Hoot (12 page)

The Eberhardts locked arms as they approached the enclosed bed. Officer Delinko stood behind them, wondering what color shirt Roy would be wearing. In the patrolman's pocket was the bright green scrap of clothing that had snagged on the Mother Paula's fence.

“Don't be surprised if he's sleeping,” the doctor whispered, gently pulling the curtain away.

Nobody said a word for several moments. The four grownups just stood there, blank-faced, staring at the empty bed.

From a metal rig hung a plastic bag of ginger-colored fluid, the intravenous tube disconnected and dangling to the floor.

Finally, Mrs. Eberhardt gasped, “Where's Roy!”

Dr. Gonzalez's arms flapped helplessly. “I just ... I really ... I don't know.”

“You don't
know
?” Mr. Eberhardt erupted. “One minute an injured boy is asleep in this bed, and the next minute he's vanished?”

Officer Delinko stepped between Mr. Eberhardt and the doctor. The patrolman was afraid that Roy's father was upset enough to do something he might later regret.

“Where is our son?” Mrs. Eberhardt demanded again.

The doctor buzzed for a nurse and frantically started searching the emergency ward.

“But he was the only patient here,” Mr. Eberhardt said angrily. “How can you possibly lose the one and only patient you've got? What happened—did aliens beam him up to their spaceship while you were on your coffee break?”

“Roy? Roy, where are you!” cried Mrs. Eberhardt.

She and Dr. Gonzalez began checking beneath the other five beds in the ward. Officer Delinko whipped out his portable radio and said, “I'm calling for backup.”

Just then, the double doors to the waiting room flew open.

“Mom! Dad! I'm right here!”

The Eberhardts practically smothered their son with a tandem hug.

“Little devil,” chuckled Officer Delinko, holstering his radio. He was pleased to see that Roy wasn't wearing a torn green T-shirt.

“Whoa!” Dr. Gonzalez clapped her hands sharply. “Everybody hold on a minute.”

The Eberhardts looked up quizzically. The doctor didn't seem especially overjoyed to have found her lost patient.

“
That's
Roy?” she asked, pointing at their son.

“Of course it is. Who else would it be?” Mrs. Eberhardt kissed the top of his head. “Honey, you get back into that hospital bed right now—”

“Not so fast,” Mr. Eberhardt said. “I'm not sure what's going on here, but I've got a feeling we owe the doctor an apology. Probably several apologies.” He planted both hands on Roy's shoulders. “Let's see those dog bites, partner.”

Roy lowered his eyes. “I didn't get bit, Dad. It wasn't me.”

Mrs. Eberhardt groaned. “Okay, now I get it.
I'm
the crazy one, right?
I'm
the raving loony bird ... .”

“Folks? Excuse me, but we've still got a major problem,” Dr. Gonzalez said. “We've still got a patient missing.”

Officer Delinko was thoroughly confused. Once again he reached for his radio in anticipation of calling headquarters.

“Before my brain explodes,” said Mrs. Eberhardt, “would someone please explain what this is all about?”

“Only one person can do that.” Mr. Eberhardt gestured toward Roy, who suddenly wanted to crawl down a hole and hide. His father turned him around to face Dr. Gonzalez.

“ ‘Tex?' ” she said, arching an eyebrow.

Roy felt his face redden. “I'm really sorry.”

“This is a hospital. This is no place for games.”

“I know it's not. I apologize.”

“If you're the real Roy,” the doctor said, “then who was that young man in the bed, and where did he go? I want the truth.”

Roy stared at the tops of his sneakers. He couldn't remember another day in his life when so many things had gone so wrong.

“Son,” his father said, “answer the doctor.”

His mother squeezed his arm. “Come on, honey. It's important.”

“You can be sure we'll find him,” Officer Delinko chimed in, “sooner or later.”

Bleakly, Roy looked up to address the grownups.

“I don't know the boy's name, and I don't know where he is,” he said. “I'm sorry, but that's the truth.”

And, technically, it was.

THIRTEEN

While Roy took a shower, his mother made a pot of spaghetti. He ate three helpings, though the dinner gathering was as quiet as a chess match.

Setting down his fork, Roy turned to his father.

“I guess it's the den, huh?”

“That's correct.”

It had been years since Roy had gotten a spanking, and he doubted that he was in for one now. The den was where his father summoned him whenever there was serious explaining to be done. Tonight Roy was so tired that he wasn't sure if anything he had to say would make sense.

His father was waiting, seated behind the broad walnut desk.

“What've you got there?” he asked Roy.

“A book.”

“Yes, I can see it's a book. I was hoping for the particulars.”

Roy's father could be sarcastic when he thought he wasn't getting a full answer. Roy figured it came from years of interrogating shifty characters—gangsters or spies, or whoever it was that his father was in the business of investigating.

