NO ORDINARY OWL (13 page)

School would be over the second week of June, and then Esther’s life would be over. No more Squad, no more adventures, no more—her throat
tightened—friends
.

“Hurry!” she repeated, pounding the lion’s head knocker.

“I don’t know why you are so grumbly these days.” Sunny arrived, standing next to her and throwing an arm around Esther. “We’re here.”

Yeah, but for how long?

Vee and Aneta joined them. The door opened. Beverly Beake smiled at them, opening the door all the way. “Do come in, girls. Lovely to see you, as always.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Byron is out puttering around in the back somewhere.”

They passed through the foyer, with the dining room and sitting room on either side. They passed the kitchen and the breakfasting room, stepped out the french doors, and were surprised to see Byron patching another flight-pen screen. The girls shot a look at each other and hastened to him.

“Sabotage?” Esther asked, knowing it was. She thought of the goggles they had brought. No practice run. The Squad
had
to prowl tonight because the chicken farmer had struck again. Maybe they’d even catch him tonight, but only if they persuaded their parents and the Beakes to allow them to remain on the estate.

His lips pressed in a fine line, Byron nodded. “Blighters.”

“Blighters,” Aneta repeated. “Blighters. Blighters are not good people?”

“People doing bad things.” He was distracted, working on the patch.

“Mr. Beake,” Esther began.

Byron cut her off. “I’ve done the feeding.” He smiled a small smile at Esther to show he wasn’t mad. “You’ll not need to slingshot the food to Howard today.”

They had taken too long in Bill’s garage. With Vee next to her, Esther glowered up at her taller friend. “I knew we’d taken too much time playing in those dumb boxes.”

Vee stepped away, hurt then anger flaring in her dark eyes. The Vee Stare in full force.

I don’t care. She’s not the boss of me
.

Vee spit out the words through her clenched teeth. “Sorry. That’s only where we found the night-vision goggles that
my
stepdad is
letting
us use to—”

“Mr. Beake!” Aneta’s voice cut through the escalating
uh-oh
between Vee and Esther. “We want to play with the night-vision goggles that Vee’s stepdad, Bill, is letting us use. May we stay after dark?” She linked arms with Esther and Vee. “We are the Squad, and we want to do it together.”

Aneta never liked anyone to be angry.

Sunny spun. “Yeah, guys, except we forgot to ask any of our parents if they would pick us up.”

Esther sucked in a quick breath. She, of all people, should not have forgotten. She’d already put her mother on the spot once. Twice was not going to happen in the Martin family. Well, not and have Internet privileges before she turned sixteen. It had been so exciting to see Sunny pull those goggles out of the box, recognize what they were, and know they now had the tools to catch the chicken farmer in the act of sabotaging the flight pens. Then they’d called for permission to head for the estate on their bikes since the rain had lessened to the now-usual mist. Siddy had been yelling something behind Mom on the phone. Could anyone blame Esther for not remembering to ask about staying past dark? Her back teeth closed, and her jaw stiffened. Siddy ruined so many things.

“I’ll do one up on you,” came Beverly’s cheerful voice from behind the group. Byron and the girls turned as one. The Bird Lady approached in her customary waxed navy barn coat. Beads of rain collected from the mist and popped up when it hit the waxy surface. Esther desperately wanted a coat like that. It looked like Beverly was headed toward adventure whenever she wore it. Probably, though, with where Esther was moving, it would never rain and she’d never get the coat.

Putting a warm hand on Esther’s shoulder, Beverly continued, “Do stay for dinner. I’m cooking a roast anyway. We’ll do two veg and some mash. I’ll invite your families. It will be one less dinner for your parents to cook. It shall be a grand dinner!”

That was easy. Esther stood a little straighter. “Is there anything we can do to help until it’s dark?”

Beverly seemed to think for a moment. “No, but Byron, wouldn’t the girls love another peek at the owls on the camera?”

Byron agreed.

They followed Byron to the carriage house in what Beverly called their higgledy-piggledy line. Shushing each other so as not to scare Bubo and the second owl, they made their way to the large, covered pen. At the back stood the long table with the computer and an oversized monitor. Byron clicked a couple of places and then the two owls, larger on the screen than they really were in life, were looking right at them. Suddenly, Esther was again glad she hadn’t cheated.

“Whoa!” Sunny said, stepping back.

“They are looking right at us!” Aneta said, stepping forward for a closer look. “Do they know we are here?”

Bubo’s buddy sidestepped over to Bubo and dug his head under Bubo’s wing.

“Aww,” said the girls.

“Oh yes,” Byron said emphatically. “They heard you a lot earlier than when we opened the carriage house door. Their hearing is superb.”

“Maybe they’re getting used to us,” Vee said.

He fiddled with the zoom on the keyboard. “Let’s hope not.”

Esther felt her face warming, even though the carriage house was cool. Her secret naming of the smaller of the two—the one she was convinced would stay and be a teaching bird—was still safe. She’d told no one about Bubo. And she hadn’t cheated.

“Oh, right,” Vee spoke quickly.

“Yeah, we don’t want them to become imprinted on humans,” Sunny chimed in, her words so close on the heels of Vee’s that the other girl frowned at her.

“Oh,” was Aneta’s reply, her face pinking.

Hmm. Did they share a secret? Again the left-out feeling crowded into the joy of watching the two teenaged owls move about the pen.

