NO ORDINARY OWL (4 page)

After one particularly deep hole that jounced everyone right, sending Esther into Vee and Vee into Aneta, who in turn smashed Sunny into the door.

The masked man muttered something about “fixing this good.”
Uh, Lord?

“You’d better let us out,” Sunny announced. “Vee gets major carsick. Esther, trade with Vee so she can have the window for when she hurls.” As she spoke, Sunny shoved Aneta and whispered, “Go between Esther and Vee.” Moving her long legs, Aneta hitched under Esther as Esther sprawled across the two girls on her way to Sunny’s side. What was Sunny up to?

Vee shot to rigidly upright. “I do n—,” she began. Aneta jammed an elbow into her ribs.

“Poor Vee does not ride good.” The English wasn’t so great, but Aneta was terrified and that’s when her English flew out the window.

“Oh, I do.” Vee rocked back and forth, emitting soft groans. “I puke everywhere. We’re talking projectile. Even my stepbrothers get grossed out.” She belched loudly.

Where had Vee learned
that?
Esther pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to give Vee away.

“I’m cold and wet, and this truck smells—”

It did smell. Like old wet animal something.

Whispering so hard in Esther’s ear that Esther shoved a shoulder up to protect her hearing, Sunny said, “When he stops for Vee, pull up the lock and fall out.”

Why me?
Esther twitched a look out at the gloomy woods, the muddy road pitted with puddles. Falling out would hurt. But then, being kidnapped wasn’t living the yayness.

Leaning forward between the seats, Aneta sneezed violently and wetly. “Ah’b catching a code.” She leaned back against Vee. “Ah’b gedding sick.”

The masked man shuddered and pulled up the hood on his raincoat, slowing down for another puddle. Steering with one hand, he opened a cell phone and punched a number with his thumb.

“You’d better meet me at the house. You have to help me take care of something.”

They
had
to hurry. He was calling his accomplice. Every criminal had an accomplice.

It helped that Aneta was in the game now. She
never
sneezed juicily. Aneta’s sneezes were dainty little “ah-choos.” Come to think of it, she’d never been sick.

He drove on. Vee belched and retched, and Aneta sneezed and coughed. Still he drove.

Drastic measures
. It was something her mother said when they were trying to get Siddy to stop repeating phrases.

The right front wheel of the truck slipped off the edge of a hole, and everyone fell toward the right again. Esther reached over Sunny, jerked up the lock, shoved open the door, and rolled over her friend out the door. Sunny leaped behind her and hit her behind the knees.

“Ow!” Esther yelped, momentarily pinned by the sturdy Sunny. In a flash, Sunny was off her and pulling her up.

“Run!
Run!”

The two girls pelted down the muddy road toward the gate. Looking back, they saw the brake lights of the truck blaze on, and then
it kept going
.

“This is Big Trouble.” Sunny moved to a sprint. “He’s so evil he wouldn’t stop. We have to get help.”

“Our bikes are under the tree!” Esther panted, trying to keep up with Sunny who played soccer with C.P., an eleven-year-old boy who lived across the fence from Aneta and was a good friend of the S.A.V.E. Squad. Esther avoided running. In fact, the only time she ran was when she was with the S.A.V.E. Squad. “We’ll go to Uncle Dave’s.”

“I—I…” Even Sunny was puffing in the rain. She skidded momentarily on a slippery spot in the road and waved her arms wildly to keep her balance. “There’s a farm before Uncle Dave’s. On this side of the road. I’ve seen it before.”

Even closer help. Good.

The gate loomed in the gray light. Now that it was getting closer to late afternoon than early afternoon, the gloom had increased.

“Oh, hurry!” Esther panted. What if her legs wouldn’t pedal when they got to the bikes? What if the fence had locked behind the truck? What if Vee and Aneta tried to save themselves and the wounded owls and Masked Man—? She wouldn’t go there. She and Sunny would save the day.

They reached the gate at the same moment a Volkswagen Bug, windshield wipers slapping furiously, turned off the county road and pulled in front of the gate. The headlights speared the girls into paralysis.

Was this help or worse—Big Trouble?

“Do we run?” Sunny looked miserable with her coat gleaming in the headlights. “It’s all woods. We could get lost and
never
get help for Vee and Aneta.”

Esther thought about all the books she’d read about kids who beat the bad guys. “Well, there’s two of us. One of—”

The door opened, and a tall, skinny figure swathed in an orange fluorescent poncho stepped out. “Sunny? Is that you?”

It was the Bird Lady from the community center! Esther looked at Sunny, eyes wide. It had gotten worse. The Bird Lady was in cahoots with Masked Man.

“What do we do, what do we do?” Sunny wasn’t asking a question. She was simply panicking, and Esther joined her. If they ran, the car could run them down. If they stayed to fight, they might have a better chance.

There was only one problem.

Esther had never fought anybody. Sure, she’d wrestled with her brothers, but that was never life and death. She was pretty sure Sunny hadn’t beaten anyone up either.

The woman fished under the poncho and withdrew something that she pointed at them. The girls hit the mud face-first. Immediately, the gate began to creak open.

Meeting Bird Man

B
ut he said you two had to ‘take care of something,’ and in the movies that always means bad stuff for the heroes.” Esther pulled off her soaking coat in the now-steamy Bug. In the backseat, Sunny leaned forward, resting her arms on the two front seats so she wouldn’t miss a word.

