Lid throws himself onto a pile of goose poop and rolls, flashing an upside-down smile of ecstasy.
“What meetings?” Jack asks.
“Exactly,” Mr. Kang says.
11
By the time we get back, it’s definitely after dinner.
The boat coasts through the surface of the water before it lightly bumps our dock, sending out quiet ripples that reflect a mix of pink and purple.
“We are so grounded,” Aaron says, eyeing the dusky sky.
I take a look at us, caked in dried mud and blood and scratches as though we’ve been attacked by a herd of cats. Me with muck still in my hair. At least it’s not goose poop. I glance at Lid’s smeared neck.
I’d called home to say we’d lost track of time. As long as I call, Mom tends not to have any meltdowns. But she would’ve called Aaron’s mom to tell her when to pick him up, and I’ll bet that his mom was currently having said meltdown.
Aaron’s parents are stricter than mine or Jack’s. Probably because they’re home more. Aaron always tells Jack he’s lucky his dad lives three hours away. But I don’t think Jack feels lucky.
We head straight to the clubhouse. That’s when I know I really am in serious trouble. I pick up the note taped to the kits’ cardboard box.
You’re in serious trouble.
Panic stops my heart for a moment until I look closer at the note. This isn’t Mom’s handwriting. Marley.
I cringe, but it’s better than Mom. Maybe my sister hasn’t told on me yet.
Noises from the box cut my thoughts short. Someone’s awake and starting to become unhappy.
Aaron opens the flaps of the large box and we peer in. The beavers blink out at us. And then Phrag holds up little arms toward me like Jack’s sister, Lorrie, when she squeals, “Uppy, uppy!”
“We should feed them again before we go in,” I say.
“My mom’s likely on her way now,” Aaron says, “but let’s stay in here while we wait.”
I mix another bottle of formula and we proceed with a repeat of the first feeding. The contents of the bottle spill everywhere and the beavers grow more frustrated by the second. How am I going to get enough food into them to keep them from starving to death?
“So what d’you think Mr. Kang was talking about?” Aaron asks Jack as he meticulously plucks off tiny black spines from a bush stuck to the waistband of his shorts.
Phrag wheezes and huffs on my lap, slapping the bottle away.
“I don’t know. But secret meetings sound like something we should find out. Let’s get together on Dillon Street in the morning.”
“If I’m not grounded,” Aaron says.
Cooler grabs the hem of my shirt and sucks at a spot where formula had spilled. I think of the teeth I’d felt when he’d sucked my finger.
“Maybe they’re old enough to eat soft food. Too bad we don’t have bread. I could make formula French toast.” Nana had called it that. I remember the first time getting excited because I loved French toast, but instead of dipping bread in milk and egg and slathering it with maple syrup, she soaked pieces of bread in formula and fed it to baby raccoons.
Aaron rummages in his pack and pulls out a squashed peanut butter sandwich.
“What . . . How long has that been in there?”
He shrugs his bony shoulders. “Just remembered it. You want it or not?”
I scrape the peanut butter off one side and pull out one of my feeding pans. Dumping the formula into the pan, I sop it up with the bread and break it into tiny pieces.
The kits investigate, mumbling and holding the bread in their little fingers. Phrag delicately taps his nose with it before tasting. They quickly get the hang of eating it and grab more, swirling the bread around in their hands like eating corn on the cob. They don’t stop talking about it the whole time.
Nom, nom, nom, nummy, nummy, nom.
I breathe a relieved sigh.
Through it all, Phrag still wants to hold my hand, his tiny fingers covered in a glue-like paste. I can tell when Cooler’s eaten enough once he starts using the mush to spread on the side of their cardboard house. He carries the mush, clutching it to his chest, and then pats his box as though laying down cement.
We’re all interrupted by the sound of a vehicle pulling up.
“That’s our ride,” Aaron says, standing with Jack.
“Stakeout, tomorrow,” Jack says. “Don’t forget.”
“It’ll have to be a fast stakeout,” I say as I open the door, following them out.
We all freeze in our tracks. Aaron makes a sound like he’s swallowed a bug. Marley’s waiting with her arms crossed. I’d nearly forgotten the note. Aaron and Jack inch around her and run toward the Jeep like cowards.
“I thought you said it smelled in here and you’d never come in?” I say casually.
“Of course I went in. After you so obviously wanted me to stay out. You think I wouldn’t recognize reverse psychology when I see it? I invented it.”
My sister is a worthier adversary than I give her credit for.
“So what do you want? There’s nothing in here.” I cling to the shred of hope that she hasn’t actually seen the kits.
“Let’s discuss the rodents you currently have stashed when you weren’t supposed to bring home any more rescues.”
12
Marley enjoyed watching me squirm all evening.
But dinner ended, then family movie night ended, and still Marley hadn’t said anything.
Now I’m in bed researching beavers on my iPad. One thing’s for sure: It takes time to rehab beavers. They need more than the usual food and water. They also require their social needs met as part of their total care.
A beaver’s family ties are so important that they’re born with strong instincts for building bonds. A family lives together in a small house underneath the ice all through the winter. They have to get along.
