by Carl Hiaasen
Mr. Eberhardt held up the book and asked, “What does this have to do with that nonsense at the hospital?”
“Check out page 278,” Roy said. “I marked it for you.”
His father flipped the book open to that page.
“ ‘Burrowing owl,’ ” he read aloud from the text. “ ‘Athene cunicularia. Long-legged and short-tailed, with relatively long, narrow wings and flat head. Only small owl likely to be seen perched in the open in daylight.’ ” His father peered quizzically at him over the top of the book. “Is this connected to that ‘science project’ you were supposedly working on this afternoon?”
“There is no science project,” Roy admitted.
“And the hamburger meat that your mother gave you?”
“A snack for the owls.”
“Continue,” Mr. Eberhardt said.
“It’s a long story, Dad.”
“I’ve got nothing but time.”
“All right,” Roy said. In some ways, he thought wearily, a spanking might be easier.
“See, there’s this boy,” he began, “about the same age as me.…”
Roy told his father everything—well, almost everything. He didn’t mention that the snakes distributed by Beatrice Leep’s stepbrother were highly poisonous and that the boy had actually taped their mouths shut. Such details might have alarmed Mr. Eberhardt more than the petty acts of vandalism.
Roy also chose not to reveal that Beatrice had nicknamed her stepbrother Mullet Fingers, just in case Roy’s father felt legally obligated to report it to the police, or file it away in some government computer bank.
Otherwise, Roy told what he knew about the running boy. His father listened without interruption.
“Dad, he’s really not a bad kid,” Roy said when hefinished. “All he’s trying to do is save the owls.”
Mr. Eberhardt remained silent for a few moments. He reopened the Sibley Guide and looked at the color drawings of the small birds.
“See, if the Mother Paula’s people bulldoze that property, they’ll bury all the dens,” Roy said.
His father put the book aside and looked at Roy fondly, though with a trace of sadness.
“Roy, they own the property. They can do pretty much whatever they please.”
“But—”
“They’ve probably got all the necessary paperwork and permits.”
“They’ve got permits to bury owls?” Roy asked in disbelief.
“The owls will fly away. They’ll find new dens somewhere else.”
“What if they’ve got babies? How will the baby birds fly away?” Roy shot back angrily. “How, Dad?”
“I don’t know,” his father admitted.
“How would you and Mom like it,” Roy pressed on, “if a bunch of strangers showed up one day with bulldozers to flatten this house? And all they had to say was ‘Don’t worry, Mr. and Mrs. Eberhardt, it’s no big deal. Just pack up and move to another place.’ How would you feel about that?”
Roy’s father stood up slowly, as if the weight of a hundred bricks were on his shoulders.
“Let’s go for a walk,” he said.
It was a calm cloudless night, and a pale sliver of moon peeked over the rooftops. Insects as thick as confetti swirled around the cowls of the streetlights. Toward the end of the block, two cats could be heard yowling at each other.
Roy’s father walked with his chin slightly downward, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
“You’re growing up fast,” he remarked, catching Roy by surprise.
“Dad, I’m the third-shortest kid in my homeroom.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
As they went along, Roy hopped from crack to crack on the sidewalk. They talked about comfortable topics—school, sports, sports in school—until Roy nudged the conversation back toward the delicate subject of Mullet Fingers. He needed to know where his father stood.
“You remember that day last summer we floated the Madison canyon?”
“Sure,” said his father, “in inner tubes.”
“Right,” Roy said. “And remember we counted five great horned owls in one cottonwood? Five!”
“Yes, I remember.”
“And you tried to take a picture but the camera fell in the river?”
“Not exactly. I dropped it in the river,” Roy’s father recalled sheepishly.
“Hey, it was a cheapo disposable.”
“Yeah, but it would’ve been a great snapshot. Five in the same tree.”
“Yeah,” said Roy. “That was pretty amazing.”
The owl story did the trick. His father took the cue.
“This boy you told me about—you really don’t know his name?”
“He won’t tell me. Neither will Beatrice,” Roy said. “That’s the honest truth.”
