Aneta’s mouth, opened in an O, matched Esther’s.
The Bird Lady chuckled a chirpy giggle. “I really wanted to help with the raptors when I was younger over in England. I begged and begged my brother—him already licensed, you see—and was getting rather peeved with him that he wouldn’t let me. Finally, after months of pushing me off, he said he would give me a test.” She arched her eyebrows at the two girls, then nodded at the dawning understanding that rolled across Esther’s face.
“Like he tested us!” So it wasn’t because he was just being mean and wanted them to fail.
“It was not to be mean?” Aneta was on the same page. Her face brightened. “Did you faint?”
Pressing her lips together as though she were trying to swallow back a laugh, the Bird Lady bobbed her head up and down. “And I threw up.” Her laugh burst out. The three hee-heed so loudly, the first group, nearly to the back french windows that led into the breakfasting room, turned to stare. Windows next to the many-paned french doors stood floor to ceiling with their crank-out glass. Today, of course, they weren’t open. Esther shivered in her coat, warming and chilling as the excitement built over what she would tell the S.A.V.E. Squad. She would find That Person.
“What’s so funny?” Sunny wanted to know, bouncing back to them.
“It is okay that I fainted,” Aneta explained, like it was supposed to be clear.
Esther smiled. “I have an idea on what we”—she gestured toward Aneta—“can do while you guys help with the owls.” She looked straight at Melissa. “I’ll tell you when it’s just the Squad.”
Did Melissa’s eyes narrow ever so slightly like Vee’s did when she was headed into a Vee Stare? It didn’t matter. No way was she going to tell the girls when Melissa was around that the Squad should find That Awful Person and make sure no other owls got hit with whatever.
“Oh, I’m glad you found something you can do, Esther,” Melissa replied.
Suddenly the Squad was on alert.
Sunny stopped bouncing around Aneta, Esther, and the Bird Lady and stood with her head cocked, looking back and forth between Esther and Melissa. Vee’s dark eyebrows were almost touching, she was frowning so hard. Aneta whispered, “Oh dear.”
With a dismissive shrug of her shoulder, Melissa glided up the two steps that led to the french doors. “Oh, girls, my dad is sending his driver to take me home. Why don’t I give you all a ride home? We”—her glance slid quickly toward Esther and then away—“might all fit.”
Her stomach flip-flopped. Esther knew exactly what Melissa meant. There would be room for the other girls, but not for her. She blurted, “Oh, that’s okay, Melissa. My mom is coming to take us home anyway. See you later.”
Hopefully a lot later.
Melissa’s ride arrived moments later after she spoke rudely into her smartphone. Before stepping into what Esther’s brothers had previously identified as a Cadillac Escalade, she cast her glance around to Sunny and Vee. “You girls sure?”
They shook their heads and stepped closer to Aneta and Esther. Then the big black vehicle splashed its way down the muddy driveway.
Esther’s satisfaction at seeing Melissa depart without a single member of the S.A.V.E. Squad in that fancy car morphed into full-blown panic. Three very bad things trashed her triumph. The first one was humongous—she hadn’t yet asked her mother if she would pick them up. Two—her mom would drive their minivan, which was older than any of the Squad’s cars and way older than the big black SUV that had just left.
The four girls were quiet, watching the back end of the vehicle. Then Vee said, still looking down the road, “Your mom doesn’t know she’s picking us up, does she?”
“N–nope.” Esther’s lower lip wobbled.
Aneta gasped, a hand flying to her mouth. “Gram does not like it when I ask her to do something when you all are around.”
“Yeah,” Sunny chimed in. “My mom’s reaction to that is usually no and a long talk about putting her on the spot.” She took her gaze from the long driveway, patted Esther’s shoulder, and said cheerfully, “You’re toast.”
That wasn’t the worst thing. The third worst thing? Sidney would be in that minivan with her irate mom. No way would her mother leave Siddy home with Toby.
Throwing up now seemed like the best part of this day.
