“May I help you?” the guy behind the counter asked, and I recognized his voice from the telephone.
“Yes,” I answered. “My friend here left a one-thousand-dollar deposit on a horse last week. He’s here to pick it up.” Mr. Becker was just staring at me, so I kinda dropped my voice and said, “He’s a mute, so I have to talk for him.”
Thomas Becker experienced bubble brain for all of three seconds. Then his face clouded a little and he said, “You can’t be serious.”
“Why’s that?” I ask.
“Because my horse found her own way home!”
“But she is home,” I say, sounding calm and very reasonable. “Safe and sound.” Then I lean in and say, “It’s a very complicated story.”
He checks Vargus over and says, “This is not the same fella that rented my horse.”
“Sure, it is.” Then I add, “I don’t blame you for not recognizing him. You probably get hundreds of people in here—especially during summertime.”
His brow furrows and his mouth wags back and forth once before he says, “Nope. That’s not him.”
“You need proof?” I turn to Vargus. “Show the man your driver’s license, Vargus.”
So Vargus pulls out his wallet and hands over his license, then takes off his hat and shades. And after a minute of ol’ Tommy Becker comparing the face in front of him to the one on the license, I say, “I understand there were forms he filled out?”
Tommy looks at me, and I can see his brain sputtering with objections, but before he can actually spit any of them out, I say, “Ulma Willis from the Department of Fish and Wildlife assured us there would be no problem collecting the deposit.”
He takes one final stare at me, then, without a word, he hands back the license, goes to his desk, and returns with ten one-hundred-dollar bills.
“Much obliged, sir,” I tell him, trying to stay cool and calm as he passes the cash to Vargus. Then I move Vargus to the door like he’s dumb and blind.
Which, in a lot of ways, he is.
Anyway, when we’re outside and in the clear, Vargus shakes the fistful of cash and says, “I can’t believe this!”
I snatch it from him. “You get a commission, remember? Not the whole wad.”
So I peel off two of the hundreds, which he seems happy enough with, then I get in the truck and tell Gary, “Let’s go!”
After we drop Vargus off, I peel off four more hundreds and hand them to Gary. “It’s not a four-eyed viperwing, but it’ll fix your exhaust manifold.”
He just blinks at me.
So I shake it at him and say, “We couldn’t have rescued Big Mama without you.”
He takes it from me slowly, the biggest grin growing across his face. “You are something,” he says, then drives us home.
So I was real happy about all of that. And the other four hundred dollars Cricket and I delivered to Robin to give to Quinn for the Lookout project.
Seemed like the right thing to do.
And while we were there, she delivered some good news to us.
“Marvin and Big Mama are getting released to their habitat on Friday—would you like to come?”
“Yes!” we both shouted.
So, of course, when we told Gary and Casey, they wanted to go along, too, and then the day it was going to happen, Marissa called. So I asked her if she wanted to meet us at Robin’s house ’cause there was a whole caravan going up to the Lookout. The birds were being taken up by Professor Prag and some bird experts, Robin was riding with Gabby and Bella in Quinn’s truck, Billy was squeezing in somewhere. . . . “It’ll be a huge party up there!” I told her. “You’ve got to come!”
“Wait,” Marissa said. “Aren’t condors, like, big buzzard birds? Aren’t they really . . . ugly?”
“Yeah,” I laughed. “Yeah, they are.”
She hesitated, then said, “So let me get this straight—you’re going to waste your whole day letting some big ugly buzzards go?”
“Yeah,” I laughed again. “Yeah, I am.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to just come over? I’ve got a ton of stuff to tell you!”
I was dying to catch up with her, but in the end I said, “I’ll call you when I get back, okay? This is something I need to do.”
“All right. Whatever. But call me—I’m dying to talk to you!”
So Marissa didn’t go, but I’m really glad I did. It was a big party. Even the ride up was fun. Gary’d gotten his truck fixed, so we could actually hear each other without shouting. We told our favorite jokes, did the name game—you know, like, “If your last name’s Weiser, don’t name your kid Bud”—we did that for an hour. And then we sang. It was so corny, but it was fun. Cricket and Gary know a kazillion songs. Old musicals’ songs, campfire songs, Beatles songs . . .I felt like I was at a marathon campfire gathering.
And then Casey belts out, “Wild Thing . . . do-do-da-do-do . . . You make my heart sing . . . do-do-da-do-do . . . You make eeeeeverything . . . groovy!” and gives me this real mischievous grin.
So, okay, I totally blushed. And since I was feeling all flushed and embarrassed, I countered by making up my own words.
“Wild things . . . do-do-da-do-do . . . You bite and you sting . . . do-do-da-do-do . . . You make eeeeeverything . . . itchy.”
