Martin Bridge: On the Lookout!

by Jessica Scott Kerrin

  The boys jumped on their bikes. They rode around the neighborhood taping Polly posters to everything they could think of. Lampposts. Store windows. Even bus shelters.

  They still had some posters left when Stuart looked at his Zip Rideout Rocket Watch.

  “It’s getting late,” he announced.

  Martin and Alex nodded and they headed for Alex’s.

  The next morning, the boys biked to school after a noisy pancake breakfast with all of Alex’s brothers. Martin had ignored the clatter and spilt syrup, focusing instead on the mission at hand. When they arrived, he went straight to the school office, Alex and Stuart in tow.

  “Any word on Polly?” Martin asked.

  Mrs. Hurtle shook her head.

  A wave of disappointment hit Martin so hard that he took a step back, bumping into Alex and Stuart. He had been sure their posters would work.

  “We still have more posters to put up,” reminded Stuart. Martin nodded glumly.

  Later, the entire class watched as Mr. Sadler, the school janitor, removed Polly’s cage for good. Martin struggled against the lump in his throat. It felt like Polly was flying out the window all over again.

  It was Mr. Duncan’s turn as monitor during their second detention. Martin sat in misery, barely noticing when Mrs. Hurtle came into the study hall. She whispered to Mr. Duncan, then came over to where the boys were sitting.

  “Principal Moody thinks it might be a good idea if you spent your second detention putting up more posters,” she said softly, “so he called your parents for permission. Just be back in time for class.”

  Martin nodded with new determination while Alex and Stuart grabbed their things.

  They continued their tour of the neighborhood by bike, plastering posters everywhere. When they pedaled by the front doors of Beaverbrook Junior High, Martin pulled over.

  “I think we should put up our last poster here,” he suggested. “The more kids looking for Polly, the better.”

  They entered the front doors of the school to get permission, but since it was lunchtime the hallways were quiet. They spotted the sign for the office and were about to enter when Martin clutched Alex’s arm.

  “Look!” he gasped.

  A boy was carrying a birdcage down the hall.

  “Holy cow!” exclaimed Alex.

  “It’s Polly,” said Stuart in stunned amazement.

  “Stop!” Alex called out.

  The boy turned. “Are you talking to me?”

  “What have you got there?” demanded Alex, pointing to the cage.

  “Our class parakeet,” said the boy.

  “Your class parakeet?” said Stuart. “What’s its name?”

  “Polly.”

  “Our class parakeet was named Polly,” declared Alex. His eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms. “She escaped yesterday.”

  “Lots of parakeets are named Polly,” said the boy matter-of-factly.

  “But she looks exactly like our Polly,” insisted Alex.

  “That’s where you’re wrong. This Polly is a he, not a she.”

  Alex and Stuart eyed the bird’s feathery body suspiciously.

  “Does this parakeet talk?” asked Martin, who had finally found his voice.

  “Sure. Polly repeats all kinds of things in class.”

  “No kidding,” said Martin, fuming.

  “Well, good luck finding your parakeet.” With that the boy disappeared around the corner, birdcage and all.

  “Polly,” whispered Martin as the parakeet disappeared.

  “That’s Polly, all right,” said Stuart. “Let’s report this to Principal Moody.” He turned to go.

  “Wait,” Alex said under his breath, eyes darting left and right.

  Stuart rejoined the huddle. “What’s up?”

  “We’re here, aren’t we?” whispered Alex.

  “So you think we should rescue Polly?” Stuart gulped. “Now?”

  “You got it,” answered Alex. Suddenly he straightened up.

  The boy had returned and was walking right by, empty-handed. “Still here?” he asked.

  “Just getting permission for our poster,” said Martin, holding it up.

  The boy nodded and went out the front doors. Martin turned back to his friends.

  It was a crazy plan, but Martin knew they couldn’t just abandon Polly. And besides, he had seen Zip Rideout carry out dozens of successful rescue missions.

