Summer of the Spotted Owl

by Melanie Jackson

  Sean uttered a yelp that startled Madge into veering her pencil wildly off course. The hang glider on her page transformed into a lightning bolt. Sean moaned, “There’s no use phoning Mom. On my instructions, she lets every call go straight to voice mail. It was all part of my decision to become a hermit for the summer.”

  “Why bother?” Madge asked, erasing the jagged line she’d made. “With your personality, I’m sure people give you a wide berth in any case.”

  Sean’s eyebrows flipped up. He seemed about to snap back some equally huffy retort—then he noticed, really noticed, my sister. His face softened into the silly, droopy expression that comes over so many males at the sight of Madge. He mumbled weakly, “I don’t suppose I could offer you a T-shirt to rip.”

  Madge started to say something icy, but I interrupted her. “Earth to Sean. We have to stop Rowena from signing away her house, remember?”

  Sean shook his head, the top of which was sunburning to Madge’s least favorite color. “There’s no way. By the time we take the tram down, and even if we peel at breakneck speed to the bus—naw, it’s useless.”

  I rolled my eyes despairingly. They came into contact with Itchy, mournfully stuffing used plates and uneaten food into a big green garbage can. Every once in a while he’d pause and scratch vigorously.

  Itchy wasn’t the greatest guy. He’d played some pranks on Rowena even though he’d known it was wrong.

  On the other hand, he’d felt guilty about it. He wasn’t all bad. And as Jack said, You find your allies where you can.

  “It’s not useless,” I told Sean.

  “No.”

  “You have to, Itchy. Otherwise, you know what will happen to Rowena’s house.” I made exploding noises at the back of my throat.

  Itchy stuck the handle of his spatula down the back of his T-shirt for a good scratch. “You can’t go on a hang glider, Dinah. You’re underage. Then there’s the little matter of my life. It’s been miserable lately, but it’s the only one I’ve got.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’d lose it. Dad would kill me.”

  “He’s going to be in too much trouble to kill you, Itchy. Besides, this is your chance to stand up to him. To stop taking orders from him.”

  I picked up an uncooked hot dog and wagged it. “Now admit it,” I said. “You haven’t liked the orders he’s been giving you. That’s why you’ve been so miserable.”

  A man bellowed at us over the barbecue, “What is this, a family therapy session? Are you serving hot dogs or not?”

  I tossed the uncooked hot dog so that it bounced on his plate. I told Itchy, “By doing this, you’ll be making up for those pranks you played on Rowena.”

  Scratch, scratch!

  “I’ll take that as a no,” I said. “Fine. I’ll just grab a glider myself and hang glide solo down to Rowena’s.”

  I started marching away.

  “Wait!” Itchy exclaimed. He bounded after me. “You don’t know how to hang glide.”

  I shrugged to show how laughably unimportant this tiny detail was.

  “Are you bluffing me?” he demanded.

  Of course I am, silly.

  “Certainly not.” I resumed marching.

  Itchy let out a loud, agonized moan.

  I beamed at him. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  By the time Itchy finished outfitting me, I was a cross between an astronaut and an Egyptian mummy. Inside the High Spirits staff-only tent, he’d bundled me into helmet, goggles, bulky vest and squishy, cushion-like, reserve parachute, which he strapped to my back.

  “What’s a reserve parachute?” I mumbled into the neck of the oversize white turtleneck he’d given me to wear.

  “Think of the hang glider itself as your main parachute,” Itchy explained, with nervous glances over his shoulder. He was terrified a High Spirits colleague would come in and discover me.

  Itchy drew a triangle in the air. “The stiff tubes and cables on the hang glider’s underside maintain the wing shape so the glider can float on air currents.”

  Then Itchy buckled the strap of my helmet with a loud snap! that made him jump. “My nerves!…Here, put on these goggles. Normally riders don’t wear a reserve parachute unless they’re up several thousand feet. Which we’re not going to be today. But given your age…”

  Afraid he was about to erupt into another agonized moan, I asked hurriedly, “So where is our hang glider?”

  The nervousness left Itchy’s thin features. He broke into a fond smile. “Ah. You mean Old Red.”

