Mr. Muckle stewed. “This is ridiculous—Branitt, do what I told you. Get that kid outta my sight!”
The foreman backed away. “Not me. I don’t much care for snakes.”
“Really? Then you’re fired.” Once again the vice-president turned to confront Officer Delinko. “Make yourself useful. Shoot the damn things.”
“No, sir, not around all these people. Too dangerous.”
The policeman approached the boy and dropped to one knee.
“How’d you get here?” he asked.
“Hopped the fence last night. Then I hid under the backhoe,” the boy said. “You walked right past me about five times.”
“You’re the one who painted my patrol car last week?”
“No comment.”
“And ran away from the hospital?”
“Double no comment,” the boy said.
“And hung your green shirt on my antenna?”
“Man, you don’t understand. The owls got no chance against those machines.”
“I do understand. I honestly do,” Officer Delinko said. “One more question: You serious about the cottonmouths?”
“Serious as a heart attack.”
“Can I have a look in the bucket?”
The boy’s eyes flickered. “It’s your funeral,” he said.
Roy whispered to Beatrice: “We’ve gotta do something quick. Those snakes aren’t real.”
“Oh, great.”
As the policeman approached the tin bucket, Beatrice shouted, “Don’t do it! You might get bit—”
Officer Delinko didn’t flinch. He peeked over the rim for what seemed to Roy and Beatrice like an eternity.
Jig’s up, Roy thought glumly. No way he won’t notice they’re fake.
Yet the patrolman didn’t say a word as he backed away from the bucket.
“Well?” Mr. Muckle demanded. “What do we do?”
“Kid’s for real. If I were you, I’d negotiate,” said Officer Delinko.
“Ha! I don’t negotiate with juvenile delinquents.” With a snarl, Chuck Muckle snatched the gold-painted shovel from Councilman Grandy’s hands and charged toward the bucket.
“Don’t!” hollered the boy in the owl hole, spitting the string.
But the man from Mother Paula’s was unstoppable. With a wild swing of the shovel he knocked over the bucket, and commenced flailing and hacking at the snakes in a blind, slobbering fury. He didn’t stop until they were in pieces.
Little rubber pieces.
Exhausted, Chuck Muckle leaned over and squinted at the mutilated toy snakes. His expression reflected both disbelief and humiliation.
“What in the world?” he wheezed.
During the violent attack on the cottonmouths, the crowd had oooh-ed and aaah-ed. Now the only sounds to be heard were the click-click-click of the news photographer’s camera and the panting of the Mother Paula’s vice-president.
“Hey, them snakes’re fake!” Curly piped. “They ain’t even real.”
Roy leaned toward Beatrice and whispered, “Another Einstein.”
Chuck Muckle pivoted in slow motion. Ominously he pointed the blade of the shovel at the boy in the owl burrow.
“You!” he bellowed, stalking forward.
Roy jumped in front of him.
“Outta my way, kid,” Chuck Muckle said. “I don’t have time for any more of your nonsense. Move it now!”
It was clear that the Mother Paula’s bigshot had totally lost his cool, and possibly his marbles.
“What’re you doing?” Roy asked, knowing he probably wouldn’t get a calm, patient answer.
“I said, Get outta my way! I’m gonna dig that little twerp out of the ground myself.”
Beatrice Leep darted forward and stood next to Roy, taking his right hand. An anxious murmur swept through the crowd.
“Aw, that’s real cute. Just like Romeo and Juliet,” Chuck Muckle taunted. He dropped his voice and said, “Game over, kiddies. On the count of three, I’m going to start using this shovel—or better yet, how about I get Baldy over here to crank up the bulldozer?”
The foreman scowled. “Thought you said I was fired.”
Out of nowhere, somebody grabbed Roy’s left hand—it was Garrett, his skateboard tucked under one arm. Three of his skateboarding homeys were lined up beside him.
“What’re you guys doing?” Roy said.
“Skippin’ school,” Garrett replied merrily, “but, dude, this looks like way more fun.”
Roy turned to see that Beatrice had been joined by the entire soccer team, linking arms in a silent chain. They were tall, strong girls who weren’t the least bit intimidated by Chuck Muckle’s blustery threats.
