The Good, the Bad, and the Emus

by Donna Andrews

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “It meant for the next few years, whenever Sylvia came to tea, we all had to cover up our pretty teapots with her ghastly tea cozies. Sylvia’s taste in color combinations is legendarily bad, and back then her knitting was even worse.”

  I glanced up to see that Sherry had pulled out her phone and was punching buttons on it. I caught a glimpse of what she was doing—using a calculator program.

  “It’s not a giant mutant tea cozy but an emu sweater.” Caroline turned the knitted blob to a slightly different angle and held out a long knitted tube that emerged from one side of it. “That, apparently, is the neck.”

  “Isn’t it at least twice as long as a normal emu’s neck?” I asked

  “It’s supposed to be a turtleneck,” she said. “This part folds down.”

  “Do the emus actually need sweaters,” I asked. “They seem to be rather well insulated with feathers.”

  “I doubt it,” she said. “And I wouldn’t care to be the person trying to stuff one of the birds into this thing. Did you see some of the lacerations your father patched up? I told her to hold off on knitting any more until we see how this one fits. With any luck she’ll see reason now that we’ve actually met the emus and got one in the pen and she can see how lively they are.”

  “I hope she listens,” I said. “Though when I passed the campfire just a little while ago, there was someone sitting there, knitting up a storm.”

  “Probably Millicent,” Caroline said with a sigh. “She told me she was working on the matching leggings.”

  “Eighty-nine percent compliance,” Sherry announced.

  Caroline and I both started, having forgotten that Sherry was still there, communing with her clipboard.

  “That’s eighty-nine so far,” Sherry added. From the gleam in her eye I suspected one hundred percent compliance was not far off. She tucked her phone back into her pocket. Then her eyes fell on the emu sweater.

  “That’s even uglier than I expected,” she said. “We’re not really putting those on all the emus, are we?”

  “I doubt we’ll manage to get any of the emus to wear them,” Caroline said. “But let’s not hurt Millicent’s feelings.”

  “Maybe someone should hurt her feelings,” Sherry said. “Instead of letting her waste all that time—not to mention perfectly good yarn—on something that makes us all look ridiculous.”

  “The yarn won’t go to waste,” Caroline said. “Assuming the emus don’t want the sweaters, I can donate them to a church group that knits for the homeless. They can unravel them and reuse the yarn.”

  Sherry didn’t seem to find this thought calming.

  “We’ve got people over there hooting like owls,” she said, pointing vaguely to her left. “And some people over there who want us to declare the camp a clothing-optional zone.”

  “I think not,” Caroline said. “We don’t want to make the film crew’s job any harder than it already is.”

  “You never know,” I said. “Could do wonders for the ratings.”

  “That strange woman who looks like a refugee from Haight-Ashbury running around ordering people to move their tents and waving herbs at people.”

  “That would be my cousin, Rose Noire,” I said. “And if you’re not fond of the herbs, you might want to avoid drinking any tea she tries to serve you.”

  “And that creepy little Goth girl trailing after those destructive little brats like the wicked witch chasing Hansel and Gretel!”

  “That’s our babysitter,” I said. “And if the brats are trying to destroy anything and she doesn’t intervene, let Michael or me know and we’ll deal with it.”

  Sherry seemed unembarrassed at having called my children brats.

  “We’re here on an important mission!” she exclaimed. “But how can you expect people to take us seriously when so many of us are complete flakes!”

  She threw up her hands in dismay.

  “Now, now,” Caroline began.

  But Sherry clearly wasn’t in the mood to be now-nowed. She took a deep breath, smoothed down the sheets of paper on her clipboard, which might have been knocked ever so slightly askew when she threw up her hands, and strode off.

  “They also serve who only stand and keep accurate records,” I murmured.

  “But they don’t exactly endear themselves to the rest of the crew,” Caroline said. “And that is why Sherry, in spite of her admirable efficiency, will never get the job she aspires to as Monty’s right hand. No tolerance for the glorious diversity that is Blake’s Brigade. You should have seen her face when I pulled up in the caravan.”

