Hoot

  “Change of plans. Blame it on Hollywood,” said Chuck Muckle. “We’ll do the ceremony first, and as soon as everybody leaves you can crank up the machines—assuming they haven’t been stripped down to the axles by then.”

  “But it’s just ... Wednesday’s the day after tomorrow!”

  “No need to soil yourself, Mr. Branitt. We’ll arrange all the details from our end—the advertising, the press releases, and so forth. I’ll get in touch with the mayor’s office and the chamber of commerce. Meanwhile, your job is incredibly simple—not that you won’t find a way to screw it up.”

  “What’s that?”

  “All you’ve got to do is lock down the construction site for the next forty-eight hours. Think you can handle that?”

  “Sure,” Curly said.

  “No more alligators, no more poisonous snakes, no more stealing,” Chuck Muckle said. “No more problems, period. Comprendo?”

  “I got a quick question about the owls.”

  “What owls?” Chuck Muckle shot back. “Those burrows are abandoned, remember?”

  Curly thought: I guess somebody forgot to tell the birds.

  “There’s no law against destroying abandoned nests,” the vice-president was saying. “Anybody asks, that’s your answer. ‘The burrows are deserted.’ ”

  “But what if one a them owls shows up?” Curly asked.

  “What owls!” Chuck Muckle practically shouted. “There are no owls on that property and don’t you forget it, Mr. Branitt. Zero owls. Nada. Somebody sees one, you tell him it’s a—I don’t know, a robin or a wild chicken or something.”

  A chicken? Curly thought.

  “By the way,” said Chuck Muckle, “I’ll be flying down to Coconut Cove so I can personally accompany the lovely Miss Dixon to our groundbreaking. Let’s pray that you and I have nothing more to talk about when I arrive.”

  “Don’t worry,” Curly said, though he was plenty worried himself.

  Beatrice Leep was gone when Roy awoke. He had no idea how she had slipped out of the house unnoticed, but he was glad she’d made it.

  Over breakfast, Roy’s father read aloud the brief newspaper account of Dana Matherson’s arrest. The headline said: “Local Youth Nabbed in Break-in Attempt.”

  Because Dana was under eighteen, the authorities weren’t allowed to release his name to the media—a fact that rankled Roy’s mother, who believed Dana’s mug shot should have been plastered on the front page. The story identified him only as a student at Trace Middle and said that the police considered him a suspect in several recent vandalisms. It didn’t specifically mention Mother Paula’s as the target.

  Dana’s arrest was the major buzz around school. Many kids were aware that he’d been picking on Roy, so they were eager to get Roy’s reaction to the news that his tormentor had been nailed by the cops.

  Roy was careful not to gloat or joke about it, or to draw any special attention to himself. If Dana blabbed about the imaginary cigarette stash, he might try to blame Roy for the bungled theft. The police had no reason to believe anything the kid said, but Roy wasn’t taking any chances.

  As soon as the bell rang ending homeroom, Garrett took him aside to share a weird new detail.

  “Rattraps,” he said, cupping a hand over his mouth.

  “What are you talking about?” Roy asked.

  “When they caught him, he had rattraps stuck on his shoes. That’s how come he couldn’t run away.”

  “I’m so sure.”

  “Seriously, dude. The cops told my mom he stepped on ’em while he was sneakin’ around the trailer.”

  Knowing Dana, Roy could actually picture it.

  “Broke three of his toes,” Garrett said.

  “Oh, come on.”

  “Absolutely! We’re talkin’ humongous rattraps.” Garrett held his hands a foot apart to illustrate.

  “Whatever.” Roy knew that Garrett was famous for exaggerating. “Did the police tell your mom anything else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like what Dana was after.”

  “Smokes is what he said, but the cops don’t believe him.”

  “Who would?” said Roy, hoisting his book bag over his shoulder.

  All morning he looked for Beatrice Leep between classes, but he never saw her in the hallways. At lunch hour,the girl soccer players were sitting together in the cafeteria, but Beatrice wasn’t among them. Roy approached the table and asked if anybody knew where she was.