  I grew pretty hot wandering around in all that gear. Itchy wouldn’t even let me remove the goggles. With luck, he said, people would assume I was old enough to be a glider rider, just abnormally short.

  I contemplated a rude reply while waiting for Itchy to drag Old Red, a fiery-colored hang glider, from the back of his orange Volkswagen van.

  “Old Red was what I was going to name my Irish setter, if I was ever allowed to have one,” Itchy confided. “Dad never did let me have a dog, because of our allergies. Also, Mom said a dog’s claws would scratch up our marble foyer.”

  I thought of our carpets at home, so clawed up by Wilfred that threads stuck out. I wouldn’t have traded our cowardly cat for a carpet in good condition any day.

  Itchy carried Old Red lovingly toward the nearest hill. “Note her aluminum struts,” Itchy said, running a finger along bars inside the fabric. “These new models eliminate the need for supporting cables.”

  Itchy shoved the horizontal bar into my hands with instructions to hold it straight. And with that, I was supporting the hang glider. The horizontal, or “control,” bar was actually the base of a metal triangle. “This is what you use for steering,” Itchy explained.

  The hang glider wasn’t heavy. My school knapsack, stuffed with books, lunchbox, cds and Deathstalkers comic books, weighed a lot more.

  “What a drag,” Itchy commented, attaching straps to the back of my vest.

  “Look, I’m sorry it’s a drag to you, Itchy, but we have to stop the sale of Rowena’s—”

  “Not that type of drag,” Itchy said, harnessing himself into straps. “Drag is the friction resulting from the air molecules we’ll meet while gliding. Air over the wing creates lift, which carries us up. Gravity draws us back to earth and pushes us forward at the same time, meaning that air continues to flow over the wing. Today there’s good drag. Understand?” For the first time since I’d known him, Itchy looked happy. The smile that spread over his thin features was blissful. Truly out-of-this-world.

  “Sure, I understand,” I gulped. Soon I’d be out of this world myself. Far, far out of it.

  “To be honest,” I said, “my impulse right now is to run.”

  “Excellent,” Itchy praised. “Three, two, one, GO!”

  He, too, grasped the control bar. Before I realized what was happening, we were sprinting down the long hill. “Let’s build up to at least fifteen miles an hour,” Itchy shouted. “Then we’ll generate enough air over the glider’s surface.”

  How did I get myself into these things? The grass was turning into an emerald blur; I couldn’t possibly keep running this fast. I suddenly decided that I really was too young to hang glide. But the onrushing air was in my face like a heavy blanket, flattening my lips before they could move. Trees spun past. I couldn’t keep this up… couldn’t…

  And then, all at once, I didn’t have to. The powerful currents of air lifted the glider. My feet flew up behind me. Itchy and I were coasting gloriously above the craggy, fir-packed sides of Grouse Mountain, just like the glider riders Dad and I used to look up, up at.

  The crowds fell far beneath us. The tramline dwindled to a thread; the building at the base of Grouse Mountain might have been a Frisbee. All around us was blue sky, with the sun winking over the west, above the golden Pacific.

  We’d left something else beneath. Noise. Where we were, all was silent. A poem I’d once had to memorize came back to me, about a pilot fly
ing so high he felt he’d touched the face of God. I thought I knew what the poet had meant. This sense of peace—even to me, with my less than peaceful personality.

  On the ground I would have bellowed out a loud thank-you to Itchy. Here I just grinned and mouthed, Thank you.

  He nodded. Watch this, he mouthed back and pushed the control bar forward. We tilted up—and slowed, almost suspended.

  A seagull soared and swooped, coaxing us, I thought, to join him in his acrobatics. When we didn’t, he uttered a disgusted squawk and wheeled down to Burrard Inlet.

  “Isn’t this spectacular?” shouted Itchy.

  “Yes!” I shouted back and thought, Dad, Dad, look at me!

  Because with God so close, Dad couldn’t be far off either. Even if Dad hadn’t been angel material in his lifetime, God would have forgiven him by now. I had, I suddenly realized—and, like I say, I was nowhere near as serene as God.

  These serene moments were pretty productive. I realized something else. “Know what?” I shouted at Itchy. “You haven’t scratched once since we got Old Red from your van. And I’m just as covered in cat hair as I always am.”

