Soar (12 page)

“Ruby!” I whisper. “You can't leave your post. What if
someone leaves or comes home? I'm the recon specialist. You're the lookout. It's your job to inform me if anything changes. Don't leave your post again. Over.”

“Okay, okay.”

I hold out the mini flashlight, shining it on my bike. “Let's try this again. Any changes to report from the front yard? Over.”

“No. All clear, Eagle.”

“Then I'm going in.”

“Okay, Eddie. I mean, Eagle. Operation Ninja Bird is a go. Over.”

“Signing off until target is secure. Over and out.”

I
unzip the cross pouch and stash the walkie, adjusting the pouch so it's not in my way. I stream the flashlight over my bike. From where I'm crouched it's hard to tell if there's any damage. After seeing the torn-up couch on the front porch, I'm prepared for the worst.

A light from inside the house turns on and comes flooding into the yard. There are no curtains or blinds on the windows, so I have to be cautious. Knocking over the garden gnome or tripping over a pogo stick could lead to failure, and Operation Ninja Bird can
not
end in failure.

I climb the chainlink fence, sticking my shoes inside the gaps and pulling myself up. I plant one foot on the top bar and leap over the fence. I land quietly in the grass.

Stepping around a pogo stick, I slide around the cupid statue, which is bigger than it looked from the side yard.

I run the flashlight along my bike to check its condition. Nicks and scratches cover the frame. The seat stem is loose, and the seat cover is coming off. The handlebars are wobbly, the grips are torn, and the tires—oh, the tires—they're completely flat.

The bedroom light is still on. I wonder if it's Mouton's bedroom or his parents' room. I'm better off not finding out.

I pick up my bike with both hands and walk toward the fence. After three seconds I set it down and catch my breath. Then I use all my strength to lift it over the fence.

Suddenly the back porch light turns on, lighting up the whole backyard.

I drop to the ground, flat on my stomach. I stay as low as possible. The same words keep replaying in my head—spies do NOT get caught—like they're scrolling across a sign in my brain.

My bike lies on the other side of the fence, free at last. But now I'm lying in Mouton's backyard, waiting for Mouton to shine a light in my face and sit on me.

I keep my eyes on the back windows, checking for signs of life. There's a sudden movement in the bedroom.

It's Mouton.

He's facing the wall, his back to me and the window. He's wearing an apron, tied in a knot. Because his back is to me, it's hard to tell what he's doing.

The sight of Mouton in an apron makes me curious. I can't help it. I should hop the fence and walk my bike into the night, with Gabriela walking next to me. I know that's what I should do.

But I have to find out why Mouton is wearing an apron.

I crawl toward the bedroom window, my chest sliding over the wet grass. When I get to a tall patch, I get a face full of weeds and spit them out. I scoot past a second garden gnome, but this one has a missing nose.

I keep crawling.

The bicycle with the huge wheel and tiny wheel looms over me.

When I make it to the window, I rise up into a crouch and peek over the windowsill, into Mouton's bedroom.

Large canvas paintings cover the place. They're everywhere. Propped up on shelves, hanging on walls, stacked in corners. There are even paintings leaning against other paintings.

There's one painting of a little boy sitting alone on a park bench. There's another painting of a multicolored bow tie, which looks like something Mr. Dover would wear. In the corner sits a half-finished painting of two little boys playing in a sandbox.

Mouton takes a step back from his easel to admire the painting he's been working on.

It's a hawk gliding through the air.

It's hard to tell from the window, but it looks like a Cooper's hawk. The wings, body, head, and beak are exactly proportioned. The background—the blue sky and rolling hills—looks like a scene on a postcard. Everything about the painting, especially the hawk, is detailed and accurate and real.

And then I notice something else about the painting. The hawk has one eye.

Mouton isn't painting some random hawk.

He's painting Coop!

All this time, I thought Mouton was just an overgrown ogre who couldn't control what came out of his mouth. But there's
a whole other side to him. Who knew that he's probably the best artist in our entire school?

But wait, how does Mouton know about Coop?

Somewhat confused, I drop to my hands and knees and crawl toward the fence. Sliding over the wet grass, I move past the garden gnome. Just as I'm about to reach the fence and my bike, my knee lands on something sharp.

I open my mouth, but stop myself from screaming.

I roll over, holding my knee. The pain shoots from my knee to every part of me.

I find the piece of whatever-attacked-my-kneecap and hold it up against the moonlight. It's a rough piece of broken statue. With nostrils.

The garden gnome's nose.

I stash the nose in my cross pouch. I'm keeping it for remembrance. If I get out of here alive, I'll rub that nose every once in a while to remember what it's like to be a hero.

The bedroom light flicks off.

