Stand Up and Whistle

by Phyllis Perry

  Following their usual routine, they headed straight to the kitchen table. Normally they got their math homework out of the way first, and then just talked or watched TV until five o’clock, when Mary Jo went home and Jeannie set the table to be ready when her folks got home from work. But today the phone call to Keelor Construction came first.

  “Okay,” Jeannie said, “Help me figure out what to say when I call up Keelor Construction.”

  “You’re really going to do it, aren’t you?” Mary Jo asked.

  “Sure am.” Jeannie said as she sat down with her lemonade.

  Mary Jo plopped down in a chair beside her friend. “Fine. Just don’t ask me to say anything. You know I can’t talk in front of people. Strangers scare me to death. I’m the one who’s not auditioning for the talent show, remember?”

  “Oh, yes you are,” Jeannie said, and smiled at her friend, “but we won’t talk about that today. Today I’m the one in the hot seat. I’ve got to rehearse what to say, because those prairie dogs are depending on us. If I sound like a kid, they’ll hang up on me.”

  “The first thing to do is use a deep voice,” Mary Jo said. “That’ll make you sound older.”

  “Like this?” Jeannie asked, using the throatiest voice she could muster.

  Mary Jo giggled. “You don’t want to sound like a frog croaking,” she said. “But try hard to make your voice deeper than usual. That’ll help.”

  “Okay,” Jeannie said. She pulled out a sheet of paper and copied the phone number from the photograph of the Keelor Construction sign. Then she scribbled down a sentence.

  “How’s this,” Jeannie read aloud: “My name is Jeannie, and I want to know if you’re planning to kill the prairie dogs at the spot where you’re going to build the new mall.”

  Mary Jo looked skeptical. “Not quite. You’ll sound older if you use your last name, too, not just Jeannie. And I think you need to drop in some big words to impress them. Do you have a thesaurus?” Mary Jo asked. “That’s what my dad uses when he wants to write a fancy report.”

  “Yeah, somewhere,” Jeannie said, and she ran from the room and quickly returned with a book.

  “Look up ‘kill’,” Mary Jo suggested.

  Jeannie did. “How about ‘destroy’?”

  “Not fancy enough.”

  “Annihilate?”

  “Too fancy.”

  “Exterminate?”

  “Perfect!” Mary Jo said.

  The girls kept working on it until they had an opening statement that they both liked.

  “Are you ready?” Mary Jo asked.

  Jeannie was still feeling anxious. This call was not going to be easy. So much depended on her. Stalling for a little time, she got more ice and refilled their glasses of lemonade. She was still thirsty from their walk home. The temperatures this week had been in the low nineties. That often happened in Colorado. It seemed the first month of school always triggered a late summer heat wave, and that’s exactly what was happening this year.

  Sitting in front of the phone, Jeannie asked, “What if they dodge my questions and won’t answer? What should I say?”

  Mary Jo quickly flipped through the thesaurus again, looking up ‘dodge.’ “Avoid?” she said. “Are you trying to avoid my questions?”

  “Yeah, that’s good.” Jeannie made a note.

  “Wait! Wait,” Mary Jo said. “This is better. ‘Are you trying to ‘evade’ my questions?’”

  “Great!” Jeannie corrected her note. “Well, I’m as ready as I’m going to be.” She took a big drink of lemonade and then punched in the number.

  “Keelor Construction. How may I direct your call?”

  At the sound of the secretary’s voice, Jeannie’s heart raced, but she kept her voice deep and calm as she read from the paper in front of her. “My name is Jeannie Broderson. I’d like to speak with someone in your office who can give me information about your plans for the prairie dogs currently living on the construction site for the Mile High Mall in Willow Creek.”

  There was a long pause at the other end of the line.

  “I beg your pardon. Our plans for what?”

  “Plans for the prairie dogs,” Jeannie repeated.

  “I’m afraid I’m still not understanding you,” the receptionist at the other end said. “Could you tell me a little more, please?”

  Mary Jo, who was sitting as close as she could to Jeannie with her ear pressed up to the phone so that she could also hear, rolled her eyes.

