Page 9 - Highlights for Children (December 2017)

None of the photos
in the book looked like

the footprints in
Aunt Gwen’s yard.

“Maybe the animal is still here,”

he whispered. Quietly, he began
following the footprints. He didn’t
want to scare the animal away.
added, “But that’s silly. Dinosaurs He had almost reached the backyard
are not around anymore.” when he heard something. Swish,
He looked closer. The footprints were clomp, swish, clomp. He peeked around
the shape of a very large oval with a the corner of the house.

stem. Maybe they belong to an elephant That was when he saw
or a hippo that escaped from the zoo, her—his sister, Julie.
he thought. He held his breath and
listened. He didn’t hear anything. Swish, clomp,
He remembered a book he’d seen swish, clomp.
earlier on Aunt Gwen’s shelf. It was a He peeked
book about animal tracks. He dashed around the
inside to get it. The book had pictures corner of
of animals and the tracks they made.
the house.
He turned the pages one by one,
but none of the photos looked like the She had something
footprints in Aunt Gwen’s yard. weird on each foot.
He stared at those footprints again. They looked like giant
An animal that made such big tracks tennis rackets with short handles.
would have to be heavy. Its tracks Julie waved. “See what I found
should sink far down into the snow. in Aunt Gwen’s basement? They’re

Yet these footprints seemed to skim old-fashioned snowshoes. Aunt Gwen
across the top. said the shape helps you walk on top
How can that be? he wondered. of the snow.”
Jonathan noticed something else. Jonathan laughed. “No wonder I
The tracks never left Aunt Gwen’s couldn’t find these footprints in Aunt
yard. Instead, they turned and went Gwen’s book!” There was no page for
around the house. a snowshoeing sister.

DECEMBER 2017 9