wore on the days she went out with MacTavish. This outfit consisted of black jeans and an oversize black T-shirt. With dark glasses, and her curls tucked up under a baseball cap, it was almost impossible to tell if she was a girl or a boy. “If the paper is on the Internet, why would people buy it?”
“We won’t put the whole paper on the site,” Bruce said. “We’ll post the first half of the articles and tell people that if they want to read the rest they’ll have to send us fifty cents.”
“It would cost that much for the envelope and stamp,” Andi objected.
“The people who contact us will have computers,” Tim said. “We can send them the rest of the paper as e-mail attachments and it won’t cost us anything.”
It took Tim most of a week to construct the Web site, and his father had to help quite a lot.
“It was harder than I thought, but Dad was terrific,” Tim said. “With so many kids in our family, he and I don’t get to do much together, just the two of us, so this was great. Andi, Dad says to tell youthat he loved your last poem — the one about the dog who went swimming and got hit by a torpedo.”
“He did?” Andi exclaimed with delight. That poem was one of her favorites. “Is the Web site finished? When can we start posting articles?”
“It’s ready to roll,” Tim told them. “Let’s start with our most popular story.”
“That’s Bully!” they all said together. “Either that or Barkley.”
“Let’s make it Bully,” Tim said. “Mr. Murdock needs time to simmer down. Bruce, can you make the picture fill the whole screen?”
“Sure,” Bruce said. “And I can do stuff with photo enhancement. For instance, I can make the meat loaf stand up higher on the plate so people can see it better. And I can make Bully’s drool reflect the flowers on the table.” His heart was beating fast with the thrill of this new challenge.
The first online edition of
The Bow-Wow News
received more attention than they could have imagined, especially after Bruce posted information about the Web site on all the dog-lover message boards.
The enhanced photo of Bully with his heaping plate of food and stream of rainbow saliva delighted the Bernsteins.
“But why did you leave out the recipe?” Mrs. Bernstein asked them. “Everybody I know wants my meat loaf recipe.”
“They can get it,” Andi assured her. “But they’ll have to send us fifty cents. Mrs. Bernstein, this is a
business
!”
Her decision to chop off the story at exactly the point where Mrs. Bernstein was preparing to reveal her recipe turned out to be a stroke of genius. Over two hundred people, including a chef at a restaurant in Atlanta, sent e-mail requests for an address where they could send their money. After a bit of discussion, Debbie agreed to have the payments sent to her house. Since both her parents worked, she could intercept the mail before they got home. As proud as they were of their success, Bruce and Andi were concerned that a sudden flood of envelopes addressed to
The Bow-Wow News
might be disconcerting to their parents, who still hadn’t broken the news about their upcoming trip.
“Don’t you think it’s odd that they haven’t told us yet?” Andi asked Bruce. “How long do you think they’re going to wait?”
“As long as they can,” Bruce said. “They’re probably afraid you’ll throw a fit about having to stay with Aunt Alice, so they’re putting off telling us for as long as possible.”
“I’m not going to do that,” Andi said. “I feel differently about Aunt Alice now that she’s our legal advisor.”
Actually, her change in attitude went deeper than that, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Sometimes in the afternoons when she wasn’t working on the paper she walked down the street to Aunt Alice’s house to visit with her for twenty minutes or so. Twenty minutes was pretty much all she could handle, because Aunt Alice wasn’t the same when she
“We won’t put the whole paper on the site,” Bruce said. “We’ll post the first half of the articles and tell people that if they want to read the rest they’ll have to send us fifty cents.”
“It would cost that much for the envelope and stamp,” Andi objected.
“The people who contact us will have computers,” Tim said. “We can send them the rest of the paper as e-mail attachments and it won’t cost us anything.”
It took Tim most of a week to construct the Web site, and his father had to help quite a lot.
“It was harder than I thought, but Dad was terrific,” Tim said. “With so many kids in our family, he and I don’t get to do much together, just the two of us, so this was great. Andi, Dad says to tell youthat he loved your last poem — the one about the dog who went swimming and got hit by a torpedo.”
“He did?” Andi exclaimed with delight. That poem was one of her favorites. “Is the Web site finished? When can we start posting articles?”
“It’s ready to roll,” Tim told them. “Let’s start with our most popular story.”
“That’s Bully!” they all said together. “Either that or Barkley.”
“Let’s make it Bully,” Tim said. “Mr. Murdock needs time to simmer down. Bruce, can you make the picture fill the whole screen?”
“Sure,” Bruce said. “And I can do stuff with photo enhancement. For instance, I can make the meat loaf stand up higher on the plate so people can see it better. And I can make Bully’s drool reflect the flowers on the table.” His heart was beating fast with the thrill of this new challenge.
The first online edition of
The Bow-Wow News
received more attention than they could have imagined, especially after Bruce posted information about the Web site on all the dog-lover message boards.
The enhanced photo of Bully with his heaping plate of food and stream of rainbow saliva delighted the Bernsteins.
“But why did you leave out the recipe?” Mrs. Bernstein asked them. “Everybody I know wants my meat loaf recipe.”
“They can get it,” Andi assured her. “But they’ll have to send us fifty cents. Mrs. Bernstein, this is a
business
!”
Her decision to chop off the story at exactly the point where Mrs. Bernstein was preparing to reveal her recipe turned out to be a stroke of genius. Over two hundred people, including a chef at a restaurant in Atlanta, sent e-mail requests for an address where they could send their money. After a bit of discussion, Debbie agreed to have the payments sent to her house. Since both her parents worked, she could intercept the mail before they got home. As proud as they were of their success, Bruce and Andi were concerned that a sudden flood of envelopes addressed to
The Bow-Wow News
might be disconcerting to their parents, who still hadn’t broken the news about their upcoming trip.
“Don’t you think it’s odd that they haven’t told us yet?” Andi asked Bruce. “How long do you think they’re going to wait?”
“As long as they can,” Bruce said. “They’re probably afraid you’ll throw a fit about having to stay with Aunt Alice, so they’re putting off telling us for as long as possible.”
“I’m not going to do that,” Andi said. “I feel differently about Aunt Alice now that she’s our legal advisor.”
Actually, her change in attitude went deeper than that, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Sometimes in the afternoons when she wasn’t working on the paper she walked down the street to Aunt Alice’s house to visit with her for twenty minutes or so. Twenty minutes was pretty much all she could handle, because Aunt Alice wasn’t the same when she
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