Owls Well That Ends Well

by Donna Andrews

  One of us should watch the gate.

  I turned around and headed back, but I must have gotten off course, because after about three feet, I ran into the deer fence.

  Over to my left, I could hear Michael getting tangled in a nest of coat hangers dangling from something overhead.

  Or was that Michael, knocking over the stack of glass objects to my right?

  Long moments of silence followed as we all stood still and tried not to breathe too loudly.

  Chapter 42

  My eyes had adjusted to the dark. If I got close enough, I could see objects silhouetted against the sky. Not clearly—the sky was only a shade lighter than the objects. But I could see vague shapes looming up ahead of me as I moved around.

  Unfortunately, this didn’t help me navigate safely through the clutter, since most of the things lying in wait to trip me crouched close to the ground, where I couldn’t see their silhouettes. It wasn’t even reassuring, since to my overactive imagination most of the looming shapes looked remarkably like thugs wielding cudgels.

  I steered by sound, aiming for a point midway between the coat hanger sound and the breaking glass sound.

  The figure to my left knocked over a lamp—I heard the light bulb explode on impact with something hard.

  The figure to my left tripped over something, fell, and muttered, “Damn!”

  I couldn’t tell if it was Michael or Barrymore. And apparently we’d all three stopped to listen.

  All I heard was a sheep baaing, as if startled. Closer than I expected. Had the sheep gotten inside the yard sale fence? If they did, they could do a terrific amount of damage. We’d probably have to throw a ton of stuff away.

  Yay, sheep.

  Just then, I heard someone stumble a few feet ahead and to my left.

  “Michael?” I called.

  “Over here,” came his voice, from somewhere behind me.

  Something slammed into me, hard, and knocked me into a pile of stuff.

  “Get him,” I shouted.

  I heard clanking and scrambling behind me as Michael gave chase. From my new position, flat on my back, I realized that I’d been felled by the portable toilet door, which someone hiding inside had suddenly slammed open to make a run for it. And when I fell, I’d knocked over a large plastic bin. I was lying in a heap of spilled toys. Every time I tried to get up, I’d slip on some of the marbles, and every time I fell again, another half dozen toy soldiers would bayonet me with their tiny sharp weapons.

  And then, when I paused to catch my breath, I realized that I could still hear the clacking of marbles and the faint grunts that suggested the miniature soldiers might also be attacking someone else, perhaps six feet away.

  Barrymore.

  I waited a few seconds until I was sure I had a fix on his position, and then launched myself toward him. I wasn’t trying to stand up, just land on top of him, so this time the marbles helped.

  “Oof!” he exclaimed, as I knocked the breath out of him.

  “Got him!” I shouted, as I pulled his arm behind him and sat down on his back.

  “Hang on!” Michael shouted.

  “Meg!” my captive gasped. “It’s me! Rob!”

  I switched on the flashlight to reveal the swollen face of my brother. I hoped the swelling was only left over from his allergy attack, and not something I’d done.

  “What happened to you?” I asked, standing up.

  “I’ve been stumbling around trying to find whoever tied up Dad,” Rob said. “I keep falling over stuff.”

  “Barrymore Sprocket,” Michael said.

  “Is that who it is?” Rob said.

  “If we’ve been chasing Rob, then where’s Sprocket?” Michael said.

  I played the flashlight beam over the junk around us. Michael and Rob held their breath.

  “Not out here,” I said.

  “Then where—”

  Just then, we heard a yelp of pain from the barn, followed by frantic barking.

  “Spike?” Michael muttered, turning his head toward the sounds.

  “Dad?” Rob said, sitting up.

  “Barrymore!” I exclaimed, and sprinted for the barn, closely followed by Michael. Rob, apparently, had injured his foot in falling, and followed more slowly.

  Inside we found Dad, still lying peacefully on his back, looking at Spike’s pen, where Barrymore Sprocket was backed up against the barn wall, ducking left and right in a vain attempt to dodge Spike so he could reach the fence and make a break for freedom.

  “Stop where you are and I’ll call him off,” I said.

