Meow! Meow! Chirp, chirp, chirp! Meow! MEEEEOOOOOWWWW!

Amelia Bedelia woke up. Pumpkin was sitting on the windowsill watching a bird in the tree outside her window. The sun was shining, drying up puddles.

When Amelia Bedelia got to school, she began to understand why the phone hadn’t rung. The posters that she and Penny and Joy had taped up around the playground had been ruined by the rain. The paint and ink had run, and the paper was soggy and torn. Nobody could see how cute Pumpkin was—and nobody could read the phone number.

“Oh, no,” said Penny when she jumped off the bus. “After all our hard work!”

Penny and Amelia Bedelia stared at the posters—or what was left of them.

“It just means we have to work harder and find a new solution,” said Amelia Bedelia. “We need to put an ad someplace where it can’t be washed away.”

“But where?” asked Penny.

“I know,” said Amelia Bedelia. “In the newspaper!”

At recess, Amelia Bedelia’s friends gathered around the stump table while Amelia Bedelia, Penny, and Joy explained what had happened to the posters.

“My dad always says the more people who see your ad, the better,” said Amelia Bedelia. “If we put an ad in the newspaper, everyone who lives in this town will see it. Somebody will want to take Pumpkin home.”

“Cool, but who is Pumpkin?” asked Clay.

“The cat,” said Amelia Bedelia.

“Amelia Bedelia named the cat Pumpkin,” said Penny.

“That’s the perfect name!” said Joy.

“But doesn’t it cost a lot to put an ad in the paper?” asked Angel.

“Not really,” said Amelia Bedelia. “Mr. B helped me look it up on the library computer. We can buy a small ad for two hundred dollars.”

Amelia Bedelia’s friends stared back at her blankly.

“Amelia Bedelia, we don’t have two hundred dollars,” said Skip.

“We can earn it,” said Amelia Bedelia.

“How?” asked Penny. “My allowance is only five dollars a week.”

“So is mine,” said Amelia Bedelia. “But there are twenty kids in our class. So that’s one hundred dollars. What if we each ask our parents to give us double the chores?”

Her friends started nodding. That seemed possible.

“We can even ask our neighbors or grandparents if they need chores done,” said Cliff.

“I know, we can make chore coupon books!” said Joy.

“That’s a great idea!” said Penny.

After lunch, Joy got two pieces of paper and folded them in half, then in half again. That made eight small rectangles.

On each rectangle she wrote a chore. Skip, who was very good at drawing, made a sketch of each chore and created a cover for the coupon book.

“See, if we each sell one chore coupon book, we’ll have the money we need for the ad,” Joy explained.

“It’s a really good invention,” said Amelia Bedelia. “And it’s going to work—I know it will.”

Mrs. Roman said they could use the office copier to make twenty chore books, plus some extras. At the end of the day, they handed them out. Every kid in Mrs. Shauk’s class agreed to try to convince someone to buy one. They would bring the money to Amelia Bedelia tomorrow.

At dinner that night, Amelia Bedelia showed her parents her chore coupon books and told them about the plans to raise money for an ad.

“You always say free advertising is the best kind,” she told her father. “But two-hundred-dollar advertising is still pretty good, right? Plus it will be dry.”

“It definitely is,” agreed her father. “Much better than five-hundred-dollar advertising . . . or two-thousand-dollar advertising . . . or—”

“We get the idea, honey,” said Amelia Bedelia’s mother, blowing her nose. “The best thing about this coupon book is that it guarantees no complaining. I’ll take two!”

“So far, so good,” said Amelia Bedelia’s father to Amelia Bedelia.

Amelia Bedelia’s mother took two ten-dollar bills from her purse and gave them to Amelia Bedelia.

“Thanks, Mom!” said Amelia Bedelia. She got up from the table and tucked the money into her backpack. “I’m going to go play with Pumpkin.”

“Oh, cool your jets,” said her mother, ripping a page out of the coupon book and handing it to Amelia Bedelia with a smile.

“I don’t have any,” said Amelia Bedelia looking at the coupon. Wash dishes, it said.

“Better get to work,” her father said. “We want to see if you’re worth your salt!”

“No thanks, Daddy. Mom already gave me money,” said Amelia Bedelia. “Do I have to wash the dishes right now? I was going to play with Pumpkin and Finally.”

“No whining or complaining,” said her mother. “That’s the guarantee, right?”

“Right,” agreed Amelia Bedelia.

While Amelia Bedelia’s parents settled down in the living room to watch TV, Amelia Bedelia cleared the table and stacked the dirty dishes next to the sink. Suddenly she was not so sure it was such a good thing that her parents had bought two coupon books. Maybe one would have been enough.

But it was worth it if it helped to find Pumpkin a good home!