  I nodded, and kept to myself the fact that I could partly understand Sherry’s point of view. After all, I’d done her job before, including the photo release drill. I didn’t mind the group’s colorful appearance and behavior. I only got annoyed when they did things that seemed deliberately aimed at making my job harder. Like the people who thought it was amusing to sign their photo releases under pseudonyms.

  I reached into my tote and pulled out the list of camp residents Caroline had given me.

  “You must not have warned Sherry to ask for a photo ID when she has people sign the photo release,” I said. “What are the odds we really have both a James T. Kirk and a Leonard McCoy in the brigade?”

  Caroline sighed.

  “I’ll have a word with her,” she said. “She’s only been with us for a year or so. A fast learner, but she’s not onto all the tricks yet.”

  I found myself wondering if Sherry had merely been letting off steam, or if her brief rant was a clue that she was about to storm out of camp and swear off Grandfather’s expeditions forever. On the one hand, I had been hoping someone would come along to take some of the organizational burden off of Caroline. Someone other than me. On the other, I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy Camp Emu nearly as much if it was organized in the regimented fashion that would probably keep Sherry happy.

  “If we all showed up in khaki uniforms with matching khaki tents and set them up in precise rows, and lined up in alphabetical order five minutes before every meal, Sherry still wouldn’t be happy,” Caroline said, echoing my thoughts.

  “I’m not overfond of khaki,” I said. “Just another name for beige.”

  Clearly Caroline wasn’t a big Sherry fan, either. Well, their next conversation could be the deciding moment. If Sherry didn’t lose it upon discovering that two members of the brigade were impersonating officers from the starship Enterprise, she could probably handle anything. And if she went away in a huff, maybe it was a good thing.

  Stanley wasn’t in his trailer. Thor had left the mess tent and was nowhere to be found. I hoped he’d found a ride home. Grandfather and some of the film crew were gathered around a laptop watching some of the day’s footage. Nearly all of the volunteers had been drooping over dinner and had disappeared soon after. The catering trucks had departed for the night. All was once more quiet in Camp Emu.

  I strolled over to the emu holding pen and scanned it to see what Edward Everett Horton was up to. I finally spotted him just as I was about to send up an alarm that he’d escaped. He was lying on the ground with his legs tucked under his body, his long neck stretched out straight in front of him, and his head lying flat on the ground. I couldn’t help thinking of some of the odd, uncomfortable-looking poses in which Jamie and Josh sometimes fell asleep, and made a mental note to ask Grandfather if Edward Everett Horton was the smallest of the emus because he wasn’t full grown. And—

  A slight flicker of light in the corner of my eye caught my attention. It appeared to be coming from the bushes between the emu pen and Miss Annabel’s yard.

  There it was again, a faint glowing light. A familiar, rather ghostly rectangular glow.

  It was the glow from the screen of a cell phone.

  I began to work my way around the perimeter of the pen, staying turned toward the emu, as if my attention was on him. When I was within ten feet of where I’d seen the cell phone lig
ht, I fished into my pocket for the tiny flashlight I kept there and aimed it at where I’d seen the glow.

  “Thor,” I said. “I thought you’d gone home. If you’re actually getting a signal on that thing, can you let me use it for a few minutes?”

  “Don’t let anyone know I’m here!” he said. He was crouched in the middle of a thicket of thorny shrubs. His face was cross-hatched with scratches and dotted with fresh mosquito bites. “And I wasn’t making a call. Just checking the time.”

  I turned the flashlight off and walked closer.

  “And just why are you here?” I asked. “Lurking around the emu pen. Are you worried about Edward Everett Horton?”

  “I’m not really lurking around the emu pen,” he said. “I mean I am, but only because it’s right behind Miss Annabel’s house. I’m worried about her.”

  “Worried? Why?”

  I sat down on the ground just outside his thicket and pretended to be gazing at the emus.