  “At the dentist,” said one of her teammates, a gangly Cuban girl. “She fell down some steps at home and broke a tooth. But she’ll be ready for the game tonight.”

  “Great,” said Roy, but he didn’t feel so good about what he’d just heard.

  Beatrice was such a phenomenal athlete that Roy couldn’t imagine her falling down the stairs like some ordinary klutz. And after seeing what she could do to a bicycle tire, he couldn’t picture her breaking a tooth, either.

  Roy was still thinking about Beatrice when he sat down in American history. He found himself struggling to concentrate on Mr. Ryan’s quiz, though it really wasn’t that difficult.

  The final question was the same one that Mr. Ryan had asked him in the hallway on Friday: Who won the Battle of Lake Erie? Without hesitation, Roy wrote: “Commodore Oliver Perry.”

  It was the only answer that he was sure he got right.

  On the bus ride home, Roy kept a wary eye on Dana Matherson’s hulking friends, but they didn’t glance once in his direction. Either Dana hadn’t gotten the word out about what Roy had done, or his buddies didn’t care all that much.

  The police captain was reading the arrest report when Officer Delinko and the sergeant came in. The captain motioned for both men to sit down.

  “Nice work,” he told Officer Delinko. “You’ve made my life a whole lot easier. I just got off the horn with Councilman Grandy, and he’s one happy camper.”

  “I’m glad, sir,” Officer Delinko said.

  “What do you make of this Matherson kid? What’s he told you?”

  “Not much.”

  The interrogation of Dana Matherson hadn’t gone as smoothly as Officer Delinko had hoped. In the training films, the suspects always caved in and confessed to their crimes. However, Dana had remained stubbornly uncooperative, and his statements were confusing.

  At first he’d said he was snooping around the Mother Paula’s property in order to heist a load of Gladiator cigarettes. However, after speaking with a lawyer, the boy changed his story. He claimed he’d actually gone to the trailer to bum a cigarette, but the foreman mistook him for a burglar and came after him with a gun.

  “Matherson’s a hard case,” Officer Delinko told the captain.

  “Yeah,” the sergeant said, “he’s been around the block a few times.”

  The captain nodded. “I saw his rap sheet. But here’s what bothers me: The kid’s a thief, not a practical joker. I can’t picture him dumping alligators in port-a-potties. Stealing port-a-potties maybe.”

  “I wondered about that, too,” Officer Delinko said.

  The Mother Paula’s vandal had displayed a darksense of humor that didn’t fit the Matherson boy’s dim-witted criminal history. He seemed more likely to stripthe wheels from a patrol car than to paint the windshield black or hang his shirt like a pennant from the antenna.

  “What’s his motive for the funny stuff?” the captain wondered aloud.

  “I asked him if he had a gripe against Mother Paula’s pancakes,” Officer Delinko said, “and he did say IHOP’s were better.”

  “That’s it? He likes IHOP pancakes better?”

  “Except for the buttermilks,” Officer Delinko reported. “He had nice things to say about Mother Paula’s buttermilks.”

  Gruffly, the sergeant interjected: “Aw, the kid’s jerking our chain, is all.”

  The captain pushed back slowly from his desk. He could feel another crusher of a headache coming on.

  “Okay, I’m making a command decision
here,” he said. “Considering we’ve got nothing better to work with, I intend to tell Chief Deacon that the Mother Paula’s vandal has been apprehended. Case closed.”

  Officer Delinko cleared his throat. “Sir, I found a piece of a shirt at the crime scene—a shirt that’s way too small to fit the Matherson boy.”

  He didn’t mention that the remainder of the shirt had been tied, tauntingly, to the antenna of his squad car.

  “We need more than a rag,” the captain grunted. “We need a warm body, and the only one we’ve got is sitting in juvenile detention. So officially he’s our perpetrator, understand?”

  Officer Delinko and his sergeant agreed in unison.

  “I’m going out on a limb here, so you know what that means,” the captain said. “If another crime happens on that property, I’ll look like a complete bozo. And if I end up looking like a bozo, certain people around here are going to spend the rest of their careers cleaning dimes out of parking meters. Am I making myself clear?”