Chapter 12
Hanging Around
Where do we start?” Aneta and Esther stood in front of the tree on Friday, where they had discovered the two injured owls the previous Saturday. And nearly got struck by lightning. Their bikes lay on the ground behind the tree. Esther had the monocular Byron had said she could use. She’d about dropped it in surprise the day he handed it to her with the gruff admonition to “not bash it around, if you please.” It was like binoculars only it had one lens instead of two. It made Esther feel like a pirate. She held it to her eye and looked up into the tree. No more owls. No pirates either.
Sunny and Vee had ridden in to the estate to help prepare the bird food for the day. No sign of Melissa. Esther hoped she’d already lost interest.
Today they hadn’t even needed their raincoats and wore low hikers, jeans, and school hoodies. Esther had borrowed Toby’s black beanie because it seemed a good clue-finding hat. Aneta wore winter gloves she called her clue-finding gloves. She was also wearing a bright yellow Cunningham Academy sweatshirt. So much for sneaking up on anyone.
As Esther left the house, Mom had been reading Siddy a Hey, Imogene! book. Sidney’s high-pitched voice was shouting “There is always a clue!” Imogene hollered this at one point or another in every Hey, Imogene! story. Sometimes the just-past-three-year-old would walk around saying it for days, looking for clues in places there couldn’t possibly be any. Like the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper. Well, why not do an Imogene?
Hands on her hips, she said matter-of-factly, “First, we look all around the tree. There must be something there besides feathers, gravel, and dirt.”
The two girls circled the tree hunkered down in spy mode. Esther spotted rolled dirt. At least that’s what it looked like. Some soft fluff caught in it waved in the breeze. Whipping out her plastic zip-top bags from the kitchen, she used a twig to roll three of them into the bag. Then she stuck the bag in her pocket.
“What is that?” Aneta inquired, straightening up.
“I think, not positive, that these are owl pellets.”
“Pellets.”
“What owls don’t use up comes out the other end.”
“Oh. Why do we want them?”
Esther laughed. “I don’t know—just wanted to use my zip-top evidence bags like a detective.” Maybe Byron could use them. Okay, now what? She stared at the ground, puffing her cheeks in and out. Sunny and Vee were doing important work. She and Aneta needed something big. When Esther groaned and rose, Aneta was regarding the upper branches of the tree. The immense tree. Esther’s heart sank. Having a clutching feeling over Aneta’s next words, Esther prayed what her father called a “grenade prayer.” Small and, she hoped, powerful. Please, oh please, Lord. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“I think we will have to climb the tree to see what there is to see.”
Esther opened her eyes and lowered her shoulders from her ears. Esther had climbed trees a time or two. Her discovery? She did not like to climb trees. She was short. Her legs were short, her arms were short, and her stomach got in the way. She liked to read under trees, and if she had her own iPad like she was always suggesting to her parents, she would have liked surfing the Net under the tree. But climbing trees? No.
“There must be something else we can do.” Esther walked around the tree again hoping to find something magically deposited from the last circle.
“Except I do not know how to climb a tree.” Aneta looked embarrassed. “Show me, and I will learn.”
Esther sighed. “Okay, you see that branch that’s just above your head? Wrap your arms around that and walk your feet up the tree until you can squoogle around the branch to
sit on the branch like a horse.”
In another moment Aneta was in the tree, beaming triumph. “Now I can climb a tree! Wait until I tell Mom and Gram and The Fam.” Aneta motioned her to join her in the branches.
“Now you come up, Esther. I can see forever.”
“I can’t.” Esther’s words sounded angry and ready for a fight. “My arms are too short to reach the branches. My legs are too short to swing up into the tree. I’m too fat.”
Bracing herself on branches, Aneta swung out into the air and dropped lightly to the ground next to her friend. “Then I’ll help you.” She looked at the two mountain bikes behind the tree. “I will put one of these bikes against a tree and really hold it hard, and you climb up that way.”
Sure. She could break her arms and legs, too. This last mission of the S.A.V.E. Squad was going to be the death of her. At least after she moved, the Squad wouldn’t have to worry about somebody being too fat to do their adventures with them.
