Hoot

TEN

"I missed my bus," Roy muttered.

"Big deal. I'm missing soccer practice," said Beatrice.

"What about Dana?"

"He'll live."

It wasn't Mr. Ryan who'd saved Roy from a whupping in the closet; it was Beatrice Leep. She had left Dana Matherson stripped down to his underpants and trussed to the flagpole in front of the administration building at Trace Middle School. There, Beatrice had "borrowed" a bicycle, forcefully installed Roy on the handlebars, and was now churning at a manic pace toward an unknown destination.

Roy wondered if this was a kidnapping, in the legal sense of the term. Surely there must be a law against one kid snatching another kid from school property.

"Where are we going?" He expected Beatrice to ignore the question, as she had twice before.

But this time she answered: "Your house."

"What?"

"Just be quiet, okay? I'm in no mood, cowgirl."

Roy could tell by her tone of voice that she was upset.

"I need a favor," she told him. "Right away."

"Sure. Anything you want."

What else could he say? He was hanging on for dear life as Beatrice zigged across busy intersections and zagged through lines of traffic. She was a skilled bicyclist, but Roy was nervous nonetheless.

"Bandages, tape. Goop to stop infections," Beatrice was saying. "Your mom got any of that stuff?"

"Of course." Roy's mother kept enough medical supplies to run a mini-emergency room.

"Good deal. Now all we need is a cover story."

"What's going on? Why can't you get bandages at your house?"

"Because it's none of your business." Beatrice set her jaw and pedaled faster. Roy got a queasy feeling that something bad must have happened to Beatrice's stepbrother, the running boy.

Mrs. Eberhardt greeted them at the front door. "I was getting worried, honey. Was the bus late? Oh-who's this?"

"Mom, this is Beatrice. She gave me a lift home."

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Beatrice!" Roy's mother wasn't just being polite. She was plainly delighted that Roy had brought home a friend, even if it was a tough-looking girl.

"We're going to Beatrice's and finish up some homework. Is that okay?"

"You're welcome to stay here and work. The house is quiet-"

"It's a science experiment," Beatrice cut in. "It might get pretty messy."

Roy suppressed a smile. Beatrice had sized up his mother perfectly: Mrs. Eberhardt kept an exceptionally neat house. Her brow furrowed at the thought of glass beakers bubbling with potent chemicals.

"Is it safe?" she asked.

"Oh, we always wear rubber gloves," Beatrice said reassuringly, "and eye goggles, too."

It was obvious to Roy that Beatrice was experienced at fibbing to grownups. Mrs. Eberhardt fell for the whole yam.

While she fixed them a snack, Roy slipped out of the kitchen and darted to his parents' bathroom. The first-aid stash was in the cabinet beneath the sink. Roy removed a box of gauze, a roll of white adhesive tape, and a tube of antibiotic ointment that looked like barbecue sauce. These items he concealed in his backpack.

When he returned to the kitchen, Beatrice and his mother were chatting at the table, a plate of peanut-butter cookies between them. Beatrice's cheeks were full, which Roy took as a promising sign. Enticed by the sweet warm smell, he reached across and grabbed two cookies off the top of the pile.

"Let's go," Beatrice said, jumping up from her chair. "We've got lots of work to do."

"I'm ready," said Roy.

"Oh, wait-you know what we forgot?"

He had no clue what Beatrice was talking about. "No. What did we forget?"

"The ground beef," she said.

"Uh?"

"You know. For the experiment."

"Yeah," said Roy, playing along. "That's right."

Immediately his mother piped up: "Honey, I've got two pounds in the fridge. How much do you need?"

Roy looked at Beatrice, who smiled innocently. "Two pounds would be plenty, Mrs. Eberhardt. Thanks."

Roy's mother bustled to the refrigerator and retrieved the package of meat. "What kind of science experiment is this, anyway?" she asked.

Before Roy could answer, Beatrice said, "Cell decay."

Mrs. Eberhardt's nose crinkled, as if she could already smell something rotting. "You two better run along," she said, "while that hamburger's still fresh."

