by Bill Doyle
Before I could ask, a glob of deep-fried eggplant bounced off the side of Harvey’s head with a SMACK! “Ow!” Harvey yelled and ducked in case more flying eggplant was on the way.
“No talking about yourself in the third person!” A voice cried out. I turned and recognized Jackie striding to our table with her tray. She looked great, and I felt my breath catch when she sat next to me.
“Hey, guys,” she said to Moonbeam and Harvey. “Apologies, Harvey, but you really have to stop with the ‘Harvey this, Harvey that’ stuff. It’s a horrible habit.” Jackie turned to me. “We met during that crazy challenge. But it’s all kind of hazy to me, including who won.” She smiled, and I knew she was kidding around. “So let’s start over. Hi, I’m Jackie Nelson.”
JACKIE STUCK OUT HER HAND.
That name was familiar. “Jackie Nelson?” I asked. “I know a JACK Nelson. He’s a journalist who writes for the PEOPLE’S PRESS newspaper.”
Jackie laughed. “I know him, too. He’s my dad.”
“Far out,” I said. She stuck out her hand as she had earlier. We finally shook. We smiled at each other.
Harvey made a cooing sound as if our little moment was very sweet. “You two are killing Harvey’s appetite.”
“I find dinner here does the same thing,” Moonbeam said, shoving the tray away. “Let’s start the protest.”
“Protest?” I asked. “What are you protesting?”
“Look at your plate,” she said. I did and shuddered at the sight.
“We’re going to have a sit-in out in front of the cafeteria to protest this food,” Moonbeam said. “Let’s go!”
I’m always one for bringing about change. I stood up with Moonbeam and Harvey. Jackie stayed in her seat. She shook her head. “I’m staying here.”
“Lighten up, Jackie,” Harvey said.
“Don’t give me a hard time.” she shot him a look tinged with anger. “You guys aren’t in my situation.” she looked glumly down at her tray.
what situation? I wondered.
Moonbeam patted her shoulder. “Okay, Jackie. The universe is at one with you.”
I was tempted to say I’d stay with Jackie. But she said, “Go on, Mal. Protest a little extra for me.”
Moonbeam, Harvey, and I went outside. A series of eight double doors lined the front of the cafeteria with a set of long steps leading down from them. About forty students were already gathered on the steps. When they saw Moonbeam, a few of the kids shouted hellos to her. A blonde girl wearing a “Flower Power” T-shirt said, “How’s the protest going to work, Moonbeam? A rally? A sit-in? A march?”
“A sit-in! Everyone sit down in a Line!” Moonbeam instructed. We all took a seat on the steps and linked arms.
Now what? I wondered. As if in answer, loud strains of music drifted across the lawn from the girls’ dorm. Someone must have pointed a stereo speaker out a window. A Bob Dylan song filled the air, and one or two kids started singing along.
Soon we were all swaying back in forth in time to the music and belting out the words. Even I was singing, in my crazy out-of-tune voice.
A cafeteria worker came out and said, “Not again! You kids, go on and get out of here!” We waved at him happily and sang louder. Next, a manager came out and announced, “I’m going to call my boss. You’re going to be sorry.” Still we sang on and on. The manager disappeared back inside.
The music from the girls’ dorm had stopped playing, but that didn’t silence us. Someone started singing a Rolling stones song, and we all joined in.
The stars began to pop out in the sky overhead, and a gentle breeze swept along the steps. We changed songs several more times and sang for about an hour. It was a great night.
And then it all changed.
A bald man wearing a bow tie scurried like a hamster down the sidewalk. He was carrying a megaphone that made a loud squeak when he put it to his lips. “My name is Mr. Newkirk! I am the owner of Country Girl Kitchen, which runs this cafeteria!”
Country Girl Kitchen? Why did that sound so familiar? And then I remembered: I had driven by their factory with its huge smokestacks the day before with my parents. It was about a mile away.