Chuck Muckle realized it, too. “Stop this foolishness right now!” he begged. “There’s no need for an ugly mob scene.”
Roy watched in wonderment as more and more kids slipped out of the crowd and began joining hands, forming a human barricade around Beatrice’s self-buried stepbrother. None of the parents made a move to stop them.
The TV cameraman announced that the demonstration was being broadcast live on the noon news, while the photographer from the paper swooped in for a close-up of Mr. Muckle, looking drained, defeated, and suddenly very old. He braced himself on the ceremonial shovel as if it were a cane.
“Didn’t any of you people hear me?” he rasped. “This event is over! Done! You can all go home now.”
The mayor, Councilman Grandy, and the man from the chamber of commerce stealthily retreated to their limousine, while Leroy Branitt plodded off to his trailer in search of a cold beer. Officer Delinko leaned against the fence, writing up a report.
Roy was in an eerie yet tranquil daze.
Some girl started singing a famous old folk song called “This Land Is Your Land.” It was Beatrice, of all people, and her voice was surprisingly lovely and soft. Before long, the other kids were singing along, too. Roy shut his eyes and felt like he was floating on the sunny slope of a cloud.
“Excuse me, hotshot. Got room for one more?”
Roy blinked open his eyes and broke into a grin.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Mother Paula stepped between him and Garrett to join the circle. Her voice was gravelly, but she could carry a tune just fine.
The demonstration went on for another hour. Two other TV crews showed up, along with a couple of extra Coconut Cove police cruisers, summoned by Officer Delinko.
Chuck Muckle exhorted the newly arrived lawmen to arrest the protesters for trespassing, truancy, and disturbing the peace. The suggestion was firmly rejected, a sergeant informing Mr. Muckle that handcuffing a bunch of middle-school kids wouldn’t be good for the public safety department’s image.
The situation remained fairly stable until the flamboyant arrival of Lonna Leep, who’d spotted her son on the TV news. She was all dressed up like she’d been invited to a party, and she wasn’t the least bit shy about sticking her nose in front of the cameras. Roy overheard her tell a reporter how proud she was of her boy, risking his freedom to save the poor helpless owls.
“He’s my brave little champion!” Lonna crowed obnoxiously.
With a phony squeal of affection, she charged toward the wall of humanity that encircled her son. Beatrice ordered everyone to lock arms, blocking Lonna’s path.
There was one hairy moment when Lonna and her stepdaughter stood glowering at each other, eye to eye, as if they were about to tangle. Garrett broke the standoff with a phenomenal fake fart that sent Lonna reeling backward in horror.
Roy nudged Beatrice. “Look up there!”
Overhead, a small dusky-colored bird was flying in marvelous daring corkscrews. Roy and Beatrice watched in delight as it banked lower and lower, finishing with a radical dive toward the burrow at the center of the circle.
Everybody whirled to see where the bird had landed. All of a sudden the singing stopped.
There was Mullet Fingers, trying not to giggle, the daredevil owl perched calmly on
the crown of his head.
“Don’t worry, little guy,” the boy said. “You’re safe for now.”
TWENTY-ONE
Napoleon?
“Napoleon Bridger.” Roy read the name aloud.
“It’s certainly colorful,” his mother remarked.
They were at the breakfast table, Mrs. Eberhardt carefully clipping articles and photographs from the morning newspaper.
The front page featured a picture of Roy, Beatrice, and Mother Paula clasping hands in the circle at the demonstration. The head of Beatrice’s stepbrother could be seen in the background, looking very much like a fallen coconut with a blond toupee.
The caption beneath the photograph revealed Mother Paula as an actress and former beauty queen named Kimberly Lou Dixon. Beatrice’s stepbrother was identified as Napoleon Bridger Leep.
“Is he back home now?” Roy’s mother asked.
“I don’t know if he’d call it that,” Roy said, “but he’s back with his mom and stepfather.”