It’s not as though they can escape to the den if their sister is poking them with her gunky toenail clippings. And in the summer, they have to look out for each other, slapping their tails to tell the rest of the family if there’s danger.
They actually need hugs and cuddles as much as they need food and water. Any other wild animal, Nana kept telling me, needs the opposite. You don’t pet or cuddle animals that you’re trying to help. They aren’t pets. The whole point of rehabbing animals is to care for them so they can be released back in the wild. If they’re too used to humans, they won’t be able to live normally anymore. They don’t like being touched, either—sometimes they even die from fright.
But beavers want to be groomed and be kept company. Beavers like to be fussed over and socialized so that they’ll develop into well-rounded members of a family. Basically, they need to be loved.
And since these two are orphans, all that attention is going to have to come from me.
These kits are different from any other animals I’ve researched. And if I’m honest, I’m surprised how quickly my feelings for them have grown. Already, I feel the kits inside my heart.
A soft knock on my door.
“Yeah?” I close the page about beaver kit diets.
Mom comes in. “Thought you might be asleep. It’s late—what are you doing still up?” She sits on my bed.
“Going over some planning. I’m too excited to sleep.”
“Ah.” She glances at my autographed poster of Jane Goodall over my bed. “Trip’s coming up soon. What are you most excited about? The hotel? The food? The museum?”
“You know.”
Mom grins, then she straightens and a serious expression comes over her. “I’m so proud of you and your sister. Your dad and I have been more absent lately. I know that. But it’s nice that you two are responsible young ladies who we can trust. I’m hoping things will slow down at work soon. But tomorrow I have to go in early again, and Dad leaves for Clearwater, so we won’t be here when you get up. I’m sorry, hon.”
Sometimes it makes me sad when there’s no on
e around when I wake up. But not tonight. “That’s okay, Mom. I know what it’s like to have goals.”
She laughs and shakes her head, standing. “How did I get so lucky? G’night, Mad. See you tomorrow night.”
* * *
I’m almost asleep when I feel a hand clamp over my mouth and another plug my nose.
I fight like a rabid badger, arms and legs everywhere.
Marley removes her hands and smirks at me. “Settle down!” she whispers.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I suck in and out, holding my chest.
“I just didn’t want you to scream. Holy drama.”
“Right. Not breathing isn’t scary at all. Good choice.” My oxygen levels return to normal as I glare. “What do you want?”
“We need to finish our discussion.”
My stomach plummets. I lean against my headboard and wait for her to get to the point.
“So.” She flops on my bed. “I’m willing to keep your little secret.”
“And in exchange . . .”
“I’m having Cal over next Friday. With a few other friends. Mom and Dad don’t need to know.”
Ah. So there it is. She’s probably been waiting for just such an opportunity. With Mom going to Boston next week and Dad still gone on shift, that means we’ll be alone all night. Marley’s in charge. It’s as if our parents have never met her. Don’t they know she’ll want to have a party or have her boyfriend come over? This is Marley. Never mind. It works for me.
13
First thing the next morning, I go out to check on the kits.
When I get to the door of the clubhouse, I can’t open it. Something’s jamming the door from behind. I push it open a crack and then shove my way in. There’s a scraping noise as something shifts and falls behind it. Once I get into the shed, I gape.
What the—?
A tidal wave of garden tools that had once been neatly shelved is now stacked up behind the door and piled around the beavers’ box. Tomato cages, seed packets, a wicked-looking tool with a wooden handle and three metal prongs, plastic planters, a mini trowel, and a few rows of decorative garden edging. Even some of my rehabber tools are shoved into a corner. Empty food pans scatter the floor. Basically, anything in the shed that wasn’t too heavy has been moved.
Worst of all is an old bag of bedding soil that’s been tipped over, mixed with the water in the pan, and spread out over the floor and walls.
And in the center of it sit two satisfied-looking beaver kits. They’re grooming themselves, but when they see me, they both immediately waddle toward me. As if they have no idea how this mess happened. They’d just woken up to a destroyed clubhouse.
“Did you two work all night?”
Their box has been thoroughly chewed and leans sadly to the left, with items propped against it. A pair of gloves is stuffed into the door hole along with some kind of book. I lean in and recognize the logbook.
“Hey!” I step forward to rescue the book, but trip over a pair of pruning shears. One of the telescoping handles extends out to bash me in the shin.
Phrag scratches at my leg, trying to climb. Cooler glares at me and curses. They definitely have distinct personalities.
I don’t have their breakfast, because I’d been so eager to check on them. But clearly they need food right now. They also need attention. I look around at the chaos. I don’t have time to clean it up. I have to get them fed before I meet up with the guys in town.
“Okay, you win,” I say, grabbing their formula. “You’re coming with me.” It’ll save me a trip getting them food. And since Marley and I have the house to ourselves, I don’t see why I can’t.
My sister’s staring at her phone like a zombie while eating cereal when I come in carrying the kits. She doesn’t even notice as I shuffle down the hall with them toward the bathroom. I start the tub and leave them on the floor while I go to fix their breakfast.
After my research, I know I can introduce yogurt, fresh herbs, slices of peaches, and some canned sweet potato along with their formula French toast. Luckily, Mom just stocked up. I put it all on a tray. Marley watches me carry it out of the kitchen without comment.
