NO ORDINARY OWL (8 page)

No
. Esther shuddered. Now, not only were frozen mice in there, but top halves and bottom halves of frozen dead mice. Had Sunny and Vee been able to pass the test? What did they think of her running out and abandoning them?

“I—I…” If she went back in, Melissa would make fun of her as sure as Esther’s peanut butter and honey sandwich was spewed out on the grass. If she didn’t go back in, though, Melissa might somehow, some way, take her place. Melissa’s clipped words came back to her.
“Not up to the work.”
This final project of the S.A.V.E. Squad. At least the S.A.V.E. Squad with Esther in it.

“I have to go back in. I have to see what’s going on.” She wiped her mouth once more with the small towel the Bird Lady had produced from her many-pocketed barn coat. “Melissa…”

“I get the notion that Melissa is not a friend to you four, then?”

Esther nodded. She remembered where her arms and legs were. In another moment, she had wriggled to her feet, and it seemed she would stay upright. Her stomach felt like she’d been punched. Maybe she’d never eat again.

The Bird Lady was eyeing her sort of like the buzzard in the nearby flight cage, with her head cocked to the side and tipped, looking at Esther with one eye. “There’s more here you’re not telling, isn’t there?”

Esther nodded again. Should she tell her secret to the Bird Lady? Blurt out that she had to move when school was out? Had to make sure the S.A.V.E. Squad had one last project to save
something
so they wouldn’t forget her? Would Melissa take her place now since Esther couldn’t chop up a mouse?

She felt miserable.

The Bird Lady sat back with a thump on the ground, crossing her legs and wrapping her long arms around her knees. For an old lady, she seemed pretty flexible.

“I—I have—to move.” The first words jerked out. “I wanted to be in the S.A.V.E. Squad forever. I’m afraid the girls will forget me when I leave. They won’t like me anymore.” The moment the last word was out, she panicked. Backing away from Beverly Beake, she whispered, “You can’t tell anyone. It will ruin everything.”

“My dear girl, when are you planning to tell them?” Beverly’s long face grew longer with her opened mouth.

When? Never? Today?
It was all so confusing. “I don’t know, but I will,” she replied, staring at the ground.

“Come. Let’s walk back in and see what’s going on.” The Bird Lady extended her hand to Esther then tucked her and Esther’s hands into one of the bellows pockets. With the chilly air outside, the pocket felt like a hug.

Following a few moments of friendly silence, Beverly moved the subject away from Esther, for which Esther was grateful. “I know Byron is really bothered by the birds being shot,” Bird Lady said as they walked. “No evidence they were shot with a gun.”

Esther didn’t hear anyone shrieking or yelling. Had Sunny and Vee passed the test? Or had they also fainted, and Melissa had stepped over them to do the work and show Beake Man that she was the best?

“Then hit with what? Who does he think did it?” Esther swallowed a lump in her throat as they stepped nearer and nearer to the big sliding door. She wished she hadn’t left Aneta. About as much as she also wished she hadn’t thrown up. Her mouth tasted yucky.

“Oh, he has no idea, poor darling.” Her face looked worried. “I don’t like him to worry. I’m afraid it will affect his recovery.”

This was a perfect time to find out more about what happened to Beake Man. As Esther opened her mouth to ask, the doors rolled apart and Sunny, Vee, and Melissa spilled out, talking excitedly. Aneta dragged behind, looking pale.

“I would never have thought either of you had the guts to do it,” Melissa was saying, bumping shoulders between Vee and Sunny like they were now BFFs.

Uh-oh
. The knot of ick tightening inside Esther this time had nothing to do with cutting up mice and everything to do with losing her spot on the S.A.V.E. Squad.

“Hey, Esther!” Sunny darted ahead and threw her arms around Esther. “Are you okay? Aneta’s okay. Vee and I did it!” She twirled around and around.

“Not that it was so great.” Vee was not smiling, and her glance over at Melissa made Esther feel better. So. Vee didn’t trust Melissa saying nice things. Good. They would have to tell Sunny to watch out. Sunny probably thought Melissa had changed while she was living in Paris.
No way
, Esther thought.