  Martin took a deep breath. “I’m in,” he announced.

  Together, the boys turned the corner and began to sneak down the hall.

  “Think to the brink,” whispered Martin, just like Zip Rideout would say when he was right at the edge of danger.

  They slipped into the first classroom they came to. One quick look and Martin declared, “No Polly. Let’s go.”

  As they were about to leave, they heard footsteps. The boys scrambled back into the classroom and shut the door with a quiet click. The footsteps grew louder and louder and then stopped right outside the door. Martin held his breath, heart pounding and panic fluttering in his stomach. Someone called out, and a faraway voice answered. The footsteps continued and faded away.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a great plan,” whispered Alex.

  “Yeah,” Stuart jumped in. “And who knows? Polly’s probably happy learning all kinds of new things in junior high.”

  But, frightened as he was, Martin was certain it would feel even worse to give up. And he was sure he had never seen Zip Rideout quit. Not once.

  “No!” he said with surprising force. “We’re here now. And I’m not leaving without Polly.”

  Alex and Stuart stared at each other and then nodded. Martin slowly opened the door and peered out.

  “All clear,” he whispered. “Let’s split up. That way we can cover more classrooms.”

  Alex and Stuart took their cue and stepped into rooms on either side of the hall. Martin pressed on and entered the farthest class.

  Inside, a teacher’s desk stood by the blackboard, piled high with papers. Martin scanned the rows of desks. There was a large map of France on the wall, and everything in the room was labeled with a French word. The bookshelf. The wall clock. Even the recycling bin. Then Martin spied something in the corner.

  Something very familiar.

  A covered birdcage! Martin carefully lifted a corner of the blanket and peeked underneath. He smiled and ran to the hall.

  Alex and Stuart were sneaking toward him.

  “I found her!” Martin whispered as loud as he dared. He led the way back to Polly.

  Alex reached to lift the blanket, but Martin stopped him.

  “Keep the cage covered,” said Martin. “If we wake Polly up, she’ll start squawking and give us away.”

  “Good thinking,” said Stuart.

  The boys ferried the covered cage outside to their waiting bikes.

  “Here,” said Alex, yanking off a length of duct tape. He fastened Polly’s cage to Martin’s handlebars.

  “Blast off!” shouted Martin.

  They jumped on their bikes and started to pedal as fast as they could.

  “Stop!” someone called out.

  Martin hesitated, feet mid-pedal. But after one glance at Polly’s cage, he stood up and pumped even harder.

  When they arrived back at the school, they hurried to their class and set the birdcage in its familiar corner. Then the end-of-lunch bell rang. The boys rushed to their seats as students began to trickle in.

  Laila was the first to notice.

  “Polly!” she squealed. “How’d she get back?”

  “We rescued her,” said Alex as a crowd of students gathered around the cage.

  “Let’s see,” begged Laila, jumping up and down.

  Martin was bursting with pride. “Ta-da!!” he cheered as he pulled off the blanket.

  “Hello, Polly!” everyone cooed.

  “Bonjour!” chirped the strange parak
eet. “Comment t’appelles-tu?”

  Smiles faded instantly. Martin’s ears began to burn.

  “That’s not Polly,” declared Laila, backing away from the cage.

  “Très bien! Très bien!” chirped the parakeet.

  It wasn’t long before Martin led the way to the now familiar bench outside Principal Moody’s door. Alex and Stuart plunked down beside him. They frowned at the parakeet perched in its cage as it mocked them in French from the secretary’s desk.

  “Ka-boom!” whispered Stuart. It was the word he used whenever something went wrong.

  Mrs. Hurtle was on the telephone. “May I please speak to the French teacher? Yes, I’ll hold.”

  Martin sank onto the bench. So did Alex and Stuart. And all three jumped when the principal’s door swung open.

  “Come in, boys,” Principal Moody growled. “And have a seat.”

  Martin’s heart sank. Have a seat, he thought. This was going to be a long one.