Beatrice Leep lived with her father, a former professional basketball player with gimpy knees, a beer gut, and not much enthusiasm for steady work. Leon "Lurch" Leep had been a high-scoring point guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers and later for the Miami Heat, but twelve years after retiring from the NBA he still hadn't decided what to do with the rest of his life.

Beatrice's mother was not an impatient woman, but she had eventually divorced Leon to pursue her own career as a cockatoo trainer at Parrot Jungle, a tourist attraction in Miami. Beatrice had chosen to remain with her father, partly because she was allergic to parrots and partly because she doubted that Leon Leep could survive on his own. He had basically turned into a lump.

Yet less than two years after Mrs. Leep left him, Leon surprised everyone by getting engaged to a woman he met at a celebrity pro-am golf tournament. Lonna was one of the waitresses in bathing suits who drove electric carts around the golf course, serving beer and other beverages to the players. Beatrice didn't even learn Lonna's last name until the day of the wedding. It was the same day Beatrice found out she was going to have a stepbrother.

Lonna arrived at the church towing a somber, bony-shouldered boy with sun-bleached hair and a deep tan. He looked miserable in a coat and necktie, and he didn't hang around for the reception. No sooner had Leon placed the wedding ring on Lonna's finger than the boy kicked off his shiny black shoes and ran away. This was to become a recurring scene in the Leep family chronicles.

Lonna didn't get along with her son and nagged at him constantly. To Beatrice, it appeared as if Lonna was afraid that the boy's quirky behavior might annoy her new husband, though Leon Leep seemed not to notice. Occasionally he'd make a halfhearted attempt to bond with the kid, but the two had little in common. The boy held no interest in Leon's prime passions-sports, junk food, and cable television-and spent all his free time roaming the woods and swamps. As for Leon, he wasn't much of an outdoorsman, and was leery of any critter that wasn't wearing a collar and a rabies tag.

One night, Lonna's son brought home an orphaned baby raccoon, which promptly crawled into one of Leon's favorite moleskin slippers and relieved itself. Leon seemed more puzzled than upset, but Lonna went totally ballistic. Without consulting her husband, she arranged for her son to be shipped off to a military prep school-the first of several failed attempts to "normalize" the boy.

He seldom lasted more than two weeks before running away or being expelled. The last time it happened, Lonna purposely didn't tell Leon. Instead she continued to pretend that her son was doing fine, that his grades were good and his conduct was improving.

The truth was, Lonna didn't know where the boy had gone and didn't intend to go looking for him. She was "fed up with the little monster," or so Beatrice overheard her say on the telephone. As for Leon Leep, he displayed no curiosity beyond what his wife had told him about her wayward offspring. Leon didn't even notice when the tuition bills from the military school stopped coming.

Long before his mother sent him away for the last time, the boy and his stepsister had forged a quiet alliance. After Lonna's son made his way back to Coconut Cove, the first and only person he contacted was Beatrice. She agreed to keep his whereabouts a secret, knowing that Lonna would call the juvenile authorities if she ever found out.

That concern was what had prompted Beatrice Leep to confront Roy Eberhardt after she saw him chasing her stepbrother that first day. She did what any big sister would have done.

On the bicycle ride, Beatrice shared enough bits and pieces of her family's story with Roy that he understood the difficult situation. And after seeing her stepbrother's wounds, he knew why Beatrice had run for help after she'd found him moaning inside the old Jo-Jo's ice-cream truck.

It was the first time Roy had been permitted to see the running boy up close and face to face. The kid was stretched out, a crumpled cardboard box serving as a pillow. His straw-blond hair was matted from perspiration, and his forehead felt hot to the touch. In the boy's eyes was a restless, darting, animal flicker that Roy had seen before.

"Does it hurt bad?" Roy asked.

"Nope."

"Liar," Beatrice said.

The boy's left arm was purple and swollen. At first Roy thought it was from a snakebite, and worriedly glanced around. Fortunately, the bag of cottonmouths was nowhere in sight.

"I stopped by on the way to the bus stop this morning and found him like this," Beatrice explained to Roy. Then, to her stepbrother: "Go on. Tell cowgirl what happened."

