Owl Be Home for Christmas

by Donna Andrews

  “Some of them will be missing Hanukkah instead of Christmas, and that starts tomorrow night,” I said. “We should work on that, too.”

  “Precisely,” she said. “So what should we be serving them? Start with Christmas—what is the standard American Christmas dinner?”

  “I think starting with Hanukkah would be easier,” I said. “I’m not sure there is any standard American Christmas dinner. Everyone I know does it differently. It depends on where people live, and where their ancestors came from, and just what they like to eat. There isn’t even a rule on whether you have it Christmas Eve or Christmas Day or both.”

  “Then you will have to find out what each of them is accustomed to eating for their various holidays,” she said. “And then I can determine what to serve to bring happiness to as many of them as possible.”

  Was she serious? She wanted me to ask every single one of the two hundred scientists what they wanted for Christmas and/or Hanukkah dinner?

  Then again, perhaps I could recruit Mother. And Rose Noire. They might even enjoy it.

  “Let me see what I can do.” I hoped that didn’t sound like a promise.

  “Good. I think we can open the doors now.”

  “I’ll go share the glad tidings with the ravening hordes.”

  I didn’t need to go far. Evidently the panels had ended while we’d been dealing with Dr. Czerny. Nearly everyone attending the conference was milling around in the hallway outside. Though they were all in a remarkably cheerful mood—clearly scheduling the owl pellet panel just before lunch had been a stroke of genius on Grandfather’s part. We opened the doors and stepped aside to let them in.

  “I can supervise the buffet if you would rather eat with your family,” Ekaterina said. “I sent plenty of food to the cottage. And you could check on your cousin.”

  “I’ll take you up on that,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “And let me know what he has to say about conditions outside.”

  “Will do.”

  “What are those things they’re putting on the tables?” Ekaterina pointed to the nearest table, which was littered with small dark objects, most either round or Vienna sausage-shaped.

  “Ah,” I said. “Evidently the owl pellet panel gave out samples.”

  “Owl pellets?” She looked puzzled. “Owls eat those? I thought they caught mice.”

  “No, owl pellets are what they do with the bones, fur, teeth, feathers, and other indigestible parts of their prey.”

  “You mean it’s owl poop? They are putting owl poop on my tables?”

  “No, no,” I said. “It’s not poop. Owls regurgitate the pellets.”

  “That is only a small improvement,” she said. “What are we supposed to do with them if they leave them behind?”

  “They won’t,” I said. “Or if anyone does, someone else is sure to snatch them up. They’re highly prized.”

  “À chacun son goût,” she murmured. “Go see your family. I will keep an eye on these barbarians.”

  I was tempted. But I also didn’t want to leave Grandfather in the lurch. If he needed help fending off Frogmore, or Czerny, or any of the other annoying attendees …

  But then I saw him going through the buffet line, accompanied by Dr. Craine. Rose Noire, her plate piled high with vegetables, was waving at them to join her at a nearby table. Dr. Green was already sitting beside her, and it dawned on me that this wasn’t the first time I’d seen them eating together during the conference. In fact, I was pretty sure he’d been glued to her side at every meal.

  I made a mental note to ask Grandfather what he knew about this Dr. Green. What if his absent-minded professorial manner was camouflage for his real character as a conference Lothario? Of course, all Grandfather would care about was Dr. Green’s scientific abilities. Maybe I should ask Dr. Craine. Or, better still, sic Mother on the question.

  Meanwhile, Grandfather would be fine. And Owl Fest would survive if I spent the lunch hour with Michael and the boys.

  I left the conference area, slipped back into the lobby again, and breathed a sigh of contentment. I felt as if I’d crossed from the contentious world of Owl Fest back into the warm, welcoming world of Christmas Land. The large-screen TV over the mantel in the lobby, usually tuned to CNN, was now showing How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Of course, the real reason for this was that the hotel’s cable was out, but at least they were prepared with a DVD player and some seasonally appropriate fare. I made a mental note to ask Ekaterina if I could borrow it to watch with the boys.

  Christmas Land was intensified in the cottage, and I could have sworn that some of the decorations were ones that I’d have expected to see back at home. One evergreen garland looked pretty much like another, although these did have the oversized red velvet bows Mother was so fond of using, and Mother had been advising Ekaterina on the hotel’s decor. But the gold tinsel mobiles representing the twelve days of Christmas, now fluttering overhead in the breeze that had followed me into the cottage—those were pretty distinctive. I’d last seen them in the front hall of our house. And the tree that had suddenly appeared beside the fireplace, completely blocking the soaring multi-paned window—I could spot one-of-a-kind ornaments that I remembered hanging on our tree at home just a few days ago.

  “I had some of our old, familiar decorations brought over before the snow started,” Mother said when she noticed me staring at the tree. “As bad as this storm is, we might not be able to leave for a few more days, so I thought we should make ourselves as much at home as possible.”

  “And what if the snow cleanup goes faster than expected and Ekaterina kicks us out tomorrow or Monday?”

  “Then I’ll have it all moved back,” she said. “Don’t worry—I know you’ll be exhausted from the conference. You won’t have to lift a finger.”

