Summer of the Spotted Owl (6 page)

Nearby, a running-shoed foot was disappearing into some huckleberry bushes …

I tucked back
yet another sandwich triangle of banana, peanut butter and honey. We'd all eaten a lot: It was the fresh mountain air, Rowena told us. Even Madge had gone beyond her usual single sandwich triangle of cucumber and “lite” cream cheese to down— gasp — a brownie.

Jack lay down and tipped his cap over his face in preparation for a snooze. Feeling a good-sized belch coming on, I almost let it erupt with maximum volume. Then I remembered I
wanted
Jack to sleep. Awake, he'd forbid me to go hunting for Itchy. “You're here to enjoy nature, not pursue inept pilots in need of calamine lotion,” he'd told me earlier. So irritating!

I made a series of eyebrow waggles at Pantelli to signify that we should get up and tiptoe away.

Pantelli waggled his eyebrows back at me — and continued to inspect the bark of a Douglas fir through the magnifying glass he carried everywhere.

No doubt about it. The boy was thick and getting thicker.

“I'd love to see photos of your son,” Madge was saying to Rowena.

Oh no, I thought. Not
photos
. Photo-showing was grown-ups at their dullest.

Rowena drew an alarmingly large packet of photos from her old flowered purse. “Sean is such a sensitive boy,” she confided, displaying photos of an unsmiling young man with a bird's nest of brown hair and matching wild beard. “So serious. He longs to write novels about the meaning of life, but his job doesn't allow him time to.” Rowena heaved a sigh. “People like Sean shouldn't have to work, I feel.”

From beneath Jack's cap came the beginnings of a snort. Madge elbowed him, however, and the snort turned into a phony cough.

Rowena didn't notice. She was too busy gazing at Sean.

She produced another photo. “Here's one taken of Sean a few weeks ago, with the title page of his novel-in-progress.” The photo showed her sullen, hairy son holding up a single sheet of paper. We could just make out the words on it:
The Storms of Life
.

“Where's the rest of the novel?” I asked. Not that I'd ever want to read it. The title
The Storms of Life
didn't exactly suggest a laugh fest.

“He'd only got as far as the title page when this photo was taken,” Rowena explained. “The poor boy suffered an attack of writer's block immediately afterward. You see what I mean about Sean being sensitive,” she added tenderly.

“Sean might have to borrow a lawn mower to give himself a haircut,” Pantelli observed as he and I strolled past tourists snapping pictures of the view. “Boy, and my mom thinks
I
need a haircut!”

We stopped to examine the tourists closely. This was all part of my strategy for finding Itchy. No one would go unscrutinized.

I was pretty sure Itchy hadn't fled down the chairlift, because I'd been able to keep watch on it from our picnic spot. In particular, I studied men wearing caps and sun hats. Itchy was just wily enough to conceal his carrot-top from me.

The tourists noticed us staring at them.

“Um,” I said, realizing that they were all much older and chubbier than Itchy, “we thought we might point out some landmarks to you.” I waved a hand authoritatively. “That green, Silly-Putty-like splotch to the right is Stanley Park. That silver golf ball, Science World. That upside-down bowl, gm Place.”

One man lowered his camera to regard me icily. “As it happens, young woman, we're with the bc Tourism Board. We're quite well acquainted with the city, thank you very much.”

Uh-oh. Never make assumptions about people.

We sidled up to other mountaintop visitors and inspected them. No Itchy.

“Ah, a lone yew tree,” Pantelli exclaimed. He trotted happily toward it.

From behind the tree, I heard
bzz, bzz
… “Careful, Pantelli,” I called. “Bees.”

Granted, Pantelli was one of those irritating Nature Boy types. He never got bitten or stung.

I did, and often. I plopped down on a tree stump to examine a spider bite on my knee. I'd scratched it ferociously a few days before, and a scab had formed.

Well, I supposed I could amuse myself by picking the scab off. Creative people are never idle, right?

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 Mr. 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.