Byron Beake was the last to exit the carriage house. The doors rolled smoothly and only made the littlest thud when they connected. He turned to slide the iron bolt into the ground hole. She was beginning to like the Beake Man, even with his test. He didn’t want the doors to slam because it would frighten the owls and the other birds.

“You girls did all right,” he said gruffly as he passed them all. His gaze flickered over Esther. “You okay then?”

Heat exploded up from the base of Esther’s neck. She nodded, too curious to stare at his face to drop her gaze in embarrassment. What would it be like to be so different from everyone?

The afternoon light was fading with the trees around the carriage house taking on a mysterious-house-in-a creepy-forest look. Once the group passed, she turned to fall in step with Aneta and the Bird Lady.

Aneta had yet to utter a word. Esther reached over and squeezed her hand.

“You okay?” she asked.

Aneta nodded and turned toward her, big tears perched on the rim of her blue eyes. “I was not brave. A Jasper is brave.”

“I puked,” Esther said. “As in majorly emptied my guts. How brave is that?”

Aneta’s shoulders twitched, followed by a tiny gulpy chuckle. Then a bigger snort, then she was laughing.

With Esther’s own chuckles, the sick knot untied. The Bird Lady was laughing. She stepped between the girls and clasped their hands. Her hand was warm and dry and had hard spots on them like she worked hard with her birds. While laughing, the idea popped into Esther’s head.
She
would find that—that Awful Person. She—and Aneta—would find the one who tried to hurt the yellow-eyed birds. That would be as important or, as a sneaky voice inserted,
more
important than cutting up mice.

“I will tell you a secret those other girls do not know,” Beverly Beake said in a lowered voice.

The girls leaned in to hear.

“I can’t feed the raptors either.”

Aneta’s mouth, opened in an
O
, matched Esther’s.

The Bird Lady chuckled a chirpy giggle. “I really wanted to help with the raptors when I was younger over in England. I begged and begged my brother—him already licensed, you see—and was getting rather peeved with him that he wouldn’t let me. Finally, after months of pushing me off, he said he would give me a test.” She arched her eyebrows at the two girls, then nodded at the dawning understanding that rolled across Esther’s face.

“Like he tested us!” So it wasn’t because he was just being mean and wanted them to fail.

“It was not to be mean?” Aneta was on the same page. Her face brightened. “Did you faint?”

Pressing her lips together as though she were trying to swallow back a laugh, the Bird Lady bobbed her head up and down. “And I threw up.” Her laugh burst out. The three hee-heed so loudly, the first group, nearly to the back french windows that led into the breakfasting room, turned to stare. Windows next to the many-paned french doors stood floor to ceiling with their crank-out glass. Today, of course, they weren’t open. Esther shivered in her coat, warming and chilling as the excitement built over what she would tell the S.A.V.E. Squad. She would find That Person.

“What’s so funny?” Sunny wanted to know, bouncing back to them.

“It is okay that I fainted,” Aneta explained, like it was supposed to be clear.

Esther smiled. “I have an idea on what we”—she gestured toward Aneta—“can do while you guys help with the owls.” She looked straight at Melissa. “I’ll tell you when it’s just the Squad.”

Did Melissa’s eyes narrow ever so slightly like Vee’s did when she was headed into a Vee Stare? It didn’t matter. No way was she going to tell the girls when Melissa was around that the Squad should find That Awful Person and make sure no other owls got hit with whatever.

“Oh, I’m glad you found
something
you can do, Esther,” Melissa replied.

Suddenly the Squad was on alert.

Sunny stopped bouncing around Aneta, Esther, and the Bird Lady and stood with her head cocked, looking back and forth between Esther and Melissa. Vee’s dark eyebrows were almost touching, she was frowning so hard. Aneta whispered, “Oh dear.”

With a dismissive shrug of her shoulder, Melissa glided up the two steps that led to the french doors. “Oh, girls, my dad is sending his driver to take me home. Why don’t I give you all a ride home? We”—her glance slid quickly toward Esther and then away—“
might
all fit.”