  “Let’s have it, shall we?” the principal demanded as he put the cage on his desk and sat down.

  Stuart muttered something, and Alex tried not to laugh.

  “Pardon me?” Principal Moody stopped drumming his thick fingers on the desk.

  “Maybe Polly flew to France and picked up a few words,” blurted Stuart. He tried to smile at his joke, but withered under the principal’s glare.

  “So you’re still insisting this is Polly?”

  Martin glanced at Alex and Stuart, who were staring at their feet, saying nothing.

  “Well then. Suppose you explain this.” The principal reached down behind his desk and pulled up a second birdcage. He placed it beside the first one.

  “Polly!” exclaimed Stuart, forgetting himself.

  Martin knew Stuart was right.

  “Someone found her?” guessed Alex.

  “Yes,” growled the principal.

  “And they saw our poster and called?” Martin joined in.

  “This very noon hour,” the principal confirmed.

  “I before E except after C,” chirped Polly.

  “Four times five is twenty,” chirped Polly.

  “Yellow and blue make green,” chirped Polly.

  And she kept on chattering until the French parakeet shimmied across his perch to have a better look. Then he began to make soft whistling sounds — the kind Martin’s dad made when Martin’s mom came down the stairs in a new dress.

  “Ooh la la,” sang the French parakeet to Polly as she preened her feathers.

  There was a tap at the door. Everyone turned as Mrs. Hurtle slipped in with her car keys. She picked up the French Polly.

  “Beaverbrook want their parakeet back, tout de suite,” she said and headed out of the office.

  “What do you have to say for yourselves now?” demanded Principal Moody.

  “We’re sorry,” said Martin, and he braced himself for what was to come.

  The principal launched into his predictable speech about not leaping to conclusions. About how stealing was wrong, even if they did think it was Polly. And about not fessing up when the evidence was clear.

  “So that’s a week of detentions for each of you,” said Principal Moody.

  Alex and Stuart groaned, but all Martin could do was smile.

  “Can we take Polly back to class now?” he asked in his best manners voice.

  The principal heaved a sigh, and yet Martin thought he spotted the tiniest of smiles.

  Martin beamed as he picked up the cage. He remembered the words Zip Rideout spoke on the final leg of every mission.

  “Ready and steady,” Martin said as Polly looked at him with one eye and then the other. With that he marched out the door, cage held high.

  Alex and Stuart followed, shoving each other playfully down the hall.

  “Well done,” squawked Polly when they entered the class in triumph.

  “Well done!” cheered the class. “Well done!”

  An Excerpt from The Lobster Chronicles

  Floater Number Four

  “I’ll dangle Lynnette by her ankles off the gunwale,” Graeme Swinimer swore to himself when he discovered a mummichog floating sideways in his plastic saltwater tub.

  Its lifeless, speckled body bobbed above the sand dollars, periwinkles, brittle sea stars, urchins and a rock crab, all part of his marine life collection.

  Lynnette was always feeding her food to his fish. What else could explain the soggy banana-and-peanut-butter sandwiches, crusts cut off, hanging in the water?

  A dead giveaway.

  And this was the fourth floater since the start of the spring lobster season!

  Graeme sighed. Ankle dangling would have to wait, because his little sister was at the playground with her buddies from the after-school program. He could hear their screams of glee way off in the distance, along with the putta-putta sound of Homarus II, his dad’s mint-green Cape Islander, motoring home for the day.

  Graeme cast about his room for the fishnet. He checked underneath his aquarium magazine, Cold Marine Tanks. He skirted past his posters of sharks, whales and sea turtles and scanned the top of his sock-and-underwear dresser. He turned to the other side of his room, which featured a large plaque of sailors’ knots mounted next to his closet door.

  Aha! There it was, hooked on the knob. He remembered that he had hung the net to dry after scooping out Floater Number Three just last week.

  Graeme strode across his bedroom’s round braided rug to retrieve the net. Then he dipped it into the saltwater tub to recover the limp fish.