  “In that case, let’s enjoy the tree,” I said.

  Ekaterina hadn’t been kidding about sending more than enough food. The Madison Cottage’s dining table was covered with plates and bowls. Caesar salad and pasta salad. Several pizzas. A platter of ham, turkey, roast beef, and assorted cheeses. Fresh baked bread. French fries and onion rings. Stir-fried vegetables. Fresh-cut fruit salad. And half a dozen desserts—Christmas cookies, brownies with red and green candies on top, three kinds of pie, and some little cups of crème brûlée that were calling my name. Michael, Dad, and the boys were already digging in. I began filling a plate, and secured two of the crèmes brûlées before they could disappear.

  Horace was sitting on one of the sofas with warm wet washcloths draped over his hands and bare feet—no doubt part of Dad’s treatment for frostbite. Mother was feeding him tidbits.

  His police radio was sitting on the end table, plugged into the wall to charge. He came to attention whenever it made any noise, but all I’d heard so far were occasional bursts of static.

  “Pretty bad out there?” I asked as I took a seat on the other sofa.

  “Power and telephone lines out everywhere,” Horace said. “And anyone who didn’t already get where they’re going by now is out of luck.”

  “Randall Shiffley was convinced this was going to be an epic disaster,” Michael said. “He had his workmen set up generators at the town hall and at the various local churches, so they could be used for shelter. And made sure each of the churches had a satellite phone, so they could stay in communication.”

  “Good for him!” Mother exclaimed.

  “And having those helped us convince a lot of people to come into town,” Horace said. “It could take a while to dig out from this.”

  Of course, not everyone could simply drop everything and take refuge in town. There were plenty of farmers who couldn’t abandon their livestock. Just for a moment, I felt a twinge of guilt, sitting here in a warm room, feasting on such a delicious spread with all my family around me.

  “We’ll get through this,” Mother said. “All of us.” Was she reading my mind, or was it just that my dark thoughts were all too visible on my face? “I�
�m sure there will be much to do when the storm is over, but for now, let’s all be thankful that we’re all here safe and sound together.”

  “Hear, hear!” Michael said, and we all clinked glasses as if it were a toast.

  “And God bless us every one,” Josh and Jamie chorused. Even though Michael’s traditional one-man staged reading of A Christmas Carol had been postponed due to the snow, the boys had seen a rehearsal and were uttering Dickensian quotes at the slightest opportunity.

  We went back to eating and talking. Every so often Horace’s radio would erupt with bits of news. Chief Burke, his wife Minerva, and the three orphaned grandsons they were raising had moved into the New Life Baptist Church for the duration. Adam, the youngest grandson, was one of the boys’ best friends, and while the chief wouldn’t let the three of them talk on the police radio, he gave us the number of the satellite phone he’d brought along to keep in contact with the outside world—at least that part of the outside world who were either also equipped with satellite phones or were located west of the Mississippi and thus out of the storm’s reach. Deprived for hours now of their ability to text each other at will, all three boys were delighted at the prospect of a lengthy conversation after lunch.

  “And you can give me some hints about what you’re giving me for Christmas,” Adam said. “You’ll never guess what I’m giving you.”

  I wondered if Chief Burke, in the background, was repressing the same conspiratorial smile I was trying to hide. Michael and I had conferred with Chief Burke and Minerva at great length about the boys’ presents to each other. Josh and Jamie were joining forces to give Adam the expensive new bat that Michael and the chief agreed would be perfect for the coming year’s baseball season, and Adam was giving Josh and Jamie tickets to a home game between his beloved Orioles and their arch-rival Yankees. Still to be determined was whether Michael and I would tag along to help out or whether the chief and Minerva would really try to cope all by themselves with our two on top of his own crew, which included not only Adam Jones Burke but also Frank Robinson Burke, Junior, and Calvin Ripken Burke. I’d blocked the relevant dates out on my calendar, just in case. Curious how comforting it was, in the middle of the snowstorm, to think that pitchers and catchers would report in a mere seven weeks.

  All too soon it was time to head back to Owl Fest. I took one last look around the cottage, kissed Michael, reassured the boys that I would not insist on kissing them, and went back out into the storm.

  Chapter 8

  As I entered the lobby, I braced myself. So far I hadn’t received any frantic walkie-talkie calls from Rose Noire, but that didn’t necessarily mean nothing had gone wrong. She could just be trying to keep me from being bothered over lunch.

  I brushed the snow off myself and waved at Sami, who waved back with a candy cane.

  “Want one?” he called. “We also have gingerbread people!”

  “How modern.” I drifted over to the reception desk and studied the plate of gaily decorated cookies. About half of them were the traditional gingerbread man shape—the others had longer hair and appeared to be wearing skirts. “I’m fairly stuffed, but if I could just have that foot that one of them seems to have lost.”

  “It’s yours,” he said. “Trying to add a little seasonal cheer for the guests who don’t have your grandfather’s conference to keep them busy.”

  “Are there that many?”