“I'm assuming,” he said to Roy, “that the book will cast some light on tonight's strange events.”

Roy handed it across the desk. “You and Mom got it for me two Christmases ago.”

“I remember,” his father said, scanning the cover. “
The Sibley Guide to Birds
. Sure it wasn't for your birthday?”

“I'm sure, Dad.”

Roy had put the book on his Christmas list after it had settled a friendly wager between him and his father. One afternoon they'd seen a large reddish brown raptor swoop down and snatch a ground squirrel off a cattle range in the Gallatin River valley. Roy's father had bet him a milkshake that the bird was a young bald eagle whose crown feathers hadn't yet turned white, but Roy had said it was a fully grown golden eagle, more common on the dry prairies. Later, after visiting the Bozeman library and consulting
Sibley,
Roy's father conceded that Roy had been right.

Mr. Eberhardt held up the book and asked, “What does this have to do with that nonsense at the hospital?”

“Check out page 278,” Roy said. “I marked it for you.”

His father flipped the book open to that page.

“ ‘Burrowing owl,' ” he read aloud from the text. “ ‘
Athene cunicularia
. Long-legged and short-tailed, with relatively long, narrow wings and flat head. Only small owl likely to be seen perched in the open in daylight.' ” His father peered quizzically at him over the top of the book. “Is this connected to that ‘science project' you were supposedly working on this afternoon?”

“There is no science project,” Roy admitted.

“And the hamburger meat that your mother gave you?”

“A snack for the owls.”

“Continue,” Mr. Eberhardt said.

“It's a long story, Dad.”

“I've got nothing but time.”

“All right,” Roy said. In some ways, he thought wearily, a spanking might be easier.

“See, there's this boy,” he began, “about the same age as me. ...”

Roy told his father everything—well,
almost
everything. He didn't mention that the snakes distributed by Beatrice Leep's stepbrother were highly poisonous and that the boy had actually taped their mouths shut. Such details might have alarmed Mr. Eberhardt more than the petty acts of vandalism.

Roy also chose not to reveal that Beatrice had nicknamed her stepbrother Mullet Fingers, just in case Roy's father felt legally obligated to report it to the police, or file it away in some government computer bank.

Otherwise, Roy told what he knew about the running boy. His father listened without interruption.

“Dad, he's really not a bad kid,” Roy said when hefinished. “All he's trying to do is save the owls.”

Mr. Eberhardt remained silent for a few moments. He reopened the
Sibley Guide
and looked at the color drawings of the small birds.

“See, if the Mother Paula's people bulldoze that property, they'll bury all the dens,” Roy said.

His father put the book aside and looked at Roy fondly, though with a trace of sadness.

“Roy, they own the property. They can do pretty much whatever they please.”

“But—”

“They've probably got all the necessary paperwork and permits.”

“They've got permits to bury owls?” Roy asked in disbelief.

“The owls will fly away. They'll find new dens somewhere else.”

“What if they've got babies? How will the baby birds fly away?” Roy shot back angrily. “How, Dad?”

“I don't know,” his father admitted.

“How would you and Mom like it,” Roy pressed on, “if a bunch of strangers showed up one day with bulldozers to flatten this house? And all they had to say was ‘Don't worry, Mr. and Mrs. Eberhardt, it's no big deal. Just pack up and move to another place.' How would you feel about that?”

Roy's father stood up slowly, as if the weight of a hundred bricks were on his shoulders.

“Let's go for a walk,” he said.

It was a calm cloudless night, and a pale sliver of moon peeked over the rooftops. Insects as thick as confetti swirled around the cowls of the streetlights. Toward the end of the block, two cats could be heard yowling at each other.

Roy's father walked with his chin slightly downward, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

“You're growing up fast,” he remarked, catching Roy by surprise.

“Dad, I'm the third-shortest kid in my homeroom.”

“That's not what I meant.”

As they went along, Roy hopped from crack to crack on the sidewalk. They talked about comfortable topics—school, sports, sports
in
school—until Roy nudged the conversation back toward the delicate subject of Mullet Fingers. He needed to know where his father stood.

“You remember that day last summer we floated the Madison canyon?”

“Sure,” said his father, “in inner tubes.”

“Right,” Roy said. “And remember we counted five great horned owls in one cottonwood? Five!”

“Yes, I remember.”

“And you tried to take a picture but the camera fell in the river?”

“Not exactly. I
dropped
it in the river,” Roy's father recalled sheepishly.

“Hey, it was a cheapo disposable.”

“Yeah, but it would've been a great snapshot. Five in the same tree.”

“Yeah,” said Roy. “That was pretty amazing.”

The owl story did the trick. His father took the cue.

