Summer of the Spotted Owl (15 page)

But I did sing for him. Most of the singing I ever did was for him anyway.

Every star above,
Knows the one I love,
It's you, Sweet Sue.

“Dinah! Dinah Galloway!” Twigs crunched not too far away.

A rescuer. Great!

“Dinah!”

I froze. Not so great. The voice belonged to— Bald Guy.

“That's the last time I listen to
you
,” I told Dad and pressed myself against the cliff wall. My heart was doing a bongo routine. Maybe Zoë had sent Bald Guy over here to give me a final, definitive shove down Grouse.

“Dinah, I gotta talk to you,” Bald Guy called. “C'mon, it's your last chance!”

Beside me, Dad shimmered in the sunlight, not quite as clear as he'd been a moment ago. I wanted to put out my hand to him, but if I did that, he'd vanish completely, I was sure.

Bald Guy's voice faded. “Dinah? Dinah…”

Dad watched me in the encouraging way he always had. Expecting the best of me.

I said slowly, “If Zoë sent Bald Guy over here, wouldn't he know exactly where I was?”

Sure he would. Think, Dinah. What do you know about
him?

The sun flashed on the red squares of Dad's shirt. Or were the red squares huckleberries?

“I know he hangs around Rowena's place and acts odd,” I replied.

Yeah?

“Maybe he isn't plotting with Councillor Cordes and his sister,” I mumbled. “When someone hangs around a house, the dull, ordinary explanation is that he
belongs
there. Those endless bags of groceries Rowena's been lugging home; maybe she's not packing the food back herself. Maybe she's not in my appetite league after all.”

I let out a whistle. “Could it be that my obnoxious Bald Guy is Rowena's oh-so-sensitive son Sean, the would-be writer?”

Okay, kid, you're batting a thousand. But what else do
you know about Bald Guy?

“You're awfully demanding for a ghost,” I informed Dad. “Or for a figment of my imagination, or whatever you are.”

Dad wavered in the sunshine. He was smiling at me.
Showing attitude, huh? You get that from me. But never
mind about that for now. You gotta think. What else do
you know about Bald Guy?

“Well…” I frowned, trying to recall my most recent impressions of Bald Guy. This was a challenge, since our last two encounters had consisted of me smashing food in his face. First a cupcake, then a plateload of hot dog and potato salad.

“Holy Toledo,” I exclaimed. “Of course! It's amazing how a facial mask of food can make a person much more recognizable.”

I started to yell, then remembered my yells would just blend in with those of the crowd down the hill. So I belted out more of “Sweet Sue.” Bald Guy had heard me singing “Sweet Sue” before. He'd been listening on the other side of Rowena's hedge.

Was I dumb! It should have been obvious why Bald Guy kept hounding me.

I let some of the lyrics rip, then paused. No Bald Guy. Maybe I was too late.

I heaved a huge breath and plunged into the song again. It was either that or panic.

no one else, it seems,
will ever share my dre-e-e-e-e-e-eams—

I stopped to breathe. Above me, an amused voice commented: “Wish I had a stopwatch. That's some long note you're able to hold!” Bald Guy grinned down at me.

“Why don't you get me out of this pickle, Mr. Sean Pickles,” I retorted, while grinning idiotically back at him in relief. “Are you going to rescue me or not?”

“Of course I'm going to rescue you,” Rowena's son said reasonably. He lay on his stomach and stretched an arm down. “I mean, are you kidding? I've been trying to get hold of you for days. After I heard you singing, that is, and stopped trying to avoid you.” He edged closer over the cliff, stretching his arm down as far as he could. “Now I'm
really
trying to get hold of you.”

“This is no time for puns,” I panted, stretching as high as I could.

“Sorry. Bad jokes are force of habit for me.” He stretched too.

“I know,” I said, wincing. I was reaching up till my arm felt ready to break off. “I almost recognized you when you were sporting that cupcake nose down on Marisa Drive. You're used to having food thrown at you. All in a day's work, huh?”

“Great. Insult your rescuer.” Our fingertips finally touched, interlocked. “With your voice, you oughtta be on tv. And I can arrange that. See, I'm—”

“You're the host of
Tomorrow's Cool Talent
,' I said as he hoisted me off the ledge, up, up, past a cliff wall that was just huckleberries and dark soil again.

