Case of the Barfy Birthday

by Michele Torrey

  Zoe frowned. “I still don’t get it. Why would chicken salad make people sick?”

  “Bacteria,” said Nell.

  “Bacteria?” asked Zoe.

  “Germs, if I may be so blunt,” said Drake. “Bacteria, or germs, are tiny organisms that live everywhere. They can make people sick.” Drake rolled up the chart and began to pace. “You will recall that yesterday was rather warm.”

  “Hot, in fact,” added Nell. “Bacteria love to grow where it’s warm.”

  “After a few hours of sitting in the hot sun,” said Drake, “the bacteria multiplied and multiplied until the chicken salad was loaded with them. One bite would have made anyone sick.”

  “So I did poison everyone!” Zoe moaned. “I’ll get life in prison for sure!”

  “It’s called food poisoning,” said Drake. “Easily prevented by keeping hot food hot and cold food cold. Never warm. Unless you eat it right away. And, of course, everyone knows to wash their hands frequently. Preparing food with dirty hands is the leading cause of food poisoning.”

  After giving Zoe a few more important food-serving tips, they spied the doctor talking with Mrs. Jackson. Drake and Nell hurried over.

  “So glad you’re here,” Drake and Nell said to the doctor. They shook her hand. They quickly explained the problem, raising their voices to be heard over the chorus of barfs. They gave her the chart, plus their business card.

  “Fine work, Doyle and Fossey,” said the doctor. “You’ve saved us a lot of trouble. As busy as we are today, I don’t know if we’d have made the connection. We’ll test the chicken salad for bacteria, and meanwhile start the appropriate treatment. Your friends should feel much better in a day or two. Of course we’ll notify the proper authorities.”

  “The authorities!” cried Zoe. “Oh my gosh, I’m going to prison over chicken salad!” And she crumpled on the floor in a heap of trench coat.

  The doctor looked confused. “Uh—no, actually, I was talking about the public health authorities. They like to know about food-poisoning outbreaks. Anyway, job well done, Doyle and Fossey. I’ll take it from here.”

  That evening before dinner, Drake wrote in his lab notebook:

  Case of the Barfy Birthday Solved. Never underestimate bacteria. Received Zoe’s recipe for health shake. (YUCK. MUST SHRED RECIPE BEFORE MOM FINDS IT.)

  Paid in full. (I THINK.)

  It was a rather warm Saturday morning and, once again, Drake was busy in his laboratory. On this particular occasion, he carefully swabbed his nose. (On the inside, to be scientifically precise.) Then, lifting the lid of the petri dish, he rubbed the swab over a jellylike substance.

  “There,” he said with satisfaction, closing the lid. He put the petri dish in the incubator, washed his hands, and scribbled in his lab notebook:

  Goober extraction complete.

  Bacteria should grow quite nicely.

  Check in 24 hours.

  Just then, Mrs. Doyle popped her head around the door. “Dr. Livingston is here to see you.”

  “Send him in,” replied Drake.

  Dr. Livingston trotted in. Drake scratched behind Dr. Livingston’s ears and said, “Good boy.” Then Drake withdrew a note from the pouch that hung around Dr. Livingston’s neck.

  “Y5X6.Y4X3.Y3X2.Y2X6.Y4X5.Y3X2.Y2X5.Y1X6. Y3X4.Y5X6.Y3X5.Y5X3.Y1X5.Y3X4 . . .” began the note. (Of course, to anyone else, it would look like gibberish. But Drake was a detective, and a fine detective at that. And, like all fine detectives everywhere, Drake was never without his code book.) Wasting no time, he whipped his pencil out from behind his ear and got to work. Soon he had the message decoded. It read:

  Detective Doyle,

  A terrible tragedy is at hand. Meet me at

  Nature Headquarters ASAP.

  Signed,

  Naturalist Nell

  Drake pushed up his glasses. “A terrible tragedy is at hand!” he exclaimed. “We must hurry to Nature Headquarters!”

  Woof!

  • • •

  Now, in case you think Nature Headquarters was nothing special, think again.