Bird Lady’s thin shoulders shook, and her voice held a tremble. “He meant he had injured birds to care for. That’s what Byron always says when he calls me. He tries to stay very calm, even though he’s worried for the birds.” She steered slowly around a full puddle smack in the middle of the driveway. They were headed to, it turned out, her twin
brother’s
house. “But he didn’t have time to say that he also had four girls who had taken over the truck and were threatening him.”

“We didn’t threaten him.” Esther felt it important to be accurate here.

“Apparently one of you said that your mother was a solicitor—or what you Americans call a lawyer—and that he’d better let them go.”

The two girls smiled big. “That’s our Aneta.”

“My brother was quite concerned that one of you would chunder all over him from the backseat. He said the impending doom was quite terrifying.”

The two were silent for a breath, then Esther said, “Is
chunder
British for puke?”

Bird Lady nodded.

“That’s our Vee! She was good. I thought she really would yak,” Sunny put in. “We only would have hurt him if he’d started hurting the birds.”

“Or us,” Esther agreed.

The shoulders shook again. “You girls must be very good friends with very good imaginations.”

“The Squaders are my best friends on the planet,” Esther said. Shivers shook her from deep inside. It had been pretty scary when the gate creaked open until Bird Lady’s voice bellowed out Esther’s name. Even then, it took Sunny and Esther a few minutes in the mud before the woman convinced them that Vee and Aneta were safe and the man with the mask was Bird Lady’s brother, Byron Beake, who was actually a hero. Esther didn’t get all of it since Bird Lady was speaking so quickly with her British accent, but it had something to do with animals and a fire and Byron being a hero. The mask had something to do with his face being burned.

Moments later, they made a final turn on the driveway, which had turned to muddy mush, and there it was. Not just a house. Tall, three stories, with a big porch and a rounded left side. A couple of shutters sagged crazily away from windows. Paint peeled off the area around the door. Lights glowed inside, yet it still looked like a place that would have a creepy butler.

“Wow.” Sunny leaned forward to get a better look. “That looks like some house in a scary movie.”

Beverly Beake put the Bug in P
ARK
, nodding. “Byron has a lot to do to fix it up. But he likes it because it’s—” She hesitated and then shook her head. “No matter. Let’s go see these wee owls.”

Shooting a glance at each other, Sunny and Esther trooped in behind Beverly, Esther sniggering to herself that they were following the
Bird
Lady, Beverly
Beake
. It seemed easier to call her Bird Lady than Beverly. At the extra-tall front door, Bird Lady turned the doorknob, the head of a snarling lion. She pushed open the heavy door.

Inside was a wide foyer with a room off to the left and firelight coming from the right.
What a place
, thought Esther as she and Sunny ran to meet Vee and Aneta who leaped up from enormous wing chairs by a fireplace that looked big enough to sleep in. The fire was piled high with large logs, sending out welcome heat. Esther couldn’t wait to stand in front of it. The chills were twitching her shoulders all by themselves.

Byron Beake, standing by the fire, muttered something that sounded like “hullo.”

“You’re here!” Aneta threw her arms around Sunny, squeezed her, and then did the same to Esther. “You are safe. We are safe. Mr. Beake says the owls need lots of help. He put them in his bird hospital.”

He had a bird hospital? She regarded the tall, spare man standing in the shadows at the edge of the fireplace, arms folded. He wasn’t smiling. Beverly laid her wet coat over a chair near the fire and watched her brother on the other side. She was smiling, like she knew a secret he didn’t.

So they had actually jumped in the truck of someone who could help? Another great S.A.V.E. Squad rescue. They
were
good. Living the yayness, as Sunny would say.

“Uncle Dave knows we’re here now, and he says, well—I guess we kind of got it wrong about Mr.
Beake.”
Vee was trying not to laugh. “We’re not in danger.”

Esther couldn’t blame her.
I mean really…Beake?
Were Vee and Aneta wondering about the mask? How could they not be?

“Now that we’re here, what do we do to help the owls?” She’d made it to the fireplace. Oh, it was toasty. She wondered briefly if Mr. Beake had supplies for s’mores.

The Bird Man’s long nose twitched as his lip curled.

“Byron.” Beverly’s voice held a warning. She moved to stand next to Esther by the fire. “I’ve heard about these girls in town. They—”

“They aren’t getting within ten miles of my owls.” While the girls filled each other in, he hadn’t said a word; now this single sentence was icy clear.

“Your
owls?” Vee’s dark brows slammed together…the look Aneta had dubbed the Vee Stare gathering on her face.

“But…” Aneta’s voice trailed off. She looked at the other girls, her expression asking,
Did I hear what I think I heard?

His
owls? Those two bitty owls were
their
owls. Esther frowned and placed her hands on her hips. Before she could correct him, however, Byron had risen and was moving toward a door at the back of the room.

“Take them home, Beverly,” he said, tossing the words over his shoulder. When Vee began to speak, he spun around and stabbed a long, bony finger at each girl, punctuating his words. “Don’t. Ever. Come. Back.”

Something’s Up

I
know you’re going to say life’s not fair, Dad, but it was really
really
not fair that Masked Man kicked us out and we had to leave those hurt baby owls with him!” Anger choked Esther’s throat so she couldn’t swallow the mouthful of chicken rice casserole. As soon as she’d gotten home, her mother made her take a long hot shower and pull on fleece pj’s. No more shivering.

Her father, who called himself “Mr. Medium with a Big God,” regarded her with his medium brown eyes. They matched his medium brown hair. Taking another forkful of the peas that accompanied the casserole, a smile hovered over his lips before he inserted what Toby called “the usual” Saturday dinner.