Chapter Fifteen
It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's—Dinah?!

B
ut why ‘Darwood King'?”

I demanded.

We were hurrying down the slope to the tent. I'd already filled Darwood/Sean in about Zoë and Councillor Cordes's plans, between gasps and belches. Memo to self: Never run after eating tons of cupcakes.

Sean grimaced at my question. “ ‘Darwood King' was my agent's idea. He said no smooth, slick tv host would have ‘Pickles' for a last name. Plus, the stage name is a way of concealing my identity. See, as host of
Tomorrow's Cool
Talent
, I'm in fear for my life. Or at least for my sanity. Teenagers, especially girls, follow me around, begging for auditions. They scream at me, rip at my T-shirts and—” he shuddered. “Trust me, it's horrible. The irony is, I always wanted to be a
writer
, not a teen idol. Yech!

“To escape for the summer, I shaved my head, came west and hid out at Mom's. I've realized that writing comedy, not novels about the meaning of life, is my strength. So I decided to hide out and write next year's scripts. I wanted to be a total hermit.

“Till I heard you sing, that is. Then I knew I had to approach you about being on the show, while avoiding other people who might recognize me. Especially,” Sean shuddered, “any dreaded teenaged girls.

“About the only place I can go without being bothered is the canyon. When I saw you, I ran away at first and then realized it'd be the perfect chance to approach you about appearing on the show. Oh, and by the way, you once asked me about rock. I see you as more of a swing singer, Dinah.”

“Huh? N-no, I'd been asking about Rock—oh, never mind,” I puffed.

“I also had to convince our producers, who are kinda cheap, that it was worth paying for you and your buddies to leave North Van and come to Toronto. To come soon, cuz we start taping the next season in a couple of weeks. We tape ahead of time, see. That's why I was holding the cell phone close to the hedge the other day. So they could hear you, via conference call.”

And I thought he'd been talking about getting
Rowena
out of North Van! I would've laughed if I hadn't been so worried about the spotted owl family.

“Here I thought
you'd
been leaving those witch signs.” I shook my head. “Doofusville.”

“Naw, I can see how you'd think that. I'd be about to reach for one, to rip it up, and then you'd see me and I'd scoot!”

Sean and I skidded the last few steps down to where Madge was sitting. “Do you know where that German lady is?” I blurted at her. “Or, failing that, a pay phone? We have to reach Rowena, pronto donto!”

Madge viewed me with distaste. I knew she hated these dramatic entrances of mine. “I have no idea,” she said coldly and resumed sketching a hang glider.

Sean uttered a yelp that startled Madge into veering her pencil wildly off course. The hang glider on her page transformed into a lightning bolt. Sean moaned, “There's no use phoning Mom. On my instructions, she lets every call go straight to voice mail. It was all part of my decision to become a hermit for the summer.”

“Why bother?” Madge asked, erasing the jagged line she'd made. “With your personality, I'm sure people give you a wide berth in any case.”

Sean's eyebrows flipped up. He seemed about to snap back some equally huffy retort—then he noticed, really noticed, my sister. His face softened into the silly, droopy expression that comes over so many males at the sight of Madge. He mumbled weakly, “I don't suppose I could offer you a T-shirt to rip.”

Madge started to say something icy, but I interrupted her. “Earth to Sean. We have to stop Rowena from signing away her house, remember?”

Sean shook his head, the top of which was sunburning to Madge's least favorite color. “There's no way. By the time we take the tram down, and even if we peel at breakneck speed to the bus—naw, it's useless.”

I rolled my eyes despairingly. They came into contact with Itchy, mournfully stuffing used plates and uneaten food into a big green garbage can. Every once in a while he'd pause and scratch vigorously.

Itchy wasn't the greatest guy. He'd played some pranks on Rowena even though he'd known it was wrong.

On the other hand, he'd felt guilty about it. He wasn't all bad. And as Jack said,
You find your allies where you can
.

“It's not useless,” I told Sean.

“
No
.”

“You have to, Itchy. Otherwise, you know what will happen to Rowena's house.” I made exploding noises at the back of my throat.

