Parrot retrieval was proving less difficult, largely because most of the birds seemed to have grown fond of Dad, and would emerge from the bushes when he coaxed them. Although the process would probably take a lot less time if someone could persuade Dad to concentrate on capturing the birds. Then again, perhaps after a few hours, even Dad would grow tired of strolling around with a gaudy parrot on each shoulder, posing for the photographers, and muttering “Avast!” and “Shiver me timbers!”
“At this rate,” Michael said, “I think it highly unlikely that much will be happening for the next hour or two.”
“You call that nothing?” I asked, pointing to the chaos in front of the hotel.
“Nothing official,” he said. “Nothing that’s listed on the convention program. In short, nothing that urgently requires our presence. Under the circumstances, what do you say we—”
“There you are!” Maggie said, coming up between us and grabbing one of us with each arm. “You’re not just going to stand around wasting time, are you?”
“Actually—” I began.
“Come on then,” she said, dragging us back toward the hotel. “We need to catch those poor creatures for once and for all before they hurt themselves. It could take all night. And I’m not taking no for an answer; we need all the help we can get!”
Turn the page for an excerpt from Donna Andrews’s next
Meg Lanslow mystery
Owls Well
That Ends Well
AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER THIS WINTER FROM ST. MARTIN’S MINOTAUR
When the doorbell rang, I stumbled to the still-dark window and poured a bucket of water where the front porch roof would have been if it hadn’t blown away in a thunderstorm two weeks ago.
“Aarrgghh!” screamed our visitor. A male voice, for a change.
Ignoring the curses from below, I poured another gallon jug of water into the bucket, added a scoop of ice cubes from the cooler, and stationed it by the window before crawling back into the sleeping bag.
“I have an idea,” Michael said, poking his head out from under his pillow. “Next time let’s just hire someone to do this.”
“There won’t be a next time,” I said. “We are never, ever having another yard sale.”
“Works for me,” Michael said, disappearing under the pillow again.
Within thirty seconds I heard the gentle not-quite-snores that told me he was fast asleep.
A point in Michael’s favor, the non-snoring. The list was long on points in Michael’s favor and very short on flaws. Not that I normally keep ledgers on people, but I suspected that after several years together, Michael was tiring of my commitment phobia and working up to a serious talk about the
Not something I needed to worry about right now. Now, I needed to sleep. I settled back and tried to follow Michael’s example. But I didn’t hear a car driving away, which probably meant our caller was still lurking nearby. Perhaps even trying to sneak into the yard sale area. I wished him luck getting past our security. But odds were he’d eventually ring the doorbell again. Or another early arrival would. If only someone had warned me that no matter what start time you announce for a yard sale, the dedicated bargain hunters show up before dawn.
My family, of course, had been showing up for days. Every room that had a floor was strewn with sleeping bags, and my more adventurous cousins had strung up hammocks in some of the floorless rooms.
From downstairs in the living room, I heard the thumping of Cousin Dolores’s morning aerobics and the resonant chants Cousin Rosemary emitted while performing her sun salutations. Perhaps this morning they would both keep to their own separate ends of the living room. If not, someone else would have to restore peace between East and West today.
Michael was definitely fast asleep again. What a wonderful gift, being able to fall asleep like that. I felt envious.
Just envious? the cynical side of my mind asked. Not even a teeny bit resentful? I mean, it’s no wonder he can sleep so soundly. He hasn’t spent every waking moment of the last two months getting ready for this weekend.
In late August, we’d bought The House—a huge Victorian pile, three stories high plus attic and basement, with three acres of land and assorted outbuildings, including a full-sized barn equipped with a resident pair of nesting owls. The only way we’d been able to afford it was to take the place “as is,” which referred not only to the property’s run-down condition, but also to the fact that it still contained all of the late Edwina Sprocket’s possessions. And Edwina had been a hoarder. The house had been merely cluttered, the attic and basement downright scary, and the barn…apparently when the house became overcrowded, she’d started shoving things into the barn. When she’d run out of space on the first floor of the barn, she’d placed a ramp up to the hay loft and begun pouring junk in from above. She’d filled the barn and moved on to the sheds by the time she’d finally died, leaving her various grand-nieces and grand-nephews with a hideous clearing-out job that they’d avoided by selling the place to us. As is. With a clause in the contract entitling them to ten percent of whatever we made by selling the contents.
Eventually, I assumed, I would come to share Michael’s conviction that this was a marvelous deal. Perhaps tomorrow evening, when the yard sale was history. Right now, I just felt tired.
I heard a car engine outside. Probably another caller heading for our doorbell.
I crawled out of the sleeping bag and stumbled over to the window. I rubbed my eyes, opened them, and found myself staring into the pale, heart-shaped face of one of our resident Barn Owls, sitting on its favorite perch, a dead branch in the oak tree just outside our window. Apparently I’d interrupted its bedtime snack—the tail of an unfortunate field mouse dangled from its mouth.
“Ick,” I said. “Are you trying to put me off spaghetti for good?”
The owl stared at me for a few seconds, and then twitched its head. The tail disappeared.
“That branch has got to go,” I said, to no one in particular. Certainly not to the owl, who wasn’t likely to give up his customary feeding station simply because I objected to having our front porch whitewashed with owl droppings and sprinkled with leftover rodent parts every night. Perhaps I could delegate the branch removal to one of the many uncles and cousins who kept asking what they could do to help, assuming I found one who could be trusted with sharp implements.
Just then our latest caller rang the bell, and I emptied the bucket out the window, still staring at the owl.
No screams or curses this time. Only a very familiar voice.
“Meg? It’s me, Dad.”
I closed my eyes and sighed.
“I brought doughnuts.”
I stuck my head out of the window, startling the owl into flight. A very wet Dad stood on our doorstep. Water beaded on his shiny bald head, and he was trying, with his chin, to brush several ice cubes off the stack of boxes in his arms.
“I’ll be right down,” I said.
I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and headed down the hall for a quick visit to the bathroom. But when I was still ten feet away, a bathrobe-clad man carrying a bulging shaving bag emerged from the last bedroom on the