  “Sure,” Jeannie said, and then immediately corrected herself. “Certainly.” Jeannie took a deep breath. “My partner and I visited the construction site for the Mile High Mall yesterday. As I’m sure you know, it’s home to a prairie dog colony. While we were taking photographs, a surveyor who was working in the field said he’d heard these prairie dogs were going to be exterminated. That’s why I want to talk to someone there who can tell me exactly what your plans are.”

  “You took photographs?”

  “Yes, we did.” Aha! Jeannie thought. That got her attention.

  “Do you work for a newspaper?”

  Jeannie almost giggled, while Mary Jo silently shrugged her shoulders and mouthed ‘someday, maybe.’ One of her ambitions was to be a photojournalist.

  “No, we don’t work for a newspaper. But we are writing a report about the prairie dogs.”

  “I see. A report,” the receptionist hesitated. “And your name again?”

  “Jeannie Broderson.”

  “If you will hold for just a moment, Ms. Broderson, I’ll see who might be available to answer your questions.”

  Mary Jo gave a thumbs up and Jeannie helped herself to a sip of lemonade while waiting on hold.

  It was only a few moments before a smooth voice said, “This is Carl Jackson. May I help you?”

  Jeannie quickly swallowed the lemonade and repeated her request.

  “My secretary said you’re preparing some kind of report,” Mr. Jackson said, without attempting to answer Jeannie’s question. “For whom are you preparing this report?”

  “We’re preparing it for William Donelson,” Jeannie answered smoothly. She had a sinking feeling that once the important Mr. Jackson found out she was only a seventh grader writing a school report for a teacher, he wouldn’t take the time to talk with her. But if he thought she were an adult preparing a report for some group, he wouldn’t dare hang up on her.

  “Now, can you tell me your plans for the prairie dogs? Are they going to be poisoned?”

  “And what group is it that you and Mr. Donelson represent?”

  Jeannie knew that the honest thing to do at this point was to come clean and admit she was just a middle school student. But she glanced down at the photos of the prairie dogs on the table. She decided to push it just a step further, without actually lying. She remembered to keep her voice deep and adopted the tone of her least favorite language arts teacher from last year.

  “Mr. Jackson, are you evading my question?”

  Mary Jo jumped up and held a hand over her mouth to suppress the giggles.

  Jeannie went on, “You keep throwing out questions to me, but I can’t seem to get any answers to my questions. I think I made my request for information perfectly clear, but let me repeat it. What are your company’s plans for the prairie dogs? Are you planning to exterminate them?”

  “If you’ll give me your phone number, Ms. Broderson, and the phone number of the organization Mr. Donelson represents, I’ll be glad to have one of our employees who is more familiar with the day-to-day operations of the Mile High Mall site get back in touch with you.”

  “Couldn’t you transfer my call and answer my questions now?” Jeannie asked.

  “Uh—no,” Mr. Jackson said. “I’m very sorry, but you’ll need to speak with Mark Hathaway, and he’s not in the office at the moment.”<
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  “And do you expect him back this afternoon?” Jeannie asked.

  “No, but he will be in the office tomorrow.”

  “All right,” Jeannie said, “would you please have Mr. Hathaway call me tomorrow afternoon? Tell him that I’ll be available between four and five o’clock.”

  Quickly, Jeannie gave her phone number and hung up before Mr. Jackson could ask her anything else. She exhaled a deep breath of relief.

  “You were great!” Mary Jo said. “He thinks you’re a grown up from some environmental group, I’m sure of it. And he’s worried.”

  “He should be,” Jeannie said, glancing down again at the photos on the table. “If his plan is to poison those cute, innocent little prairie dogs, he’s going to run right into trouble. Me.”

  “But suppose someone calls back tomorrow and says that they are going to poison them. What can we do about it?” Mary Jo asked.

  “Actually, Mr. Jackson and his secretary gave me a couple of ideas. They’re clearly afraid of newspaper publicity and of getting some active citizens’ group involved.”