  “Last fall everyone was stirred up about the emus and then Ms. Delia was killed,” he said. “And now everyone’s stirred up again and there was that poisoning—” He shrugged. “You probably think it’s stupid.”

  “Not stupid at all,” I said. “If it makes you feel any better, the private investigator who came with us is worried, too. He suggested that Miss Annabel get a security system installed, and I talked her into doing it.”

  “Good,” he said. “And I can keep watch until she gets it.”

  “It could be days.”

  He hunched slightly as if to demonstrate his determination to stay put.

  “Do your parents know where you are?” I asked.

  “They know I’m out here at the camp,” he said. “I told them that I wanted to be here to help out first thing tomorrow morning, and sort of implied that someone would lend me a cot.”

  The parent in me wanted to shoo him home. Better yet, to grab him by the scruff of the neck and frog-march him over to my car, like one of the emus, and drive him home.

  But he wasn’t a preschooler, like Josh and Jamie. He had to be seventeen or eighteen. He was going to college in a few months. And maybe if his instincts were correct—

  “If you see something suspicious, do not rush in like an idiot,” I said. “You make a lot of noise and run over to get help from the camp.”

  He nodded.

  “And for heaven’s sake, bring some mosquito repellant next time. Use some of this for now.” I reached into my pocket and tossed him a little tin of Rose Noire’s homemade organic bug repellent, chock full of citronella, lemon eucalyptus, cinnamon, cedar oil, and half a dozen other ingredients. “Drop by the first aid tent tomorrow and Dad can give you something for the itching.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “At the first hint of trouble,” I intoned, shaking my finger at him.

  He nodded and began slathering himself with Rose Noire’s ointment.

  I strolled back to the main part of camp.

  Grandfather was sitting in the mess tent by himself, sipping from a Blake Foundation mug.

  “Coffee, at this hour?” I didn’t sit down, but I leaned against the table.

  “Single malt Scotch,” he said. “Macallan, to be precise. If I drink it in a glass, I get lectures about alcoholism and setting a bad example for youth. If I drink it in a mug, I get lectures about caffeine. I can’t win.”

  “Drink it in a teacup,” I said. “Everyone will assume you’re having an herbal tisane to help you sleep.”

  “Good idea,” he said. “Sipping tea at bedtime—is that something normal people do?”

  “How would I know?” I said. “So what’s on tap for tomorrow? Any strategies for rounding up the emus more efficiently.”

  “Tomorrow should go better,” he said. “I’ve put out a call for my wranglers.”

  “Wranglers?” I echoed. “What do you mean, wranglers?”

  He didn’t explain—he never did—just tossed back the last swallow of his Scotch and stumped off to his trailer. He nodded goodnight to the guards occupying the lawn chairs on either side of the door—I recognized Jim Williams as one of them—and disappeared, presumably to sleep. I probably wasn’t the only person in camp who went to bed wondering if the emu roundup was doomed to failure.

  Or the only person less than thrilled when the wranglers arrived shortly before dawn.

  Chapter 19

  “Mommy, horsies!”

  Josh was following the letter of the rule that he wasn’t supposed to leave the tent before daylight without a grownup, but only just barely. At least half of him was hanging out the back flap of the tent.

  “Mo-sickles!” Jamie exclaimed. Like his brother, he was leaning out of the tent so far that any second I expected him to topple over.

  From the loud vrooming noise I could hear outside the tent, I assumed that Jamie had a better understanding of what was happening outside. Then I heard a definite whinny, and decided perhaps I needed to stick my head outside as well.

  The field between our tent and the emu holding pen now held half-a-dozen horse trailers and at least a dozen motorcycles. The motorcycles weren’t the large, heavily chromed kind you usually saw tooling down the highway—they were leaner, lighter, simpler looking. Dirt bikes rather than motorcycles. They were all parked in a row on the left side of the field, near the road, and the riders were gathered in little clusters, taking their helmets off and chatting. They were dressed not in scruffy leather and denim but in brightly colored racing outfits with lots of reflective silver on them, so that they looked a lot like the drivers I’d seen when we took the boys to see a car race several months ago.

