Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes

bottom step and carefully pulled his body up onto it.
    The main difficulty was that his paws kept sliding through the iron bars. What peculiar stairs. No carpets at all, as at home. Even so, by being extremely cautious, he might be able to drag himself to the next story, pencil and all.
    Carefully, step by step, Ginger crawled up the extraordinary stairs. This was not a decoy. This was a dangerous undertaking. He did not dare look down between those iron bars. He had looked down once and nearly dropped Jerry's pencil out of terror. Up, up, up he crept until there at last he was—at the open window. Gasping in relief Ginger climbed onto the windowsill and stood there, drooling, pencil in mouth, tail wagging in delighted expectation.
    This room happened to be filled with boys and girls all seated at little desks. They looked sleepy and the place did not seem anywhere near as enticing as up at the reservoir. But anyway, there was Jerry, standing by his seat, his voice coming out clear and high and loud again.
    The teacher issued a command. "Read it again, Jerry, more distinctly, and pay more attention to your final g's."
    "My dog, Ginger," read Jerry Pye, and he cleared his throat.
    Well. When Ginger heard Jerry say his name he let out one short yelp of greeting. Ginger! "Yes, here I am, right here, Jerry," was what his bark meant. Of course he dropped Jerry's pencil but fortunately it dropped on the windowsill and not down below. Ginger quickly picked it up again and held it triumphantly in his mouth.
    The minute Ginger let out that little yelp of greeting, what a hullabaloo came over the place. Some little girls screamed and some laughed. All the boys cheered. The person in command clapped her hands but no one paid any attention to her. Jerry dropped the paper he was holding and for a moment he stared at Ginger, too stunned for words or action. Then he rushed to the window and patted his dog to make him feel at home.

    Ginger jumped into the room, dropped Jerry's pencil at his feet and looked up at Jerry. He was inviting him to throw it so he could run after it and bring it back, the way they played the rock game at home, or ball, or stick.
    Jerry picked up his pencil. "He even found my pencil I lost on the way to school this morning," he said in greater astonishment than ever. "What a smart dog!"
    "Your dog?" asked Oliver Peacock, a boy with glasses, in admiration.
    "Yeh," said Jerry proudly. "My dog. Trailed me here."
    "The dog brought a pencil with him because it's school," shrilled one little girl.
    "Whew!" whistled Oliver Peacock.
    Ginger wagged his tail and looked as though he were laughing, the way he always did when he understood that pleasant things were being spoken of him. He licked Jerry's hand. So. Here he was! It was not much of a place but if Jerry could put up
with it, so could he. He trotted around the room, his toenails making a pitter-patter. He smelled here and sniffed there. In one corner by a cupboard he kept his nose glued for some time. There was the possibility of mice there.
    He detoured around the tall person who was still clapping and giving orders that no one was minding any more than he minded anyone when he was off after a cat.
    Suddenly the tall one took a long stick and she brought this down on her desk with such a bang it broke in two and went sailing through the air.
    "Quiet!" she bellowed.
    The hullabaloo stopped short then. This was a welcome relief to Ginger who did not see how Jerry stood this sort of a noisy life. His ears hurt him.
    "Jared Pye!" the tall one said. "Either take your dog home or make him lie down under your desk until dismissal time which is, thank merciful heavens, only a few minutes away. And, Jared," she added. "See that this disgraceful performance is not repeated or I shall have to report you to Mr. Pennypepper. Even so, you shall stand in the corner all this afternoon," she promised.
    "Always the same old punishments," groaned Dick Badger wearily to Jerry.
    "Come