“He didn’t take his stepfather’s last name?”
“Leep? No, not according to Beatrice.”
“And you say he doesn’t attend school.”
Roy’s spirits fell. It sounded as if his father intended to report Mullet Fingers for truancy.
“What worries me,” Mr. Eberhardt said, “is the family situation. It doesn’t sound too good.”
“No, it’s not,” Roy conceded. “That’s why he doesn’t live at home anymore.”
“Aren’t there any relatives who can take care of him?”
“He feels safe where he is,” Roy said.
“You’re sure about that?”
“Dad, please don’t turn him in. Please.”
“How can I, if I don’t even know where to find him?” Roy’s father gave him a wink. “But I’ll tell you what I am going to do: I’m going to spend some time thinking seriously about all this. You should, too.”
“Okay,” said Roy. How could he possibly think of anything else? Even his battle with Dana Matherson seemed like a fuzzy, long-ago dream.
“We’d better head home,” his father said. “It’s getting late and you’ve had a long day.”
“A real long day,” Roy agreed.
But after he got into bed, he couldn’t fall asleep. His body was exhausted but his mind was wide awake, buzzing with the day’s turbulence. He decided to do some reading, and reached for a book titled A Land Remembered, which he’d checked out from school. It was the story of a family who lived in Florida back in the 1850s, when it was still a wilderness. Humans were scarce, and the swamps and woods teemed with wildlife—probably a pretty good time to be a burrowing owl, Roy mused.
An hour later, he was half-dozing when he heard a tap-tap on the bedroom door. It was his mother, slipping in to say good night. She took the book from his hands and turned off the lamp on the nightstand. Then she sat down on the bed and asked how he was feeling.
“Beat,” Roy said.
Gently she snugged the covers up to his neck. Even though he was way too warm, Roy didn’t object. It was a mom thing; she couldn’t help herself.
“Honey,” she said, “you know how much we love you.”
Uh-oh, Roy thought. Here it comes.
“But what you did at the hospital tonight, letting that other boy use your name to get in the emergency ward—”
“It was my idea, Mom, not his.”
“And I’m sure your heart was in the right place,” she said, “but it was still a lie, technically speaking. Providing false information, or whatever. It’s a serious matter, honey—”
“I know.”
“—and it’s just, well, your father and I don’t want to see you get in trouble. Even for the sake of a friend.”
Roy raised himself up on one elbow. “He would’ve run away before he’d give out his real name, and I couldn’t let that happen. He was sick. He needed to see a doctor.”
“I understand. Believe me, I do.”
“They were asking him all kinds of nosy questions, Mom, and meanwhile he’s about to keel over from the fever,” Roy said. “Maybe what I did was wrong, but I’d do it all over again if I had to. I mean it.”
Roy
expected a mild rebuke, but his mother only smiled. Smoothing the blanket with both hands, she said, “Honey, sometimes you’re going to be faced with situations where the line isn’t clear between what’s right and what’s wrong. Your heart will tell you to do one thing, and your brain will tell you to do something different. In the end, all that’s left is to look at both sides and go with your best judgment.”
Well, thought Roy, that’s sort of what I did.
“This boy,” his mother said, “why wouldn’t he give out his real name? And why did he run away from the hospital like that?”
Mullet Fingers had escaped through a window in the women’s restroom, next door to the X-ray department. He left his torn green shirt dangling from the antenna of Officer David Delinko’s patrol car, which was parked outside the emergency room.
“He probably ran,” Roy said, “because he was afraid somebody would call his mom.”
“So?”
“So, she doesn’t want him anymore. She’ll have him locked up at the juvenile hall.”
“What?”
“His mom sent him off to military school,” Roy explained, “and now she doesn’t want him back. She said so herself, in front of Beatrice.”
Roy’s mother cocked her head, as if she wasn’t sure that she’d heard him correctly. “His mom doesn’t want him?”
Roy saw something flash in her eyes. He wasn’t certain if it was sorrow or anger—or both.
