Andi Unstoppable (2 page)

Colin's eyes widened, but he didn't correct her. He was far too nice to tell anyone, even my arch-nemesis, he wouldn't be her partner. That was left up to me.

I folded my arms. “Colin is working with me.”

“Really?” Ava smiled. “Did you ask him to be your partner? Because I didn't see you ask him. How self-centered of you to assume you and Colin would be partners. If I were Colin I wouldn't want to be taken for granted so much.”

I pushed my frizzy hair behind my ear. “Well, it's a good thing that you're not Colin, and I don't take him for granted.”

“Oh really?” Ava asked. “Colin, do you think Andi takes your friendship for granted?”

Colin's hair fell into his glasses as his neck whipped back and forth between Ava and me. “I . . . I . . .”

Mr. McCone clapped his hands, which made Ava and me jump. We hadn't even known that he was there. “This solves our problem. Ava and Andi, you will both be Colin's partner for the project. This will avoid the embarrassment of an odd man out. I was always the last one picked for kickball in school, and I know how hard it can be to be the low man on the totem pole.”

It was no surprise to anyone that Mr. McCone was chosen last in kickball. He looked like he would be the last pick for everything with the exception of maybe a spelling bee.

“What?!” the three of us cried at the same time.

The teacher adjusted his glasses. “Would one of you rather work alone?”

There was silence. None of us was going to volunteer to work by ourselves. More people meant we had more chances to see birds and maybe even see the Kirtland's warbler that was worth an additional twenty points.

“No,” Ava and I mumbled.

“Good. I'm going to expect great things from this group made up of three of my star pupils.” He sauntered away to the next pair of students.

Ava and I glared at each other for a full minute after Mr. McCone moved on.

Colin sighed. “If we're going to get an ‘A' on this project, we'll have to work together.”

I sighed. Colin was right. I wasn't going to let Ava Gomez stand between me and a good grade. “When should we start?”

“Tonight,” Colin said. “We can meet at my house after school to make a plan. It's Thursday, so we should spend Saturday at the park looking for birds. If the Kirtland's is still there, we have to see it.”

Life Science was the last class of the day, which meant we could get to work right away. I nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

Ava frowned. “I can't go right after school. I'll meet you at your house later.”

“Why?” I asked.

Her jaw twitched. “There's something I have to do first, and I don't know if I can look for birds on Saturday yet either. It depends.”

“Depends on what?” I asked.

“Some of us have other responsibilities that are none of your business.” She glared at me. “I'll meet you at Colin's house later and let you know about Saturday then.”

I folded my arms. “If you have to ask your mom for permission, we get that. It's not like we're going to run off into the woods without telling our families.”

“I don't have to ask my mom,” Ava said through gritted teeth.

Colin opened his mouth as if he were about to ask another question, but snapped it shut as soon as he saw Ava's glare.

The bell rang, and Ava grabbed her backpack from the floor. “I have to go.” She fled the room. Colin and I were much slower in gathering our things.

“I wonder what that was about,” Colin said.

I hoisted my backpack onto my shoulders. “Let's see if she shows up tonight like she promised.”

CASE FILE NO. 2

Mr. McCone was right. Bird fever had overtaken
Killdeer. As Colin and I rode our bikes home after school, we saw dozens of men and women, mostly older adults, wandering downtown holding binoculars to their eyes. Local shopkeepers stood outside too, staring at the binocular-people like Martians had invaded and they were still trying to decide if they came in peace.

I rode up next to Colin. He slowed his pedaling to match mine. “Where are they all going to sleep?” I asked.

Colin adjusted the rearview mirror attached to his bike helmet. “That's a good question. I hope Bergita doesn't offer our house. My parents would freak.”

I let my bike cruise behind Colin again, and we coasted down Dunlap Avenue to our houses. Mine was a large Dutch colonial that had been in the family
for five generations. My aunt Amelie inherited it from her parents and moved in when she got a job as an English professor at Michael Pike University just a few blocks away. Two years later, my older sister Bethany and I moved in after the death of both of our parents. Mom and Dad were botanists and had been in Central America looking for plants when their small plane crashed into the mountains on the border of Guatemala and Belize. That was almost nine months ago now. Sometimes it felt like it had been years since they died, and sometimes it felt like it was that morning.