Mr. Newkirk warned us, “You children are blocking my place of business and therefore breaking the law!”
Everyone stopped singing and seemed a little worried. Moonbeam started chanting, “Two, four, six, eight, put real food on our plates!” After a few rounds, the rest of the kids joined in.
MR. NEWKIRK YELLING THROUGH HIS MEGAPHONE.
Mr. Newkirk turned up the volume on his megaphone. “YOUR FOOD IS MORE THAN ACCEPTABLE. DISBAND IMMEDIATELY! I HAVE CALLED YOUR SCHOOL PRESIDENT. LEAVE NOW WHILE YOU HAVE THE CHANCE. THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING.”
As if to prove his threat, a long gray sedan rolled up to the curb. Still chanting, we watched as a uniformed driver opened the back passenger door. Out stepped the head of the school, President Roust.
He was wearing a tuxedo, as if he’d just been at a fancy dinner or something. He reminded me of Santa Claus. He had a long white beard and puffy silver hair. Only his sour face made me think that President Roust probably never said, “Ho, ho, ho!”
At the sight of President Roust, the chanting died down.
He ignored us and said to Mr. Newkirk, “No reason to call the police. I’ve alerted campus security. They are more than capable of dealing with this situation.” He turned back to the sedan and said, “Isn’t that right, Judge Pinkerton?”
A woman, six feet tall in her heels and wearing a long purple evening gown, emerged from the sedan. Judge was here!
JUDGE WAS WITH PRESIDENT ROUST!
Some of my earliest memories are of Judge—she’d been a friend of my family’s forever. It was Judge who took me on my first camping trip when I was five. She helped me carve my first digging stick. And, even after being elected a federal court judge in San Francisco a few years back, she still found the time to hike with me about once a month.
Now looking as glamorous as ever with her silver hair swept up, Judge ran her gaze over the students. I knew who she was looking for. Me.
Our eyes met. Shaking her head, she gave me a small smile that spoke volumes: You’ve only been here a day, and now you’re already going to get kicked out.
I shrugged in an apology: I didn’t want to get in trouble, but we aren’t doing anything wrong.
Suddenly, Judge was blocked from my view. Four campus security guards wearing brown uniforms had stormed around the corner and were rushing toward us. Without any warning, they reached for us as if they were going to drag us physically from the steps.
“Stop!” A voice thundered. It was Judge. She was seventy-two, but she didn’t need a megaphone to make herself heard. “The law has given you no authority to touch these children. If you lay a single finger on them, you will be sorrier than you can possibly imagine.”
Her words caused the guards to jerk back their hands as if we were red hot. They looked at President Roust, wondering what to do next.
Judge walked over to him and said in a lower voice. “President Roust, these students are just expressing themselves. They’re not criminals you can drag off because they don’t agree with you.”
He shook his head sadly, as if disappointed in her. “I know as a judge you are famous for your sage advice. But in this instance, you are wrong.”
“We have to nip this in the bud!” Mr. Newkirk chimed in.
Judge stared at President Roust. “Why did you ask me to drop everything and come out here if you’re not interested in what I have to say?”
President Roust met her gaze for a moment and then looked down. “You’re on the board. I want you to understand why I will be making changes on campus in the coming days. The young people in this country are out of control.”
Judge shook her head. “Thus is happening at schools and soda shops across the country. Change is here, my friend, and you cannot stop it.”
This brought a huge cheer from the kids gathe
red on the steps. Judge shot them a warning glance and held up her hand, as if to say: Let me handle this.
“Fine,” President Roust said. “I thought we would agree about how to deal with this problem, Judge Pinkerton. But I see that is not the case. The guards will not touch the children. In fact, I will send them away.” He made two hand signals, and the four security guards left the steps and headed back down the sidewalk. “But I will take down each and every name,” he continued. “And these students will be placed on probation.”
There was a panicked gasp from the students. I was too stunned even to move. I was already on probation. It was one of the conditions of my acceptance here. If I got in any trouble whatsoever during my first two months, I would be expelled.