  Itchy didn’t answer. Instead he pulled the control bar toward us, and we angled downward, gaining speed. Whisssh! We plunged from the flawless, quiet blue to skim over treetops. Itchy bent the control bar left; we glided on a curve, following the bends of Capilano Road. Then another veer to the left and we were on Marisa Drive.

  “It’ll be a rough landing—I gotta come in at a steep angle,” shouted Itchy.

  The Urstads’ neat lawn zoomed up at us, first pocket-handkerchief-sized, then an enormous green square on which I could see every blade of grass.

  “Whoooaaa!” I yelled. Those blades of grass were stretching up to us and my ears popped.

  I let out another rip-roaring yell. A shriek shot back up to me in response: Zoë, just getting out of her pink convertible. We weren’t too late!

  Zoë dove from the car. Itchy’s feet slammed into her pink-suited rear end, sending her splat! onto the street.

  The glider’s left wheel smashed against the convertible’s front window; a jagged line cracked down the glass. The wheel, now broken, dangled half on, half off.

  “One-wheel landing!” shouted Itchy. He wrenched the control bar to the right. We hit Rowena’s lawn sideways, bounced, hit it again and rolled to a halt. The red nylon sagged around us like a pup tent.

  Outside the red nylon, Zoë continued shrieking. Itchy’s happy expression vanished as if wiped away by a particularly bristly scrub pad. “Okay, Dinah,” he mumbled.

  “This is your chance. Go tell Rowena about Zoë and my dad’s plans. Make one of your big, Dinah-mite scenes.”

  Itchy gave his rib cage a good scratch through his cushiony jacket. Bzz, bzz!

  “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you, Jack,” came Rowena’s voice. “Sounds like there’s a large wasp under there.”

  “More like a short Roman Catholic, I suspect,” Jack responded grimly.

  Jack! What was he doing here? Oh, no.

  I had a moment to address Itchy. “Listen,” I hissed, “I’d love to make a big scene. Big scenes are what I live for. It’s probably part of the reason I sing so loudly. All my life I’ve felt like there was an orchestra just behind my lungs, ready for any chance to break out in full symphony along with me. To help me fill all the air on the planet with my feelings.”

  Bzz, bzz! Itchy studied me thoughtfully. “You’re weird, you know that?”

  I whispered impatiently, “You know why you’re so itchy, Itchy? You’re not allergic to cats. You’re allergic to being forced to do things you know are wrong. You make the big scene. Show ’em you’re not going to be shoved around anymore.”

  “I’ve never even made a tiny scene,” Itchy objected.

  The moment was over. Either he’d stand up to Zoë or he wouldn’t. I’d done my part.

  Besides, Jack had to be ready to yank the hang glider off us. I couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t so far.

  I struggled into crouching position and, still harnessed to Old Red, waddled off with the red nylon as a cover.

  “Ummm,” said Rowena from behind me.

  “It’s okay,” Jack told her. “Strange, but okay.”

  “YOU!” Zoë screeched at the now-visible Itchy. “Of all the…wait’ll I…”

  Itchy ignored her. Nervously at first, but with his voice growing stronger, he explained to Rowena just what Zoë and Councillor Cordes’s plans were for her house.

  I kept on waddling. There was now a lovely sound to Zoë’s screeches. The sound of Itchy’s independence.

  Maybe I’d got my symphony after all.

  At the side of Rowena’s house, the hang glider and I collided with a large, unruly lilac bush. Petals flew. Waves of scent charged in all directions.

  Unbuckling myself from the harness, I wriggled out of the bulky hang-gliding outfit. I was so hot I just wanted to leap into the Urstads’ pool.

  “Good-bye, Old Red,” I murmured. “Itchy will come and find you. Except I don’t think he’ll be itchy anymore.”

  Great. Now I was chatting with hang gliders. Oh, well. As Jack said, strange but okay.

  I slipped under the lilacs and round into Rowena’s backyard. I had vague ideas about emerging from the Urstads’ pool to go round front and demand what, for goodness sake, the shouting was all about. To pretend I’d had nothing to do with all the commotion. Slick, Dinah, slick.

  I paused in the tall dandelions to straighten up properly. After all that crouching, it took a couple of loud bone creaks to do so. The buzzing bees were surprised into silence.

