Summer of the Spotted Owl

by Melanie Jackson

  Bzz, bzz, bzz …

  Wait a minute. That was no bee. I squinted past Pantelli, over some lacy ferns and into the deep shade of the Douglas firs. There, watching us, was — Itchy! And scratching his bare arms like crazy.

  “Itchy alert!” I shouted.

  Startled, Pantelli straightened, stepped away and promptly tripped backward over a tree root.

  Marching up to the yew tree, I yelled into the woods at Itchy, “Try some calamine lotion, buddy! Meanwhile, I’m going to report you for —”

  I paused. People couldn’t really be reported for hiding among trees.

  Itchy filled the silence with whining — and, of course, scratching. “Why are you following me? Can’t you leave me alone? What happened at your swimming pool wasn’t my fault! ”

  Pantelli scrambled up, clutching his now-broken magnifying glass. “Yeah, right,” he retorted to Itchy. “Whatever happened to the concept of free will? Of personal responsibility?”

  Not for nothing had Pantelli, along with me, attended years of Father O’Reilly’s catechism classes at St. Cecilia’s. Guilt didn’t work like dodgeball, Father O’Reilly liked to tell us. Forget about trying to duck out of the way.

  Which made Itchy a bit of a wiener for trying to do so — but at this point I was thinking about what Itchy had said.

  “Weren’t you following us?” I demanded.

  Itchy scratched madly at one of his knobby knees. “Are we now interpreting things? Trying to discover hidden meaning?” he sneered. “What is this, a French movie?”

  “Wiener!” I shouted. I could exchange witty ripostes with the best of them.

  But Itchy was plunging off into the Douglas firs.

  Maybe the thought of Father O’Reilly was still hovering in the pine-scented air. On a rare responsible impulse, Pantelli and I didn’t race after Itchy. Instead we returned to the picnic blanket and told the adults what had happened.

  Madge laughed. She was twisting her burnished red hair up. “Sounds like Itchy’s afraid of you, Dinah. Or, more likely, afraid we’ll force him to take back those stray kitties he dumped at Rowena’s.” She fastened her hair with a single bobby pin into an elegant, tidy bun.

  How did she do this? If I tried to put my hair up, it required two packages of bobby pins, and there were still chunks sticking out.

  Jack, after a besotted glance at Madge and her hairstyling, announced, “Dinah, Pantelli, let’s go for a wee hike. We may come across this skin-challenged dude, and if not— well, at least we’ll be getting a great cardiovascular workout.”

  Pantelli and I replied with barfing gestures and sounds.

  “Please, Jack,” Madge said. “Take them away.” She gave a shudder— an elegant one, of course.

  “There’s nothing like exercise to make you more aware of yourself and your capabilities,” Jack remarked cheerfully as we crunched over pine needles into the dark, quiet woods.

  I was about to object to this annoying line of conversation when Jack put a finger to his lips and pointed. Through a tunnel of firs, a shimmer of pearl-gray—a deer, poised statue-like while we passed. Then, a quaver of sunlit leaves and it was gone.

  We plowed on. It was turning out to be a nice walk, but I wouldn’t admit this to Jack. I had my principles.

  The firs gave way to the crest of a hill. Nearby, a lean, athletic woman in a bodysuit was talking to a paunchy middle-aged man, also bodysuited. Beside them stretched a hang glider, its purple nylon shimmering in the sun.

  I remembered the game Dad and I played, when we took turns looking through the telescope. The challenge was to be the first to spot a purple hang glider.

  “There’s one,” I murmured, in case Dad, wherever he was now, could hear me. I was sure that sometimes he could, though I never told anyone so.

  Jack, Pantelli and I were close enough to the couple to overhear them.

  “Now, Mr. Lake, you’ve had your lessons. Paid your money for our world-class, expert instruction in hang gliding. Here’s your chance to try it for real — to make like an eagle. C’mon, I’ll be beside you all the time.”

  The man sighed. “I dunno, Tiffany. My therapist says I should be adventurous. Then I’d loosen up, she says. I’d stop fretting about the office. But I’m scared.” The man turned away from the hang glider and gripped his ample tummy as if he were afraid of losing it. Or, at least, of losing its contents. “Maybe some of us weren’t intended to be adventurous.”

  “That poor guy,” Jack commented in a low voice. “Why doesn’t he just try jogging? You don’t go straight into extreme sports if you’ve led a chair-bound office existence.”