And I’d never make it to the Condor Sanctuary!
Judge opened her mouth but seemed to realize there was nothing more she could do. After leaning into the sedan and taking out a clipboard, President Roust walked up the steps and approached the kid furthest down the line from me. I watched him write down the kid’s name.
I was tempted to dart down the steps and try to escape—but I would be spotted too easily.
That’s when the door behind me cracked open with a soft CLICK.
I turned toward the noise and saw Jackie’s face peering through the door. “Come on, you guys!” she whispered. Moonbeam and Harvey had noticed her by now. The three of us started scooting backward very slowly.
President Roust was about ten kids away from us. “What is your name?” he kept asking Kim. But she was blubbering so hard she couldn’t talk. Finally, he handed her the clipboard and said, “Here, write it yourself.”
By now we had reached the door unnoticed, and one by one, the three of us slipped back inside the cafeteria. I was the last to go through the door and shot one last glance at Judge.
She was watching me. “Go!” she mouthed silently. “We’ll talk next time!”
I knew she meant we’d catch up when she came for her board meeting in a few weeks. I nodded to her and slipped through the door.
Back inside the cafeteria, I got to my feet. I turned to Jackie and said, “Thanks!”
She put a finger to her lips, indicating I should keep quiet, and pointed toward the kitchen. Most of the workers had gone for the night, but we could hear one or two people in the kitchen washing dishes.
“That’s the only other way out,” Jackie whispered, nodding toward two double doors in the back of the dining room. Without another word, we snuck back to them. I ducked through the exit first and found myself in an alley, surrounded by dumpsters filled with garbage. The sweet, sickening smell of discarded food filled the evening air.
I darted around a dumpster to rush down the alley—and ran smack into someone.
Behind me, Jackie let out a little scream of surprise. Harvey and Moonbeam appeared startled as well. I looked up at the person I’d bumped into.
It was Conrad. He was carrying two dripping plastic bags and looked deadly serious.
Before I could utter a word, he said, “You four are coming with me.”
WILDLIFE FORENSICS LABORATORY HEADQUARTERS
September 23, 1969
10:15 pm
The evening air was turning chilly. Mist from the warm earth rolled across the sidewalk as we trooped along behind Conrad toward Dulson Hall.
He led us to the trail we had taken earlier that day. But before we reached the bottom of the first hill, he turned right, splitting off on a different trail.
Were we in trouble for the protest?
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You’ll see, man,” Conrad answered and picked up the pace. The path snaked around rock outcroppings and clumps of trees—and led to the bottom of a steep hill.
I could still see Blanchard Hall’s bell tower poking above the closest line of trees. But this spot felt like it was a world away from the school. The trail ended at the door of a large, windowless structure about the size of a trailer home. It was made of huge white-painted cinder blocks. Vines and small trees blocked most of the structure from view.
A combination padlock hung unused on the latch. It rattled as Conrad pushed hard on the steel door, which opened with a sharp creaking. Inside the building it was pitch black.
“Welcome!” Conrad said grandly and leaned in to flick a switch. Nothing happened. His face sank a little. “Hang on a second. I need to fiddle with the fuse box.” Still carrying his plastic bags, he disappeared inside.
I couldn’t make anything out in there. I looked at the others. “What is this place?”
“Wildlife Forensics Laboratory Headquarters, or WFL HQ for short,” Jackie answered.
Harvey straightened his ascot. “Used to be a bomb shelter. They built it back in the fifties when everyone was panicking about the superpower; using the A-bomb to knock each other off the face of the planet.”
“In the last few years, the school basically abandoned it,” Jackie said. “Conrad convinced President Roust to let him use the shelter as a classroom. We’ll use it when it gets too cold to work outside.”
I said, “But what’s in there?”
As if to answer my question, Conrad shouted, “Got it!” and the lights blazed on. The four of us stepped through the doorway, and it was like walking into a dream.
