We sat outside on the steps.
Molly put her chin in her hands.
"I don't want to give Tufty away.
But I don't think he's going to learn to talk."
"Don't worry," I said. "I'll think of something else."
Molly smiled. She felt better, but I felt worried.
How could I keep Tufty from making noise?
Just then we heard the scream of a fire engine siren from Molly's apartment!
"Oh no! Tufty's doing it again!" cried Molly.
"I hope the fire department doesn't hear him," said Josh.
"They'll think there's a real fire somewhere!"
On the sidewalk two boys were squirting each other with a hose.
They squirted some water on us.
"That feels nice and cool!" said Jenny.
"Just like at the movies," I said.
Mrs. Carroll came outside.
She was carrying a box of old DVDs.
The word "Free" was written on the box.
"I'm giving these away," she told us.
"You kids can have them, if you'd like.
My son is grown up now.
He doesn't watch them anymore."
We took the DVDs from her and looked at them.
"It's The Magic Music Box!" said Jenny.
"I love that movie."
"It has a lot of great songs in it," said Molly.
Beep! Beep!
From Molly's apartment came the sound of a taxi honking.
"There goes Tufty again!" said Caswell.
Suddenly I got an idea.
"Maybe The Magic Music Box will keep Tufty quiet," I said.
"At least until I can think of something else.
We can watch the movie on a computer."
We walked upstairs to my apartment.
On the way we got Tufty.
I asked my mom if I could borrow her spray bottle of water.
She uses it for her plants.
"Now everyone go into my room," I said.
"We're going to watch a movie in an air-conditioned theater!"
"Air-conditioned?" Jenny echoed.
"But Mr. Calabria said we couldn't use air conditioners yet."
"You'll see!" I promised her.
We all squeezed into my bedroom.
"It's crowded in here!" Jenny giggled.
"It's hot too," added Josh.
I turned on my fan.
"Who wants to get cool first?"
"Me!" shouted Caswell.
I turned the fan towards Caswell.
Then, standing behind it, I squirted him with water from the bottle.
The fan sprayed the water all over him!
"That feels good!" cried Caswell.
We took turns using my fan and spraying each other with water.
"Be careful of the computer!" I shouted, laughing.
"And don't get my boot wet!" cried Molly.
The water felt great.
Even Tufty loved it!
Soon we started watching the movie.
Molly was right.
The movie did have lots of great songs.
I really liked "Telephone Number."
You can sing any phone number with that song.
I sang Molly and Caswell's telephone number:
You can sing
And you can sing your number
And put it in a song.
My number is 555...
I never get it wrong!
After the movie was over, we kept singing the song with Molly's number.
We sang over and over while we sprayed each other with water.
We were having so much fun that we forgot all about Tufty.
Suddenly Molly stopped singing.
She looked around.
"Where's Tufty?" she said.
"He was here a minute ago," said Josh.
"He couldn't have flown into the kitchen,"
I said, glancing at my bedroom door.
It was closed.
We looked under my bed and behind my dresser.
But there was no sign of Tufty.
Then Josh pointed upward.
"Iggy, your skylight is open," he said.
Molly's face turned white.
"Oh no!" she cried. "Tufty flew away!"