Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Yesterday Mom and Dad found out something that I knew but they didn't. That was fun because usually it's the other way around. They know a lot of stuff.

I was playing with one of my toy cars on the floor in Dad's office while he was working, and Mom came in with Go, Dog. Go! in her hand.

"Eliot must really love this book. I didn't even know we had it. It's adorable."

Dad tilted his head so he could see what she was holding. "Oh, that? I bought it when we went to Barnes & Noble the other day. We haven't had a chance to read it yet."

Mom looked like she didn't believe him. "You haven't? Really?"

"Nope. Why? Oh, did you read it to him last night?"

"No, we were engrossed in Pantaloon, not this. You're sure you haven't read it? Maybe someone else gave him a copy?"

"Go daw!"

"Yeah, go, dog! Beckett, seriously, we haven't so much as cracked it open. I'd never even seen it until we were in the store on Thursday."

"I need to sit down." Mom put her whole hand over her mouth. I was afraid she was going to throw up but she got on a chair. "Castle."

Dad jumped up from his computer and put one hand one her back and one on her head. "Are you all right? Do you feel sick? What's wrong?"

"I'm okay, just a minute." Mom looked at me funny. "Eliot, would you like to read Go, Dog. Go! ? You could sit next to me and show me your favorite parts." When she talked her voice was shaky like when we drive on that really bumpy dirt road in the country.

"Yah." I climbed up on the chair with her.

Now Dad looked kind of funny. "Beckett, he doesn't have a favorite part. It's brand-new."

"We'll see," she said. Then she opened the book. I patted some pages and shook my head until she came to the one I liked with a whole bunch of dogs jumping around on a giant bed like Mom and Dad's.

"Daw geh up!"

"That's right! 'Now is the time for all dogs to get up.' It's funny, isn't it? Do you have another favorite part?"

"Yah."

"I'll go through some pages and you tell me when to stop."

That sounded like a good idea. I like the page where the dogs are in a Ferris wheel like Dad went on with Alexis. He promised when I'm bigger I can go in it with him. So when Mom got to that I put my hand on it. "Daw go rhow! Rhow rhow."

" 'The dogs are all going around, and around, and around.' Castle?"

Her voice was very rattly.

"Castle? He's reading."

"Of course I'm reading, Mom. I love to read."

"Hey, Eliot. That sounds like a good story. Tell us some more. What else happens? We don't have any books."

"He knows that, EB, he used to live in here before we did, remember?"

"You're right, Obi, but wait 'til you guys get out! We have about a million books."

Dad looked over Mom's shoulder. "Nah, he's just inferring it. From looking at the pictures."

Mom shook her head, hard, a whole lot of times. "No. No. I saw him, and heard him, half an hour ago. He was talking to Scrapple, showing him the book, as if he were telling him the story."

"I was, Mom. Scrapple likes this one. He wants to hear it again."

"Let me find another page." She went to a different place and pointed. "Do you know what that says, Eliot?"

"Bih daw."

"Yes! Big dog." Then she pointed at a word. "What about this one?"

"Day."

"You know what that means?"

"Yeah, Mom! I'll show you." I pointed out the window at the sky. "Day."

"I thought he was just repeating things because you'd read the book to him a lot."

Dad's face got all pale. "Oh, my God, Beckett, you weren't kidding. He can read. He can read. I can't believe it."

"Hey, Eliot. Do you have any stories with twins?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"We just don't."

"Can you ask Mom and Dad? EB and I would like to hear a twin book."

"I guess."

"But how can that happen? How did he learn?" Mom looked at me like I was a big surprise. "You know how to read."

"Just little words, Mom." I smiled at her in case she was worried. She looked a little bit worried.

"This puts the mind past boggling, Beckett. I mean, this is one amazing kid we have here." Dad stood up straight and blew his hair off his forehead. "You can read a book, huh, Eliot?"

"Yah! Buh!"

"Beckett, we have to do something."

"Do something?"

"Shouldn't we have him tested, talk to somebody? I don't know. We live in New York. We're surrounded by universities and labs and experts in everything. If I threw a rock out the window I'd probably hit a reading specialist."

"Dad. Mom says we should never, ever throw anything out the window. I bet especially a rock."

"Why don't we ask Sidney?"

"Why don't we ask Perlmutter?"

Mom and Dad said that at exactly the same time. I love it when they do that. It's like they're twins. Maybe that's why Mom is having twins.

"Docky!"

Mom gave me a little squeeze on my knee. "Right. We'll ask Docky about your reading, okay? He doesn't know, does he?"

"No."

"This is good," Dad said. "He can talk with Eliot, point us in the right direction."

"What direction? Where are we going?"

So Mom called Docky and she said she was glad that it was Saturday because he wasn't at work and could come over. When he got here Mom and Dad told him about their discovery. They discovered I could read. That's a new word. It means find out. They found out I could read. After we had lunch I sat down with Docky so I could talk to him about it.

"It's exciting that you can read all by yourself, Eliot. You must like that."

"I can't read big words with a lot of letters or hard ones, like breakfast or steam shovel or orchestra or building, only the little ones so far."

"Well, you can still understand a lot in a book even if you can read only a few words, especially when there are pictures to help, right?"

"Yeah."

"Do you know how you learned to read those words? You must have been surprised you could do that."

"Mom and Dad read to me all the time and I see some words a lot like dog and run and ball so I know what they look like and then I see another word that looks sort of the same and I figure out the other word. You know, like bat and cat have the same letters except the first one."

Docky ruffled my hair. "That's using the old bean!"

"Old bean? Oh wait, I bet that's a joke!"

"Yes it is. It's a silly name for your head. I meant you were very smart to find the letters in bat that are in cat. What else do you think helps you read?"

"Dad and I watch Sesame Street a lot. My favorite part is Sesame Street is brought to you by the letter E. That's me, Eliot. They never say my name on TV, but I'm an E like in egg and ear and elephant. Or brought to you by the letter S like shoe. Did you see that I have new shoes?"

"I did see that. I like that they're bright red."

"They're called sneakers. Dad says that's because when you wear this kind of shoes you can sneak up on people and say boo and scare them!"

"I think he's right. You're not going to scare me, are you?"

"No. Maybe just for fun. I don't really want to scare you."

"Good. If you scare me I might jump up in the air and fall over."

That made me laugh. "Ha! You're funny, Docky."

"So are you. Now, I'm going to tell your Mom and Dad what you told me about reading, okay?

"Okay, that's good."

So he told them and said he knew about a couple of kids who can read like me and there was a lady at a place called NYU near us that could talk to them and everything was good. And Mom said, "You know that we're not upset that you can read, right, Eliot? We're proud of you because most boys and girls your age can't do that."

"Yah."

"Maybe you can start reading to me, Eliot, when Mom's at work. That way you have to do the work instead of me." And then he tickled me so I knew he was kidding and I laughed. I love to get tickled.

After a while Docky had to leave so we walked him to the subway and then we went to the playground and the rest of the day was nice.

At bedtime Mom read me Go, Dog. Go! so I got to know the whole story. And then she sang me a song, "I Could Write a Book." She said it was her Mom's favorite. So that means it's an old song but to me it's a new one. I loved it. When she finished I said, "ghn! ghn!" She understood me even without Docky to help, and she sang it again, and I went to sleep.

A/N There are rare but well-documented cases of toddlers who have learned to read on their own.