Read Online As Simple as It Seems by Sarah Weeks - Free Book Online Page A

asked Pooch.
    â€œMaybe in New York City,” I told him.
    He pulled out another bottle and held it up for me to see.
    â€œI found this out in the ditch by the road. It’s some kind of baby lizard. Good thing Komodo dragons don’t live around here. They’re the heaviest lizards onearth—and their mouths are so full of bacteria, if they bite you you’ll die of gangrene.”
    No wonder his mother had called him Doctor Doom. He sure knew a lot of things that could kill you.
    â€œThat’s a newt,” I said, pointing at the yellowbellied salamander in the bottle. “And don’t worry, it won’t bite you—it doesn’t even have teeth.”
    â€œHow big do newts get?” he asked.
    I held my thumb and forefinger about three inches apart to show him. “But if you leave it in that bottle much longer, it’s going to dry out and shrivel up to the size of a toothpick,” I said. “And it’ll stink to high heaven too.”
    Pooch quickly unscrewed the top, squatted down, and shook the newt out of the bottle onto the ground. We both watched it crawl off.
    â€œWhat else have you got?” I asked.
    He lifted his foot and scratched the back of his leg with the top of his shoe again.
    â€œWell, there is one more thing,” he said. “At least I think there is.”
    Pooch reached into his pocket, slowly took out a bottle, and held it up for me to see. There was nothing in it.
    â€œIs this supposed to be a joke?” I asked.
    â€œDon’t you see it?”
    â€œSee what?” I took the bottle from him and held it up close to my face. “There’s nothing in here.”
    I started to untwist the cap.
    â€œDon’t let it out!” cried Pooch.
    I stopped midtwist.
    â€œLet what out?” I looked again at the empty bottle.
    â€œIt’s a mouse,” he said.
    There was no way he could have fit a mouse into that bottle. The neck was as narrow as my little finger.
    â€œWas it a baby mouse?” I asked him.
    â€œNope. Regular sized. I found it in a trap right before I came down here.”
    â€œYou mean it was dead ?”
    â€œNot quite,” he said. “My mom saw mouse droppings on the kitchen counter when we got here, so she set some old traps we found under the sink. She used peanut butter for bait. If a mouse tries to eat it, the trap snaps closed and breaks its neck. See, there’s this little spring and when the mouse steps on the—”
    â€œI know how a mousetrap works,” I interrupted impatiently. “What I don’t know is why you’d try to catch a mouse in a bottle if you’d already caught it in a trap.”
    â€œThe traps only catch their bodies,” said Pooch.
    â€œWhat else is there?”
    He gave me a strange look.
    â€œThat’s a pretty funny question coming from you,” he said.
    It took a minute before I realized what he was trying to say, and then the hair on my arms prickled up.
    â€œI read somewhere that your soul leaves your body when you breathe out for the last time,” said Pooch. “I could tell the mouse was about to die, so I put the bottle up against its nose to see if I could catch its soul on the way out.”
    â€œThat’s creepy,” I told him.
    â€œWhy?” he said. “Death is a natural thing, just like getting born.”
    â€œDeath is the opposite of getting born,” I said.
    â€œThey’re both natural,” Pooch insisted. “And interesting. Especially death.”
    â€œI don’t see what’s so interesting about it,” I told him.
    â€œThat’s because you already know all the answers.”
    â€œWhat answers?” I asked.
    â€œWell, for starters, what’s the deal with reincarnation? And what about heaven? If you don’t believe in heaven while you’re alive, and then you die and find outyou were wrong—can you still go there?”
    My head was beginning to