Bubo was finishing his dinner. Esther couldn’t say she was over the whole mouse thing, but at least now she had a quick reminder to herself that it was just dinner and God created animals to eat each other. Bubo and his sister or brother—Beake Man said it often took a blood test to tell the sex of an owl—wobbled around.

Seemed as though his wings were open more today. She hoped so. She couldn’t wait for him to be better. Maybe Beverly would let her go with her and help somehow when Bubo became an education owl.

In the Dark

W
hen the Squad whispered good-bye to the owls and tiptoed out, deep twilight had dropped over the trees, with the outline of the old Victorian against an only slighter paler sky. Time for goggles.

Byron waved good-bye and headed to the house, where he said he would attempt to get some peace and quiet before “the dinner event.” Esther assured him they would be no bother.

“Of course,” Sunny said after Byron was out of earshot, “we’ve told Frank that before, too.”

Esther hurried to the back of the house where they’d dumped their backpacks. Looping straps over both arms, she handed them out.

“Okay, so the first thing is put them over your head like this.” She placed the googly eyepieces over her own eyes and lifted the straps up and over her head.

“Or not,” Vee said, inspecting her unit. She pulled hers on, pulled a strap here and there.

“You look like a space alien.” Aneta sounded less and less like the Ukrainian orphan she’d been almost two years ago.

Wearing her goggles, Sunny walked toward Aneta with stiff legs and arms outstretched. “I am gonna get chew,” came her muffled tones through the mask. Aneta shrieked and backed away, laughing.

“Okay, we need to try them out.” If Esther didn’t get bossy, they would all just play. This was
serious
. “First, let’s find out what we can see with them on. Be sure to turn them on.” Esther’s hand trembled as she tightened the straps. Finally! They were getting somewhere! With these, they would be able to see footprints in the mud in the dark, and who knew what else? Maybe the chicken farmer would think he was so clever and simply walk into the Beake woods while the girls wore the goggles. It could happen.

Bill had given Vee the responsibility to hang on to the goggles for a week.
Lord, it would be great to have it all over tonight
. All the families would be there to cheer the Squad and celebrate.

With twilight faded to true night, the girls switched on their goggles.

“Cool,” Vee said, rocking a center switch on hers. “I can see a lot better with this switch.”

“Bill is the coolest.” Sunny fiddled with her mask.

Looking up from arranging her own mask, Esther saw the red dot of light coming from Vee’s mask. “Turn that off!” she yelped, scurrying and thumping the rocker switch that sat across Vee’s nose.

“Ow!” Vee stepped back and promptly ran into Aneta, who stood behind her muttering about whether she had the right end up on her face.

“Ow!” Aneta echoed, ripping off her mask and also rubbing her nose. “Vee, you bumped my nose very much!”

“Well, Esther practically punched me in the nose. What did you
do
that for, Esther?” Vee’s voice was surprised, hurt.

All Esther could see were three lumpy goggles making her friends look like strange frogs from another planet. She wanted to snicker a bit, but when things were drastic, you couldn’t fool around. “C’mon, Vee. Because that switch shows right where you are. Bill told us in the garage. The chicken farmer would see you right away.”

Sunny, who had pulled on hers first and was darting around in the dark, crouching low and hiding behind trees, sidled up beside the other three. “Esther. We are practicing. We are not expecting to see that Awful Person. I mean, really, what would we do if we saw him? He probably still has his gun with him. All the night-vision goggles would do is show us the gun, and that’s not something I want to see better in the dark. In fact, I wouldn’t be seeing it ’cause I’d be running as fast as I could and using the goggles not to smack into any trees on my way to the house!”

Esther had tried to be patient, but now her hands fisted and planted themselves on her hips. She spoke very slowly. “We have to find final evidence that the chicken farmer is the one who slingshotted our owls. And all you guys want to do is complain!” Didn’t they see the importance? Vee not paying attention and playing around with something that could cause Big Trouble, as Sunny would say? The knot inside gave a tremendous pinch. Words she hadn’t planned on saying out loud spurted out of her mouth like, well, her lunch the day she tried to chop a mouse. “You all don’t care! You don’t care about our owls! Well, fine! I’ll just do it by myself!”

She pushed past Sunny who had stopped spinning and was staring at her with her mouth like an
O.
Vee’s brows slammed together. Aneta, who had put her mask back on, gave her an alien glance with blank black eyes, mouth turned down.

She would show them. She would find the last, best evidence. Then the girls would know how much the Squad meant to her, how she deserved to have a place in it. Then maybe, just maybe, they would miss her when she was—her lips quivered as she stomped into the trees past the flight
cages—gone
.

The moment she was on the far side of the cages, the quiet surrounded her like a big tent. It was strange to think that she “heard” quiet, but that’s what it was. With just her and the trees close together, the girls seemed a million miles away.

“And that’s what they will be when I’m gone. Might as well be a million miles away.” She heaved a big sigh that seemed to stick in her throat.
Look for clues
. If she could at least find the evidence for their last Squad mission…

After a few futile moments of circling trees, slowly raising the goggles up and down, backtracking to closely check the pens—apologizing to the occupants for disturbing them—Esther began to wonder. Why weren’t the girls coming after her?

It was a dumb question.

She was all alone because she’d made them hate her.
I was mean. I was bossy
. They liked Melissa better because she’s rich and acted niceynice to them. The weight of these thoughts bogged her down so much she sagged against the nearest pine tree and slid down to the ground until the bush in front covered her. Sure, the bark scraped her back, but who cared?