“She doesn’t want him?” his mother repeated.
Roy nodded somberly.
“Oh, my,” she said.
The words came out so softly that Roy was startled. He heard pain in his mother’s voice, and he felt bad for telling her that part of Mullet Fingers’ story.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Roy said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, honey.”
She kissed his cheek and tucked in the sheets one more time. As she was shutting his door, he saw her hesitate and turn back to look at him.
“We’re proud of you, Roy. You need to know that. Your father and I are both extremely proud.”
“Did Dad tell you about the owls?”
“Yes, he told me. It’s too bad.”
“What should I do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” Roy said, sinking into his pillow. “G’night, Mom.”
She’d already answered the question, anyway. All he had to do was settle the argument between his heart and his brain.
FOURTEEN
Luckily the next day was Saturday, so Roy didn’t have to get up early to catch the school bus.
As he sat down for breakfast, the phone rang. It was Garrett. He’d never before called Roy, but now he wanted him to go skateboarding at the outlet mall.
“I don’t have a skateboard, remember?” Roy said.
“That’s okay. I got an extra.”
“No thanks. I can’t make it today.”
The true reason that Garrett had called was, of course, to find out what had happened to Dana Matherson at Trace Middle.
“Dude, somebody tied him to a flagpole!”
“Wasn’t me,” said Roy. On this topic he couldn’t talk freely in front of his parents.
“Then who? And how?” Garrett demanded.
“No comment,” said Roy, echoing Mullet Fingers.
“Aw, come on, Eberhardt!”
“See you Monday.”
After breakfast his father drove him to the bicycle shop to pick up his new tire, and by noon Roy was fully mobile again. An address for “L. B. Leep” was listed in the phone book, and Roy had no difficulty locating the house. It was on West Oriole Avenue, the same street as the bus stop where he’d first spotted the running boy.
In the Leep driveway sat a dented old Suburban and a shiny new Camaro convertible. Roy leaned his bike against the mailbox post and hurried up the sidewalk. He heard voices bickering inside the house, and he hoped it was only a TV show with the volume turned up.
After three firm knocks, the door swung open and there stood Leon Leep, all six feet nine inches of him. He wore baggy red gym shorts and a sleeveless mesh jersey that exposed a pale kettle-sized belly. Leon looked as if he hadn’t spent five minutes in the exercise room since retiring from pro basketball; all that remained of his NBA physique was his height.
Roy tilted back on his heels in order to see Leon’s face. His expression was perturbed and preoccupied.
“Beatrice home?” Roy asked.
“Yeah, but she’s kinda busy right now.”
“Only take a minute,” Roy said. “It’s about school.”
“Oh. School,” said Leon, as if he’d forgotten where his daughter went five days a week. With a curious grunt, he lumbered off.
A moment later, Beatrice appeared. She looked stressed.
“Can I come in?” Roy asked.
“No,” she whispered. “It’s a bad time.”
“Then can you come out?”
“Nuh-uh.” Beatrice glanced anxiously behind her.
“You heard what happened at the hospital?”
She nodded. “Sorry I didn’t get back in time to help.”
“Is your brother okay?” Roy asked.
“Better than he was,” said Beatrice.
“Who’s there? Who is that?” demanded a chilly voice from the hallway.
“Just a friend.”
“A boy?”
“Yeah, a boy,” Beatrice said, rolling her eyes for Roy’s benefit.
A woman not much taller than Beatrice materialized in the doorway behind her. She had a sharp nose, beady, suspicious eyes, and a wild fountain of curly auburn hair. Blue smoke curled from a cigarette poised in glittering fingertips.
It could only be Lonna, the mother of Mullet Fingers.
“Who’re you?” she asked.
“My name’s Roy.”
“What do you want, Roy?” Lonna took a noisy drag off the cigarette.
“It’s about school,” Beatrice said.
“Yeah, well, it’s Saturday,” said Lonna.
