The Truth According to Blue Excerpt
A long tongue licked my cheek. I smooshed my face into my pillow, simultaneously drying the slime and hiding from another lick. Foiled. The long tongue swiped my ear.
“Go away, Otis. School’s out.”
But Otis didn’t go away. I knew because I could feel him panting on my neck.
I rolled over and patted the blanket, which is my way of hitting the snooze button, and eighty pounds of German shepherd catapulted onto the bed. Otis draped his entire self across me, his chin strategically positioned on my shoulder so I could scratch behind his ears with both hands.
“Five more minutes…” I mumbled.
I finger-combed Otis’s super-soft ear fur, lost in the orange glow of the insides of my eyelids and the dream I’d been having about an octopus that couldn’t hide because its ink was gold instead of black and—
Poof! Morning brain fog evaporated. I bolted upright and four hairy dog limbs scrambled to the floor.
“The hunt, Otis! The hunt begins today!”
Otis barked.
“Breakfast!”
Wake-up mission accomplished, Otis retrieved the little pouch of diabetes supplies from my desk and dropped it on my lap before trotting out of the room. By the time I finished testing my blood sugar and entering the number of carbs I was about to eat into my pump so it would know how much insulin to give me, Otis was back, carrying a low-carb bagel with cream cheese and a mini milk carton in the basket that my mom leaves for us in the mornings. Otis and I are big fans of breakfast in bed.
I unscrewed the bagel top and offered Otis a piece, which he refused.
“Go on,” I said. “You love bagels.”
Otis waited.
“Fine.”
I scooped a big glob of cream cheese off my side and spread it on his so he’d have double. He gulped it down whole.
“Get excited, Oats Magoats. We’re about to change the course of history, you and me.”
Otis was already excited. I could tell by the thwack of his tail and the lift of his nose. And it wasn’t just because today was the first day of vacation. This summer we had big plans.
This summer, we were going treasure hunting.