  Behind us, in the woods, pine needles crackled. I glanced round — in time to see Itchy hurriedly withdraw among the fir trees.

  “There he is again!” I exclaimed.

  Glimpsing Itchy’s carrot-top, Jack jumped up. “What’s the idea of spying on people?” he shouted at Itchy. “And what’s with the reckless hang gliding? You have some things to answer for, buddy!”

  Itchy cast a frightened glance back. He protested, “It’s not my fault!” and dodged behind a fir.

  By sheer force of repetition, Itchy was starting to convince me. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to fly the hang glider. Maybe someone had pressured him into it, on a bet, say. Itchy didn’t seem like the type who would stand up for himself. He was as cowardly as my cat, Wilfred (though certainly not as cuddly).

  “Jack, I’m not sure he’s spying,” I said. “Hiding is more like it.”

  Nevertheless, Jack was in he-man, protective mode. “I’m going to question this guy,” he announced darkly and sprinted after Itchy.

  “Cool,” breathed Pantelli. “Maybe he’ll punch Itchy out. Remember when Jack punched out the thief on opening night of The Moonstone?”

  “Ah, yes,” I said. “A most satisfying moment.” The thwack! of Jack’s fist had echoed round the theater. The thief had deserved it: a true creep.

  I didn’t think Itchy was a creep. A whiner, a complainer and a klutz, maybe. But whatever he was up to, he wasn’t happy about it. Not like a creep would be.

  “No violence, please, Jack!” I yelled.

  Down the tunnel of Douglas firs, Jack paused to glare back at me. “I’m not a violent person, Dinah,” he yelled back. “I’m gentle. I believe in compromise. I reason with people.”

  Itchy took the opportunity to pause too — for a good scratch up and down his arms.

  Mr. Lake and his instructor were staring after Jack, the hang-gliding lesson momentarily forgotten. “What is this,” Mr. Lake demanded crossly, “an outdoor loony bin? My therapist told me to de-stress, not re-stress.”

  In a cunning move, Itchy darted out of the woods. He raced toward the hang glider.

  “Rock, what are you doing?” the instructor shouted.

  Another guy named Rock!? I thought.

  The instructor began flipping her long blond hair about in agitation. “I’m really sorry,” she told Mr. Lake. “This isn’t part of the Grouse High Spirits Hang Gliding program.”

  Itchy bent, grabbed one of two sets of straps attached to the hang glider’s long, horizontal metal bar. He snapped at no one in particular, “That’s the story of my life. I’m never with the program.” He buckled the straps around his waist. Mr. Lake stepped back in the nick of time to avoid being jabbed by a skinny elbow.

  Unfortunately he also stepped right in front of Jack, who was barreling toward Itchy. Smash! Down they both went.

  “Oh, Rock,” the instructor moaned. “Always causing trouble!”

  “It’s not my fault,” Itchy replied, as I’d guessed he would. “If only people would let me live my life, do what I want to do — soar with the birds.” He hoisted the metal bar high; the nylon fluttered in the breeze like a dangling purple bracelet.

  “Maybe you should take lessons before you soar,” I shouted.

  Itchy gave a bitter snort. Hang glider held aloft, he began to run down the hill.

  Jack had been helping a shaken M
r. Lake off the ground. At the sight of Itchy, he let go, causing Mr. Lake to stumble and fall again. Jack exclaimed, “No way Itchy’s going to —”

  “Oh yes, he is,” the instructor sniffed. “Rock Cordes does what he wants, when he wants to. That’s why he got fired a few days ago. He just took off on a glider, totally abandoning his students. Rock doesn’t give a fig about anyone else.”

  Rock Cordes? Same name, and both Itchy and Councillor Cordes had carrot-colored hair. This couldn’t be a coincidence. “Are you related to Councillor Cordes?” I bellowed.

  Ignoring me, Itchy kept sprinting down the slope. The nylon ceased fluttering and ballooned upward, full of air.

  “Rock worked for High Spirits Hang Gliding?” I asked the instructor.

  “Sure. He was an instructor, like me. We thought he’d been hired because of his dad’s influence, but we changed our minds,” she said grudgingly, “when we saw how beautifully he flew, and what an expert navigator he was.”

