Carl Hiaasen - Hoot

"Hold it right there!" snapped a firm female voice behind them.

The Eberhardts stopped and turned. Emerging from a door marked STAFF ONLY was a woman wearing baby-blue scrubs and a stethoscope.

"I'm Dr. Gonzalez. Where do you think you're going?"

"To see our son," replied Mrs. Eberhardt.

"I tried to stop them," the desk clerk piped up.

"You're Roy's parents?" the doctor asked the Eberhardts.

"We are." Roy's father noticed Dr. Gonzalez eyeing them with an odd curiosity.

"Pardon me if this is out of line," she said, "but you sure don't look like you work on a crab boat."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Roy's mother said. "Is everybody at this hospital a total wacko?"

"There must be some mistake," Officer Delinko interjected. "Mr. Eberhardt is a federal law-enforcement agent."

Dr. Gonzalez sighed. "We'll sort this out later. Come on, let's go peek in on your boy."

The emergency-patient ward had six beds, five of which were unoccupied. The sixth bed had a white privacy curtain drawn around it.

"We've got him on I.V. antibiotics and he's doing pretty well," Dr. Gonzalez said in a low voice, "but unless we find those dogs, he'll need a series of rabies injections. Those are no fun."

The Eberhardts locked arms as they approached the enclosed bed. Officer Delinko stood behind them, wondering what color shirt Roy would be wearing. In the patrolman's pocket was the bright green scrap of clothing that had snagged on the Mother Paula's fence.

"Don't be surprised if he's sleeping," the doctor whispered, gently pulling the curtain away.

Nobody said a word for several moments. The four grownups just stood there, blank-faced, staring at the empty bed.

From a metal rig hung a plastic bag of ginger-colored fluid, the intravenous tube disconnected and dangling to the floor.

Finally, Mrs. Eberhardt gasped, "Where's Roy!"

Dr. Gonzalez's arms flapped helplessly. "I just… I really… I don't know."

"You don't know?" Mr. Eberhardt erupted. "One minute an injured boy is asleep in this bed, and the next minute he's vanished?"

Officer Delinko stepped between Mr. Eberhardt and the doctor. The patrolman was afraid that Roy's father was upset enough to do something he might later regret.

"Where is our son?" Mrs. Eberhardt demanded again.

The doctor buzzed for a nurse and frantically started searching the emergency ward.

"But he was the only patient here," Mr. Eberhardt said angrily. "How can you possibly lose the one and only patient you've got? What happened-did aliens beam him up to their spaceship while you were on your coffee break?"

"Roy? Roy, where are you!" cried Mrs. Eberhardt.

She and Dr. Gonzalez began checking beneath the other five beds in the ward. Officer Delinko whipped out his portable radio and said, "I'm calling for backup."

Just then, the double doors to the waiting room flew open.

"Mom! Dad! I'm right here!"

The Eberhardts practically smothered their son with a tandem hug.

"Little devil," chuckled Officer Delinko, holstering his radio. He was pleased to see that Roy wasn't wearing a torn green T-shirt.

"Whoa!" Dr. Gonzalez clapped her hands sharply. "Everybody hold on a minute."

The Eberhardts looked up quizzically. The doctor didn't seem especially overjoyed to have found her lost patient.

"That's Roy?" she asked, pointing at their son.

"Of course it is. Who else would it be?" Mrs. Eberhardt kissed the top of his head. "Honey, you get back into that hospital bed right now-"

"Not so fast," Mr. Eberhardt said. "I'm not sure what's going on here, but I've got a feeling we owe the doctor an apology. Probably several apologies." He planted both hands on Roy's shoulders. "Let's see those dog bites, partner."

Roy lowered his eyes. "I didn't get bit, Dad. It wasn't me."

Mrs. Eberhardt groaned. "Okay, now I get it. I'm the crazy one, right? I'm the raving loony bird…"

"Folks? Excuse me, but we've still got a major problem," Dr. Gonzalez said. "We've still got a patient missing."

Officer Delinko was thoroughly confused. Once again he reached for his radio in anticipation of calling headquarters.

"Before my brain explodes," said Mrs. Eberhardt, "would someone please explain what this is all about?"

"Only one person can do that." Mr. Eberhardt gestured toward Roy, who suddenly wanted to crawl down a hole and hide. His father turned him around to face Dr. Gonzalez.

"'Tex?'" she said, arching an eyebrow.

Roy felt his face redden. "I'm really sorry."

"This is a hospital. This is no place for games."

"I know it's not. I apologize."

"If you're the real Roy," the doctor said, "then who was that young man in the bed, and where did he go? I want the truth."

Roy stared at the tops of his sneakers. He couldn't remember another day in his life when so many things had gone so wrong.

"Son," his father said, "answer the doctor."

His mother squeezed his arm. "Come on, honey. It's important."

"You can be sure we'll find him," Officer Delinko chimed in, "sooner or later."

Bleakly, Roy looked up to address the grownups.

"I don't know the boy's name, and I don't know where he is," he said. "I'm sorry, but that's the truth."

And, technically, it was.

While Roy took a shower, his mother made a pot of spaghetti. He ate three helpings, though the dinner gathering was as quiet as a chess match.

Setting down his fork, Roy turned to his father.

"I guess it's the den, huh?"

"That's correct."

It had been years since Roy had gotten a spanking, and he doubted that he was in for one now. The den was where his father summoned him whenever there was serious explaining to be done. Tonight Roy was so tired that he wasn't sure if anything he had to say would make sense.

His father was waiting, seated behind the broad walnut desk.

"What've you got there?" he asked Roy.

"A book."

"Yes, I can see it's a book. I was hoping for the particulars."

Roy's father could be sarcastic when he thought he wasn't getting a full answer. Roy figured it came from years of interrogating shifty characters-gangsters or spies, or whoever it was that his father was in the business of investigating.

"I'm assuming," he said to Roy, "that the book will cast some light on tonight's strange events."

Roy handed it across the desk. "You and Mom got it for me two Christmases ago."

"I remember," his father said, scanning the cover. "The Sibley Guide to Birds. Sure it wasn't for your birthday?"

"I'm sure, Dad."

Roy had put the book on his Christmas list after it had settled a friendly wager between him and his father. One afternoon they'd seen a large reddish brown raptor swoop down and snatch a ground squirrel off a cattle range in the Gallatin River valley. Roy's father had bet him a milkshake that the bird was a young bald eagle whose crown feathers hadn't yet turned white, but Roy had said it was a fully grown golden eagle, more common on the dry prairies. Later, after visiting the Bozeman library and consulting Sibley, Roy's father conceded that Roy had been right.

Mr. Eberhardt held up the book and asked, "What does this have to do with that nonsense at the hospital?"

"Check out page 278," Roy said. "I marked it for you."

His father flipped the book open to that page.

"'Burrowing owl,'" he read aloud from the text. '"Athene cunicularia. Long-legged and short-tailed, with relatively long, narrow wings and flat head. Only small owl likely to be seen perched in the open in daylight.'" His father peered quizzically at him over the top of the book. "Is this connected to that 'science project' you were supposedly working on this afternoon?"