  Again Officer Delinko and his sergeant said yes.

  “Excellent,” said the captain. “So your mission, basically, is to make sure there’s no more surprises between now and the Mother Paula’s groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday.”

  “No sweat.” The sergeant rose to his feet. “Can we tell David the good news?”

  “Sooner the better,” said the captain. “Officer Delinko, you’re back on the road, effective immediately. In addition, the sergeant has written a letter commending the outstanding job you did in capturing our suspect. This will become part of your permanent file.”

  Officer Delinko was beaming. “Thank you, sir!”

  “There’s more. Because of your experience on this case, I’m assigning you to a special patrol at the Mother Paula’s construction site. Twelve hours on, twelve hours off, beginning tonight at dusk. You up for that?”

  “Absolutely, Captain.”

  “Then go home and take a nap,” the captain advised, “because if you doze off out there again, I’ll be writing a much shorter letter for your file. A termination letter.”

  Outside the captain’s office, Officer Delinko’s sergeant gave him a hearty slap on the back. “Two nights and we’re home free, David. You psyched?”

  “One question, sir. Will I be on duty out there alone?”

  “Well, we’re hurting on the night shift right now,” the sergeant told him. “Kirby got stung by a yellow jacket, and Miller’s out with a sinus infection. Looks like you’ll be riding solo.”

  “That’s okay,” Officer Delinko said, though he would have preferred to have a partner, under the circumstances. Curly probably would be staying at the trailer, though he wasn’t the best company.

  “You drink coffee, David?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Drink twice as much as usual,” the sergeant said. “I don’t expect anything to happen, but you’d better be wide awake if it does.”

  On the way home, Officer Delinko stopped at a souvenir shop along the main highway. Then he swung by the Juvenile Detention Center to take one more crack at Dana Matherson. It would be such a relief if the boy admitted to even one of the earlier vandalisms.

  Dana was brought to the interview room by a uniformed guard, who took a position outside the door. The kid was dressed in a rumpled gray jumpsuit with the word INMATE stenciled in capital letters across the back. He wore only socks because his toes were still swollen from the rattraps. Officer Delinko offered him a stick of gum, which the kid crammed into his cheeks.

  “So, young man, you’ve had some time to think.”

  “ ’Bout what?” Dana blew a bubble and popped it.

  “You know. Your situation.”

  “I don’t need to think,” the boy said. “That’s how come I got a lawyer.”

  Officer Delinko leaned forward. “Forget the lawyers, okay? I’ll put in a good word with the judge if you’ll just help me clear up some other cases. Are you the one who painted the windows of my patrol car?”

  The boy snorted. “Why would I do a dumb-ass thing like that?”

  “Come on, Dana, I can make things easier for you. Just tell me the truth.”

  “I got a better idea,” the boy said. “Why don’t you just kiss my big fat butt?”

  Officer Delinko folded his arms. “See, that’s exactly the sort of disrespect for authority that got you here in the first place.”

  “No, man, I’ll tell you what got me here. That little dork Roy Eberhardt is what got me here.”

  “Not this again,” Officer Delinko said, rising. “Obviously we’re wasting our time.”

  Dana Matherson sneered. “Duh-uh.”

  He pointed at the small shopping bag that the patrolman had placed on the table. “You finally bring me some smokes?”

  “No, but I got you something else.” Officer Delinko reached into the bag. “A little buddy to keep you company,” he said, casually dropping it in the boy’s lap.

  Dana Matherson howled and bucked and tried to knock it away, toppling his chair in the panic. He leaped up from the floor and scrambled out the door, where the guard clamped a brawny hand on his arm and led him off.

  Officer Delinko was left alone to ponder the object lying on the linoleum tile—toothy, scaly, and lifelike, except for the $3.95 price sticker glued to its snout.

  It was a rubber alligator, which Officer Delinko had purchased at the tourist shop.

  Dana Matherson’s reaction to the harmless toy convinced the patrolman that he couldn’t possibly be the Mother Paula’s vandal. Anyone so freaked out by a puny fake wasn’t capable of handling a real alligator, especially in the forbidding darkness of a Travelin’ Johnny.