An old VW bus was in Colin's driveway. It was rusty and powder blue and a huge dent marred the rear fender.

“Whose car is that?” I asked Colin.

Colin grinned. “You'll see.” He sped away from me.

I pedaled faster to catch up. “Can you tell me if it's good news or bad news that that car — or whatever it is — is in your driveway?”

Colin glanced over his shoulder as he swung his bike into the Carters' driveway. “Depends on who you ask. My dad would say it was trouble.”

Before I could ask Colin what he meant by that, his front screen door banged against the house. Colin's pug Jackson shot out the door as if someone had zapped him with a hundred volts of electricity in his curled tail.

A woman filled the doorway. Her hands were on her hips and her shoulders were as wide as the door. She wore tan shorts and a blue sweatshirt. The sweatshirt asked, “Got birds?” Her gray hair was shaved
close to her head, and she wore a camo-pattern scarf tied into a knot around her thick neck.

Jackson dove under the nearest bush.

“Colin Thomas Carter,” the woman bellowed. “Get up here and give this old woman a hug.”

A dog up the street howled at her shouts.

Colin dropped his bike and, with the hugest grin on his face I had ever seen, ran up the three steps to the porch. The giant woman wrapped her arms around him and squeezed so tight I had to look away just in case she crushed Colin's bones. Finally, she let him go. “Are you still getting straight A's?” she asked.

Colin nodded but didn't answer, probably because she squeezed all the wind out of him. I was impressed he was still upright after that hug.

“Good.” She let go of his shoulders. “If I ever hear about your grades slipping, you will have to answer to me, understood?”

Colin nodded dumbly again.

She examined me over his head. “You must be Andi. I have heard quite a bit about you from my sister and my nephew here. Quite a bit. You've led Colin into some tight scrapes these last few months.”

I opened my mouth to argue. The scrapes Colin and I had had been a team effort. I didn't make him do anything he didn't want to, and we hadn't done anything too dangerous . . . at least not that often.

The woman let go of Colin. “Come up here so I can give you a hug too.”

I hesitated. A cracked rib didn't sound like that much fun to me.

“I won't bite,” she said.

I dropped my backpack next to my bike and climbed up the steps. The woman wrapped me into a surprisingly gentle hug. I hugged her back even though I still had no idea who she was.

“Andi,” Colin said after the large women let me go. “This is my great-aunt Claudette. She's my grandma Bergita's sister.”

Claudette punched her fists into her wide hips. “Did you have to add the great on there? I refuse to be old and the great makes me sound old.”

Colin laughed. “You're not old, Claudette.”

She pointed a finger at him. “You got that right, and I have no intention of ever being old.”

“What are you doing here?” Colin asked. “You haven't come to visit in ages.”

She nodded. “I know. I should visit more often, but the birds are always calling me. Who knew that they would call me here?”

“You're birding?” Colin asked. “In Killdeer?”

She nodded as she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Yep, and I'll be here for a few days. Bergita will break the news to your parents.”

“You came because of the Kirtland's warbler?” I asked.

Claudette's entire face lit up when I mentioned the Kirtland's. It reminded me of Colin's when he had a new and exciting idea to share. Even though she was his great aunt, it was easy to see the two of them were related. “Yes. That's exactly why I'm here. I shouldn't be a bit surprised that the two of
you know about it too considering how smart Bergita claims you are.”

Colin's grandmother Bergita came out the front door. “Oh good. You're home from school. Andi, I see you have had a chance to meet my sister. I hope she didn't squeeze you too tight. Her hugs are known to be dangerous.”

Claudette snorted. “Don't scare the poor girl.”

Bergita laughed. “Andi, why don't you run over to your house and ask Bethany if she wants to come over for a bit too? Amelie called me and she's going to be home late from work, so I'm inviting you girls over for dinner.”