Once I lower the tray to the tiled floor, the celebration starts. The kits investigate the new food. They stuff the French toast in their mouths first, then cautiously taste the rest. Cooler pats the sweet potato as though considering how to use it as building material. Phrag squeaks with excitement over the peaches. They generally have a party at every meal, stuffing food into their mouths with their busy little fingers, grunting and moaning. They garble their delight to each other and then to me, eating and talking at the same time. Phrag reaches his sticky hand to grab mine.
Once they’ve eaten, I lower them in for a bath to do their business. They aren’t quite as panicked as last time. Phrag chases around after my hand at first. Cooler swims the length of the tub, investigating. They start enjoying themselves, circling the edge like two fuzzy sharks, their webbed back feet paddling underneath them. But with all his kicking, Cooler accidentally pulls the plug.
Pandemonium!
The minute the kits hear the water gurgling down the drain, they go into hysterics, splashing frantically and swimming back and forth. Cooler finds the source of the water leak and tries shoving his hands over the drain hole. Then he grabs the bar of soap to use as a plug. A shampoo bottle. The back scrubber. When nothing works, he grabs his brother and tries stuffing Phrag into the hole.
Phrag seriously opposes being used as a stopper, if his high-pitched complaints are any indication.
Marley pops the door open and takes in the scene. Yogurt footprints all over the floor. Me, soaking wet and sticky with peach juice, kneeling next to the tub. Cooler stuffing a wailing Phrag into the drain.
Marley’s expression doesn’t change.
“It’s for you,” she says casually, handing me the phone. Then she shuts the door.
“Madi?” Jack’s voice.
“Kinda busy right now, Jack . . .”
“It’s the beavers,” he says. “There’s been another murder.”
14
“So here’s what we know,” Jack says.
We’re outside Dillon’s Hardware. Normally at this time of day I’m doing my observations. Watching wildlife in its natural environment and quietly taking notes. It’s what Jane Goodall did when she made all her groundbreaking discoveries about chimps. But my whole routine has been upended since the kits arrived.
While Jack updates us on his findings from his investigation so far, Lid sits next to us on the sidewalk and licks his butt with dedication.
“The Township’s had flooding problems, right? I mean, we saw Birch Street. The beavers are blocking drainage culverts by building dams inside them. And that makes the roads flood. But not just roads—there’s whole fields out behind Dillon’s that are covered in water. So the Township tried to get rid of the problem by drowning a beaver in a trap!”
Aaron and I both gasp.
“How do you know these things?” Aaron asks. He’s got leftover jam on his cheek, which isn’t like him. He must’ve been in a hurry this morning too.
“Confidential informant,” Jack says with a raised eyebrow.
I raise an eyebrow back.
Lid’s brows waggle one at a time as his gaze bounces between us.
Jack continues in his sleuth voice, “Anyway. When people found out—I mean, that part’s been on TV—the council got hundreds of calls and letters of complaint. People were outraged. Now the Township doesn’t want anything to do with killing beavers. It’s bad for their image. They’ve just been letting the beavers dam things up.”
“So then what’s the part about more beavers getting killed?” I ask.
“That’s the thing. Someone reported a beaver shot out near Birch Street yesterday. Same way the kits’ parents were killed.”
“If more adults are being shot,” I say, “then any of them could have orphaned kits.”
I think about tha
t. What if the beaver from Birch Street had kits? Helpless kits right now sitting in their beaver lodge, waiting for their parents to return. Were there more orphans out there? How many more beaver parents will be killed? I feel sick.
“This is a disaster,” I say.
“We have to find the killers and stop them,” Aaron agrees.
Lid abruptly notices the jam. While Aaron speaks, the dog leans in. “They aren’t going to—” Lid’s tongue misses and slips inside Aaron’s mouth. “Gaaack!” Aaron starts spitting.
“Dude!” Jack says, with a grossed-out grin. “Do you know where that tongue’s been?”
“I know! I think I tasted it.” Now Aaron looks as sick as I feel. He feverishly wipes at his mouth.
Again, it’s up to me to keep the boys focused. “So why are we here, exactly?” I ask Jack, indicating the store.
“Remember Mr. Kang told us about secret meetings?”
“Town council meetings?” Aaron says, still glaring at Lid. “At the hardware store? That doesn’t make sense.”
“We’re about to find out,” Jack says. “I’m going to see what I can learn about this.” He holds up his evidence bag with the shotgun shells. “You two mingle.” He motions for us to follow, and we all troop into the store.
Aaron and I wander down an aisle that has big spools of some kind of wire. Dillon’s Hardware always smells like dust and rotten wood and some other weird metallic odor that I don’t like.
A group of old men in the other aisle are talking. I hear the word “beavers” and perk up. Aaron nods at me and we hide behind the spools of wire to listen.
“The Township won’t do it, Jim. I’m telling you, the landowners have to take matters into their own hands.”
“They built a dam right in my field where my crops are growing!” another voice says. “I’ve spent years draining my land to make it productive. It’s so frustrating.”
Rescue at Lake Wild Page 4