"Dog got me." The boy turned his arm over and pointed to several angry red holes in the skin.

The bites were nasty, but Roy had seen worse. One time his father had taken him to a state fair where a rodeo clown got chomped by a panicky horse. The clown was bleeding so badly that he was rushed to the hospital in a helicopter.

Roy unzipped his backpack and removed the medical supplies. He knew a little about treating puncture wounds from a first-aid course he'd taken at a summer camp in Bozeman. Beatrice had already cleansed her stepbrother's arm with soda water, so Roy lathered antibiotic ointment on a panel of gauze and taped it firmly around the boy's arm.

"You need a tetanus shot," Roy said.

Mullet Fingers shook his head. "I'll be okay."

"Is the dog still running around here?"

The boy turned inquiringly to Beatrice, who said, "Go ahead and tell him."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, he's all right." She shot an appraising glance at Roy. "Besides, he owes me. He almost got squashed in a closet today-isn't that right, cowgirl?"

Roy's cheeks flushed. "Never mind that. What about this dog?"

"Actually, there was four of 'em," Mullet Fingers said, "behind a chain fence."

"So how'd you get bit?" Roy asked.

"Arm got stuck."

"Doing what?"

"It's no big deal," said the boy. "Beatrice, did you get some hamburger?"

"Yeah. Roy's mom gave it to us."

The kid sat up. "Then we better roll."

Roy said, "No, you need to rest."

"Later. Come on-they'll be gettin' hungry soon."

Roy looked at Beatrice Leep, who offered no explanation.

They followed Mullet Fingers down the steps of the icecream truck and out of the junkyard. "Meet you there," he said, and broke into a full run. Roy couldn't imagine the strength it must have taken, considering his painful injury.

As Mullet Fingers scampered off, Roy noticed with some satisfaction that he was wearing shoes-the same sneakers Roy had brought for him a few days earlier.

Beatrice mounted the bicycle and pointed at the handlebars. "Hop aboard."

"No way," Roy said.

"Don't be a wuss."

"Hey, I don't want any part of this. Not if he's going to hurt those dogs."

"What are you talking about?"

"That's why he wanted the meat, right?"

Roy thought he'd figured it out. He thought the kid meant to take revenge on the dogs by spiking the hamburger with something harmful, maybe even poisonous.

Beatrice laughed and rolled her eyes. "He's not that kind of crazy. Now let's go."

Fifteen minutes later, Roy found himself on East Oriole Avenue, at the same trailer where the foreman had hollered at him a few days before. It was nearly five o'clock, and the construction site looked deserted.

Roy noticed that a chain-link fence had been erected to enclose the lot. He recalled that the cranky foreman had threatened to unleash vicious guard dogs, and he assumed they were the ones that bit Mullet Fingers.

Jumping off the bike, Roy said to Beatrice: "Does this have anything to do with that cop car that got spray-painted?"

Beatrice said nothing.

"Or the gators in the portable potties?" Roy asked.

He knew the answer, but Beatrice's expression said It all: Mind your own business.

Despite the fever and the raging infection, her stepbrother had beaten them to the pancake-house construction site.

"Lemme have that," he said, snatching the package of meat from Roy's hands.

Roy grabbed it back. "Not till you tell me what for."

The kid looked to Beatrice for assistance, but she shook her head. "Get it over with," she told him. "Come on, we haven't got all day."

His injured arm hanging limply, Mullet Fingers clambered up one side of the fence and down the other. Beatrice followed, effortlessly swinging her long legs over the top.

"What're you waiting for?" she barked at Roy, still standing on the other side.

"What about those dogs?"

"The dogs," said Mullet Fingers, "are long gone."

More confused than ever, Roy scaled the fence. He followed Beatrice and her stepbrother to a parked bulldozer. They huddled in the shaded cup of the blade, safely out of sight from the road. Roy sat in the middle position, with Beatrice on his left side and Mullet Fingers on his right.

Roy held the package of meat on his lap, covering it with both arms like a fullback protecting a football.

