A friendly dog follows you home. It has a collar but no tag, and there’s no owner anywhere in sight. Do you keep it?
Most seventh graders answer quickly, and then change their minds halfway through the sentence. That hesitation is the heart of “Finders, Keepers?”, a short original play about two siblings, a scruffy brown dog, and a lost-dog poster that one of them would rather nobody saw. It’s an ideal text for teaching how playwrights let us inside a character’s head without a narrator, especially through the aside.
Meet the characters
The play is short and has just three speaking parts, which makes it easy to perform in small groups.
| Character | Who they are | What they want |
|---|---|---|
| Jade, 13 | Thoughtful older sister, reading on a park bench | To do the right thing, though she’s tempted too |
| Omar, 10 | Her younger brother, who finds the dog | To keep the dog he’s already named Biscuit |
| Mrs. Halvorsen | An elderly neighbor with a cane and an empty leash | To find Pepper, her late husband’s dog |
How the story unfolds
It’s Saturday morning in a neighborhood park. Omar runs up with a dog he found by the fountain and announces the rule he’s sure settles everything: finders keepers. Jade points out the collar. Someone owns this dog. “That’s a rule for playground marbles, not dogs,” she tells him.
Then Omar spots a sign taped to a lamppost. When he thinks no one is watching, he pulls it down, folds it, and slides it into his pocket. Jade catches him, and the sign turns out to say exactly what he feared: LOST DOG. Answers to Pepper.
Moments later, Mrs. Halvorsen arrives calling Pepper’s name. The play ends not with a lecture but with a small, surprising kindness, and a final line from Omar that answers the title’s question in a way students don’t expect.
The two asides, side by side
An aside is a line spoken to the audience that the other characters can’t hear. This play uses exactly two, one for each sibling, and comparing them is the quickest way to its meaning.
Jade’s aside comes early, right after the dog licks her hand:
“I want to keep him too. That’s the problem.”
Until this moment, Jade sounds like the voice of reason. The aside shows she’s just as tempted as her brother. Her choice to do the right thing isn’t easy for her, and that makes it matter.
Omar’s aside comes at the very end, as Mrs. Halvorsen leaves with Pepper:
“Maybe finders don’t get to keep. But maybe they get to visit.”
Omar began the play certain of a simple rule. His closing aside shows he’s found a new, more generous way of seeing the situation.
Placed together, the asides frame the whole play: one reveals the temptation, the other its resolution. Ask students why the playwright gave one aside to each sibling, rather than two to the same character.
Stage directions that say more than dialogue
Some of the play’s most important moments have no lines at all. When Omar first sees the sign, the stage directions tell us he “freezes,” “glances at JADE,” and “quietly pulls the sign down.” When Jade asks about it, he answers “too quickly.” Before a single word of confession, the audience already knows he’s hiding something.
Later, the directions tell us Omar “looks at the dog for a long moment” before clipping Pepper to Mrs. Halvorsen’s leash. That pause is where his decision happens. Encourage students to treat stage directions as evidence, just as they would a narrator’s description in a story.
What students will answer
The worksheet has four parts:
- Multiple choice on the setting, Omar’s first wish, what he does with the sign, and why Pepper matters to Mrs. Halvorsen
- True or false statements, including whether Jade secretly wants to keep the dog
- Dialogue, stage directions, and asides: students analyze Jade’s aside and its role in the conflict, then use stage directions to trace how Omar changes
- An open-ended question asking how the play answers its own title and what theme the ending suggests
The answer key includes sample responses for every written question.
Ways to bring the play off the page
Perform it twice. In the first reading, have actors deliver the asides facing the other characters. In the second, have them turn to the audience. Students immediately feel the difference between a spoken line and a private thought.
Hot-seat Omar. Ask one student to stay in character as Omar while the class questions him: Why did you hide the sign? What made you change your mind? It’s a lively way to practice inference.
Freeze the poster moment. Stop the scene just as Omar slides the sign into his pocket. Ask the class to write what each character is thinking right then.
Write one more aside. Mrs. Halvorsen doesn’t get one. Ask students to write a line she might say to the audience as she leaves, and to explain what it would add.
Where to go next
For another story about a young person finding courage under pressure, read Finding Her Voice, a realistic story about a nervous student at her first debate. If your class enjoys working out what really happened, try the school mystery The Vanishing Painting. For a family facing a very different kind of choice, The Day the Sky Went Black is set during the 1935 Dust Bowl, and the poem Recess offers a quieter reflection on growing up.
Students new to scripts can warm up with Group Project, Party of Four, a Grade 6 comedy. Those ready for a harder moral dilemma can move up to The Right Thing in Grade 8. You can also browse all of our Grade 7 reading comprehension worksheets.
Download the play and answer key
The script fits on a single page, takes about five minutes to perform, and leaves plenty of time for the debate that always follows: would you have handed Pepper back?
For More grade 7 worksheets, Visit Grade 7 Reading Comprehension Worksheets.