The Case of the Missing Dinosaur Egg (7 page)

Instead of checking out the goldfish, Hooligan lay down next to me and closed his eyes. It must be hard work, attacking foreign dignitaries.

“Mr. Morgan and Mr. Webb say Professor Bohn is the thief, but I'm not sure,” I told Charlotte. “Maybe instead, the egg's disappearance is connected to a certain nearby nation.”

“That's where Mr. Valenteen is from,” Charlotte said. “I only realized it when I saw the dignitaries close-up. With all the prodemocracy protests there, they want your mom to reaffirm the U.S.'s alliance with President Manfred Alfredo-Chin.”

“What does that mean—reaffirm the alliance?” I asked.

“Tell all the other countries the United States still likes him,” Charlotte said.

I thought for a second. “So it's the same as when my best friend, Courtney Lozana, ate the last cookie out of my lunch? And I got mad, but the next day she gave me a bag of chips and told me to tell all our other friends how I wasn't mad at her anymore so they wouldn't be mad at her, either?”

Charlotte looked thoughtful. “Pretty much, yeah. Sometimes countries act a lot like fifth graders. But none of that is helping you with your case. I have a question. Maybe you said, but I missed it. Where did that ostrich egg come from?”

For a second, I felt annoyed. Usually I like Charlotte, because even though I'm a kid, she listens to me. But now it was like she hadn't heard me at all. “From the crate at the museum and before that from Red Heart Delivery,” I repeated.

“Yeah, yeah, I got all that,” Charlotte said. “But
before
that. The egg was ready to hatch, so it probably came from nearby. There can't be that many places to get an ostrich egg around here. So maybe if you found the place where the egg was laid?”

I sat still for a moment, listening to the pond burble and watching a tan cardinal and her red boyfriend doing a jig by its edge. Then I said, “Charlotte, you're a genius.”

Charlotte was not only a genius. She was right. There aren't many places around Washington to get an ostrich egg. In fact, there is only one: Mega Bird Farm, located in the country about thirty miles from the White House.

That was the result that came back when Nate went online and entered “ostrich farm Washington D.C.” into the search engine right before dinner.

“I'll call them!” Tessa volunteered. She always likes to do the talking.

“You can give it a try,” I said. “Ask them if—”

“I
know
what to ask, Cammie.” Tessa had already picked up the phone on Nate's desk and was dialing the number on the website. After a few seconds, she said, “Hello? This is Tessa Parks, and . . . yes, that Tessa Parks, and . . . yes, I am totally serious.”

I didn't have to hear the other side of the conversation to imagine it. A lot of times when one of us calls somebody we don't know, they don't believe we're really us.

“Thank you,” Tessa went on. “I think she's a good president, too. Anyway, my sister and my cousin and I are investigating a case, and we have some questions for you. . . . Uh, hold on a sec, would you?” Tessa looked up at me and Nate. “What are our questions, again?”

“Ask if somebody bought an egg last week,” Nate said.

“And if somebody did buy an egg, who was it?” I said.

Tessa repeated the questions, listened and nodded. “Oh, really? Okay, I'll check. . . . And you have a very mega day, too!” She hung up.

“Well?” Nate and I said at the same time.

“She doesn't like to give information out over the phone,” Tessa said. “But I should still have a very mega day.”

“So we have to go out there?” I said.

Tessa grinned and pumped her fist.
“Road trip!”

A road trip sounded good to me, too. The problem was that when you're the president's kid, a road trip is not so easy. The Secret Service would have to go with us and they would have to scout the place in advance. Since they have other things to do, arrangements might take a while. The question was, how long?

At dinner, we told Granny we wanted to visit Mega Bird Farm, and she agreed it was a good idea. After dinner, she called to talk to the Secret Service about how soon we could go. Tessa, Nate and I were finishing our homework in the solarium when Charlotte came in to deliver the bad news.

“Friday after school?” Tessa waved her arms the way she does. “But what will we tell Mr. Morgan and Mr. Webb? They are going to be
so-o-o
disappointed!”

“I thought of that,” Charlotte said, “so I got in touch with them already. They're having such a good time in Pittsburgh, they've decided to stay a few more days. But they said don't worry, and they promise to call when they get back.”

A lot of times I am surprised by the stuff the news guys think is important. For example, remember when Hooligan knocked over that foreign dignitary—Mr. Valenteen?

That was on Monday afternoon, and for the rest of the week, it was like you couldn't turn on the TV or look at the Web without seeing Hooligan leaping, the guy's face looking scared and unhappy, and then Hooligan again—showing off his profile like he was proud he had knocked somebody over.

As you can imagine, this was all pretty embarrassing for my mom and the rest of the United States government.

