Chapter 1 1
Sparrow was walking her kitten and searching for a bird, her face tilted up to the blue sky, which was why she wasn’t paying attention to what was on the ground. Which was how she tripped on a tree root and landed splat on the sidewalk in front of a dog.

“Toby, sit,” said the lady on the other end of the dog’s leash. “Smart pup!” she added when he promptly sat. Then she asked Sparrow, “Are you okay?”

Sparrow scrambled from the ground. She had skinned her knee and scraped the palms of her hands. But who cared? The dog was gazing at her with shining brown eyes. It had short fur the color of honey and wore a blue guide-dog coat.

“I’m okay!” she said. “I’m totally okay.”

“You took quite a tumble,” said the lady.

Her voice was calm. Not calm and cold, like when a grown-up was trying not to scold. It was calm and warm, like the April afternoon. Her face had a calm look too. Even her long, straight black hair looked as if it never got tangled. Sparrow’s hair got super tangled, and she hated having it brushed, which was why she always wore it in two braids.

“Your dog is so adorable. What kind is he?”

“This is Toby. He’s a yellow Lab. One year old, so his body is full-grown, but he’s still a puppy at heart.”

At the end of her red leash, Sparrow’s kitten, Gracie, was staring at the dog. Sparrow knew what the kitten was feeling: curious. Gracie wanted to check out this Toby, just like Sparrow did. But Sparrow knew you weren’t supposed to pet a guide dog. You weren’t even supposed to ask. Gracie didn’t know that, though. The black-and-white kitten was padding slowly toward the golden-furred dog. When she got closer, she looked up, and the dog looked down, and their noses touched.

“He’s so good!” cried Sparrow.

“He needs to be,” said the lady. “If he’s going to be a guide dog, he needs to be able to handle situations like this.”

Now Sparrow saw that Toby’s blue coat said FUTURE GUIDE DOG. “So he’s not one yet?”

“Not yet,” said the lady. “Like I said, Toby’s still a puppy, really, and I’m what they call a puppy raiser. I’m training him to be a well-behaved dog. In a couple of months he’ll take a test to see if he can move up for his real guide dog training. Someone else will do that—if he passes the big test.”

“I hate big tests,” said Sparrow.

“Me too,” admitted the lady. “School would be a lot more fun if there were no tests.”

“A lot,” agreed Sparrow. She used to love school. Sharing at Circle Time. Listening to books at Story Time. But fourth grade was starting to have a lot less sharing and stories and a lot more homework. And tests. And worst of all, group projects.

Toby was still sitting, like the lady had told him to, but Sparrow was sure he wanted her to pet him. He was gazing at her with his big brown eyes, which seemed to say, Me three! I hate tests too! Pet me! and his tail was kind of wagging. Since he was sitting down, it didn’t wag very well, so it was more like thumping. Wag-thumping. Or thump-wagging.

Sparrow felt an answering thump in her heart. She couldn’t pet the dog, though, no matter how much either of them wanted.

“What if he doesn’t pass?”

“First the guide dog organization would see if he can do another kind of job. But if that doesn’t work out, he could be adopted. The puppy raiser usually has first dibs, but I’d say no, so they’d find somebody else.”

As Sparrow’s mind soared straight to “somebody else” being her, she could almost hear her parents telling her not to get carried away. Not to get her hopes up, which was one of her least favorite things grown-ups said. What was so wrong about being hopeful? Except maybe she finally got the reason now. What was the point of hoping for something that could almost probably definitely never happen, and then being so sad when it didn’t? For one thing, Toby might pass the test. And for another, she already had a kitten that she loved.

There was no way she could ever be the one to give Toby his forever home.