"Did you paint that cop car?" he bluntly asked the boy.

"No comment."

"And hide those alligators in the toilets?"

Mullet Fingers stared straight ahead, his eyes narrowing.

"I don't get it," Roy said. "Why would you try crazy stuff like that? Who cares if they build a stupid pancake house here?"

The boy's head snapped around and he froze Roy with a cold look.

Beatrice spoke up. "My stepbrother got bit by the dogs because his arm got stuck when he reached through the fence. Now ask me why he was reaching through the fence."

"Okay. Why?" Roy said.

"He was putting out snakes."

"The same snakes from the golf course? The cottonmouths!" Roy exclaimed. "But why? You trying to kill somebody?"

Mullet Fingers smiled knowingly. "They couldn't hurt a flea, them snakes. I taped their mouths shut."

"I'm so sure," Roy said.

"Plus I glued sparkles on the tails," the boy added, "so they'd be easy to spot."

Beatrice said, "He's telling the truth, Eberhardt."

Indeed, Roy had seen the sparkling tails for himself. "But come on," he said, "how do you tape a snake's mouth closed?"

"Real carefully," said Beatrice, with a dry laugh.

"Aw, it ain't so hard," Mullet Fingers added, "if you know what you're doin'. See, I wasn't tryin' to hurt them dogs-just rile 'em up."

"Dogs do not like snakes," Beatrice explained.

"Makes 'em freak out. Bark and howl and run around in circles," her stepbrother said. "I knew the trainer would drag 'em outta here soon as he saw the cottonmouths. Those Rottweilers ain't cheap."

It was the wildest plan Roy had ever heard.

"The only part I didn't count on," said Mullet Fingers, eyeing his bandaged arm, "was gettin' bit."

Roy said, "I'm almost afraid to ask, but what happened to your snakes?"

"Oh, they're fine," the boy reported. "I came back and got 'em all. Took 'em to a safe place and let 'em go free."

"But first he had to peel the tape off their mouths," said Beatrice, chuckling.

"Stop!" Roy was completely exasperated. "Hold on right there."

Mullet Fingers and Beatrice looked at him matter-of-factly. Roy's head was spinning with questions. These kids must be from another world.

"Would one of you please tell me," he begged, "what's all this got to do with pancakes? Maybe I'm dense, but I really don't get it."

Grimacing, the boy rubbed his bloated arm. "It's simple, man," he said to Roy. "They can't put a Mother Paula's here for the same reason they can't have big ole nasty Rottweilers runnin' loose."

"Show him why," Beatrice said to her stepbrother.

"Okay. Gimme the hamburger."

Roy handed over the package. Mullet Fingers peeled off the plastic wrapper and scooped out a handful of ground beef, which he carefully rolled into six perfect little meatballs.

"Follow me," he said. "But try and be quiet."

The boy led Roy to a hole in a grassy patch of ground. At the entrance of the hole, Mullet Fingers placed two hamburger balls.

Next he walked to an identical-looking hole on the other side of the lot and left two more meatballs there. He followed the same ritual at another hole in a far corner of the property.

Peeking into one of the dark tunnels, Roy asked, "What's down there?"

In Montana, the only animals that dug holes like that were gophers and badgers, and Roy was positive there weren't many of those in Florida.

"Hush," the boy said.

Roy trailed him back to the bulldozer, where Beatrice remained perched on the blade, cleaning her eyeglasses.

"Well?" she said to Roy.

"Well, what?"

Mullet Fingers tapped him on the arm. "Listen."

Roy heard a short high-pitched coo-coo. Then, from across the open lot, came another. Beatrice's stepbrother rose stealthily, tugged off his new sneakers, and crept forward. Roy followed closely.

The boy was grinning through his fever when he signaled for them to stop. "Look!"

He pointed toward the first burrow.

"Wow," Roy said, under his breath.

There, standing by the hole and peering curiously at one of the meatballs, was the smallest owl that he had ever seen.

Mullet Fingers chucked him gently on the shoulder. "Okay-now do you get it?"

"Yeah," said Roy. "I get it."