Her stomach flip-flopped. Esther knew exactly what Melissa meant. There would be room for the other girls, but not for her. She blurted, “Oh, that’s okay, Melissa. My mom is coming to take us home anyway. See you later.”

Hopefully a lot later.

Melissa’s ride arrived moments later after she spoke rudely into her smartphone. Before stepping into what Esther’s brothers had previously identified as a Cadillac Escalade, she cast her glance around to Sunny and Vee. “You girls sure?”

They shook their heads and stepped closer to Aneta and Esther. Then the big black vehicle splashed its way down the muddy driveway.

Esther’s satisfaction at seeing Melissa depart without a single member of the S.A.V.E. Squad in that fancy car morphed into full-blown panic. Three very bad things trashed her triumph. The first one was
humongous—she hadn’t yet asked her mother if she would pick them up
. Two—her mom would drive their minivan, which was older than any of the Squad’s cars and way older than the big black SUV that had just left.

The four girls were quiet, watching the back end of the vehicle. Then Vee said, still looking down the road, “Your mom doesn’t know she’s picking us up, does she?”

“N–nope.” Esther’s lower lip wobbled.

Aneta gasped, a hand flying to her mouth. “Gram does not like it when I ask her to do something when you all are around.”

“Yeah,” Sunny chimed in. “My mom’s reaction to that is usually no and a long talk about putting her on the spot.” She took her gaze from the long driveway, patted Esther’s shoulder, and said cheerfully, “You’re toast.”

That wasn’t the worst thing. The third worst thing? Sidney would be in that minivan with her irate mom. No way would her mother leave Siddy home with Toby.

Throwing up now seemed like the best part of this day.

Hanging Around

W
here do we start?” Aneta and Esther stood in front of the tree on Friday, where they had discovered the two injured owls the previous Saturday. And nearly got struck by lightning. Their bikes lay on the ground behind the tree. Esther had the monocular Byron had said she could use. She’d about dropped it in surprise the day he handed it to her with the gruff admonition to “not bash it around, if you please.” It was like binoculars only it had one lens instead of two. It made Esther feel like a pirate. She held it to her eye and looked up into the tree. No more owls. No pirates either.

Sunny and Vee had ridden in to the estate to help prepare the bird food for the day. No sign of Melissa. Esther hoped she’d already lost interest.

Today they hadn’t even needed their raincoats and wore low hikers, jeans, and school hoodies. Esther had borrowed Toby’s black beanie because it seemed a good clue-finding hat. Aneta wore winter gloves she called her clue-finding gloves. She was also wearing a bright yellow Cunningham Academy sweatshirt. So much for sneaking up on anyone.

As Esther left the house, Mom had been reading Siddy a
Hey
,
Imogene!
book. Sidney’s high-pitched voice was shouting “There is always a clue!” Imogene hollered this at one point or another in every
Hey, Imogene!
story. Sometimes the just-past-three-year-old would walk around saying it for days, looking for clues in places there couldn’t possibly be any. Like the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper.
Well, why not do an Imogene?

Hands on her hips, she said matter-of-factly, “First, we look all around the tree. There must be something there besides feathers, gravel, and dirt.”

The two girls circled the tree hunkered down in spy mode. Esther spotted rolled dirt. At least that’s what it looked like. Some soft fluff caught in it waved in the breeze. Whipping out her plastic zip-top bags from the kitchen, she used a twig to roll three of them into the bag. Then she stuck the bag in her pocket.

“What is that?” Aneta inquired, straightening up.

“I think, not positive, that these are owl pellets.”

“Pellets.”

“What owls don’t use up comes out the other end.”

“Oh. Why do we want them?”

Esther laughed. “I don’t know—just wanted to use my zip-top evidence bags like a detective.” Maybe Byron could use them. Okay, now what? She stared at the ground, puffing her cheeks in and out. Sunny and Vee were doing important work. She and Aneta needed something
big
. When Esther groaned and rose, Aneta was regarding the upper branches of the tree. The immense
tree
. Esther’s heart sank. Having a clutching feeling over Aneta’s next words, Esther prayed what her father called a “grenade prayer.” Small and, she hoped, powerful.
Please, oh please, Lord
. She squeezed her eyes shut.