I tried to hide my frown. Amelie always called and said that she was going to be late. There always seemed to be a meeting or a paper to grade that kept her on campus just a bit longer. “Bethany isn't going to want to come over.” I knew my sister. She was probably already online Skyping with one of her friends from our old school. Bethany hated Killdeer and was already counting the days until she graduated high school and could leave, and she was only in the ninth grade.

Bergita folded her arms. “Ask her anyway. Bethany shouldn't spend so much time alone in the house.”

I sighed. “Okay.” I would much rather have stayed at the Carters' and learned about Colin's birding great-aunt Claudette. If she helped us look for the Kirtland's, we would definitely earn all the extra credit points.

On the way across the yard to my driveway, I picked up my bike and backpack. I parked the bike in the garage and headed inside. Mr. Rochester greeted
me at the front door with a yowl. Unlike my sister, he hated to be shut up alone in the house all day. I scratched him under the chin. “Want an afternoon snack, Mr. Rochester?”

He began to purr. I took that as a ‘yes.' I dropped my backpack on the couch and headed to the kitchen where Bethany sat on the counter eating Doritos. Her long legs hung over the counter and the heels of her feet beat a rhythm into the cupboard below. She licked Dorito cheese from her fingers. “What are you all excited about?”

“Who said I was excited?” I asked as I removed the cat treats from the overhead cupboard. We had to keep them there because somehow Mr. Rochester had figured out how to open the lower cupboards with his paws. We discovered this after he had gotten sick from eating an entire box of cat treats that Amelie had hidden under the sink.

Bethany rolled her eyes. “I can tell when you're hyper about something. What happened at school? Did you win the science fair or something?”

It wasn't often my older sister asked me what I was up to, so I didn't want to jinx it. “Have you seen the birders in town?”

“Huh?”

“The birders,” I said. “Didn't you see people with binoculars wandering around downtown when you walked home from school?”

“Well, yeah,” she admitted. “But I thought it was a bunch of lost old people. Maybe they escaped from a nursing home.”

I sighed. “No, those are birders. They're here because a really rare bird, a Kirtland's warbler, was seen in the Shalley Park woods. People are coming from all over to catch a glimpse of it. Colin and I are going to find it. If we get a photograph of it, we'll earn twenty extra credit points on our science project.”

“You're all jazzed up because you can get extra credit for a class you are already acing? That's overkill in my opinion.”

I dropped the treats on the floor for Mr. Rochester. The orange tabby pounced on them. “Then, I guess it's good I didn't ask your opinion.”

Bethany snorted.

“Amelie is going to be late, so Bergita sent me over here to ask if you want to go over there for dinner.”

“What else is new? Tell Bergita I'm fine with my Doritos.”

“Bergita's sister, Claudette, is there right now. She's a big-time birder and came to town to see the Kirtland's.”

“I'll pass. I'm not that interested in listening to you all talk about birds.”

I grabbed a package of fruit snacks from the cupboard for myself and shrugged as if I didn't care. “Fine. I'm going to Colin's.”

“Are you and Colin going to have one of your little investigations about the birds?” She smirked. “You're in seventh grade now, Andi. Don't you think you're a little old to be playing detective?”

I gritted my teeth. “This isn't an investigation.”

At the time, I had been telling the truth.

CASE FILE NO. 3

I stomped from the kitchen and headed to
my attic bedroom. Mr. Rochester always knew when I was headed upstairs. He beat me every time no matter where he was in the house.

I climbed the second set of stairs to my room. When my dad was growing up in the old Boggs family home, the attic had been his room. With Colin's help, I had spent most of the summer turning the neglected space back into a bedroom.

I threw my backpack on my bed and took out my books. I would need to pack for the birding expedition.

The only item that I knew I definitely would need was binoculars. I knelt down and yanked out a plastic box from under the bed. I sat back on my heels. Mr. Rochester leaned over the bed and watched me. I eyed
him. “I don't know if I'm ready to see this stuff,” I confided to the orange tabby.