At the scene of the student protest, Lonna Leep had pitched a weepy spluttering fit and demanded to be reunited with her son. Not knowing any better, police officers had led her out of the crowd toward Mullet Fingers, spooking the bold little owl away from the boy.
“My champ! My brave little hero!” Lonna had swooned for the cameras as he wriggled out of the burrow. Roy and Beatrice had watched in helpless disgustas she’d locked Mullet Fingers in a smothering, melodramatic hug.
Mrs. Eberhardt clipped out the newspaper photo of Lonna posing with the boy, who looked extremely uncomfortable.
“Maybe things’ll be better between the two of them,” Roy’s mother said hopefully.
“No, Mom. She just wanted to be on TV.” Roy reached for his backpack. “I’d better get going.”
“Your father wants to see you before school.”
“Oh.”
Mr. Eberhardt had worked late the previous night, and Roy had already gone to sleep by the time he’d gotten home.
“Is he mad?” Roy asked his mother.
“I don’t think so. Mad about what?”
Roy pointed at the paper, checkerboarded with scissor holes. “About what happened yesterday. About what me and Beatrice did.”
“Honey, you didn’t break any laws. You didn’t hurt anybody,” Mrs. Eberhardt said. “All you did was speak out for what you believed was right. Your dad respects that.”
Roy knew that “respects” wasn’t necessarily the same thing as “agrees with.” He had a feeling his father was sympathetic on the owl issue, but Mr. Eberhardt had never come out and said so.
“Mom, is Mother Paula’s still going to build the pancake house?”
“I don’t know, Roy. Apparently this Mr. Muckle fellow lost his temper and tried to strangle a reporter when she asked the same question.”
“No way!” Roy and Beatrice had left before the impromptu press conference was over.
Mrs. Eberhardt held up the clipping. “Says so right here.”
Roy couldn’t believe how much space the newspaper had devoted to the owl protest. It must have been the biggest story to hit Coconut Cove since the last hurricane.
His mother said, “The phone started ringing at six this morning. Your dad made me take it off the hook.”
“I’m really sorry, Mom.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m making a whole scrapbook, honey, something to show your children and grandchildren.”
I’d rather show them the owls, Roy thought, if there are any left by then.
“Roy!”
It was his father, calling to him from the den. “Could you please get the door?”
A thin young woman with short-cropped black hair greeted Roy on the front steps. She was armed with a spiral notebook and a ballpoint pen.
“Hi, I’m from the Gazette,” she announced.
“Thanks, but we’ve already got a subscription.”
The woman laughed. “Oh, I don’t sell the newspaper. I write it.” She extended a hand. “Kelly Colfax.”
On her neck Roy noticed several bluish, finger-sized marks that resembled the bruises that Dana Matherson had left on him. Roy figured that Kelly Colfax was the reporter whom Chuck Muckle had tried to choke.
“I’ll go get my father,” he said.
“Oh, that’s not necessary. It’s you I wanted to speak with,” she said. “You are Roy Eberhardt, right?”
Roy felt trapped. He didn’t want to act rude, but he certainly didn’t want to say anything that might cause more trouble for Mullet Fingers.
Kelly Colfax began firing questions:
“How’d you get involved in the demonstration?”
“Are you friends with Napoleon Bridger Leep?”
“Were you two involved in the vandalism incidents on the Mother Paula’s property?”
“Do you like pancakes? What kind of pancakes?”
Roy’s head was whirling. Finally he broke in and said, “Look, I just went there to stand up for the owls. That’s all.”
As the reporter jotted down Roy’s words, the door swung open, and there stood Mr. Eberhardt—shaved, showered, and neatly dressed in one of his gray suits.
“Excuse me, ma’am, may I have a word with my son?”
“Absolutely,” said Kelly Colfax.
Mr. Eberhardt brought Roy inside and closed the door. “Roy, you don’t have to answer any of her questions.”
“But I just want her to know—”
“Here. Give her this.” Roy’s father clicked open his briefcase and removed a thick manila folder.
“What is it, Dad?”
“She’ll figure it out.”
Roy opened the folder and broke into a grin. “This is the file from City Hall, isn’t it?”
“A copy,” said his father. “That’s correct.”