So on Thursday when Tessa's and my friend Toni called to invite us and Nate and Hooligan over to her house, my mom was happy. In case you don't remember, Toni's father is the ambassador from Mr. Valenteen's nation. According to Mom, the invitation was supposed
to be a sign that the people there were ready to forgive Hooligan and the American people.

Tessa disagreed. “I don't think the invitation is a sign of anything,” she said. “I think Toni just invited us because we're friends. Plus Toni told me there's this cool new rock in her rock collection and she wants us to see it.”

The invitation was for Easter after lunch. Toni's family lives in the ambassador's house, which is next to the office part of the embassy in the neighborhood of Washington, D.C. called Georgetown. Hooligan was included because he's friends with Toni's dog, Ozza-belle. While we checked out the rocks, they were going to have a playdate.

Besides the invitation from Toni, a few other things happened that week:

• I studied my spelling words for the Friday test and did math homework.

• Tessa and I tried on our Easter dresses to make sure they fit.

• The kittens opened their eyes the rest of the way.

• Tessa, Nate, the Easter Bunny and I assembled baskets to be given as prizes at the Easter egg roll. (The Easter Bunny was really one of my mom's staffers dressed up in a costume he told us was hot and itchy.)

• We got a postcard from Mr. Morgan and Mr. Webb. It showed a picture of a big, swoopy bridge over
the Ohio River, and it said: “Happy Detecting! See you next week!”

Finally it was Friday, and after school Granny and Charlotte picked us up in one of the White House vans.

Malik drove, and we went northwest out of the city into Maryland. For the first part, the scenery was mostly office buildings, but after a while we were in the country—big houses and rolling green hills with pink-flowering trees and red-flowering bushes.

Tessa fell asleep.

Nate asked, “Are we there yet?”

After we left the highway we drove on back roads for a while till we rounded a bend and saw a sign that read
MEGA BIRD FARM
.

I elbowed Tessa, who opened her eyes, looked out the window and squealed: “Are those for real?”

Yes, Tessa, they were for real—a flock of about fifty ostriches jogging alongside the van as it wound its way up a steep and curving driveway. I was glad the ostriches were on the other side of a chain-link fence.

Charlotte said they looked like long-legged feather dusters, and Nate said they looked like they had snakes for necks.

I thought they for sure looked a lot more like dinosaurs than they did like Granny's canary, or a cardinal, or any other normal bird.

At the end of the driveway was a one-story blue building with a covered porch and a sign on the door that said
OPEN
. Malik pulled into a parking space in front, and we all climbed out. An SUV was there already. It didn't have writing on it or anything, but I knew it belonged to the Secret Service. Some agents would have come out ahead of us just to make sure things were okay. Now they were hanging around nearby but out of sight.

The door of the blue building opened, and a smiling woman with frizzy gray hair came out. “Welcome! I'm Nancy Aviano, and most of you I recognize from the TV. It's Tessa I spoke to on the phone, correct?”

“Correct-amento!”
said Tessa. She introduced Granny, Charlotte, Malik and me, and we all shook hands.

“I know you have some questions,” Nancy Aviano said, “but first can I show you around?”

“Yes, please!” said Tessa. “I have never in my life met a grown-up ostrich before.”

Mrs. Aviano turned out to be the same amount chatty as she was nice. Luckily, ostriches are interesting, so we didn't mind listening . . . and listening.

First she led us over to the fence so we could look at the ostriches and they could look back at us. From my bird book, I already knew a lot of what Mrs. Aviano was saying—how ostriches are native to Africa, run forty-five miles per hour and live as long as fifty years.

But reading a book isn't the same as seeing something close-up. Ostriches are awesome! They have huge eyes and long eyelashes, so their faces look friendly even if the rest of them looks weird. They're bigger than NBA players, up to nine feet tall and 350 pounds. They're super curious. One tried to peck Granny's bracelet, and another went for Charlotte's watch.

“They won't hurt you,” Mrs. Aviano said, “unless you scare them. If they feel threatened, they kick, and I'm here to tell you that big toenail packs a wallop.”

Next Mrs. Aviano showed us the barn where the ostriches are fed, and the shed she uses as a nursery.
Inside, there were heated boxes called incubators for the eggs, and bigger boxes called brooders for the young chicks. The older chicks had a separate room. They were clumsy and funny and covered with downy, spotted feathers that looked more like fur.

“Awww,”
Tessa said. “I wish we could've kept Dino. I bet Hooligan would've loved him.”

“Hooligan probably would have tried to beat up on Dino when he was a chick,” Nate said. “Then what a surprise when Dino grew up and wanted revenge!”

Mrs. Aviano asked who Dino was, and how was Hooligan, anyway? Like everyone else in America, she had seen our dog on TV plenty of times. As we walked back to the office, we explained how Hooligan really is good—he just has too much energy.

Then Tessa said, “And Dino is the reason we're here. Cammie, do you have your notebook?”

I held it up. “I'm ready.”