  The true culprit was still out there somewhere, dreaming up a new scheme. Officer Delinko had two long, nervous nights ahead of him.

  The Eberhardts owned a home computer, which Roy was allowed to use for homework assignments and for playing video snowboard games.

  He was good at browsing the Internet, so with no difficulty he was able to Google up plenty of information about the burrowing owl. For instance, the type found in Florida went by the Latin name of Athene cunicularia floridana and had darker feathers than the Western variety. It was a shy little bird and, like other owls, was most active after dark. Nesting usually occurred between February and July, but fledglings had been observed in dens as late as October....

  Systematically, Roy scrolled down the search items one by one until he finally hit the jackpot. He printed out two single-spaced pages, zippered them into his backpack, and hopped on his bicycle.

  It was a quick ride to the Coconut Cove City Hall. Roy locked up his bike and followed the signs to the building-and-zoning department.

  Behind the counter stood a pale freckle-faced man with pinched-looking shoulders. When the man failed to take notice of him, Roy boldly stepped forward and requested the file for Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House.

  The clerk seemed amused. “Do you have a legal description?”

  “Of what?”

  “The property.”

  “Sure. It’s the corner of East Oriole and Woodbury.”

  The clerk said, “That’s not a legal description. It’s barely even a proper address.”

  “Sorry. It’s all I’ve got.”

  “Is this for a school project?” the clerk asked.

  Why not? mused Roy. “Yes,” he said.

  He didn’t see the harm in a tiny fib if it helped save the owls.

  The clerk told Roy to wait while he cross-checked the street location. He returned to the counter carrying a fat stack of files in his arms. “Now, which one of these did you want to see?” he asked with a slight smirk.

  Roy stared in bewilderment. He had no idea where to begin.

  “The one with all the construction permits?” he said.

  The clerk pawed through the stack. Roy had a gloomy feeling that the forms and documents were written in such technical terms that he wouldn’t be able to understand them, an
yway. It would be like trying to read Portuguese.

  “Hmm. That file’s not here,” the clerk said, carefully tidying the tall pile.

  “What do you mean?” Roy asked.

  “The folder with all the permits and inspection notices—it’s been checked out, I guess.”

  “By who?”

  “I’ll have to talk to my supervisor,” the clerk said, “and she’s already left for the day. The office closes at four-thirty, and it’s already, let’s see, four-twenty-seven.” For emphasis he tapped the face of his wristwatch.

  “Okay, I’ll be back tomorrow,” Roy said.

  “Maybe you should choose another topic for your project.” The clerk’s tone had an artificial politeness.

  Roy smiled coolly. “No thanks, mister. I don’t give up that easy.”

  From City Hall he rode his bike to a bait shop and, using a stash of leftover lunch money, bought a box of live crickets. Fifteen minutes later he was sneaking through the junkyard.

  Mullet Fingers wasn’t holed up in the ice-cream truck, though his rumpled sleeping bag was still there. Roy waited inside for a while, but without A/C it was unbearably hot and sticky. Before long, he was back on his bike, heading for the corner of East Oriole and Woodbury.

  The gate was padlocked; there was no sign of the grumpy bald foreman. Roy walked along the outside of the fence, scouting for Beatrice’s stepbrother or any clever surprises he might have left for the pancake-house people.

  Roy wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual had he not spooked one of the owls, which flared from its burrow and landed in the cab of the bulldozer. That’s when Roy saw that the seat was missing. He immediately checked the other earthmoving machines and found the same thing.

  So that’s what the kid was up to the other night, Roy thought gleefully. That’s why he told me to bring a wrench.

  Roy walked back to the gate and opened the container of crickets and held it up to the fence. One at a time, the insects hopped out of the box, jumped through the chain-link holes, and landed on the ground. Roy was hopeful that the owls would find them once they came out of their dens for supper.

  He probably should have left when he heard the first honk, but he didn’t. He knelt there patiently and waited until every last little cricket had vacated the box.