  “The police are on their way!” Michael added.

  Barrymore hesitated, and perhaps he might have surrendered, but just then we heard another ghastly shriek, and a feathered missile plummeted from somewhere high up in the barn, heading for Spike.

  “Look out!” I said, throwing the flashlight at the owl. Spike yelped and dived for cover, while Barrymore Sprocket seized his chance to leap over the fence.

  “Leave him alone, Sophie!” Michael shouted. The owl swooped back up again, and Michael ran after her, waving the bicycle pump. I vaulted the fence and scooped up Spike.

  “I’ve got Spike,” I called. “Don’t worry about Sophie—stop Barrymore.”

  Michael ran after Barrymore, and I ducked as another shriek announced that Sophie hadn’t given up.

  Only it wasn’t Sophie. Instead of a small barn owl, with its winsome, heart-shaped face, a much larger owl was staring down at us from the rafters. Its beak looked sharper as well as larger, and the feathers around its face were arranged in a pattern that resembled a perpetual frown. It looked slightly cross-eyed and more than slightly annoyed, and I deduced from the large tufts of feathers sticking up on either side of its face that I was looking at a great horned owl.

  “Look out!” Dad shouted. The owl moved. For some reason, I was expecting it to plummet, beak first, like a hawk. Instead, it launched itself, feet first, for all the world like a kid jumping into a pool and hoping to splash as many bystanders as possible. All that was missing was the cry of “Banzai!” Of course, it made sense. The talons were its weapons. I’d probably have stood transfixed as it flew into my face, but just then Spike bit me and made a run for it, and I tripped and fell out of the owl’s path while trying to catch him. Even so, I felt the owl swoop by me; and something sharp raked my cheek. I hoped it missed my eyes. The owl swooped past, and I scrambled into the corner where Spike had retreated, putting myself between him and the owl, and grabbing his water bowl to serve as a shield. The feathered fury swooped past again, and then disappeared.

  “Meg!” Michael called. “Are you all right?”

  “It flew out the door,” Dad said. “Magnificent!”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “What happened to Barrymore Sprocket?”

  “I’ve got him,” Michael said. “Where’s Rob?”

  “Limping around outside,” I said.

  I made sure both eyes were working properly, and fingered the owl gash in my cheek and the Spike bite on my arm, both of which were bleeding, though neither badly enough to kill me. I vaulted back out of the pen, grabbed one of the milk crates, and threw it down over Spike, to keep him from becoming an owl hors d’oeuvre. Then I walked over to where Michael was.

  “I thought you said you had him,” I said. He wasn’t holding Barrymore down. He was standing at the foot of the ladder leading to the loft, staring up.

  “I’ve got him cornered,” he said. “He scurried up the ladder.”

  “Barrymore!” I called. “Come on down.”

  We stood with ears cocked toward the loft, but heard no sound from Barrymore.”

  “Come on,” Michael called out. “You have to come down sooner or later. There’s no other way out.”

  I heard a rattling noise from above.

  “Unless he uses the rope and pulley in the hayloft door and rappels down,” I said. “Which, unless I’m mistaken, is what he’s doing.”

  “Damn,” Michael
said. “I’ll run outside and catch him. You guard the ladder.”

  I took his place at the foot of the ladder, and decided that instead of just waiting, I might as well climb up. Not that I thought we had much of a chance to catch Barrymore. It was a long way around to the hayloft door. Maybe if it took Barrymore several minutes to get up his nerve—

  Too late. I heard a motor start up outside.

  Then again, that couldn’t possibly be Barrymore’s car, unless his car needed the mother of all tune-ups. It sounded more like a small generator. I jumped off the ladder and ran to the back door, where the noise came from.

  “Don’t worry!” Rob called. “I’ve got him!”