The cinder-block walls of WFL HQ were covered with charts. They showed average amounts of rainfall, birth rates of nearby gophers, and other data from the wilderness. In between the charts, samples of different kinds of bark and leaves had been pinned to corkboards. Running along the far wall, I could see pictures of animal prints arranged in groups according to size.
The worktables displayed all sorts of things. Reconstructed skeletons of different animals. Weird fungi sprouting under glass lids. Bizarre insects scurrying about in aquariums filled with sand. Microscopes and stainless steel scales.
When I have my own house someday, I want it to be exactly like this place.
“This is just like a police crime lab,” I said in wonder.
“You got it, man,” Conrad said, beaming. “The only difference is that the victims here are animals. Did you gorillas know that not a single police station in the United States has a forensics lab for wildlife criminology? I’m going to change that—”
“Okay, Conrad,” Moonbeam interrupted. “Why are we here?”
“You have been acting very mysterious lately,” Jackie said, eyeing him. “Sneaking off and leaving us alone during challenges.”
Conrad leaned back against one of the counters. “Okay, time to get with the words. I think the wilderness is in big trouble.”
“What?” Harvey, Moonbeam, and Jackie said at the same time.
Holding up a hand as if to calm them, Conrad said, “For a while, I’ve noticed that the number of certain animals in the area has been going down. I thought someone might be stealing them to sell their fur or claws. So I started to keep track of creatures like foxes and mountain lions in this.” He removed a small notebook from his jacket pocket. “That’s why I’ve been going off on my own and searching the woods. I’ve been writing down the numbers of animals I find, but haven’t been able to find hard evidence of any wrongdoing. Except in one case.”
Conrad paused, looking at our faces. He said, “I’m starting to think someone is killing the birds, either on purpose or accidentally.”
The four of us stared at him, letting what he’d said sink in.
“Why didn’t you just tell us this before?” Jackie asked. “We could’ve helped. We’re not little kids.”
“That’s just it. You ARE kids, and that’s cool,” Conrad said. He gazed up at the ceiling for a second then back down at us. “I got drafted right after I finished college. When I served in the Vietnam war, I felt like I grew up too fast. So, I didn’t want to lay anything heavy on you kids. But now I think I was wrong. I could use your help.”
“You got it,” I said quickly.
“Just tell us what to do,” Jackie said.
He studied our faces for a moment. “Thanks, gorillas, I will. But first! Something to put us in a totally far-out, problem-solving mood.” Conrad flicked a switch on a record player. BLAM! The walls started quivering with the piercing screech of an electric guitar. I loved it.
“Whose music is this?” I asked Conrad.
“I heard this last month at Woodstock. His name is Jimi Hendrix.”
“You were at Woodstock?” I said, trying not to sound too jealous.
“Sure, man,” said Conrad, putting the two bags he’d been carrying on a worktable. “I stopped there just before coming out here. That’s where I met Sonny.”
I thought of the short, dark-haired guy who taught music. “Sonny, our music teacher?”
Conrad nodded. “I gave him a lift out here in my VW van. Thought he’d be perfect for the job.” He looked at Moonbeam, Harvey, Jackie, and me. “Just like I think you gorillas will be perfect for this one.”
We followed Conrad to a refrigerator in the corner. He opened the door, and Moonbeam cried out in shock. It was filled with small plastic bags. Looking more closely, I saw what had upset Moonbeam. There was a dead bird in each of the bags.
“There must be over fifteen birds in here,” Harvey said with a shudder.
“Yes,” Conrad said. “There are twenty-two. Creepy, huh?”
“It’s so sad….” Jackie seemed unable to take her eyes off them. “Where’d they come from?”
“The wilderness. I found them over the past two weeks. At first, I left the dead birds I found alone. But then, I started to come across so many, I decided I’d better collect them. They might be evidence of a crime. So I placed them in the bags and wrote the date and location of where I found them. The refrigeration keeps them from decomposing and preserves possible evidence.”