  Enormous leaves dangled from papier-mâché trees. Chameleons changed colors. Hamsters took hamster naps. Ants scurried about. And fruit flies hatched. You see, Nature Headquarters was the code name for Nell’s bedroom. Everything there had to do with nature. (This was only natural, as naturalists love nature.)

  Drake moved a few vines. He wiped the steam off his glasses. Then he took a deep breath (of swamp gas, snake breath, and iguana toots), braced himself for the worst, and said, “Tragedy, you say?”

  Nell sat at her desk, her mouth in a thin line. Beside her, under the lamp, was a small box. “A terrible tragedy,” she replied.

  “How so?”

  “See for yourself.” And she opened the box. Inside were six baby birds, nestled in a soft bed of grass. “There were eight hatchlings,” said Nell, “but two of them have died already. These six are barely alive.”

  “Poor things,” murmured Drake. “A terrible tragedy indeed.”

  Woof, said Dr. Livingston sadly.

  “Where did you find them?” asked Drake.

  “That’s just it,” said Nell, scratching her head. “Someone dumped them on my doorstep, box and all.”

  Drake gasped. “No note?”

  “Nothing. My mom tripped over the box on her way to a wildlife convention. She wanted to help me, but had to hurry off and give a speech. She said to feed the hatchlings mushed-up fish and water, which I did.”

  “So now what?” asked Drake.

  Nell got out her magnifying glass and examined the hatchlings. “From what I can tell, these are baby terns.”

  “Terns?” Drake pushed up his glasses.

  Nell began to pace, moving vines and leaves. Dr. Livingston paced beside her. “You see, Detective Doyle, terns are related to gulls.”

  “Ah yes, Naturalist Nell,” murmured Drake. “Gulls like to live by water, such as the ocean, or rivers, or lakes perhaps—”

  “Correct,” continued Nell. “So do terns. But this is no ordinary tern. No, indeed. The fact of the matter is, this species of tern is very rare.”

  “Rare, you say?” Drake took another peek into the box.

  “When even one of these terns dies, it’s a tragedy.”

  “What do you propose?” asked Drake.

  Nell stopped her pacing and put her hands on her hips. “We must investigate Sand Island.”

  “Sand Island?”

  “It’s the nearest tern nesting site for a hundred miles.”

  Drake thought hard. “And you think something’s gone wrong at the nesting site? Trouble perhaps?”

  “Precisely,” said Nell. “How else would someone have tern hatchlings? We must leave immediately. Doyle and Fossey to the rescue!”

  Sand Island was, quite simply, made of sand. It was an attractive place . . . if you happened to be a tern. Really, there was nothing to be seen. No trees. No rocks. No shrubs. No nests.

  And not a single tern.

  Nell and Drake stepped out of the boat. (They’d left Dr. Livingston behind on the shore with Mr. Doyle. You see, while both Drake and Nell enjoyed Dr. Livingston’s company immensely, they knew that dogs don’t mix well with birds and hatchlings and nesting sites.)

  Nell had brought the six hatchlings, hoping to reintroduce them to nests. But now she left the box in the boat and just shook her head. “The tragedy deepens.”

  “Indeed,” said Drake.

  “Where have all the terns gone?” she asked. “And why? Normally they dig a shallow depression in the sand for their nests, but I don’t even see any of those.”

  “It’s a mystery,” said Drake. And he whipped a pencil out from behind his ear and opened his lab notebook, ready to investigate this most tragic mystery.

  And so, like good detectives, they began to snoop.

  “Hmm,” murmured Nell as she examined some footprints with her magnifying glass.

  “Aha,” said Drake as he carefully too
k a sample of charred wood and placed it in a plastic bag for later analysis.

  “Tragic,” Nell said as she found a beer bottle here, a cigarette butt there, and used fireworks everywhere.

  And just like that, their investigation was over.

  The answer was simple. Tragic, but simple.

  As soon as they finished strapping the boat onto the car, they climbed in and told Mr. Doyle about the deepening tragedy.

  “That’s terrible,” he said. “What’s next?”

  Now, normally, this is an excellent question. But on this particular day, knowing what they knew, it was a tragic question. Because there was no easy answer. Drake and Nell just looked at each other and sighed sadly.

  “I don’t know,” Nell finally answered, gazing out the window. “This case has taken a turn for the worse.”