  And in that silence, I remembered the day I’d seen the spotted owl. I remembered how the day had been hot and still, the sun so white that at first I’d thought the pale shimmer in the dark trees had been a patch of light.

  I strained my eyes at the canyon trees bordering Rowena’s yard. A splash of light there, and one over there…I was pretty sure it was all just sunlight. Chances were I’d never see another spotted owl in my whole life. They’re pretty rare.

  But all at once I felt as if the spotted owl might have been watching me solemnly from the trees, as he’d done on that day weeks ago. Watching, and waiting for me to do the right thing.

  And I thought of that other spotted owl, the one I’d heard about, calling and calling in the forest, with no mate ever to answer him.

  At that moment I knew it wasn’t enough to have Itchy stop the house deal. It was enough for Itchy, sure—having faced down his aunt, he’d gain courage and become happier, not to mention scratch-free. I blinked at the splashes of sunlight. Councillor Cordes had to be brought out into the sunlight too—exposed to the full public glare of attention for what he’d tried to do. Otherwise, he’d just try to do the same thing somewhere else.

  I had to expose Councillor Cordes somehow.

  Or did I?

  Someone else could. Someone who’d been longing for a nice, juicy, corrupt politician to write about.

  “Sylvester?”

  “Yes, I’m—” Sylvester paused. “Is this Dinah?” he said uneasily.

  “You bet!” I bellowed enthusiastically into the phone.

  Rowena’s phone, to be exact. Since I had, as usual, forgotten my key to the Urstads’, I’d trotted up the rickety back porch steps into Rowena’s kitchen and commandeered her wall phone. I knew she didn’t like people going inside, but heck, just this once…

  “Dinah, thanks to you my car’s badly scratched, my cold’s worse and I’m seriously thinking about quitting journalism. Mother was right. I should go into insurance.”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” I said firmly. “Now, you—no, don’t hang up, Sylvester—listen carefully.”

  Sylvester sighed deeply.

  I peered out from behind the cat-shredded lace curtains of Rowena’s living room window. By now, Councillor Cordes had arrived. He, Zoë and Itchy were all shouting at once.

  I ducked out of sight. Jac
k, standing off to one side with Rowena, was glancing around—no doubt for me. I wondered again why he hadn’t plucked off the hang glider to reveal me.

  Maybe my future brother-in-law was saving his wrath. Investing it over time, like a bank account, so that it would increase.

  “Uh-oh,” I commented to Napoleon, who’d sauntered into the living room.

  He eyed me and then the lace curtains. Probably thought I was a rival curtain-clawer.

  A maroon cab pulled up to the curb. Madge and Sean got out. At this rate, Marisa Drive would soon need crowd control.

  Madge ran up to Jack and began gesturing angrily, tearfully—always a bad sign for yours truly. I started edging along the wall for a fast exit out the kitchen.

  In mid-edge, I saw the brassbound trunk.

  I tried slipping past the trunk, but curiosity, my old buddy—or was it my old foe? I never could tell—got the better of me.

  I peeked out the window. No one was heading toward the house. I had time for one quick look.

  Stepping over to the trunk, I unfastened the latches and lifted the lid. I felt like Pandora in the myth, opening the forbidden box—except that, I remembered uneasily, demons had sprung out at her.

  I gotta tell you, what lay inside the trunk was more frightening than any demons: stapled bundles of paper, with the title on the first page of each bundle—Jokes for Season Two of “Tomorrow’s Cool Talent.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Madge Gets Her Mural Right

  The TV anchorwoman beamed. “And now we’re joined by Vancouver’s newest celebrity journalist—Sylvester Sloan.”

  The camera panned to Sylvester, his Adam’s apple bobbing excitedly, beside the anchorwoman. Sylvester’s hair was slicked back, and he sported a suit with huge padded shoulders that loomed awkwardly on his thin frame.

  “What a story, Sylvester,” Mary Lou Burke said. She held up this week’s copy of the North Vancouver Bugle:

  SCANDAL? OWL SAY! POLITICIAN PLANNED HUGE DEVELOPMENT JUST BEFORE SPOTTED OWL BYLAW WOULD TAKE EFFECT