked,

  first at Tom,

  then the petrified others.

  That night, as he slumbered,

  Tom dreamed of the tweet?

  Was he nuts? How completely absurd!

  Yes, as hard as it was for a cat to admit,

  he was missing that bothersome bird.

  Next morning, when Tom stepped from under the porch,

  a quick hop-flutter-plop caught his eye.

  As he rushed to the tree,

  he thought, Nah, couldn’t be.

  But it was. It was his tweet.

  Oh, my.

  “Tarnation! You have to stay up there,” he said.

  “You cannot be my friend. I’m a cat!”

  But the baby just smiled,

  and Tom saw that this tweet

  didn’t care about details like that.

  When Mama Tweet saw that old Tom was a softie,

  her “sorry” was long (and earsplitting).

  And to prove that she trusted him,

  really and truly,

  she gave him a job …

  tweety-sitting.

  Jill Esbaum is the award-winning author of several books for young readers, including Stanza, To the Big Top, Estelle Takes a Bath, and Ste-e-e-e-eamboat a-Comin’! She lives on a farm near Dixon, Iowa, and loves visiting schools, as well as teaching classes and workshops on how to write for children. Visit her on the web at jillesbaum.com

  Dan Santat is the illustrator of The Secret Life of Walter Kitty by Barbara Jean Hicks, Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo by Ayun Halliday, Chicken Dance by Tammi Sauer, the Otto Undercover books by Rhea Perlman, and Oh No! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World) by Mac Barnett, for which he received a silver medal for outstanding achievement in children’s book illustration from the Society of Illustrators. He is a
lso the creator of Disney’s animated hit The Replacements and lives in Southern California with his family. Visit him on the Web at dantat.com

 

 

  Jill Esbaum, Tom's Tweet

  Thanks for reading the books on GrayCity.Net