“The one with all Mother Paula’s stuff. I tried to find it, but it wasn’t there,” Roy said. “Now I know why.”
Mr. Eberhardt explained that he had borrowed the file, xeroxed every page, and then taken the material to some lawyers who were experts on environmental matters.
“So does Mother Paula’s have permission to bury the owl dens or not?” Roy asked. “Was it in the file?”
His father shook his head. “Nope.”
Roy was exultant but also puzzled. “Dad, shouldn’t you be giving this to somebody at the Justice Department? Why do you want me to hand it over to the newspaper?”
“Because there’s something there that everybody in Coconut Cove ought to know.” Mr. Eberhardt spoke in a hushed and confidential tone. “Actually, it’s what isn’tthere that’s important.”
“Tell me,” Roy said, and his father did.
When Roy opened the front door again, Kelly Colfax was waiting with a perky smile. “Can we continue our interview?”
Roy smiled brightly in return. “Sorry, but I’m running real late for school.” He held out the file. “Here. This might help with your story.”
The reporter tucked her notebook under one arm and snatched the folder from Roy’s hands. As she thumbed through the documents, the elation on her face dissolved into frustration.
“What does all this stuff mean, Roy? What exactly am I looking for?”
“I think it’s called an E.I.S.,” Roy said, reciting what his father had told him.
“Which stands for...?”
“Environmental Impact Statement.”
“Right! Of course,” the reporter said. “Every big construction project is supposed to do one. That’s the law.”
“Yeah, but Mother Paula’s E.I.S. isn’t in there.”
“You’re losing me, Roy.”
“It’s supposed to be in that file,” he said, “but it’s not. That means the company never did one—or they lost it on purpose.”
“Ah!” Kelly Colfax looked as if she’d just won the lottery. “Thank you, Roy,” she said, embracing the folder with both arms as she backed down the steps. “Thank you very, very much.”
“D
on’t thank me,” Roy said under his breath. “Thank my dad.”
Who obviously cared about the owls, too.
Epilogue
During the following weeks, the Mother Paula’s story mushroomed into a full-blown scandal. The missing Environmental Impact Statement made the front page of the Gazette and ultimately proved to be the fatal blow to the pancake-house project.
It turned out that a thorough E.I.S. had been completed, and that the company’s biologists had documented three mated pairs of burrowing owls living on the property. In Florida the birds were strictly protected as a Species of Special Concern, so their presence on the Mother Paula’s site would have created serious legal problems—and a public-relations disaster—if it had become widely known.
Consequently, the Environmental Impact Statement conveniently disappeared from the city files. The report later turned up in a golf bag owned by Councilman Bruce Grandy, along with an envelope containing approximately $4,500 in cash. Councilman Grandy indignantly denied that the money was a bribe from the pancake people; then he rushed out and hired the most expensive defense lawyer in Fort Myers.
Meanwhile, Kimberly Lou Dixon quit her TV role as Mother Paula, declaring she couldn’t work for a company that would bury baby owls just to sell a few flapjacks. The climax of her tearful announcement came when she displayed her life membership card from the Audubon Society—a moment captured by Entertainment Tonight, Inside Hollywood, and People magazine, which also published the picture of Kimberly Lou, Roy, and Beatrice hand-in-hand at the owl protest.
It was more media attention than Kimberly Lou Dixon had received as the Miss America runner-up, or even as the future star of Mutant Invaders from Jupiter Seven. Roy’s mother kept track of the actress’s soaring career in the show business columns, where it was reported that she’d signed a deal to appear in the next Adam Sandler movie.
By contrast, the owl publicity was a nightmare for Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake Houses, Inc., which found itself the subject of an unflattering front-page article in the Wall Street Journal. Immediately, the price of the company’s stock began sinking like a stone.
After going wacko at the groundbreaking ceremony, Chuck E. Muckle got demoted to the post of assistant junior vice-president. Although he did not go to jail for choking the newspaper reporter, he was forced to take a class called “How to Manage Your Anger,” which he failed. Soon afterward, he resigned from the pancake company and took a job as a cruise director in Miami.