Roy gave it a try. “I’m really sorry to bother you,Mrs. Leep. Beatrice and I are doing a science project together—”
“Not today, you’re not,” Lonna cut him off. “Miz Beatrice here will be busy cleanin’ the house. And the kitchen. And the bathrooms. And anything else I can think of.”
Roy believed Lonna was skating on thin ice. Beatrice was obviously the stronger of the two, and she was seething mad. Lonna might have softened her tone had she seen what her stepdaughter’s teeth had done to Roy’s bicycle tire.
“Maybe tomorrow,” Beatrice said to Roy, her jaw set grimly.
“Sure. Whatever.” He backed down the steps.
“We’ll see about ‘tomorrow.’ ” Lonna’s voice was snide and croaky. “Next time, call first,” she grumped at Roy. “Ever heard of a telephone?”
As Roy rode away on his bike, he pondered the possibility that Mullet Fingers was better off roaming the woods than living at home with a witch for a mother. Roy wondered what made a grownup turn out so ill-tempered and obnoxious. It wouldn’t have surprised him if one day Beatrice literally chewed Lonna’s head off.
His next stop was Dana Matherson’s house, where another shaky example of motherhood lived. Roy had a feeling that Dana’s father was no prize, either, and it was he who answered the door. Roy had expected another Neanderthal hulk, but Mr. Matherson was thin and jittery and unhealthy-looking.
“Hi. My name’s Roy.”
“Sorry, we’re not interested,” Dana’s father said politely, and began to shut the door.
“But I’m not selling anything,” Roy said through the crack. “I’m here to see Dana.”
“Uh-oh. Not again.” Mr. Matherson reopened the door and lowered his voice. “Let me guess. He’s hired you to do his homework for him.”
“No, sir. I’m just a friend from school.”
“A ‘friend’?”
Dana didn’t have many friends, Roy knew, and the few he had
were all much larger and meaner-looking than Roy.
“I ride the bus with him,” Roy said, and decided to recycle Beatrice’s line one more time: “We’re doing a science project together.”
Mr. Matherson’s brow furrowed. “Is this some kind of joke? Who are you, really?”
“I told you.”
Dana’s father took out his wallet. “All right, young man, no more kidding around. How much do I owe you?”
“For what?”
“For my son’s homework.” Mr. Matherson held up a five-dollar bill. “The usual?”
He looked defeated and ashamed. Roy felt sorry for him. Clearly it was an ordeal, raising a goon like Dana.
“You don’t owe me a dime,” Roy said. “Is he home?”
Mr. Matherson asked Roy to wait at the door. Moments later, Dana appeared, wearing droopy boxer shorts and a grimy pair of sweat socks.
“You!” he snarled.
“Yup,” said Roy. “It’s me.”
“What are you starin’ at, cowgirl?”
Not much, Roy thought. He noticed that Dana’s lisp had disappeared, along with the swelling in his upper lip.
“You must be nuts to ride all the way over here,” Dana said, “just so you can get stomped to a pulp.”
“Come on outside. I haven’t got all day.”
“What did you say?”
Dana stepped onto the porch and shut the door behind him, presumably so that his father wouldn’t be a witness to the bloodshed. He wound up and swung fiercely at Roy’s head, but Roy saw it coming. He ducked, and Dana’s fist connected solidly with a fiberglass bird feeder.
Once Dana stopped howling, Roy said, “Every time you try to hurt me, something bad happens to you. Haven’t you noticed?”
Dana was doubled over, shaking his injured hand. He glared up at Roy.
“Like yesterday,” Roy went on, “when you tried to kill me in the janitor’s closet. Remember? You ended up getting whupped by a girl, stripped naked, and strung to a flagpole.”
“I wasn’t naked,” Dana snapped. “I had my underpants on.”
“When you go back to school Monday, everybody’s going to be laughing at you. Everybody, Dana, and it’s your own stupid fault. All you had to do was leave me alone. How hard is that?”
“Yeah, well, they’ll be laughin’ even louder when I kick your skinny ass to kingdom come, cowgirl. They’ll be laughin’ like hyenas, only you won’t be around to hear ’em.”