Chapter 1

Elizabeth Barrett Barking stretched her four furry legs and let out a satisfied burp, her long pink tongue wiping her snout clean.  She had eaten far too much of her favorite meal (lamb medallions with a pinch of freeze-dried liver) and needed to go for a run, even if it did feel like rain.  "If I can nudge Jake Schnauzer and Bentley Puggle out of their naps, we could chase each other around the obstacle course at the giant mushroom park.  That's always a great way to work off dinner.  And if it starts to rain," she thought, slipping on her Little Red Riding Hood slicker, "we'll just snuggle under a portabello until it blows over."

Chapter 2

Elizabeth Barrett Barking's raincoat had a pair of pockets shaped like two ladybugs.  Sometimes real ladybugs would land on top of them thinking they were making new friends.  Elizabeth didn't mind.  She loved all creatures and let them cling on to whatever sticks she had picked up that day.  Her collection, which decorated the walls of her den, was from every tree that grew in the Morphazoodle.  In fact, Lizzie (as she preferred to be called) was a great finder of all kinds of things- dinner scraps, cupcake crumbs, slippers, an occasional sock.  "I just have a nose for it, "she said when others marveled at her treasure-hunting skill.

But her most important discovery was something that no Morphazoodler had ever seen- "The Book with no Cover" that she had pulled from the trunk of a fallen tree.  The book was so heavy with age that it took an army of ants hours to carry it back to her cozy home.  Imagine their delight when Lizzie, who had begun to paw through it, called them back to see a page she had found with a picture and a story about ants.  Bees with bullhorns buzzed the news and soon Lizzie was swamped by a conga line of creatures clamoring to see if their pictures were also inside.  "I can't get anything else done," whined the literate lapdog, overwhelmed by the requests.  "I feel like I spend every day just chasing my tail."  And then she hit upon a solution - one random page to be read each day when the sliver of sunlight broke through the canopy of the Morphazoodle.  All creatures agreed to the compromise and longed for their page to be next.  Who would ever have guessed that page 1492 would soon change Lizzie's life forever.

Chapter 3

Lizzie and her friends set out for the obstacle course.  Suddenly she froze in her tracks, ears at attention, tail straight up.  "Bentley!  Jake!' she yipped, "doesn't that bushy tail look like part of the 'squir-rel' that I read about this morning?"  Two more black noses quivered and two more pairs of eyes scanned the trees.  "Look!" she barked, dashing from one trunk to another, "over there and over there and over there!"  Small grey and brown rodents leapt from branch to branch.  "There must be a whole dray of them!  Who needs the obstacle course, canines?  The first one to catch a squir-rel wins!"  The three friends sped off in different directions and, as luck would have it, Lizzie raced furthest away- so focused on one bushy tail that she didn't notice she had run straight out of the Morphazoodle, straight past the world's oldest tree, and straight into the Laborastory's forest.

Chapter 4

"I know you're up there," she barked, pawing at the tree trunk trying to avoid the acorns that she was being pelted with.  "I'm not leaving until I meet you face to face."  Lizzie took off her raincoat and sat down.  A nut thumped her squarely on the head.  "I'm not here to hurt you," she called up.  "I just want to know if you're a 'squir-rel'."  Lizzie waited for an answer.  "It's pronounced 'squirrel'," said a little voice from its camouflaged perch.  "Thank you, squirrel," she said, corrected.  "Either way I can't believe my eyes.  I just read about you in the 'Book with no Cover', and here you are!"

Leaves shook directly overhead, and a tiny face poked out.  "The 'Book with no Cover'?" repeated the confused squirrel.  "What are you talking about?"  He crept down the trunk of the tree, keeping a safe distance.  "All the books in our library have covers," he explained.  "It's to protect the pages.  It's what we read so we can find what we're looking for on the shelves."  He crept closer to the dog.  "We look for their titles printed on their covers or their spines."  "Their spines?" repeated Lizzie hungrily.  "Your books are printed on bones?"  The squirrel crossed his front arms, mouth open, incredulous.

"You're not from this neck of the woods, are you?" he asked.  Lizzie looked around at her surroundings, her pink tongue flicking nervously in and out of her mouth.  Nothing looked familiar.  She shook her head and started to whimper.  The squirrel crept close enough to pet her furry brow.  "Don't worrry," he squeaked softly.  "You're safe here.  We'll figure out how to get you back home in the morning.  Come on," he said picking up an acorn.  "I know the best place for you to spend the night."

Lizzie followed the squirrel to a tree bursting with colors.  It had a door with a keyhole carved into its trunk.  "I'm going back to my nest now," he said as he dropped the nut into the keyhole.  Magically the door swung slowly open.  "You're going to sleep inside," he said turning to leave.  "All by myself?" asked the worried dog.  "You'll be fine.  Read the sign," said the squirrel as he flipped onto a low-lying branch.  Lizzie read it slowly.  "Leaf -through Li-bra-ry," she said.  "I wonder what that means."

When Lizzie's eyes adjusted to the light, she howled with happiness.  Books!  Books!  Books!  Everywhere she looked- shelves upon shelves of books!  And because she was a dog, she did what any dog would do.  She sniffed and she tugged and she jumped, and she inadvertently knocked book after book off the shelves with her wagging tail!  And when the pile was big enough, she rolled on to her back and did a paw dance into the air!

And because she was a dog, she did what any dog would do next.  She found a cushion on a chair, as soft as a cloud, hopped on, and curled up like a comma 'til morning.

Above: "Lizzie" (Eli B.'s inspiration for Elizabeth Barrett Barking)