I hobble up to both feet, throw my good leg over the fence, and fall to the other side. I lift my bike, stand it upright, and hop onto the seat. Pedaling through the grass, I fight through the pain, my good leg doing
most of the work. Finally I hit the driveway, which slopes downward, so I give my injured knee a break.

In the front yard Gabriela peeks out from behind the oak tree.

“Come on!” I wave her toward me.

She hops onto the handlebars, just as I had planned, and we bounce away on two flat tires. My good leg does the hard pedaling—but it's almost impossible because the tires have no air in them—while the injured leg just hangs there.

Gabriela holds on to the handlebars tightly. We ride away into the night, away from Mouton's house, away from trouble.

W
e're halfway down the street, rolling along on two flat tires, when something
tinks
off my bike spokes. I slow my pedaling and look behind us.

Mouton is standing under a streetlight, still dressed in his apron. He's aiming a slingshot at us!

“Go, go, go!” Gabriela shouts from atop the handlebars.

I pedal faster, harder, but my good leg can only do so much. Then a sting takes my breath away, like a syringe pricking my back.

“I've been hit!” I yell.

“What?”

“He hit me in the back!”

It suddenly hurts to talk. It feels like Mouton shot me with a dry ice arrow and froze my skin. The world suddenly turns cloudy. Everything slows down, like it's in superslow motion. Even my hearing is muffled, like I'm swimming underwater. Streaks of fuzzy orange light shoot down from the streetlights. My legs become heavy, and it takes all my effort to keep pedaling.

I blink twice to clear my head, hoping my vision and hearing will go back to normal before I lose control of my bike and dump Gabriela into the street.

“Keep pedaling,” Gabriela says. “We are getting closer to my house.”

Two more objects ricochet off the pavement next to my bike.

Mouton calls after us. “I'm going to get you, Bird Nerd!”

And then we hear “Eddie-shovel-truck! Eddie-shovel-truck! Eddie . . .” until we leave his words behind and make it safely out of slingshot distance.

At Gabriela's house, under the bathroom light, she examines my back.

“Ahhh.”
I clench my teeth and wince but try to stay strong. After all, who wants to be friends with a wimp? “What did he hit me with?” I make a seriously tough face.

“I am not sure,” Gabriela says. “There is nothing there. Only a large red spot.”

Something falls out of my Ninja Bird costume and rolls across the bathroom floor. Gabriela bends down and holds the object up to the light.

“What is it?” I ask her, before the round object comes into focus.

“I think it is a blue piece of chewing gum.”

“Mouton shot me with a gumball.”

Gabriela places an ice pack over the red welt on my back. “You are luck. This could have been much worse.”

“You mean ‘lucky.' ”

Gabriela presses harder on the ice pack.

“Ouch! Take it easy.”

“I knew you would be injured during this mission. Night air is bad air.”

“Where did you hear that? Let me guess,
The Phantom Tollbooth
?”

“That is right, Eddie. I am learning more English phrases from Milo and his dog than I am learning at school.”

“Have you made it to the part in the book when they go to the—”

“Eddie! Do not ruin the story for me!”

She adjusts the ice pack on my red welt.

“You should see Mouton's room,” I say, remembering what I saw at Mouton's house. “It's covered in all these paintings that look real. I can't believe he can paint like that.”

“I am not surprised.”

“Really? How can you not be surprised?”

“Everyone has a talent. Mouton cannot control what comes out of his mouth, but he can control what he puts on a white canvas.”

I look at my back in the mirror. “You know, when you say it like that, it sort of makes sense.”

“Maybe he can help you with your project,” she says, holding the ice pack steady.

“Maybe.” I shrug. And that's when I realize that if I want to win the blue ribbon, I'll first have to win Mouton. That's going to be difficult. I have a better chance of finding a dodo than convincing Mouton to work on our project.

“Thanks for doing this,” I say to Gabriela. “I mean, for being the lookout. It means a lot to me.”

“I will be your lookout anytime.
This is what friends are for.”

Wow, I really
am
lucky.

I have my bike.

I have a friend.

Somehow I found a way to get two birds with one mission.

W
hen I get home from Gabriela's house, I lift up on the garage door handle. The door rolls up and rattles open. Mom leaves the garage door unlocked for me because she knows I'll need to put my bike away for the night.

I walk my bike inside the garage and put the kickstand down. I roll the garage door down and lock it tight. Then I look at my bike one last time—the crooked handlebars, ripped up seat, loose hand brakes, flat tires.

If my dad saw my bike now, he'd be disappointed in me. He'd give me advice, like he did when I lost my first pair of binoculars when I was five years old.

“You
have to protect the meaningful things in your life,” he told me. “You can't let other people destroy what's important to you. It could be something as simple as a pair of binoculars or a stuffed animal. The point is, if it's important enough to make you feel empty inside when it's gone, it's important enough to protect with all your heart.”