  At the other side of the field, several people were leading horses out of their trailers, feeding and watering them, and saddling them. The horses didn’t look thrilled at the occasional sound of motor revving from one of the motorcycles, but they weren’t panicking either. I also saw Thor standing near one of the horse trailers, blinking sleepily. Good. Maybe if the equestrian part of our crew settled down that near to Miss Annabel’s house tonight, Thor would trust their presence to keep her safe.

  “So that’s what your Grandfather meant when he said he was calling in the wranglers.” Michael was at my side, peering out at the new arrivals, and holding onto Jamie’s pajama top to keep him from falling into a nearby puddle.

  Michael and I hurriedly dressed ourselves and the twins. He collected Natalie from her neighboring tent and they took the boys off to enjoy the twin attractions of horsies and mo-sickles. I heard Grandfather’s booming voice from over in the dining tent, so I headed that way to see what I could learn.

  “Excellent!” He was beaming with delight as he waved around a mug of coffee—this time I could see that it actually was coffee, and unlikely to contain any dangerous additives because Grandfather wasn’t a big fan of diluting alcohol with anything. “I wasn’t expecting to get both the horses and the bikes on such short notice.”

  “Well, we knew you might be needing us,” said the leader of the bikers—who, to my surprise, was Clarence Rutledge, Caerphilly’s holistic biker vet. I wasn’t surprised to see him at the rescue, of course—Clarence was a sucker for any animal in trouble, and had been known to foster litters of abandoned puppies or kittens so young that they needed hourly feeding with an eyedropper. But I was surprised that he wore the same sporty racing outfit as all the other bikers. His had to be at least a size XXXL. At six five, he was an inch taller than Michael, and considerably wider, and I’d never before seen him out of his faded leather and denim biker gear—in the office he merely topped them off with a lab coat the size of a small tent.

  These days, Clarence was the only vet we trusted with Spike, the Small Evil One. Of course, it helped that he was the only vet we knew who didn’t pretend to be completely booked for six weeks when Spike needed tending.

  He and Grandfather quickly fell into a discussion of the optimum dosage for the tranquilizer darts they planned to use, if necessary, to capture the emus. I coul
d see Sherry lurking nearby, waiting for a lull in the conversation to thrust a photo release into Clarence’s hands.

  When they moved on to the enthralling topic of whether the emus were likely to need worming, I decided to leave them to it. I headed for the chow line to fortify myself for the day. I suspected that the quality and quantity of food served in the mess tent on Grandfather’s expeditions was one of the main reasons he never seemed to have trouble recruiting volunteers. I dithered between the fresh-squeezed orange juice and the organic cranapple juice before settling for small glasses of each, and then I filled my plate with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, and whole wheat toast. After all, we might not have much time for lunch once the roundup began.

  Even apart from the wranglers, our numbers had grown this morning, and I recognized some of the newcomers as people I’d seen in town. Evidently, interest in our work was rising among the inhabitants of Riverton. Or maybe the emu roundup sounded like more fun than anything else they could do with the power still out all over town. Or maybe they were just eager for the hot breakfasts the catering trucks were serving up to all comers. Whatever the locals’ reasons, Sherry was busily circulating among them with her clipboard.

  Since the only other important task I had in my notebook was to do more research at the library, which wasn’t happening until the power came back, I decided to tag along and see how well the wranglers worked out. The boys were too excited about the horses and bikes to eat, so I raided the breakfast line for a large to-go package. Odds were they’d realize how hungry they were about halfway out to Pudding Mountain.

  No emus were visible when we arrived at Thor’s emu feeding station—if any had been breakfasting there, I’m sure the roar of the choppers would have sent them fleeing. We filled the little clearing and spilled over into the nearby woods.

  Caroline got someone to give her a boost up onto the hood of her truck and began shouting out orders with a battery-powered megaphone. Dad had opened up the back of Grandfather’s Jeep and was setting up his small field medical station in the cargo area.