  An expert navigator who crashed into pools. Oka-a-ay. I let that go for a moment. I had to clarify this Councillor Cordes connection. “His dad would be Rock Cordes Senior, I take it.”

  The instructor sniffed. “Everyone knows that. But even Councillor Cordes’s influence couldn’t save Rock Junior when he took a hang glider without permission and lost it.” She treated her hair to another angry backward flip. “Lost a glider! Can you imagine?”

  “Lost, no. Crashed, yes,” I murmured. Now I understood why the burly man had shown up so fast to remove the hang glider from the Urstads’ pool. Itchy had told his dad about the crash, and his dad had sent a district employee, pronto.

  Itchy continued running. Briefly he removed one hand from the metal bar to give his right side a hefty scratch.

  Slowly the hang glider lifted Itchy off the ground and bore him away. “So arrogant,” the instructor commented. She blinked at the increasingly speck-like Itchy as if unable to believe what had happened.

  Mr. Lake jabbed an accusing forefinger at her. “This was not covered in the training manual.”

  Chapter Six

  Sylvester’s Spirits Get Dampened

  The next day, Madge and I obliterated a flowery meadow. Madge was glum about the non-progress of her work, but I enjoyed myself. Swish, swish! With a wide, white-painted brush stroke I blotted out a winsome daisy and a smiling bumblebee.

  “I don’t see what was wrong with your meadow,” I said. “Mrs. Urstad said she wanted a cheerful mural.” I stood back to survey the dining room wall, now almost whitened back to its original blandness.

  “But the meadow didn’t mean anything,” Madge fretted. “It was just some silly greeting-card fantasy. It wasn’t real. I’m into real.”

  I thought of Madge’s usual paintings, like garbage cans with morning glory frothing around them, or doorways splattered with sun and shadow. Yeah, they were better than these greeting-card murals she kept attempting.

  We finished painting over the field, cleaned the brushes with stinky paint remover and then soaped and washed them in a large pail.

  “What you need is a break from your painting,” I said. “Why don’t we go to Rock Cordes’s office — Rock Cordes Senior, I mean — and grill him about his son?”

  Madge dried the brushes. She shook her head at me. “Why don’t you stop pestering Itchy? The guy crashed into the Urstads’ pool and is embarrassed about it. When he sees you, he runs away. So he’s too much of a geek to apologize. So what? The hang glider’s been removed and the incident is closed.”

  “It’s open,” I contradicted her. “Wide, wide open. Question marks are bobbing around like the bumblebees in your mural. Your ex-mural,” I corrected myself. “Why did Itchy, who’s supposed to be a good navigator, crash into the Urstads’ pool? Why did he steal my inflatable turtle? Why’d he dump kitties on Rowena’s doorstep? Why does he keep saying it’s not his fault? What is ‘it,’ anyhow?”

  I adjusted my glasses. “I’ll tell you one thing. This ‘it’ is bigger than we think.”

  Madge stood up. She gave the dining room wall a despairing glance and patted me on the head. “There is no ‘it,’ ” she said, not unkindly. “Itchy’s dad is a big wheel in North Vancouver. Kids of big wheels have an extra responsibility to stay out of trouble. When they don’t, headlines erupt. Bad publicity for them — and for their famous dad or mom. That’s why Itchy gets scared when he sees you, Dinah. You remind him of the trouble he got into.”

  “You mean the pool he got into,” I corrected. “That all makes sense, Madge— except for one thing. My turtle. Why would he steal a wrecked inflatable turtle?”

  Madge shrugged. “Maybe he’s a kleptomaniac.”

  “Huh?”

  “Can’t help stealing things.” Madge was gazing dreamily at the newly white wall; she had lost interest in mysteries and was picturing a fresh mural. “As for the kitties, well, maybe he was honestly trying to find a home for them.”

  I knew that what she was saying made sense. Grown-up, logical sense.

  I also knew in my bones that she was wrong.

  Madge’s gaze shifted from the blank wall to the mirror on the opposite wall. At the sight of her reflection, my sister’s dreamy look faded and was replaced by a satisfied smile. She patted her hair.

  “Tell you what,” she said. “I think you and I, after our hard work, deserve a swim. Why don’t you empty the soapy pail out in the laundry room? By the time you get out to the pool, I’ll have a cheese and fruit plate for us to snack off between dives. Or, in your case, between belly flops.”

