Amelia Bedelia checked her windowsill as soon as she got up the next morning. The banana was gone! She raced downstairs and ran outside to look for the peel. There it was! She picked it up so that her father wouldn’t slip again. She was so excited, she didn’t know what to do. The banana had been peeled exactly the same way the monkeys had peeled their bananas on the TV show.

At breakfast, Amelia Bedelia’s mother and father told her that it was okay for her to build her zoo as long as one of them was at home and as long as everyone helping had permission to be at Amelia Bedelia’s house. Also, no dangerous pets were allowed.

“That’s great!” said Amelia Bedelia. “Mom, will you get me more bananas, please—like a big bunch of bananas?”

“More bananas?” said her mother. “You already eat two a day.”

“She may look like Amelia Bedelia,” said her father. “But she’s actually the monkey that escaped from the zoo. Do you know, they still haven’t caught that little fella!”

Amelia Bedelia froze, like prey caught in the open. Had her dad guessed what she was thinking? Did her dad know something she didn’t know? Then she remembered her Rule #1: If you don’t know what to say, ask a question.

“Dad, do you know how a monkey eats a banana?” she asked.

“With relish,” said her father.

“Yuck!” said Amelia Bedelia. “A banana with relish would taste terrible. Save it for your hot dog!”

Amelia Bedelia grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl and showed her dad how to peel it using the Monkey Method. “Amazing,” said her father. “Who knew?” He cut up the banana and put it on his cereal.

“I was thinking,” said Amelia Bedelia, “that I could offer my friends bananas for a snack this afternoon. They’re healthy.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” said Amelia Bedelia’s mother. “I’ll get you a bunch of bunches.”

And that is how Amelia Bedelia’s Rule #2 was born: Include the word “healthy” in your request or comment, and grown-ups will automatically agree.

 

That afternoon after school, Amelia Bedelia and her friends worked on Pet Alley and the Rain Forest Habitat. They made signs and installed the hose in the apple tree. They got a ton done. But too soon it was time for everyone to go home to do their homework. Amelia Bedelia was just heading upstairs when she heard a commotion in the kitchen. It was her father, and he was not happy. He was holding something behind his back.

“Young lady,” her father began. (This was not a good sign, in Amelia Bedelia’s experience.) “I was searching for an after-work, before-dinner treat. I had my heart set on ice cream. A morsel of rocky road, perhaps. Instead I find . . . roadkill lizard!” He held up a plastic bag of frozen gecko.

“That’s Georgie,” said Amelia Bedelia. “A gold dust day gecko from Madagascar.”

“I don’t care if it’s Robin Hood from Sherwood Forest,” said her father. “He doesn’t belong in our freezer. What if your mother had found this thing?”

“I forgot he was in there,” said Amelia Bedelia. “I need him for my zoo.”

“Zoo!” bellowed her father. “This poor creature is frozen stiff!”

Amelia Bedelia explained everything, including Clay’s idea to freeze Georgie in a block of ice that would be placed on the birdbath pedestal. Amelia Bedelia’s father shook his head, then smiled. He glanced out the window at the driveway.

“We don’t have much time,” he said. “Mom just went to run a quick errand, and she’ll be back any second.”

They made a good team. Amelia Bedelia’s dad acted like a surgeon performing a delicate operation, and Amelia Bedelia was his nurse.

“Milk carton,” he said.

Amelia Bedelia handed him a large carton of milk from the refrigerator, and he poured the milk into a pitcher. Then he opened the carton at the top, sponged it out, and held it under the faucet.

“Water,” he said.

Amelia Bedelia turned on the faucet and filled the carton with water.

“Lizard,” he said.

“Gecko,” said Amelia Bedelia, correcting him as she handed him Georgie in his plastic bag.

“Oh, no,” said her dad. “This is your zoo. You do the honors.”

Amelia Bedelia made a face as she looked at her father and then at the flattened, frozen gecko in the bag. She sighed, then opened the bag and extracted Georgie by his tail. She lowered him into the milk carton, headfirst. Georgie fit perfectly.

“Tape,” said her dad. He closed up the end of the milk carton and taped it shut. Then he buried it in the back of the freezer.

“I hid him behind a frozen chunk of your grandmother’s fruitcake,” he said. “That would frighten off anyone.”

Amelia Bedelia agreed. “Her fruitcake is scarier than a dead lizard.”

“Gecko,” said her father, correcting her.

Just then the back door swung open. Amelia Bedelia’s mother came in carrying groceries.

“What’s that pitcher of milk doing on the counter?” she asked.

“The carton was leaking,” fibbed Amelia Bedelia’s father.

“Dad notices all kinds of things,” said Amelia Bedelia.

Her father winked at her.

Amelia Bedelia winked back.

Amelia Bedelia’s mother started unpacking the groceries. “Honey, I half expected to catch you sneaking a bowl of rocky road ice cream when I came in,” she said.

“Sweetheart,” he said, “I’m shocked you’d think that!”

“Sorry,” she said, giving Amelia Bedelia’s father a hug. “Good news! Lamb chops were on sale.”

“Oh, they’re my favorite!” he said.

While her parents were discussing recipes, Amelia Bedelia reached into the fruit bowl and broke off three bananas. Hiding them behind her, she backed out of the kitchen. She didn’t give those lamb chops a second thought. If she had, she would have realized they were baaaaaaa-d news.