Then Gary picked it up, shouting, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, wild things!”
“Do-do-da-do-do!”
“You bite and you sting!”
“Do-do-da-do-do!”
“You make eeeeeeverything . . .”
“Itchy!” we all cried, and then busted up.
So the trip up to the Lookout was a blast, and since everyone’s vehicle could make it up the last steep five miles, we didn’t even have to hike.
Hooray!
When we got to the Lookout, Gary parked his truck but didn’t get out right away. He just sat there, real quiet, staring. And when Cricket reached over and held his arm, I realized he was thinking about more than just this place where he hadn’t been in ages.
He was thinking about his mom.
Anyway, when we all got out of the truck and joined the others, we discovered that Billy had performed some miracle transformation on Professor Prag on the way up. Ol’ Needle Nose was laughing. Then he actually came up to me and apologized and said, “We can’t thank you enough for rescuing Big Mama.”
Him calling her Big Mama instead of AC-34 totally shocked me, so I said, “You mean Condorus bigbeakybos?”
He laughed real loud, then shook his head at me and Billy. “Ah, you kids.”
When he was gone, I looked at Billy and said, “What did you do to him?” But I didn’t really need an answer. It’s just the magic of Billy Pratt.
Anyway, we all stood around and watched as Quinn, Professor Prag, Robin, and some condor handlers decked out in safety glasses and protective gloves got Marvin and his mom ready out near Echo Rock. It took three people to manage each bird—one at the head, one at the body, and one at the feet.
They shoulda just wrapped ’em in a tent and been done with it, but whatever.
And then, when everyone and everything was finally all ready, they let go of the birds and backed away.
Talk about anticlimactic. Those oversized buzzards just stood there.
Quinn finally moved toward them with his arms all spread out, which did make them hop forward a few yards, but then they just stood there some more.
But after another few minutes of this breathtaking excitement, Big Mama must’ve gotten bored, too, because without any warning, she spread her wings and whoosh, she went overboard, down into the canyon.
Then all of a sudden whoosh, Marvin was gone, too.
We rushed to the edge to see them in flight.
We looked left. We looked right. We looked into the canyon. Across the canyon.
People shielded their eyes.
Binoculars appeared.
But we saw nothing.
Nothing but one stupid caw-y, oily, flappy cr
ow.
“Where’d they go?” Cricket cried, but they were gone.
Just gone.
And we were finally just giving up, when all of a sudden from behind us came the sound of distant thunder.
We spun around and there they were, overhead, gliding toward us, broad and black, their wings out straight and steady.
I gasped.
I literally could not believe my eyes.
I knew they were big, but this big?
Their wings seemed to fill the skies as they glided over us. Then they circled once effortlessly around us, looking at us.
It was almost like they were acknowledging us.
Thanking us.
I turned, following them as they circled above. Then off they went, gliding out over the canyon, as free as the wind that carried them.
All of a sudden I was choked up and tears were streaming down my face. Casey came up from behind and wrapped his arms around me. And as we watched them soar away, he put his chin on my shoulder and whispered, “That was the most awesome thing I have ever seen.”
And it was.
I mean, yeah, maybe they don’t know the difference between human trash and condor kibble, but whose fault is that?
They’re the ones who belong in these canyons.
Soaring on the thermals.
Beating thunder through the skies.
I watched them glide through the air like masters of this harsh and unforgiving world, and I got it.
I finally, truly got it.
OTHER FAVORITES BY WENDELIN VAN DRAANEN
Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief
Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man
Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy
Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf
Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Moustache Mary
Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy
Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes
Sammy Keyes and the Art of Deception
Sammy Keyes and the Psycho Kitty Queen
Sammy Keyes and the Dead Giveaway
How I Survived Being a Girl
Flipped
Swear to Howdy
Runaway
Confessions of a Serial Kisser
Shredderman: Secret Identity
Shredderman: Attack of the Tagger
Shredderman: Meet the Gecko
Shredderman: Enemy Spy
For more than forty years,
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Wendelin Van Draanen Parsons
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows: Van Draanen, Wendelin.
Sammy Keyes and the wild things / Wendelin Van Draanen.
p. cm.
Summary: While on her first hiking and camping trip, thirteen-year-old Sammy tries to solve a mystery involving endangered condors while avoiding scorpions, ticks, and embarrassment.
[1. Camping—Fiction. 2. Hiking—Fiction. 3. Condors—Fiction. 4. Endangered species—Fiction. 5. Southwest, New—Fiction. 6. Mystery and detective stories—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.V2857Sar 2007
[Fic]—dc22
2006029261
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89219-6
v3.0
Wendelin Van Draanen, Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things
(Series: # )
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