  Then, just as Mr. Doyle turned left on Main Street, Drake and Nell got what you might call a lucky break.

  There, flying high in the sky, was an adult tern.

  “Oh my gosh!” cried Nell. “Follow that tern!”

  “Roger that!” said Mr. Doyle.

  “And step on it!” cried Drake.

  “Check!” said Mr. Doyle. They peeled around this corner and that, up one street and down another, all the while following the tern. (Mr. Doyle, as you know by now, was quite handy for turning sharply, stepping on it, and peeling around corners.)

  Finally, they screeched to a stop in front of Barko’s SuperMart.

  They gasped at what they saw. Hundreds of terns were nesting on the roof, flying around, and living the bird life. “We’ve found them,” whispered Nell.

  “Target acquired,” said Drake.

  “They must have nested on the roof because they couldn’t live on Sand Island anymore,” said Nell. “A flat gravel roof was the best they could find.”

  Drake and Nell and Dr. Livingston hopped out of the car. Nell had the box of hatchlings under her arm. Just then, a friend from class came running up to them, looking quite frantic. Her name was Willow Barko, and her father owned Barko’s SuperMart. Willow was a friendly girl, always passing out sale flyers. She knew all about merchandising and clipping coupons and how to choose a cart without squeaky wheels. “Did you get my note? Did you get my note?” cried Willow.

  “What note?” asked Nell.

  “The one I left with the box of baby birds, asking you to take care of them and telling you to come quickly!”

  Drake frowned. “Must have blown away. No matter. The important thing is, we’re here now. How can we be of assistance, Ms. Barko?”

  “This way!” she cried, and off she ran.

  Drake and Nell exchanged glances and then ran after her. Willow stopped outside the entrance and pointed up. “The poor little hatchlings keep falling off the roof. I gathered up all the live ones, but they need your help or more will fall. I don’t know what else to do!”

  “We’ll need a ladder,” Nell said simply.

  And without further ado, they propped a ladder against the side of the building and climbed onto the roof. (Dr. Livingston waited patiently below, picking a nice spot in the shade.) Scrappy nests were everywhere, scraped together with dirt, debris, and gravel. In the nests were tiny brown eggs and fluffy hatchlings. Adult terns flew around, some of them with fish in their beaks. Squawks and cheeps and flurries and flutters filled the air.

  “Hmm,” said Nell, walking carefully. “Notice how the adults must leave to find food to feed their chicks? There’s nothing to stop the chicks from tumbling over the edge while their parents are gone.”

  Drake nodded, loosening his collar. “Not only that, but it’s quite toasty up here. And there’s zero shade for the hatchlings.”

  “Excellent observation, Detective Doyle.” And, after putting on some gloves, Nell took the hatchlings from the box and placed one chick in each of six nests. “The best thing is to put them back into nests that already have hatchlings,” she told Willow. “The adult birds will adopt the babies and take much better care of them than we can.”

  “But how will we keep more babies from falling off the roof?” asked Willow.

  “Excellent question, Ms. Barko,” said Drake.

  And after conferring with one another, Drake and Nell and Willow hatched a plan.

  With help from the employees and from caring shoppers, they put their plan into action. Working as a team, they carried supplies onto the roof. And under Drake and Nell’s direction, they built a low mesh fence all the way around the roof edge. They worked all afternoon, taking only one little break for iced tea and doughnuts fresh from Barko’s Bakery. Finally, they added concrete blocks here and there to provide a bit of shade for the hot little hatchlings.

  “Just right,” said Drake, quite satisfied. “Now the hatchlings can’t fall off the roof, and they have a bit of shade besides.”

  By the time they climbed down, a small crowd had gathered, including a reporter from the Mossy Lake Daily Word. “Doyle and Fossey, what can you tell us about Barko’s bird invasion? Are the hatchlings really underfoot?”

  (Now, you might think that this would be a little unnerving, but remember, good scientists are always prepared. Even when the cameras are on them. And microphones are in their faces. And everyone’s looking at them for answers. And not just any answers. The right answers.)

  First Nell cleared her throat. Then she told the reporters about the terns, and how rare they were. She told them about how the hatchlings couldn’t fall off the roof any longer because of the fence. (Dr. Livingston made a few comments as well.)

