Look Lenore - Allergic to Babies, Burglars, and Other Bumps in the Night

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Text copyright 2013 by Lenore Look
Jacket art and interior illustrations copyright 2013 by LeUyen Pham All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Schwartz & Wade Books, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Schwartz & Wade Books and the colophon
are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Look, Lenore.
Alvin Ho : allergic to babies, burglars, and other bumps in the night /
by Lenore Look; pictures by LeUyen Pham.1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When fearful seven-year-old Alvin Ho learns that his mother is expecting a baby, he develops a sympathetic pregnancyadding to his worry about the burglar who is targeting Concord, Massachusetts.
eISBN: 978-0-375-98889-9
[1. FearFiction. 2. PregnancyFiction. 3.

Interpersonal relationsFiction.
4. SchoolsFiction. 5. Chinese AmericansFiction. 6. Concord (Mass.)
Fiction.] I.

Pham, LeUyen, ill. II. Title.
PZ 7.L8682Akm 2013
[Fic]dc23
2012011455 Random House Childrens Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read. v3.1

Every child begins the world again. Henry David Thoreau, Walden Babies come from BabyStore.com, as everyone knows. Alvin Its the worst thing thats ever happened to me.

He cries all night. He wears a diaper. He smells bad. And my mom and dad pet him like crazy. Scooter Babies need kissing. Anibelly It makes different cries for hunger, pain, fear, loneliness and diaper change.

And you have to figure out which cry means what, or else. Calvin Boys dont have babies, do they? Nhia ICANTWAITFORTHISPREGNANCYTOBEOVER! Alvin Ann Kelley for her incomparable editing. The Phamtastic LeUyen Pham for bringing Alvin to life. Anne Schwartz for loving Alvin even before he was born. Lucy Dzina, who knows how to put on a hockey uniform.

it was a dark and stormy night. it was a dark and stormy night.

My name is Alvin Ho. I was born scared and Im still scared, so a dark and stormy night is a really crummy way to start a book. CRAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!BOOOM!

Usually it takes a couple of pages for things to get really creepy. But not this time! CRAAAAAAACK!!!! Worse, I was already freaking out before the storm even began. Normally, Im afraid of many things. Moldy food.

Hairy ice cream.

Hairy ears. A full moon. Battlefields. Cemeteries. (Cell phone radiation.) Dark and stormy nights. (Cell phone radiation.) Dark and stormy nights.

But this was not normal. I had only one issue. And it was DA BOMB. MY MOM IS GOING TO HAVE A BABY!!!

How this happened, I have no idea. My mom said she told us months ago, but I dont remember hearing about such a thing. Ever.

And now its too late. Darling, you know I cant return it, my mom said. Its not the same as buying a toy and then changing your mind. There are no refunds on babies. I knew that. Babies come from BabyStore.com, as everyone knows, and when your mom shops in the clearance bins youre stuck with whatever she buys.

All sales final. No refunds. No returns. The baby was a Final Sale. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve.

It was after dinner and I was helping my mom put our dirty dishes in the dishwasher.

Normally, I like helping her or my dad after dinner. Its our alone-time together. Calvin and Anibelly arent good cleaner-uppers, but I am, and so is my dad. But this was not normal. We were not alone. Little ears were listening.

Alvin, said my mom. Dont you remember when we took your grandparents out for dim sum and your dad and I gave everyone the news together? No. Dont you remember that it was all we talked about at dinner for a while? asked my mom. Not really. I thought we were playing the what-if game. You know, someone asks, What if Godzilla came to Concord, where would you go? Or What if Babezilla were born into your family, what would you do? There are pictures of the baby on the refrigerator, said my mom, pointing to the curling squares stuck to the door with magnets.

Baby? Thats a baby? I thought they were satellite pictures of UFO landings!

I opened my eyes. I looked really hard. I tried to imagine a baby in the white lines and dark spaces. But all I saw were light beams from an alien spacecraft, and maybe an alien or two if I concentrated as hard as I do for a spelling test. Alvin, said my mom. No. No.

I thought maybe my mom had gotten chubby, but I wasnt sure. Who could tell with all the loose clothing shes been wearing? I was pretty sure that one of the rules of being a gentleman is to