Itchy stuck the handle of his spatula down the back of his T-shirt for a good scratch. “You can't go on a hang glider, Dinah. You're underage. Then there's the little matter of my life. It's been miserable lately, but it's the only one I've got.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'd lose it. Dad would kill me.”

“He's going to be in too much trouble to kill you, Itchy. Besides, this is your chance to stand up to him. To stop taking orders from him.”

I picked up an uncooked hot dog and wagged it. “Now admit it,” I said. “You haven't liked the orders he's been giving you. That's why you've been so miserable.”

A man bellowed at us over the barbecue, “What is this, a family therapy session? Are you serving hot dogs or not?”

I tossed the uncooked hot dog so that it bounced on his plate. I told Itchy, “By doing this, you'll be making up for those pranks you played on Rowena.”

Scratch, scratch
!

“I'll take that as a no,” I said. “Fine. I'll just grab a glider myself and hang glide solo down to Rowena's.”

I started marching away.

“Wait!” Itchy exclaimed. He bounded after me. “You don't know
how
to hang glide.”

I shrugged to show how laughably unimportant this tiny detail was.

“Are you bluffing me?” he demanded.

Of course I am, silly.

“Certainly not.” I resumed marching.

Itchy let out a loud, agonized moan.

I beamed at him. “I'll take that as a yes.”

By the time
Itchy finished outfitting me, I was a cross between an astronaut and an Egyptian mummy. Inside the High Spirits staff-only tent, he'd bundled me into helmet, goggles, bulky vest and squishy, cushion-like, reserve parachute, which he strapped to my back.

“What's a reserve parachute?” I mumbled into the neck of the oversize white turtleneck he'd given me to wear.

“Think of the hang glider itself as your main parachute,” Itchy explained, with nervous glances over his shoulder. He was terrified a High Spirits colleague would come in and discover me.

Itchy drew a triangle in the air. “The stiff tubes and cables on the hang glider's underside maintain the wing shape so the glider can float on air currents.”

Then Itchy buckled the strap of my helmet with a loud
snap
! that made him jump. “My nerves!…Here, put on these goggles. Normally riders don't wear a reserve parachute unless they're up several thousand feet. Which we're not going to be today. But given your age…”

Afraid he was about to erupt into another agonized moan, I asked hurriedly, “So where is our hang glider?”

The nervousness left Itchy's thin features. He broke into a fond smile. “Ah. You mean Old Red.”

I grew pretty hot wandering around in all that gear. Itchy wouldn't even let me remove the goggles. With luck, he said, people would assume I was old enough to be a glider rider, just abnormally short.

I contemplated a rude reply while waiting for Itchy to drag Old Red, a fiery-colored hang glider, from the back of his orange Volkswagen van.

“Old Red was what I was going to name my Irish setter, if I was ever allowed to have one,” Itchy confided. “Dad never did let me have a dog, because of our allergies. Also, Mom said a dog's claws would scratch up our marble foyer.”

I thought of our carpets at home, so clawed up by Wilfred that threads stuck out. I wouldn't have traded our cowardly cat for a carpet in good condition any day.

Itchy carried Old Red lovingly toward the nearest hill. “Note her aluminum struts,” Itchy said, running a finger along bars inside the fabric. “These new models eliminate the need for supporting cables.”

Itchy shoved the horizontal bar into my hands with instructions to hold it straight. And with that, I was supporting the hang glider. The horizontal, or “control,” bar was actually the base of a metal triangle. “This is what you use for steering,” Itchy explained.

The hang glider wasn't heavy. My school knapsack, stuffed with books, lunchbox, cds and
Deathstalkers
comic books, weighed a lot more.

“What a drag,” Itchy commented, attaching straps to the back of my vest.

“Look, I'm sorry it's a drag to you, Itchy, but we
have
to stop the sale of Rowena's—”

“Not that type of drag,” Itchy said, harnessing himself into straps. “Drag is the friction resulting from the air molecules we'll meet while gliding. Air over the wing creates lift, which carries us up. Gravity draws us back to earth and pushes us forward at the same time, meaning that air continues to flow over the wing. Today there's good drag. Understand?” For the first time since I'd known him, Itchy looked happy. The smile that spread over his thin features was blissful. Truly out-of-this-world.