  Then Drake told them how he’d added a spot of shade here and there. “Furthermore, the terns normally nest at Sand Island. But not anymore.”

  “And why is that?” asked the reporter.

  “Habitat destruction,” answered Nell. (Arf!)

  “Come again?”

  “You see,” Nell continued, “Sand Island is a very delicate habitat. But people have invaded it, throwing parties, having weenie roasts, letting their dogs run on it, and who knows what else. Very simply, the birds had to move out. Habitat destruction is the leading cause of wildlife extinction.” (Woof!)

  “Oh,” said the reporter. “That’s terrible. What can be done to help the terns of Sand Island?”

  Nell and Drake looked straight at the camera. This was their moment.

  “The first order of business,” said Drake most seriously, “is to clean up our act.”

  “Namely,” added Nell, “clean up Sand Island and make it a place where the terns will come back to. We can lure them back with decoys and recorded tern calls. It’s worked elsewhere; it can work here, too. I’ll get my mom, Professor Fossey, to help us.” (Ruff!)

  “And after this,” finished Drake, “leave Sand Island for the birds.”

  “One more thing,” said Nell, turning toward Willow. “Special thanks to Willow Barko for bringing this most terrible tragedy to our attention.” (Arf! Arf!)

  “And thanks to Doyle and Fossey for such a happy ending,” said Willow into the microphone. Then she waved at the camera, smiled sweetly, and added, “Barko’s. The place to shop till you drop. Where the doughnuts are fresh and the people are friendly.”

  All in all, it was a happy turn of events.

  At home, Drake wrote in his lab notebook:

  Mystery of the Orphaned

  Hatchlings solved.

  Had us worried there for a

  while. Habitat destruction a

  nasty habit. Will work to clean

  up our act.

  Received a baker’s dozen of

  Barko’s donuts.

  Paid in full.

  Early one Saturday morning, just as Nell was collecting data on hamster naps and gerbil snoozes, the phone rang.

  Always the professional, she answered after the first ring. “Doyle and Fossey.”

  “Oh my gosh, I’m, like, so glad you’re there. We’ve just had a totally awful night.”

  “Awful?” asked Nell, putting aside her noteboo
k. “Who is this? And who is we?”

  “It’s, like, Valerie Applegate, who else?”

  “Oh, hi, Valerie.” Valerie was in Nell and Drake’s class. Valerie was the sort of girl who was always fashionably late. Valerie never scraped her knees. Or burped. Or broke a fingernail. Or accidentally wore mismatched socks. In other words, Valerie was cool. Now, being cool was all right with Nell, but Valerie was also a snob. She had her own group of snobs, too. Usually snobs like Valerie didn’t call scientists like Nell, so Nell knew this had to be important.

  “What can I do for you, Ms. Applegate?” asked Nell.

  Valerie paused and then spoke with a rush.

  “Last night, you know, I, like, had some friends over to spend the night in my tree house? And we were, like, totally haunted.”

  Nell frowned. “Haunted? What do you mean?”

  “Like, hello, haven’t you ever heard of a ghost?”

  Nell’s heart tumbled in her chest. A ghost! She’d had a ghost case before, and it was no laughing matter. “We’ll be right over,” Nell said firmly. “You can count on us.”

  As soon as she hung up, Nell phoned Drake. “Ghost haunting at Valerie Applegate’s tree house. Meet me there ASAP. No laughing matter.”

  “Check.”

  Click.

  Like most tree houses, Valerie’s tree house was, well . . . in a tree. Nell and Drake stood looking up, notebooks open and pencils ready.

  “Take it from the top, Ms. Applegate.”

  Valerie stood beside them chewing a big wad of Snob Gob Gum. “Anyway, like I said, me and my friends? We were having this totally rockin’ slumber party. And, like, well . . .”

  Nell was astonished when Valerie’s voice began to shake. “. . . We were, like, sitting there talking, when a blast of cold air hit me on the back of my neck. I mean, I’m not just talking about cold air, I’m talking about totally frigid air.” Valerie shivered. “My grandpa said, that’s, like, how ghosts feel when they’re close to you. You know, the frozen dead. Corpses from the grave and stuff like that.”