  I was too busy thinking about Itchy to be insulted by Madge’s belly-flop comment. There was something else strange about him, I mused, absentmindedly stirring the soapy water.

  I went over the times I’d seen Itchy. In the Urstads’ backyard, in Rowena’s front yard, atop Grouse Moun-tain — in each place, Itchy had fled from me. In fact, his fleeing seemed to be the basis of our relationship. He hadn’t even stuck around to check that the cats he’d left were safely taken care of.

  I sighed. Maybe Madge was right. Maybe Itchy was just plain nervous about bad publicity. After all, Sylvester Sloan from the Bugle had appeared after Itchy deposited the cats.

  Soon after. Too soon.

  Whoa. That was the other strange thing about Itchy. Sylvester had shown up knowing about the cats Itchy had deposited. I clapped a soapy hand over my mouth. Had someone tipped off the Bugle that Itchy was going to leave cats on Rowena’s doorstep?

  Was Itchy linked to the people trying to drive Rowena out of the neighborhood?

  But that didn’t make sense. Itchy had crashed the hang glider into the Urstads’ property, not Rowena’s.

  “The more I try to put the pieces of all this together, the more jumbled they get,” I sighed. Without thinking, I stood up and banged my foot against the pail. Suds sloshed all over the floor.

  “Dinah, let’s go out to the pool,” called Madge from the kitchen.

  “Be right there,” I called back. Grabbing a spare towel, I swiped at the spilled suds.

  I peeked round the corner. Madge was carrying a platter of gleaming fruit and creamy cheese wedges out to the deck.

  Some chores were made to be shortened. There was no need to lug this pail downstairs to the Urstads’ laundry room when I could just as easily chuck the soapsuds out the front door. Heck, the porch and stairs could use a good wash.

  With Talbot’s electric-guitar version of “Sweet Sue” in my head, I sang, “Without you, dear, I don’t know what I’d do!”

  Who said household chores had to be dull? Just whistle while you work. Or, in my case, belt out while you work.

  My head tipped back, and singing at the top of my lungs, I pulled open the front door. With a vigorous heave, I tossed out the pail’s contents.

  “AAAGGGHHH!”

  I left “Sweet Sue” dangling somewhere in the high notes. Before me, Sylvester Sloan was sopping like a pile of seaweed.

  “Was this really necessary?” S
ylvester asked sadly. His long, thin hands flipped back the top of his steno pad, then twisted and wrung out the sodden pages.

  “Er — sorry.”

  “That’s quite a singing voice you have,” Sylvester informed me through dripping strands of hair. “What did you say your name was?”

  I told him, but rubbed my hand over my upper lip so that the syllables came out garbled. My agent, Mr. Wellman, was always warning me to avoid bad publicity. I had a feeling he wouldn’t appreciate headlines about me nearly drowning reporters.

  “At least you won’t have to shower for a while,” I joked lamely. “What brings you here, anyhow, Sylvester?”

  The Bugle reporter squelched past me and into the Urstads’ marble foyer. “Got a tip about another sign being posted on Rowena’s lawn,” he said. Now he was craning round to examine the dining room. “Huh! Been painting, I see.”

  “My sister’s creating a mural,” I said, wishing Sylvester would leave.

  Instead he took his time scanning the now totally white wall. “Oh, yeah? What’s she gonna call it— ‘Polar bears in a snowstorm’?” Beneath his Bugle — your darn-tootin’ neighborhood newspaper T-shirt, Sylvester’s bony shoulders shook with laughter.

  And I’d thought my joke was lame. “Sylvester, this time you’re two days late on your tip about Rowena. What gives? Another visit to your mom?”

  “A cold,” Sylvester sighed. He took a wet Kleenex from a drenched shorts pocket, blew his nose into it and stuffed it back again. “I was off, so didn’t get the voice-mail message till today. But, yeah, he or she —the voice is so high-pitched I can’t tell — left the message all right. Say, do you have a towel I could borrow?”

  I barely heard him. Rowena’s anonymous caller had a high-pitched voice too. I bet the caller and the tipster were one and the same.

  “The strategy could be, dump cats on her doorstep, leave eyesores on her lawn and generally make her appear to be a neighborhood nuisance,” I murmured. “Not to mention tipping off the Bugle each time one of these things happens. It’s all a campaign to embarrass Rowena into leaving the neighborhood, but why?”