  He had climbed into the cab of the boom lift, started its motor, and was slowly swinging the arm and extending it, aiming the raised platform at the hay loft door. Was he planning to catch Barrymore, crush him against the side of the barn, or just scare him silly? Whatever he planned, the sight of the boom lift platform creaking and lurching toward the barn was pretty terrifying. Barrymore, who had climbed halfway down the rope, began climbing up again, a lot faster. He looked scared and he didn’t even know, as I did, how singularly inept my brother was with mechanical objects. How well could Rob possibly have learned how to operate the boom lift?

  The platform hit the side of the barn a few feet below Barrymore. The barn stayed in place, though I could hear bits of rubble falling inside, and the impact threw Barrymore off balance. He fell six feet onto the platform, and Rob immediately raised the arm, taking the platform higher and higher until it was perched forty feet above the ground at the end of the fully extended arm.

  “Good job,” I said, and ran back inside to make sure Spike and Dad had survived the falling rubble.

  Dad was lying peacefully, legs still bound, and I deduced from how loudly Spike was barking that he was still safe under the plastic milk crate.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Dad, as I started to untie his legs.

  “It was amazing,” Dad said. “I’ve never seen a great horned owl that close.”

  “I’ve never wanted to,” I said. “After I untie you, can you patch my cheek?”

  “Are you okay?” Michael asked, running back in. “You’re bleeding.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Dad said, peering at my face. “It’s only a superficial laceration. Though we should clean that wound as soon as possible. Owls eat a lot of carrion, you know.”

  “Thanks for sharing that,” I said, as I finished untying Dad’s feet. “There; you’re free again. Let’s fix my wound.”

  “Should I call 911 and tell them to send an ambulance?” Michael asked.

  “No, but call and ask Debbie Anne why the heck none of the police have arrived yet,” I suggested.

  “Wasn’t that cool?” Rob asked, strolling into the barn.

  “Very cool,” I said. “Why aren’t you keeping your eye on Barrymore?”

  “Relax,” Rob said. “He’s forty feet in the air in the boom lift. He’s not going anywhere.”

  As if on cue, we heard the boom lift’s engine start again.

  “I turned that off,” Rob said, in a puzzled voice.

  “And Barrymore’s probably turned it back on,” I said, heading for the door.

  “How could he?” Rob protested. “He’s up on the platform.”

  “There’s another set of controls up on the platform,” I heard Dad saying as I ran out. “So you can maneuver it from up there.”

  “There is?” Rob said.

  Michael and I sprinted for the gate, but Barrymore had already swung the platform away from the barn and toward the driveway, lowering the boom arm as he went. By the time we cleared the gate, he was already climbing off the platform, and by the time we reached Michael’s car, Barrymore’s car had disappeared over the crest of the hill. At least I hoped he’d taken his own car. Odds were any car he stole would belong to one of my more easily annoyed relatives.

  “We could go after him,” Michael said, running around to the driver’s side and trying, in vain, to shoo away the sheep that had curled up next to his door.

  “We could let Chief Burke and his men go after him,” I said. “Where is Chief Burke, anyway?”

  “Not answering his phone, last time I tried,” Michael said.

  “Sorry about that,” Rob said, strolling up. “I didn’t know about the controls on the platform.”

  “What are you doing here anyway,” I asked. “I thought you were in town, having pizza.”

  “I brought Dad his pizza,” Rob said. “Did you know that Luigi’s doesn’t deliver this far out of town? You may want to rethink this living out in the wilderness thing.”

  “At last!” I exclaimed, seeing a caravan of three police cars speeding toward us.

  “What in tarnation is going on out here?” Chief Burke exclaimed, leaping out of his car.

  “Barrymore Sprocket attacked Dad, stole the yard sale proceeds, and went thataway,” I said. “Incidentally, he’s probably also Gordon McCoy’s killer.”

  “Went thataway?” the chief repeated. “Blue Honda Accord? We’ll cite him for reckless driving when one of my officers catches him. He must have been going over a hundred when he passed us. Pity we didn’t know what he was up to.”

  “If you’d gotten here sooner …” I began.

  “We’d have been here fifteen minutes ago if some blasted farmer hadn’t let his silly sheep get out and wander all over the road again,” Chief Burke said. “If I find out who’s responsible, I’ll throw the book at the lazy rascal.”

