NO ORDINARY OWL (9 page)

“I think we will have to climb the tree to see what there is to see.”

Esther opened her eyes and lowered her shoulders from her ears. Esther had climbed trees a time or two. Her discovery?
She did not like to climb trees
. She was short. Her legs were short, her arms were short, and her stomach got in the way. She liked to read under trees, and if she had her own iPad like she was always suggesting to her parents, she would have liked surfing the Net under the tree. But
climbing
trees? No.

“There must be something else we can do.” Esther walked around the tree again hoping to find something magically deposited from the last circle.

“Except I do not know how to climb a tree.” Aneta looked embarrassed. “Show me, and I will learn.”

Esther sighed. “Okay, you see that branch that’s just above your head? Wrap your arms around that and walk your feet up the tree until you can squoogle around the branch to sit on the branch like a horse.”

In another moment Aneta was in the tree, beaming triumph. “Now I can climb a tree! Wait until I tell Mom and Gram and The Fam.” Aneta motioned her to join her in the branches.

“Now you come up, Esther. I can see forever.”

“I can’t.” Esther’s words sounded angry and ready for a fight. “My arms are too short to reach the branches. My legs are too short to swing up into the tree. I’m too fat.”

Bracing herself on branches, Aneta swung out into the air and dropped lightly to the ground next to her friend. “Then I’ll help you.” She looked at the two mountain bikes behind the tree. “I will put one of these bikes against a tree and really hold it hard, and you climb up that way.”

Sure. She could break her arms and legs, too. This last mission of the S.A.V.E. Squad was going to be the death of her. At least after she moved, the Squad wouldn’t have to worry about somebody being too fat to do their adventures with them.

“There.” Aneta had placed her bike, the taller of the two, against the tree. “I will help you onto the seat, and you can stand up from there.”

How had that tree sprouted twice as tall since Aneta first climbed it? Esther knew she couldn’t back down. Since she couldn’t cut up a mouse and Melissa could, and if she couldn’t climb the tree, that didn’t make her much use for anything. So climb the tree she would. The thought “or die trying” came to her mind, but she pushed it down into the pool of nerves jiggle-jouncing around in the bottomest bottom of her stomach.

As she lifted her leg up toward the seat, she once again discovered she was too short. She couldn’t get on the stupid seat to climb into the tree. She was about to turn around and tell Aneta to just forget it, she wasn’t good for anything and she might as well quit the Squad before she moved, when she saw Aneta had dropped to all fours like a pony.

“What are you doing?” Esther swallowed past the lump in her throat.

“Stand on my back, and then you can stand on the seat.”

“I’m too heavy. I’ll smush you if I stand on your back.”

“Not if you move really fast. One step on my back. One step onto this seat. One jump. Pull yourself into the tree.”

Easy for her long-legged friend to say. Esther did as she was told, and in a moment, with less skin on her elbows and knees and calves, she was breathing hard and in the tree. Not happy. But in the tree.

Since Aneta had been so nice about the tree-climbing help, Esther didn’t correct her that you couldn’t see forever. But you could see a really long ways. The black-iron fence ran out of sight to the left. In front of her now, the woods of the Beake estate spread out. In the distance, she could see the thin outlines of the flight cages, could see the edge of the carriage house.

“Sunny and Vee must still be helping Mr. Beake.” Aneta stood on a branch that grew out straight from the trunk. It put her waist at Esther’s head. Esther was standing on the branch with scratches and scraped-off bark. Maybe it was the branch the owls had been sitting on when they’d been hit?

Remembering the blood and the pathetic sounds the little owls had made that Saturday reignited Esther’s determination. No more messing around. She and Aneta would find that—that Awful Person. Mr. Beake would be happy, the Squad would help the owls fly again, and the last mission—here her throat prickled—would be a fantastic victory.

Next to “there’s always a clue,” another of Imogene’s favorite sayings was, “If you get down, look up!” Well, they were up and looking. Pulling out the monocular, she peered right. The long driveway to the mansion and forest to the right of that. As she peered toward the left, she noted a cluster of buildings—almost a straight line out from where the birds fell.

She pointed. “Look, Aneta. There’s a farm over there. Funny, I
’ve
never seen it from the road when we ride to Uncle Dave’s ranch. It must be right before that last curve to the ranch.” Rolling the top dial, she zoomed in and out but could see nothing more clearly.

“Maybe they have a clue!” Placing her hands carefully, Aneta stepped onto a branch that took her closer to the spikes of the fence. “Maybe someone saw something.” Another couple of sidesteps took her to the branch that protruded straight from the main trunk of the tree and hung out over onto Beake property about six feet off the ground. The metal spikes were now behind and underneath her. Those spikes made Esther think of the Middle Ages and weapons of warfare. No way did she want to fall on those spikes.

“Be careful, Aneta!” Esther narrowed her eyes. “Maybe that’s where that Awful Person lives.” The fastest way to get there was…Glancing down, she gulped. She didn’t want to think about the fastest way to get there.

“Here I go!” As gracefully as a ballerina, Aneta dropped onto the piney ground. “Come on, Esther!”

Esther edged her right foot out on to the same branch. Leaned her weight onto it. Tucked the monocular in her side pocket. The branch swayed slightly. She removed her foot.
I can’t do it
.

“Hurry, Esther. We must do our part. Once we have our clue, we can tell Sunny and Vee. Then the Squad will be together on this!”

“Let me just think for a minute—don’t rush me.” Esther reviewed the situation. She could slide back down the tree and lose more skin on her legs and elbows. Then she could ride on her bike with bleeding arms and legs down the road to where the turnoff had to be for this bunch of buildings.

