Carl Hiaasen - Hoot

"Or tomorrow," Curly reported grimly. "I got new seats on order from the wholesaler in Sarasota, but they won't be here till Wednesday."

"What a happy coincidence," Chuck Muckle said. "That turns out to be the last day that Miss Kimberly Lou Dixon is available to us. Her mutant-insect movie begins shooting next weekend in New Mexico."

Curly swallowed. "You wanna do the groundbreaking this Wednesday? What about the site clearing?"

"Change of plans. Blame it on Hollywood," said Chuck Muckle. "We'll do the ceremony first, and as soon as everybody leaves you can crank up the machines-assuming they haven't been stripped down to the axles by then."

"But it's just… Wednesday's the day after tomorrow!"

"No need to soil yourself, Mr. Branitt. We'll arrange all the details from our end-the advertising, the press releases, and so forth. I'll get in touch with the mayor's office and the chamber of commerce. Meanwhile, your job is incredibly simple-not that you won't find a way to screw it up."

"What's that?"

"All you've got to do is lock down the construction site for the next forty-eight hours. Think you can handle that?"

"Sure," Curly said.

"No more alligators, no more poisonous snakes, no more stealing," Chuck Muckle said. "No more problems, period. Comprendo?"

"I got a quick question about the owls."

"What owls?" Chuck Muckle shot back. "Those burrows are abandoned, remember?"

Curly thought: I guess somebody forgot to tell the birds.

"There's no law against destroying abandoned nests," the vice-president was saying. "Anybody asks, that's your answer. 'The burrows are deserted.'"

"But what if one a them owls shows up?" Curly asked.

"What owls!" Chuck Muckle practically shouted. "There are no owls on that property and don't you forget it, Mr. Branitt. Zero owls. Nada. Somebody sees one, you tell him it's a-I don't know, a robin or a wild chicken or something."

A chicken? Curly thought.

"By the way," said Chuck Muckle, "I'll be flying down to Coconut Cove so I can personally accompany the lovely Miss Dixon to our groundbreaking. Let's pray that you and I have nothing more to talk about when I arrive."

"Don't worry," Curly said, though he was plenty worried himself.

Beatrice Leep was gone when Roy awoke. He had no idea how she had slipped out of the house unnoticed, but he was glad she'd made it.

Over breakfast, Roy's father read aloud the brief newspaper account of Dana Matherson's arrest. The headline said: "Local Youth Nabbed in Break-in Attempt."

Because Dana was under eighteen, the authorities weren't allowed to release his name to the media-a fact that rankled Roy's mother, who believed Dana's mug shot should have been plastered on the front page. The story identified him only as a student at Trace Middle and said that the police considered him a suspect in several recent vandalisms. It didn't specifically mention Mother Paula's as the target.

Dana's arrest was the major buzz around school. Many kids were aware that he'd been picking on Roy, so they were eager to get Roy's reaction to the news that his tormentor had been nailed by the cops.

Roy was careful not to gloat or joke about it, or to draw any special attention to himself. If Dana blabbed about the imaginary cigarette stash, he might try to blame Roy for the bungled theft. The police had no reason to believe anything the kid said, but Roy wasn't taking any chances.

As soon as the bell rang ending homeroom, Garrett took him aside to share a weird new detail.

"Rattraps," he said, cupping a hand over his mouth.

"What are you talking about?" Roy asked.

"When they caught him, he had rattraps stuck on his shoes. That's how come he couldn't run away."

"I'm so sure."

"Seriously, dude. The cops told my mom he stepped on 'em while he was sneakin' around the trailer."

Knowing Dana, Roy could actually picture it.

"Broke three of his toes," Garrett said.

"Oh, come on."

"Absolutely! We're talkin' humongous rattraps." Garrett held his hands a foot apart to illustrate.

"Whatever." Roy knew that Garrett was famous for exaggerating. "Did the police tell your mom anything else?"

"Like what?"

"Like what Dana was after."

"Smokes is what he said, but the cops don't believe him."

"Who would?" said Roy, hoisting his book bag over his shoulder.

All morning he looked for Beatrice Leep between classes, but he never saw her in the hallways. At lunch hour, the girl soccer players were sitting together in the cafeteria, but Beatrice wasn't among them. Roy approached the table and asked if anybody knew where she was.

"At the dentist," said one of her teammates, a gangly Cuban girl. "She fell down some steps at home and broke a tooth. But she'll be ready for the game tonight."

"Great," said Roy, but he didn't feel so good about what he'd just heard.

Beatrice was such a phenomenal athlete that Roy couldn't imagine her falling down the stairs like some ordinary klutz. And after seeing what she could do to a bicycle tire, he couldn't picture her breaking a tooth, either.

Roy was still thinking about Beatrice when he sat down in American history. He found himself struggling to concentrate on Mr. Ryan's quiz, though it really wasn't that difficult.

The final question was the same one that Mr. Ryan had asked him in the hallway on Friday: Who won the Battle of Lake Erie? Without hesitation, Roy wrote: "Commodore Oliver Perry."

It was the only answer that he was sure he got right.

On the bus ride home, Roy kept a wary eye on Dana Matherson's hulking friends, but they didn't glance once in his direction. Either Dana hadn't gotten the word out about what Roy had done, or his buddies didn't care all that much.

The police captain was reading the arrest report when Officer Delinko and the sergeant came in. The captain motioned for both men to sit down.

"Nice work," he told Officer Delinko. "You've made my life a whole lot easier. I just got off the horn with Councilman Grandy, and he's one happy camper."

"I'm glad, sir," Officer Delinko said.

"What do you make of this Matherson kid? What's he told you?"

"Not much."

The interrogation of Dana Matherson hadn't gone as smoothly as Officer Delinko had hoped. In the training films, the suspects always caved in and confessed to their crimes. However, Dana had remained stubbornly uncooperative, and his statements were confusing.

At first he'd said he was snooping around the Mother Paula's property in order to heist a load of Gladiator cigarettes. However, after speaking with a lawyer, the boy changed his story. He claimed he'd actually gone to the trailer to bum a cigarette, but the foreman mistook him for a burglar and came after him with a gun.

"Matherson's a hard case," Officer Delinko told the captain.

"Yeah," the sergeant said, "he's been around the block a few times."

The captain nodded. "I saw his rap sheet. But here's what bothers me: The kid's a thief, not a practical joker. I can't picture him dumping alligators in port-a-potties. Stealing port-a-potties maybe."

"I wondered about that, too," Officer Delinko said.

The Mother Paula's vandal had displayed a dark sense of humor that didn't fit the Matherson boy's dim-witted criminal history. He seemed more likely to strip the wheels from a patrol car than to paint the windshield black or hang his shirt like a pennant from the antenna.

"What's his motive for the funny stuff?" the captain wondered aloud.

"I asked him if he had a gripe against Mother Paula's pancakes," Officer Delinko said, "and he did say IHOP's were better."

"That's it? He likes IHOP pancakes better?"

"Except for the buttermilks," Officer Delinko reported. "He had nice things to say about Mother Paula's buttermilks."