  “We tried to call your cell phone,” Michael put in. “But we didn’t get an answer.”

  “Stupid sheep,” the chief said. “Where’s Dr. Langslow?”

  “In the barn,” I said.

  The chief stormed off toward the barn.

  “What’s with him?” I asked Sammy. “He doesn’t usually lose his cool like that.”

  “He dropped his cell phone while we were chasing the sheep off the road,” Sammy explained, “and one of the sheep stepped on it. He’s that provoked.”

  “So what’s with the sheep, then?” I asked. “I thought people had brought them all back. Were these someone else’s sheep?”

  “No, they were Mr. Early’s sheep,” Sammy said, with a frown. “Are you sure the gate was closed?”

  “Who knows?” Michael said. “And even if it was, I wonder if maybe our volunteer fence menders didn’t fix it as well as they thought they did.”

  “A sheep fix?” I suggested. They ignored me.

  “Well, maybe it will cheer up the chief if the sheep slow Barrymore Sprocket down,” Michael suggested.

  From the direction of the barn, we heard a crashing noise, followed by a reproachful baa.

  “Blast that sheep!” the chief exclaimed.

  Chapter 43

  Things were quieting down again. The police were mostly gone, and a couple of neighboring farmers rounded up by Sammy fixed the break in a fence and put the sheep back in their pasture again.

  The yard sale was battened down for the night—in fact, for the five days it would have to wait until its continuation next weekend. When my relatives began arriving back from Luigi’s, quivering with excitement and curiosity about the night’s events, I channeled their energy into rigging up some floodlights, hauling as much of the yard sale stuff as possible into the barn, and covering the rest with tarps.

  When we finally finished that, everyone else drifted off to bed, but I was still too wound up to sleep.

  “What’s wrong?” Michael asked, when he came down to the kitchen to see why I was still up, sitting at my laptop.

  “I just remembered that the truck from Goodwill was supposed to get here at eight A.M. tomorrow,” I said. “To take all the unsold yard sale stuff. I just called and left a voice message apologizing for the short notice, and asking to reschedule for next Monday. I should have called sooner; they may still show up.”

  “Then we’ll tell them to come back next week,” he said.
“Don’t worry; they probably heard the news. They’ll figure it out.”

  “And I e-mailed an updated version of the ad to the Caerphilly Clarion, asking them to run it again this Friday,” I said, drawing a line through the item in my notebook. “And also an updated announcement to the college radio station. Can you think of anything else we need to do?”

  “Nothing we need to do tonight,” he said. “Let’s worry about it tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to worry abut anything tomorrow,” I said. “I just want to sleep late tomorrow. In fact, never mind late. I just want to sleep.”

  “Sounds fine.”

  “And then do nothing for the rest of the week.”

  “Also fine,” he said. “Or maybe we could do something fun.”

  I nodded. I was shutting down the laptop. I hadn’t thought of anything urgent that needed doing, and sleep was becoming really appealing.

  “Maybe before your parents leave town we could go out to that antique mall with your mother and—”

  “Do we have to do that this week?” I asked. “Shopping isn’t usually something I do for fun, especially shopping with Mother, and right now the idea sounds only slightly less horrible than taking a bus tour of the lower three circles of hell.”

  “But your mother—”

  “Will live if she has to go antiquing by herself.”

  “Fine,” he said. He sounded irritated. “Just blow her off.”

  “Michael—”

  “Couldn’t you at least take an hour or two to look at what she’s found?” he asked. “I only spent the whole past week hauling her around town, and listening patiently to every crazy idea she came up with and then trying to talk her out of them all without hurting her feelings. And trying to explain what we wanted instead.”

  “It never occurred to you just to tell her that what we want is to be left alone to do things ourselves?”

  “She’s your mother, dammit,” he said. “I was trying to be nice to her.”

  “Can’t we be nice to her, and also tell her nicely that we don’t need a decorator right now?”

  “Have you even looked at her drawings? The latest ones—the ones she’s done this week, based on what I’ve been telling her?”