Or they could wait until Sunny and Vee came back out on their bicycles, Aneta could walk out the gate, and they could all ride down the road to the turnoff. She could already imagine Vee’s upraised eyebrows at that turtle-slow plan. She moved several more steps out on the branch until she was the same distance Aneta had been when she jumped. Sunny would flat out ask why she didn’t just—

Jump.

While Aneta continued to wait, Esther’s eyes flickered back and forth as though seeing each choice. If she jumped, she could sprain her ankle and then they wouldn’t be able to investigate the buildings. If she jumped, she could die and then that would be the end of the last S.A.V.E. Squad mission. If she—

“Esther!” Aneta was finally sounding impatient. Aneta who was
never
impatient.

Esther jumped. The ground came up to meet her. It hadn’t been that far. All she had to do was land like Aneta told her—like a frog and then roll into a somersault if she hit the ground really hard.

Like a frog.

Somersault.

But what was this? Her body was falling
backward
a little. This was not good. She windmilled her arms. Backward was where greedy spikes of the fence waited. In another second, the neck of her hoodie shot to her chin, gagging her. Her hood! It was snagged on what could only be one or more of the spikes. Her backside bumped the fence, and there she hung, clawing frantically at the neck of her sweatshirt.

“Ahhh.” It was a croak. With both her hands pulling down, her breathing returned to normal. Sort of.

The question now? How to get off the spikes.

“Esther!” Aneta stood about a foot below, jumping up and down, waving her hands. “Are you okay, Esther?”

Esther’s shoulders jammed up under her ears made looking down impossible. No, she was not okay. About the only good thing about this entire thing was that Melissa was not around to see it.

“Hey! Esther!” called a familiar, smirky voice.

This was so not
living the yayness
.

“What
are
you doing?” More than one familiar voice. Sunny and Vee.

As Sunny would say, this was a major ughness. For a crazy second, Esther was almost glad she was leaving town.

Sunny and Vee sprinted on their bikes from the road to the tree. Melissa was hanging out of the Cadillac moving through the gate, her voice quite clear. “Really, Esther, is that the best you can do?”

Not Even a Little Funny

Y
ou don’t think it was even a little funny?” Sunny was spinning in front of the other three, directing her question at a grumpy Esther.

“I wouldn’t think so if I had to leave
my
hoodie on the spike.” Vee had come up with the idea that Esther put up both her arms and slide out of the hoodie. That had released her, but not her hoodie. None of the girls were tall enough to tweak it down. No branches long enough nearby either. Now the wind had picked up. Esther wrapped her arms around herself.
Lord, why does this only happen to me?

With the now-familiar bitterness pinching again, Esther’s glare was her answer to Sunny. While Esther had been glad to see the other two girls as she wriggled on the fence spikes, it seemed that tight spot deep inside flamed angry every time one of the Squad members opened their mouth. She’d even yelled at Aneta when Aneta tried to push her up high enough on the spike to make the hood let go.
What is wrong with me?

“I would not have liked to have Melissa say that to
me.”
Aneta slung an arm around Esther’s T-shirted shoulders.

It never would have happened to you. Or Vee. Or Sunny. Just me
. The knot twisted tighter. She walked faster. They needed a clue, they needed it now, and she wanted to be the one to find it. So there.

“I think Melissa isn’t so bad, after you get to know her.” Sunny skipped farther ahead and spun. “I mean, she’ll, like, never be my best friend, but she likes to help the owls and the other birds. Could a person be mean and do that?”

Esther waited for Vee’s reply. Vee and she often butted heads, yet Esther liked how Vee told it the way it was.

“I don’t trust her,” was all Vee said, but it was enough that Esther’s shoulders lowered a bit from around her ears. Her sore shoulders that had been
jacked up by the hoodie
. By the hoodie
still on the fence
, blowing in the increasing wind. The wind that was
very cold
, thank you very much. She shivered.

With Esther trotting to keep up with the other girls, they were covering the distance to the building quickly.

“How are the owls doing?” Aneta wanted to know, smoothing down the long blond strands the wind picked up and tossed around.

“Has Melissa gotten to touch them?” Esther added. “Probably. She gets to do everything.” She pulled out the plastic bag. “We found owl pellets.”

Another look between Sunny and Vee. The other two agreed that Byron would be glad to get them, as it would tell him more about the wounded owls.

“Except it doesn’t tell us anything about that Awful Person,” Vee commented.

Pinch
.

“Nobody gets to touch them. Beake Man hopes to release both of them.” Sunny walked backward to face them while she was talking. Esther knew if she’d done that, she’d trip and break her head. “Did you know that wild bird helpers aren’t supposed to name the birds?”

Yes,
of course
Esther knew that. When she’d checked out how to help wild raptors, she’d learned that “imprinting” was dangerous to a wild bird. Once an animal or bird connected to a human, it made them dangerous to themselves in the wild and to humans. She just hadn’t had a chance to tell them with the Squad busted into two groups, and she and Aneta doing the hard part. She most
certainly
hadn’t told them she had gone ahead and named one of the owls anyway.

She’d only named Bubo, the smaller owl, because she knew with all the blood that day they’d found them, he would end up staying. Like she wanted to stay. He would get to be in on all the fun of the bird education shows that the Bird Lady did, like the Squad would have the fun of more animal rescues. She was different from Bubo in that they’d do those things without her.

So not fair.

Pinch
.

“Yeah,” Vee took up the lecture, with a hint of a smile in her voice. “He told us that the day Aneta fainted and—well, Esther had to leave.”

Sure. Make her sound like the one Squader that couldn’t take it. The tightness in her tummy squeezed.

“I bet he said that ’cause he thinks we’re silly girls who want to wrap them up in baby blankets and have a tea party with them,” Vee finished, curling her lip.

In a few more steps they would break through the end of the trees that fringed the open space where the buildings were. That’s when Esther first heard the sounds.