Wild Rescue (12 page)

Chapter 44

At lunch
I told my friends about our alpaca project.

Duncan still seemed miffed at me for Happy Canyons, but he sat with me and some of the other guys. “How much they gonna pay you to do all that work?” he said.

“We never talked about pay.”

“My mom paid one of our neighbors $100 just to walk our dog and feed our old cat,” Kael said. “I told her I would have stayed home and done it for half that much.”

“How many alpacas do they have?” Duncan said.

“About 40.”

“And they’ll be gone a whole week?”

“Yeah, why?”

“That could be some serious money. Let’s say they give you $2 an alpaca every day. That’s $80 a day. And 80 times 7—”

“$560,” Skeeter said. “You and Ashley are rich!”

“And that’s if they only give you $2 per animal,” Duncan said. “You need any help?”

I couldn’t help smiling. I hadn’t thought much about the payment, but Duncan made quite a case. “I think Ashley and I can handle it.”

Toby came to the table and sat down.

Duncan excused himself—too quickly.

“Bryce, you know you were talking about people having stuff stolen?” Toby said. “I met another kid whose parents came back from vacation last week, and the same thing happened to them.”

“Who is it?”

“Come on. I’ll introduce you.”

Chapter 45

We got our tests back in math,
and my score was miserable. The only good thing was that most people—other than Marion Quidley—did just as poorly, and the teacher had mercy on us. I squeaked through with a B for the class, but just barely.

I saw Denise in the hall once, but she didn’t notice me. I wasn’t half as worried about her and Liz as I was about the alpacas. I hoped they’d be okay.

At lunch I saw Bryce talking with Duncan. A few minutes later, Bryce motioned for me to follow him. He and Toby went to the back where a scrawny-looking kid was eating lunch.

“This is Bryce and Ashley,” Toby said to the kid. “Stan, tell them what you told me about your parents’ house.”

“There’s not much to tell,” Stan said. “We had to go out of town for a funeral. When we got back, all my mom’s expensive silverware was gone, plus her jewelry. They also got a few coins my dad had kept to give us kids. Some of them were worth thousands.”

“Did the thieves break in?” Bryce said.

“No, it was almost like they walked into the place without any problem. Like they had a key or something.”

“Who died?” I said.

Bryce scrunched his face. “What?”

“The funeral—who was it for?” I said.

“Oh, an uncle of mine,” Stan said, biting his cheek. “Lived in Oregon. He had a car accident.”

“I’m sorry. Must’ve been really hard to go through that and then come back to having stuff taken from your house.”

“Yeah, Mom cried about it for days. Dad was spittin’ mad, but what could he do? What can any of us do?”

“Have the police said anything?” Bryce said.

“They don’t give us much hope. Maybe they’ll catch the people one day. I hope so.”

“One more question,” Bryce said. “Did your dad get his car fixed before the trip?”

Stan took a bite of his apple and shook his head. “We got the call in the evening on Tuesday. Then we left for the airport early the next day. There wasn’t time to get anything worked on.”

I walked with Bryce to his locker. He shook his head. “I was sure this all had to do with the repair shop or the oil change place.”

“Maybe the thieves don’t use keys,” I said. “On some of those TV shows they can get into houses without them, and it still looks like they didn’t force their way in.”

“In that case it could be anybody.”

“We can’t give up,” I said. “We have to keep following the leads until we find something. Talk to Stan’s parents. Something will turn up.”

Chapter 46

Ashley and I went to the farm
as soon as school was out and made sure the alpacas were okay. Buck was there waiting for us, wagging his tail. I checked on his food and water and made sure Lewis, the parrot, had food. He squawked at me when I opened the cage and said, “Thank you for calling.”

I went to the mangled fence and saw that it was still in good shape. No more repairs needed. “We need you to be on the alert tonight,” I said to Buck, patting his head. “You take good care of these animals and yourself.”

It almost felt like Buck understood. He panted and looked at me for a long time, then trotted off through the pasture. He stopped about midway to the barn, his ears pointing up, hair bristling. He gave a low growl and looked toward the woods beyond the house, then continued to the barn.

When we got home, both Ashley and I were starved. I think it’s working outside that does it, but I felt like I could eat everything in the refrigerator—including the plain yogurt Mom eats. Mom made us wait, saying Sam would be home soon. When he didn’t come, she let us start.

Sam finally came in and apologized, saying he had had trouble with his truck coming from the airport. “Gotta take it into the shop. First time they can see it is early Friday morning.”

“You can take my car tomorrow,” Mom said.

He nodded, and I looked at Ashley. I didn’t know exactly what we were going to do, but it seemed like the perfect chance to get more information.

Later in Ashley’s room, she came up with the plan. “You hide in the backseat of Sam’s truck. He’ll think you’re at the farm already or sleeping in after the last day of school. When he leaves it, you stay out of sight and just listen, see if you hear anything.”

“What if Mom asks about me?”

“I’ll cover for you. Should be easy since we’ve got the alpacas. I’ll just say you’re working on something.”

“What if the people at the repair shop find me?”

She shrugged. “I’ll speak at your funeral.”

We both laughed. Then she scooted closer. “Look, this will either confirm your suspicion or let you move on to some other theory.”

Chapter 47

There’s a feeling
you get on the last day of school that’s like no other. Especially the last day of seventh grade. You know you have all of eighth grade ahead of you, all of the rest of middle school behind you, and all of being called pixie and newbie out of the way. When you’re an eighth grader, you’re only one step away from high school, and that commands respect.

Bryce and I fed the animals. They all seemed okay, though Whitney looked skittish when we approached. We gave her some food and tried to stay out of her way.

We flew through the field and made it to school in record time, though riding through some tall grass really got our legs wet. It felt good to wear shorts on the last day since our classes were basically over, and all that was left was to hand in our books, clean out our lockers, and say good-bye.

At lunch there was a lot of free food—the cooks were cleaning out their kitchen—and Mr. Forster had a pie-throwing competition. For a dollar you could throw a whipped-cream pie at the gym teachers wearing plastic ponchos, and all the money went back to the school.

We had a band get-together at lunch and said good-bye to the eighth grade band members. Liz and Denise stayed to themselves, but at one point, Liz walked over to me. “Don’t think this is over, Timberline,” she said.

It was all I needed to decide to quit the band. I didn’t want to spend the summer worrying about next year. I knew it was a shame just to throw my flute away, but I’d had enough.