Read Online Boy's Best Friend by Kate Banks - Free Book Online

than 90 percent of both grownups and children often had this experience. So there does seem to be a way in which we can feel when people are looking at us.
    I’ve done many experiments to test this and it seems that many people really do have “eyes in back of their head.” Some people can even detect when they are being watched through a closed-circuit TV system.
    I think teachers can feel what’s happening behind them because they develop this sensitivity through practice, and they may be better at it than people who don’t have to stand at the front of classrooms. It would be interesting to set up a test comparing the sensitivity of teachers with that of other grownups who are not teachers. As far as I know no one has done this yet.
    Certainly in the animal kingdom mothers seem to be able to influence their children by some degree of telepathy. There is a wonderful study of foxes by a great American naturalist named William Long who wrote a book called How Animals Talk . In it, he describes how a vixen, a mother fox, controls her young just by her look. If one is getting too far away or playing too boisterously she just looks at him and “the eager cub suddenly checks himself, turns as if he had heard a command, catches the vixen’s look, and back he comes like a trained dog to the whistle.”
    If you are interested in reading more about how animals communicate, I think you’d enjoy William Long’s book.

    Best wishes,
    Rupert Sheldrake

 
    13
    After school on Wednesday, Lester left the schoolyard and turned onto Cherry Street. He’d decided to kill time by wandering around the neighborhood before heading home. On Monday he’d taken a longer route, but Bill Gates had still gone out to the gate within minutes of his leaving school. On Tuesday Lester had ridden his bike and left school at 3 p.m. sharp, racing home as fast as he could. Bill Gates had been waiting 9 minutes—the exact time it had taken Lester to bike home.
    Lester had noticed that a lot of the streets in his new neighborhood were named after fruits, or had something to do with them. He lived on Fig Street, but there was a Grove, Plum, and Orchard too. There was a playground on Orchard Street and Lester stopped and plopped himself into the bucket of one of the swings. Then he pumped high into the air and let go. He liked flying through the air. It made him feel like a bird.
    Lester climbed the slide and threw himself down several times, once headfirst. Then he stopped to watch a group of kids playing tag, wondering if they might ask him to join them. But no one did.
    Lester walked across a wide expanse of green grass hemmed in by a bike path.
    â€œBill Gates would love this,” he said out loud.
    Lester sat down on a park bench. A whirlybird floated down from a maple tree above him. Lester opened its pod and felt the sticky stuff inside. It looked like mayonnaise. Lester leaned back and watched the world go by. Then he heard someone shout, “Isn’t that the fat guy with the mustard?”
    Who, me? thought Lester glancing around. Two guys whizzed past on skateboards.
    â€œI hate mustard,” said one of them.
    â€œIt stinks,” said the other.
    â€œHey,” cried Lester. “It doesn’t stink as much as the marsh.”
    Lester stood up. He was ready to go home. He realized that he hadn’t been repeating his mantra. “Moving is fun. Change can be positive,” he said halfheartedly.
    Bill Gates was waiting on the walkway when Lester arrived.
    â€œHe’s been there for 7 minutes,” said Lester’s mother, grinning widely. Lester looked at his watch. It had taken him 12 minutes to walk from the park home.
    â€œCome on, big guy,” said Lester. “Let’s go for a walk. I found the perfect place. Almost,” he added, remembering the skateboarders.
    Lester led Bill Gates toward the park. Bill Gates stopped once to sniff some weeds growing along