  “What group would care?”

  “I don’t know,” Jeannie admitted. “But we’re going to see Mr. Donelson tomorrow. Maybe he’s got some ideas. And if they are planning on poisoning them, I’m writing a letter and taking it straight to the editor of the newspaper. I’m pretty sure that’s not the kind of publicity Keelor Construction wants for their new mall.”

  “Hold on,” Mary Jo said. “Remember that Mr. Donelson said we needed facts first. We can’t get some environmental group involved or write a letter to the editor until we know for sure they’re planning on using poison.”

  “You’re right,” Jeannie said. “But we’ll know for sure tomorrow afternoon. It won’t hurt to talk ahead of time to Mr. Donelson to find out what groups might need to be involved with something like this.”

  “No, it sure won’t,” Mary Jo agreed.

  Jeannie took one of the pictures of the prairie dog and walked over to the corkboard. As she pinned the photo right next to her mother’s shopping list, Jeannie said firmly, “Nobody, but nobody, is going to poison you, Whistler!”

  __________

  Mary Jo was again waiting by their locker when Jeannie arrived at school the next morning. The moment Mary Jo spotted her, she came running up. “Now, before you get started spouting about your prairie dog campaign again,” she said, “I have news.”

  Jeannie looked at Mary Jo whose eyes were sparkling with excitement behind her glasses. Could it be that Mary Jo had gotten up her courage and decided to audition after all for the talent Extravaganza? “What?” Jeannie asked as she took off her backpack and hung it up.

  “It’s my birthday next Friday,” Mary Jo said, “and two great things are going to happen. My sister, Karen, is coming home from college Friday night to spend the weekend and help me celebrate. And,” she paused for dramatic effect, “are you ready for this?”

  “I’m ready,” Jeannie said.

  “Mom said I can get contacts!”

  Jeannie squealed and threw her arms around her friend. They did a little dance right there in the middle of the hall, oblivious to the stares of other students in the crowded hallway.

  “You know how I’ve been after Mom to let me wear contacts. Since fifth grade it’s always been, ‘when you’re older.’ But last night after she finished talking with Karen and she asked if there was anything special I wanted for my birthday, and I asked for contacts for the millionth time. Mom said ‘okay.’ I mean, she just said okay, like it was the most reasonable request in the world.”

  “Do you know when you’ll get them?” Jeannie asked as she grabbed her math book and slammed the locker closed.

  “No, but Mom promised she’d try her best to be sure I got them by my birthday. So it’ll be any day now. I’m so excited, I can hardly wait!”

  “I’m really happy for you,” Jeannie said. She knew how her friend had longed for contacts. “That’s so great!”

  “Oh, and I almost forgot,” Mary Jo added, “I’m supposed to ask if you can come over for birthday dinner on Saturday. Can you?”

  “Sure. I mean I’ll have to ask, but I think so. It’ll be fun to see Karen again, too, and hear all about college. It’s so cool her living in a dorm and everything. How long can she stay?”

  “Only for the weekend,” Mary Jo said. “We’ll pick her up at the airport on Friday afternoon.”

  As they hurried down the hall past the DayGlo posters to their first class, Jeannie’s mind was racing again. Perfect timing, she thought. Karen was exactly the ally Jeannie needed to help persuade Mary Jo to try out for the Fall Extravaganza Talent Show.

  After school, Jeannie and Mary Jo picked up what they needed from their lockers and then hurried to the science room to meet with Mr. Donelson. As usual, the room was a mess at the end of the day. Papers littered the floor and the wastebasket was overflowing.

  “Well, what did you learn?” he asked, getting right to the point, and pushing aside a stack of papers on his messy desk that fit in perfectly with the rest of the room.

  Jeannie explained that first she had talked with a secretary and then with Mr. Jackson, and that she was expecting a call from Mark Hathaway this afternoon. “So we really don’t know yet if what the surveyor had heard was true or not. No one I talked with would say whether or not they plan to poison the prairie dogs.”