“This boy you told me about—you really don't know his name?”

“He won't tell me. Neither will Beatrice,” Roy said. “That's the honest truth.”

“He didn't take his stepfather's last name?”

“Leep? No, not according to Beatrice.”

“And you say he doesn't attend school.”

Roy's spirits fell. It sounded as if his father intended to report Mullet Fingers for truancy.

“What worries me,” Mr. Eberhardt said, “is the family situation. It doesn't sound too good.”

“No, it's not,” Roy conceded. “That's why he doesn't live at home anymore.”

“Aren't there any relatives who can take care of him?”

“He feels safe where he is,” Roy said.

“You're sure about that?”

“Dad, please don't turn him in. Please.”

“How can I, if I don't even know where to find him?” Roy's father gave him a wink. “But I'll tell you what I am going to do: I'm going to spend some time thinking seriously about all this. You should, too.”

“Okay,” said Roy. How could he possibly think of anything else? Even his battle with Dana Matherson seemed like a fuzzy, long-ago dream.

“We'd better head home,” his father said. “It's getting late and you've had a long day.”

“A real long day,” Roy agreed.

But after he got into bed, he couldn't fall asleep. His body was exhausted but his mind was wide awake, buzzing with the day's turbulence. He decided to do some reading, and reached for a book titled
A Land Remembered,
which he'd checked out from school. It was the story of a family who lived in Florida back in the 1850s, when it was still a wilderness. Humans were scarce, and the swamps and woods teemed with wildlife—probably a pretty good time to be a burrowing owl, Roy mused.

An hour later, he was half-dozing when he heard a
tap-tap
on the bedroom door. It was his mother, slipping in to say good night. She took the book from his hands and turned off the lamp on the nightstand. Then she sat down on the bed and asked how he was feeling.

“Beat,” Roy said.

Gently she snugged the covers up to his neck. Even though he was way too warm, Roy didn't object. It was a mom thing; she couldn't help herself.

“Honey,” she said, “you know how much we love you.”

Uh-oh, Roy thought. Here it comes.

“But what you did at the hospital tonight, letting that other boy use your name to get in the emergency ward—”

“It was my idea, Mom, not his.”

“And I'm sure your heart was in the right place,” she said, “but it was still a lie, technically speaking. Providing false information, or whatever. It's a serious matter, honey—”

“I know.”

“—and it's just, well, your father and I don't want to see you get in trouble. Even for the sake of a friend.”

Roy raised himself up on one elbow. “He would've run away before he'd give out his real name, and I couldn't let that happen. He was sick. He needed to see a doctor.”

“I understand. Believe me, I do.”

“They were asking him all kinds of nosy questions, Mom, and meanwhile he's about to keel over from the fever,” Roy said. “Maybe what I did was wrong, but I'd do it all over again if I had to. I mean it.”

Roy expected a mild rebuke, but his mother only smiled. Smoothing the blanket with both hands, she said, “Honey, sometimes you're going to be faced with situations where the line isn't clear between what's right and what's wrong. Your heart will tell you to do one thing, and your brain will tell you to do something different. In the end, all that's left is to look at both sides and go with your best judgment.”

Well, thought Roy, that's sort of what I did.

“This boy,” his mother said, “why wouldn't he give out his real name? And why did he run away from the hospital like that?”

Mullet Fingers had escaped through a window in the women's restroom, next door to the X-ray department. He left his torn green shirt dangling from the antenna of Officer David Delinko's patrol car, which was parked outside the emergency room.

“He probably ran,” Roy said, “because he was afraid somebody would call his mom.”

“So?”

“So, she doesn't want him anymore. She'll have him locked up at the juvenile hall.”

“What?”

“His mom sent him off to military school,” Roy explained, “and now she doesn't want him back. She said so herself, in front of Beatrice.”

Roy's mother cocked her head, as if she wasn't sure that she'd heard him correctly. “His mom doesn't want him?”

Roy saw something flash in her eyes. He wasn't certain if it was sorrow or anger—or both.

“She doesn't
want
him?” his mother repeated.

Roy nodded somberly.

“Oh, my,” she said.

The words came out so softly that Roy was startled. He heard pain in his mother's voice, and he felt bad for telling her that part of Mullet Fingers' story.

“I'm sorry, Mom,” Roy said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, honey.”

She kissed his cheek and tucked in the sheets one more time. As she was shutting his door, he saw her hesitate and turn back to look at him.

“We're proud of you, Roy. You need to know that. Your father and I are both extremely proud.”

“Did Dad tell you about the owls?”

“Yes, he told me. It's too bad.”

“What should I do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” Roy said, sinking into his pillow. “G'night, Mom.”

She'd already answered the question, anyway. All he had to do was settle the argument between his heart and his brain.