  “Not many,” he said. “The Ackleys, a professor who’s here to interview for a post at the college and having serious doubts about leaving Arizona, and a handful of conference attendees’ spouses who came along for sightseeing and shopping and weren’t too happy about the change in plans. But after Ekaterina gave them all coupons for deep discounts and free services at the spa, they’ve gotten pretty mellow. Mrs. Ackley, too. And your grandfather issued an open invitation to anyone stuck in the hotel to attend his conference if they want to.”

  “Anyone taking him up on it?”

  “So far, just Mr. Ackley,” Sami said. “Who doesn’t look as if he’s exactly having the time of his life. But I’ve been thinking of trying it myself, if I can figure out what some of the panels are about. Some of them have me baffled.” He held up a copy of the conference program.

  “You and me both.”

  “Just what is that anyway?” He pointed to something in the program. I peered at the line in question, which read “Tyto alba: some taxonomic considerations.”

  “Not one I’d recommend for a layperson.”

  “That’s the one that was going on in the Hamilton Room at half past nine this morning, when I looked in during my break,” he said. “The one with all the shouting.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But why?” he asked.

  “Why the shouting?” I countered. “Or why the panel?”

  “Yes. Both.”

  “Well, you know what taxonomy is,” I said.

  “Giving things the proper Latin names,” he said. “Like Homo sapiens and Canis lupus.”

  “It’s a little more than that,” I said. “The names show how they fit into the whole family tree of living beings. The modern system got started in the 1700s. But back in the old days, all they had to go on was what the animals looked like. The whole system has been gradually evolving over the centuries, as they get better at figuring out how various living things are related. I mean, if you’d never seen them before, would you ever think that Chihuahuas and St. Bernards were closely related?”

  “No.” He chuckled at the image. “DNA must have been a big help.”

  “So I gather. But there are still a lot of arguments about how much of a difference it takes to call something a separate species. If it’s not different enough, it’s a subspecies, or maybe just a regional variation. Apparently there are a lot of unresolved questions of that kind about barn owls, aka Tyto alba.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I get how it’s maybe important to get that all sorted out if you care about that kind of thing.”

  “Like if you’re the kind of person who alphabetizes her spices.”

  “But why do they get so worked up about it? I mean, from the amount of shouting that goes on you’d think it was a political meeting or something.”

  “I don’t get it, either,” I said. “Clearly you and I were not meant to be ornithologists.”

  “Yeah.” He shook his head. “I don’t think our meetings are like that. The American Meteorological Society, that is. At least I hope not. I’m going to my first one in a few weeks, in Boston. I’m starting to get a little worried.”

  “I’m sure it will be much saner than this,” I said. “Besides—”

  The door to the conference area slammed open and Dr. Frogmore stormed out and across the lobby. He, too, was carrying a conference program, although unlike Sami he did not appear to be studying it with bemused interest. I thought at first he was headed toward us. I braced myself, and I noticed Sami did, too. But instead of approaching the registration desk he steered toward the door to the hotel office

  “A hotel problem, then, rather than a conference one,” I said, sotto voce, as we watched Frogmore jerk the door open. “Is Ekaterina in there?”

  “No, I think your grandfather was using it.”

  “Blake!” Frogmore’s shout probably carried back to the conference area. “What the hell do you mean by this!”

  “I should go referee,” I said, as I headed for the office.

  “‘This’ would be the conference program.” Grandfather’s voice was surprisingly mild. “Latest printed version thereof—any last-minute changes are posted on the message board in the conference center.”

  “I mean, what is this. Hirano? Hirano?”

  “Yes, Dr. Hirano’s giving the keynote at tonight’s banquet.”

  “What I want to know is why the hell you didn’t ask me to do the keynote address?”

  “My conference, my choice,” Grandfather said.

  I increased my speed and stepped into the room. Frogmore
, who was pacing up and down, looked red-faced and furious and barely glanced at me. Grandfather, seated at Ekaterina’s desk, looked calm. In fact, I could swear he was enjoying himself. He nodded at me, then turned his attention back to Frogmore.

  “Hirano’s English is practically nonexistent,” Frogmore said.

  “Which is why Dr. Arai is going to translate for him,” Grandfather said. “And Dr. Hirano says he plans to keep it short and sweet. I like that in a speech.”

  “I’m a hell of a lot more well-known than Hirano,” Frogmore said.

  “If you say so.” Grandfather sounded amused. “Doesn’t matter. I asked Hirano. Asked him months before you invited yourself to my conference. I’m not going to unask him just because you feel like strutting around like a peacock in front of a captive audience.”

  I expected an explosion from Frogmore. He narrowed his eyes and got even redder in the face. But just as I was bracing myself for a loud blast, he spoke, his voice low and venomous.

  “You’re going to regret this.” With that he turned on his heel and stomped out of the office, slamming the door behind him.

  With Frogmore gone, I was expecting Grandfather to say something snarky. Instead he sighed and began massaging his eye sockets with his thumbs, in what I recognized as his favorite technique for easing a headache.

  Damn Frogmore anyway. He must be really getting to Grandfather.

  “I should have held this conference earlier in the year.” Was this a non sequitur, or did it have something to do with Frogmore? “In the middle of everyone’s fall semester. Maybe Frogmore would have been too busy to come.”

  Ah. “That would have been nice,” I said.