“There.” Aneta had placed her bike, the taller of the two, against the tree. “I will help you onto the seat, and you can stand up from there.”
How had that tree sprouted twice as tall since Aneta first climbed it? Esther knew she couldn’t back down. Since she couldn’t cut up a mouse and Melissa could, and if she couldn’t climb the tree, that didn’t make her much use for anything. So climb the tree she would. The thought “or die trying” came to her mind, but she pushed it down into the pool of nerves jiggle-jouncing around in the bottomest bottom of her stomach.
As she lifted her leg up toward the seat, she once again discovered she was too short. She couldn’t get on the stupid seat to climb into the tree. She was about to turn around and tell Aneta to just forget it, she wasn’t good for anything and she might as well quit the Squad before she moved, when she saw Aneta had dropped to all fours like a pony.
“What are you doing?” Esther swallowed past the lump in her throat.
“Stand on my back, and then you can stand on the seat.”
“I’m too heavy. I’ll smush you if I stand on your back.”
“Not if you move really fast. One step on my back. One step onto this seat. One jump. Pull yourself into the tree.”
Easy for her long-legged friend to say. Esther did as she was told, and in a moment, with less skin on her elbows and knees and calves, she was breathing hard and in the tree. Not happy. But in the tree.
Since Aneta had been so nice about the tree-climbing help, Esther didn’t correct her that you couldn’t see forever. But you could see a really long ways. The black-iron fence ran out of sight to the left. In front of her now, the woods of the Beake estate spread out. In the distance, she could see the thin outlines of the flight cages, could see the edge of the carriage house.
“Sunny and Vee must still be helping Mr. Beake.” Aneta stood on a branch that grew out straight from the trunk. It put her waist at Esther’s head. Esther was standing on the branch with scratches and scraped-off bark. Maybe it was the branch the owls had been sitting on when they’d been hit?
Remembering the blood and the pathetic sounds the little owls had made that Saturday reignited Esther’s determination. No more messing around. She and Aneta would find that—that Awful Person. Mr. Beake would be happy, the Squad would help the owls fly again, and the last mission—here her throat prickled—would be a fantastic victory.
Next to “there’s always a clue,” another of Imogene’s favorite sayings was, “If you get down, look up!” Well, they were up and looking. Pulling out the monocular, she peered right. The long driveway to the mansion and forest to the right of that. As she peered toward the left, she noted a cluster of buildings—almost a straight line out from where the birds fell.
She pointed. “Look, Aneta. There’s a farm over there. Funny, I’ve never seen it from the road when we ride to Uncle Dave’s ranch. It must be right before that last curve to the ranch.” Rolling the top dial, she zoomed in and out but could see nothing more clearly.
“Maybe they have a clue!” Placing her hands carefully, Aneta stepped onto a branch that took her closer to the spikes of the fence. “Maybe someone saw something.” Another couple of sidesteps took her to the branch that protruded straight from the main trunk of the tree and hung out over onto Beake property about six feet off the ground. The metal spikes were now behind and underneath her. Those spikes made Esther think of the Middle Ages and weapons of warfare. No way did she want to fall on those spikes.
“Be careful, Aneta!” Esther narrowed her eyes. “Maybe that’s where that Awful Person lives.” The fastest way to get there was…Glancing down, she gulped. She didn’t want to think about the fastest way to get there.
“Here I go!” As gracefully as a ballerina, Aneta dropped onto the piney ground. “Come on, Esther!”
Esther edged her right foot out on to the same branch. Leaned her weight onto it. Tucked the monocular in her side pocket. The branch swayed slightly. She removed her foot. I can’t do it.
“Hurry, Esther. We must do our part. Once we have our clue, we can tell Sunny and Vee. Then the Squad will be together on this!”
“Let me just think for a minute—don’t rush me.” Esther reviewed the situation. She could slide back down the tree and lose more skin on her legs and elbows. Then she could ride on her bike with bleeding arms and legs down the road to where the turnoff had to be for this bunch of buildings.