  “But I think the surveyor knew what he was talking about,” Mary Jo said. “Mr. Jackson did his best to evade answering the question.” She looked at Jeannie and winked.

  “What really got their interest,” Jeannie said, “was the fact that we’d taken photographs and were writing a report.” She hesitated, and then went on. “I didn’t exactly lie, but I didn’t tell them I was writing a report for school. I said I was writing it for Mr. Donelson. I think they suspect I’m working for some environmental group and that the report is for them.”

  Mr. Donelson smiled. “I have a feeling that before long you may be doing just that,” he said. “Meantime, good luck this afternoon, and let me know tomorrow what he says.”

  “If they are trying to poison the prairie dogs,” Jeannie persisted, “what environmental groups would be interested? How could I get in touch with them?”

  “You never let grass grow beneath your feet, do you, Jeannie?” Mr. Donelson smiled as he said this. “Remember you don’t want to contact any groups until you know for sure that those prairie dogs are really endangered. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “But if those prairie dogs are in trouble,” Jeannie said, “we may not have much time. The man we talked with at the construction site said they’d be dead by next week.”

  “You’re right about that,” Mr. Donelson agreed. “I’ll do a little checking tonight. There are probably at least two ways to go. The first is that the County Commissioners might want to get involved.”

  “What would they care about prairie dogs?” Mary Jo asked. “I thought they were just interested in roads and taxes and stuff.”

  “I’m not saying that they would care. But they might. If there were newspaper publicity and people started objecting to poisoning the prairie dogs, the politicians would get interested soon enough. They care about issues and votes. And if it comes to bringing up something before them for their consideration, you’d do well to enlist the help of Mrs. Woodley. She’s the expert in working with city and county government offices.”

  Jeannie made a mental note of that. Mrs. Woodley was her social studies teacher and she was friendly and easy to talk with.

  “What’s the other way to go?” Jeannie asked.

  “The other way is to involve some animal rights or environmental groups. There are several I can think of, like the Animal Defense people.”

  “How can those groups help?” Mary Jo asked.

  “Well, they mig
ht or might not want to get involved. But well-established and organized groups are experienced in getting publicity. They know whom to contact to make things happen. If you really are going to do battle to save the prairie dogs, it’ll be necessary to get one or more groups involved.”

  “Yeah,” Jeannie said, “I can see that. I’d like to have as many people as we could on our side.”

  “But don’t jump the gun,” Mr. Donelson said. “Facts first.”

  Jeannie glanced at her wristwatch. It was three-thirty. “We’ve got to hurry home to be there when the call comes,” she said. “I think we’ll be getting those facts real soon.”

  Chapter Three

  The moment they got inside her house, Jeannie hurried over to the telephone answering machine. No message light blinking.

  “Good.” Jeannie breathed a sigh of relief. They went straight to the kitchen and she glanced at the kitchen clock. It showed 3:40. “We’re in time. He hasn’t called yet.”

  The girls took out their math books, and Jeannie put the phone and her Keelor Construction notes right in the middle of the kitchen table. She started reading over the notes from yesterday once again so they’d be fresh in her mind.

  Mary Jo pulled out her notebook. “We’ll have to wait a while. Might as well get started on our math, don’t you think? Was Mr. Byers in a funk, or what? I can’t believe he assigned us two pages. What a Grinch.”

  Jeannie was a good math student. Although she didn’t say so, she actually liked Mr. Byers. He could explain complicated things in simple ways. Still, he had piled on the homework tonight.

  Jeannie liked to know for sure that she was either right or wrong. In math, you either had the right answer or you didn’t. Math wasn’t like writing a paper where she could never tell if she had written a good one or a bad one. That’s why Jeannie was glad Mary Jo was her partner in writing the prairie dog report. Mary Jo always knew the right words to use.

  Today’s math wasn’t hard, but Jeannie had to help Mary Jo a couple of times. Math was not Mary Jo’s strong suit. It was hard to concentrate. Every few minutes Jeannie glanced at her watch or the kitchen clock. By four-thirty, the girls had finished their assignment and they’d checked their answers with each other.