An Early Preview of Joanne Levy’s HOW TO WALK A DOG

HOW TO WALK A DOG, the new middle grade novel from New York Times bestselling author JOANNE LEVY is on-sale October 20 from Union Square Kids! You can read an early preview now, and pre-order your copy HERE!

Lobsters Are Weird

Lobsters look like giant crusty bugs and live at the bottom of the ocean. How did people ever figure out you can eat them?

How do you look at them and think, Mmm, delicious boiled and served with butter? Must eat?

What do lobsters eat?

How do lobsters eat?

What do lobsters think about all day?

Why do they turn red when they’re cooked?

Is it true lobsters scream when you cook them?

What would happen if you put lobsters in the tank with the trout?

Do the trout ever get tired of swimming?

Why is the plural of trout trout and not trouts? Do trout scream when you cook them?

Would a trout scream if a lobster grabbed it with its claws?

What would that look like?

I suddenly couldn’t wait to draw comic panels of Lobster vs. Trout. The lobster would crawl out of its tank in the first one, then it would climb down—

“Asher Avi Abrams!”

I swiveled away from the tanks—one filled with lobsters and the other filled with trout—to see my mom standing there. Her hands were on her hips. Her eyes were open wide.

Accusingly wide. Uh-oh.

That look meant she’d probably said my name a few times before I’d heard her. It was noisy in the grocery store, but even if it had been silent, I didn’t always hear someone talking to me if I was thinking about something else. Like lobsters. Or a lobster-trout grudge match that I was picturing in my head and would draw later.

“Sorry,” I said automatically.

Mom dropped her hands to her sides and exhaled loudly. “I know there’s a lot to look at. But can you please work with me? Your dad’s stuck at work and my book club is coming at seven thirty. I need to get you and your brother fed and then—”

“I can help!” I blurted out.

“Good,” she said. “I got us some fried chicken and wedges for dinner, but I need to grab some eggs and bread. Anything else?”

I glanced at the cart beside her. There were two boxes from the hot food section: chicken and potato wedges. There were already patches of grease showing through one of the boxes. Probably the chicken. There was a tub of coleslaw—the green stuff I like best. And also a tray of colorful sushi, perfectly arranged on a big round platter that was for the book club. Even though it looked so pretty, no one else in my family would touch sushi with a ten-foot chopstick.

I liked using chopsticks. If we ordered Chinese food or had Buddha bowls, I would use them. It was hard eating with chopsticks, but I was getting better. It was fun to practice. But only if the Buddha bowls had noodles, not rice. Rice is too hard to eat with chopsticks.

“Asher?”

“Huh?”

Mom stared at me with her eyebrows up high on her head. Pushing thoughts of chopsticks and rice away, I rewound our conversation to a minute before.

Book club. Chicken. Did we need anything else?

“Oh, right.” I scanned the rest of the items in the cart. I thought about what my dinner plate should look like.

“Plum sauce!” Because you can’t have fried chicken without plum sauce. Ketchup is okay on wedges but never for chicken.

“I think we’re out. Go grab a bottle, please,” she said, jutting her chin toward the other side of the store. “You remember where it is?”

I didn’t, but I nodded. I could find it.

She turned her head toward the produce section of the store. “I think I need a veggie tray—Dena’s off rice these days. Oh, and I’d better grab some tampons,” she said. Then she turned back to me and looked pointedly into my eyes. “Go get the plum sauce and then meet me up at the checkouts, okay? Don’t dawdle. Repeat back to me, please.”

“Plum sauce. Meet you at the checkouts. Don’t dawdle,” I repeated back to her before heading toward the rows of aisles.

I stopped at the cereal aisle—my favorite aisle. I loved cereal. I could eat it whenever: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack time, dessert. With chocolate milk, regular milk, or dry like popcorn in a bowl, it didn’t matter. Even the kind without sugar like Cheerios or the puffy corn bites. I loved it all.

As I walked down the aisle, I wondered what it would be like if I drizzled melted butter on dry cereal like popcorn. Weird and gross, or the new best thing ever? Maybe I’d try it for our next movie night.

I scanned the shelves—red box, white box, rainbow box, brown box, all with bright, exciting letters—hoping there would be something new I’d never tried. I had my favorites, (current #1 was Froot Loops, but Dad said it was too sugary and gave me the jitters and I shouldn’t eat it every day even though that’s exactly what I wanted to do), but finding a new type of cereal was like waking up on a snow day, or surprise pizza night when you’re expecting something boring like dried-up meatloaf—something you didn’t know was coming but was a great surprise.