Or they could wait until Sunny and Vee came back out on their bicycles, Aneta could walk out the gate, and they could all ride down the road to the turnoff. She could already imagine Vee’s upraised eyebrows at that turtle-slow plan. She moved several more steps out on the branch until she was the same distance Aneta had been when she jumped. Sunny would flat out ask why she didn’t just—
Jump.
While Aneta continued to wait, Esther’s eyes flickered back and forth as though seeing each choice. If she jumped, she could sprain her ankle and then they wouldn’t be able to investigate the buildings. If she jumped, she could die and then that would be the end of the last S.A.V.E. Squad mission. If she—
“Esther!” Aneta was finally sounding impatient. Aneta who was never impatient.
Esther jumped. The ground came up to meet her. It hadn’t been that far. All she had to do was land like Aneta told her—like a frog and then roll into a somersault if she hit the ground really hard.
Like a frog.
Somersault.
But what was this? Her body was falling backward a little. This was not good. She windmilled her arms. Backward was where greedy spikes of the fence waited. In another second, the neck of her hoodie shot to her chin, gagging her. Her hood! It was snagged on what could only be one or more of the spikes. Her backside bumped the fence, and there she hung, clawing frantically at the neck of her sweatshirt.
“Ahhh.” It was a croak. With both her hands pulling down, her breathing returned to normal. Sort of.
The question now? How to get off the spikes.
“Esther!” Aneta stood about a foot below, jumping up and down, waving her hands. “Are you okay, Esther?”
Esther’s shoulders jammed up under her ears made looking down impossible. No, she was not okay. About the only good thing about this entire thing was that Melissa was not around to see it.
“Hey! Esther!” called a familiar, smirky voice.
This was so not living the yayness.
“What are you doing?” More than one familiar voice. Sunny and Vee.
As Sunny would say, this was a major ughness. For a crazy second, Esther was almost glad she was leaving town.
Sunny and Vee sprinted on their bikes from the road to the tree. Melissa was hanging out of the Cadillac moving through the gate, her voice quite clear. “Really, Esther, is that the best you can do?”
Chapter 13
Not Even a Little Funny
You don’t think it was even a little funny?” Sunny was spinning in front of the other three, directing her question at a grumpy Esther.
&nb
sp; “I wouldn’t think so if I had to leave my hoodie on the spike.” Vee had come up with the idea that Esther put up both her arms and slide out of the hoodie. That had released her, but not her hoodie. None of the girls were tall enough to tweak it down. No branches long enough nearby either. Now the wind had picked up. Esther wrapped her arms around herself. Lord, why does this only happen to me?
With the now-familiar bitterness pinching again, Esther’s glare was her answer to Sunny. While Esther had been glad to see the other two girls as she wriggled on the fence spikes, it seemed that tight spot deep inside flamed angry every time one of the Squad members opened their mouth. She’d even yelled at Aneta when Aneta tried to push her up high enough on the spike to make the hood let go. What is wrong with me?
“I would not have liked to have Melissa say that to me.” Aneta slung an arm around Esther’s T-shirted shoulders.
It never would have happened to you. Or Vee. Or Sunny. Just me. The knot twisted tighter. She walked faster. They needed a clue, they needed it now, and she wanted to be the one to find it. So there.
“I think Melissa isn’t so bad, after you get to know her.” Sunny skipped farther ahead and spun. “I mean, she’ll, like, never be my best friend, but she likes to help the owls and the other birds. Could a person be mean and do that?”
Esther waited for Vee’s reply. Vee and she often butted heads, yet Esther liked how Vee told it the way it was.
“I don’t trust her,” was all Vee said, but it was enough that Esther’s shoulders lowered a bit from around her ears. Her sore shoulders that had been jacked up by the hoodie. By the hoodie still on the fence, blowing in the increasing wind. The wind that was very cold, thank you very much. She shivered.
With Esther trotting to keep up with the other girls, they were covering the distance to the building quickly.
“How are the owls doing?” Aneta wanted to know, smoothing down the long blond strands the wind picked up and tossed around.
“Has Melissa gotten to touch them?” Esther added. “Probably. She gets to do everything.” She pulled out the plastic bag. “We found owl pellets.”
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