Wainscott Weasel Read online

  “I am not greedy! It’s just there’s so much good food over by the bridge since the rain.”

  “Expecting to get there and back in ten minutes! Who do you think you are, anyway, the Wainscott weasel?”

  “Did I say that? Though, if you want to know the truth, I bet I could get an osprey nest off a telephone pole, if I had to.”

  “When snapping turtles fly!”

  Bagley sat bolt upright, wondering if he’d heard right. He’d automatically assumed the muskrat was referring to his father. Could it be they’d actually been talking about him?

  As the muskrats drifted out of earshot, Bagley leaned back on the tuft again. It wasn’t so bad, really, sitting out here watching the tail end of the sunset without being skyscared. As the last purplish glow died in the west, a cool sea breeze swept over the dunes and across the potato field and touched his face, bringing back Bridget’s kiss. Their first and farewell kiss. But he refused to feel sorry for himself any more. For, in a way, that kiss was sort of like the firefly. Brief as the magical glow had been, it had shone on him—right on him.

  Maybe this wasn’t much. But it was enough to light Bagley’s way home in the dark.

  Tor Seidler is the critically acclaimed and bestselling author of more than a dozen children’s books, including A Rat’s Tale and its sequel The Revenge of Randal Reese-Rat, Gully’s Travels, and Mean Margaret, which was a National Book Award Finalist. He lives in New York City. Visit Tor online at torseidler.com

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  Fred Marcellino, the renowned and beloved artist and illustrator, won a Caldecott Honor for his first full-color picture book, Puss in Boots. He began his career in children’s literature with Tor Seidler’s A Rat’s Tale in 1986, and followed with many other classics such as I, Crocodile and The Steadfast Tin Soldier.

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  Atheneum Books for Young Readers

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

  New York

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  authors.simonandschuster.com/Tor-Seidler

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Fred-Marcellino

  Also by Tor Seidler

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  Mean Margaret

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  ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 1993 by Tor Seidler

  Illustrations copyright © 1993 by Fred Marcellino

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  The text for this book is set in OPTIEisen Light.

  The illustrations for this book are rendered in colored pencil on colored paper.

  Jacket illustration copyright © 1993 by Fred Marcellino

  First Atheneum Books for Young Readers edition

  Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

  Seidler, Tor.

  Wainscott weasel / Tor Seidler ; illustrated by Fred Marcellino. — First Atheneum Books for Young Readers edition.

  p. cm

  Originally published by HarperCollins in 1993.

  Summary: All sorts of creatures live near the Wainscott woods on the South Fork of Long Island, but the most remarkable citizens of this seaside community are the weasels, including Zeke Whitebelly and his boisterous brothers, Bagley Brown, Jr., and Wendy Blackish.

  ISBN 9781481410106 (hardcover)

  ISBN 9781481410120 (eBook)

  [1. Weasels—Fiction.] I. Marcellino, Fred, illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.S45526Wai 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014007153