I was halfway down the aisle, right beside the Honey Nut Cheerios (fourth favorite) when movement caught the corner of my eye.

When I glanced over, I froze. Because down at the far end of the aisle, standing in front of the oatmeal section, wearing jeans and her favorite purple hoodie, was my ex–best friend, Gilly Bean.

The girl I wished was still my best friend.

The girl who I was 97 percent sure hated my guts.

Her Real Name Was Gillian Benjamin

But to me, she was Gilly Bean.

The day I’d met her, just over three years ago, on the first day of third grade, she had jelly beans (the Jelly Belly ones—the best kind) in her bento box, which she’d shared with everyone on the playground at recess. I discovered my favorite flavor: s’mores. Her favorite flavor was buttered popcorn (very good but only my #6).

She was new at our school and didn’t have any friends. Giving out jelly beans was a great plan. From that day, I called her Gilly Bean. She called me Triple A.

After that, we hung out every day, especially in the summers when I’d walk to her house on Lantern Lane and swim in her pool, or, if it was raining, she’d come over and play video games in my basement. Or we’d find something else to do: ride our bikes down to the creek to look for frogs, go to DQ and share a banana split, or even play tennis at the park, even though we didn’t know any of the rules. Neither of us was very good at hitting the ball, but it didn’t matter. We just liked being together.

Until this past summer, when we’d gotten into the Big Fight and hadn’t spoken since.

Which is why I was 97 percent sure she hated me (97 percent is a made-up number, but without her talking to me, it was impossible to be 100 percent sure).

So now, standing in the cereal aisle, I didn’t know what to say. What should I do? Should I talk to her? Call out and say hi? Tell her how much I missed her?

I didn’t want to do any of those things. I didn’t want her to see me.

Except my feet wouldn’t move. Maybe I did want her to see me. Big Feelings were starting to roll in. If I didn’t do something,

I was going to have a meltdown. Thanks to my mom, I knew what to do: I took a deep breath and closed my eyes while I visualized my thoughts, slowing them down so I could look at them all and pick out the important ones.

I needed to focus.

What was I feeling?

What did I really want?

Once the thoughts slowed down, my chest ached. Because what I really wanted was to be friends again.

I opened my eyes and stood there, trying to figure out what to say as I watched her. She stepped closer to the shelves and grabbed a small bag of the steel-cut oats Dad liked—the kind he made in mason jars in the fridge, leaving them to get semi-mushy overnight. Sometimes he added apples and raisins or blueberries and honey. You might think I like oats because they’re in the cereal aisle and I love all cereal, but oats are not cereal, no matter how many times Dad tried to tell me they were.

Gilly seemed very interested in the bag. Did she like oats? It was something I felt like I should know about my (former) best friend.

Should I ask? Was she thinking about what she would put in them? Did she wonder how to cook them? Should I tell her how my dad made them?

She turned the bag over in her hand and brought it closer to her face, reading the label intently. Like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

“You’re supposed to read the label while you’re eating it at home, like cereal boxes,” I said, but softly, only to myself. “Not that oats are cereal, but . . .”

I watched, hoping she would look at me, while at the same time hoping she wouldn’t. Then she put the oats back and hurried out of the aisle.

I followed, wondering what she was doing. Where she would go next.

Who she was with.

When I got to the end of the aisle, I watched her turn down the next one.

Staying mostly hidden behind the shelves at the end of the aisle, I watched as she stopped and looked at the boxes in front of her. She was in the menstrual products section. Was she shopping with her mom? I looked around but didn’t see Mrs. Benjamin.

As I stood there, sad about our ruined friendship, she reached out for a box. I wasn’t close enough to know what it was exactly, but the box was small compared to the others on the shelf. It was only about the size of one of my game controllers.

And then, while I thought about what would happen if I went over to her and begged her to be my friend again, she quickly shoved the box in the middle pouch pocket of her hoodie.

“GILLY!” I yelled.

Her head swiveled toward me. Her eyes went wide. She obviously recognized me. I had a quick thought she was going to smile and wave and maybe we could be friends again.

She had a different thought, though. Because instead of smiling and waving, she glared at me angrily for a long moment. Then her face crumpled like she was about to cry.

One second later, she turned and hurried away.

Read more when HOW TO WALK A DOG is released on October 20!