  Down the hall he plodded — drip, drip, drip — into the yellow bathroom with the wicker clothes hamper that faintly whiffed of lobster and diesel. Graeme stopped in front of the toilet. Plop went the fish. Whoosh went the bowl. Then, as payback, he grabbed Lynnette’s hairbrush and plunged it deep into the smelly hamper.

  Graeme returned to the scene of the crime and wrote up the incident in his scientific journal. He included the usual details: the date, the type of marine animal, the probable cause of death.

  Entry completed, he closed his notes, then gazed into the saltwater tub to observe the remainder of the school of mummichogs frolicking between barnacle-covered rocks, apparently unaware of the recent decrease to their number.

  “Graeme’s going to be a marine biologist,” his dad boasted regularly at the government wharf next to the Lucky Catch Cannery where he unloaded his lobsters.

  A longtime widower, Mr. Swinimer was determined that Graeme follow his dream, despite the challenges of having to raise him and Lynnette alone.

  “Can’t wait!” Graeme always added, riding the wave of his dad’s enthusiasm.

  The other fishermen would reply by thumping his back good-naturedly with their sausage-fingered hands.

  “It’ll be nice to finally have a local scientist who knows what’s what around here!” they would say.

  Fishermen often argued with come-from-away biologists about the state of the lobster stock in Lower Narrow Spit. But they argued even more with the owner of the town’s only cannery about the price for their daily catch.

  From the open window above his desk, Graeme heard that the putta-putta had slowed down to a dull throb. His dad was maneuvering around the shoals at the entrance to their harbor.

  “The sea is as big as the all outdoors,” his dad liked to remind Graeme, “but you best mind the rocks in the bay.”

  Graeme understood what that meant. Even though his dad supported his career choice, he also believed that Graeme should know everything about home port before safely venturing farther away.

  Which was true.

  Except that Graeme had run out of fresh discoveries. He even knew exactly how many steps it took to get from their white-shingled house to the government wharf where he collected his specimens to study.

  For Graeme, the unexplored sea beckoned.

  The reverbera
tion of the engine changed again, and Graeme realized that his dad must be getting close to the wharf by now, preparing to throw the lines. When he heard that his dad had cut the engine, Graeme got a move on. He raced past the bathroom and down the stairs, but froze when he heard a knock at the front screen door. A bothersome voice he recognized called out from the covered porch.

  “Graeme! You home?”

  “Geez Louise,” Graeme muttered when he saw who it was.

  “Hi, Norris,” Graeme said flatly, talking through the screen door, arms crossed. “I was just leaving to meet my dad.”

  Norris was Graeme’s least-favorite classmate. Unlike the rest of the school, Norris loved dodgeball, and he hammered slow-moving players every chance he got. Norris was always telling everybody what he thought, even when no one asked. He had the annoying habit of jingling coins in his pocket whenever he started to argue, which was all the time. And Norris was the only boy Graeme knew who had the audacity to use the front door rather than the one off the kitchen mudroom.

  Norris stared at Graeme with his close-set eyes and smiled with his mouthful of shiny braces. He held a large cardboard box stamped with Lucky Catch Cannery’s logo.

  Norris’s dad was the Lucky Catch’s owner, so the logo was a smug reminder of their family’s uncommon wealth.

  “Know what I’ve got?” asked Norris in his weasel voice.

  Graeme could not help noticing that Norris had covered his huge forehead with his Big Fish ball cap, a souvenir from one of the biggest aquariums in the world. Norris’s family always spent their vacations far away from the campgrounds surrounding Lower Narrow Spit.

  Graeme grudgingly pushed open the screen door and stepped onto the porch, careful not to disturb Fetch, his family’s gray-muzzled beagle, who spent most of the time impersonating a rug.

  Norris set down the box and opened the lid. He reached inside and lifted out a patchy-patterned kitten; one ear black, the other white. The kitten wiggled and struggled about with pitiful mews while Fetch observed the fuss by momentarily lifting his head.