Bone Dance (8 page)

“Nonsense, my dear. You playing marvellous. Only need practice.” He turned back to Harry. “Now go, boy.” He
shooed Harry away with his long musician's fingers.

But Harry stood his ground. He'd tangled with Mr. Malinovka before. “I'm looking for Sam, sir. Do you know where he is?”

The maestro glowered. “Looking for silly birds. Better he practise. You too, boy.”

As Harry walked away, he turned for one last glimpse of the beautiful Zoë. Her golden head shimmered against the red shirt of the maestro. While one of his thick arms enclosed her bow arm, the other circled around her slim back to grasp her slender hand on the violin's neck.

Old lech, Harry muttered to himself. Above their bowed heads, Harry caught sight of another flash of gold, flitting from branch to leafy branch.

The rare Yellow Warbler. First sighting. Too bad the building ruled it out.

Next morning, in anticipation of wiping the dimples off his buddy's laughing face, Harry crammed his notebook into his cello case. Sixteen sightings, he was going to crow, one more and I beat you.

But he wasn't able to dish out these words, for Sam wasn't in the first class.

So Harry fidgeted through the boring music theory lesson that neither of them liked. He fully expected to see Sam at orchestra practice, the one class his friend really enjoyed, even if he was only a member of the violin section because of his uncle. Sure wasn't because of his musical talent.

But instead of Sam whizzing elastic bands at the timpanist's Jello bum or whatever else Sam had thought up to get a rise
from the fat man, Harry found his buddy's chair vacant and the other orchestra members in an uproar.

“What's up?” he asked a fellow cellist, a boy several years older who'd also been at the music school last summer.

“The flautist, Yvette, has gone missing.”

The image of the older girl with cinnamon hair and a freckled ski-jump nose popped into his mind. Harry snorted. “Probably run off with some guy.”

“Maybe, but don't forget about Chantal last summer. They never did find her.”

How could he forget big boobed Chantal with the weird hair? The guitarist had gone missing the day after Harry had finally been rewarded with his magical sighting of the Eastern Bluebird. He started to ask when Yvette was last seen, but was stopped by the conductor raising his baton.

For the next couple of hours the Mont Orford Chamber Orchestra practised its signature piece for the coming festival. Although their rendition of Tchaikovsky's
Rococo Variations
was almost as good as any recording by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, it was missing a couple of ingredients, the fourth violin and the second flautist.

Curious to know what had happened to his buddy, Harry stopped again at the Malinovka cottage. And since Sam was keen on Yvette, Harry also wanted to see what his friend's reaction would be to her running off.

Harry knocked on the screen door. Mrs. Malinovka clattered towards him in the high-heel shoes he thought dumb, along with her sucky city clothes. After all, this was a summer camp. Everyone else wore Nikes and
T
-shirts.

She thrust her sourpuss face up to the screen and pursed her lips. “Sam's not here,” she said.

But Harry could hear the off-key arpeggios of Sam's practising. “If you don't mind, I'll wait out here until he's finished,” he said.

“I told you, he's not here.” She started to close the main door.

Harry refused to move, knowing Sam's aunt only wanted to get rid of him. She resented his musical talent even more than the maestro did. “Such a waste,” Harry had once overheard her saying. “The son of a nobody cleaning lady.” His response had been to play even more brilliantly at the next recital.

“That's Sam playing his violin,” he said.

Sam's aunt laughed shrilly. “Ha! That squawking comes from my husband's newest protégée.” And slammed the door on Harry's face.

I don't blame the lech, Harry thought as he clambered down the steps. Who'd want to be married to that old bag?

Harry trudged back to his residence.

Not like Sam to miss orchestra practice. Wonder what's up?

He had a half-mind to go look for him, but didn't know where to start. His buddy was like him, only interested in music and birding.

When he reached his small room, Harry wasn't sure what he was going to do for the afternoon. He could practise his cello, but he didn't feel like it. He could study for tomorrow's music theory test, but that was boring. So he decided to go after sighting number seventeen and finally beat Sam. He felt pretty sure he could do it, for he'd already had one sighting of the golden plumage of the Yellow Warbler.

After lunch, Harry looked up the warbler's preferred habitat in his bird book and laughed. This was going to be a breeze. He knew the perfect spot, and it was only a short distance from the Malinovka cottage, which helped to explain yesterday's sighting in their garden. He shoved his binoculars, guide and notebook into his backpack. And, figuring it could be a long, hot afternoon, added a couple of cans of Pepsi and a bag of Doritos.

He headed back along Sam's shady lane. He was almost past the stone building when he realized a cop car was parked beside the verandah.

Uh-oh, he thought, hope Sam's not in trouble. But just in case, he decided to hunker down in the cool shade of a thick maple not far from the car. He'd find out from the cops when they came out.

He watched a large splotch of hot sun creep along the grass towards his bare legs. But before it reached his dirty Nikes, two cops walked out the front door, followed by Sam's aunt. Afraid she might see him, Harry scrambled behind the tree. He heard voices, then footsteps crunching along the walk. A car door slammed, followed by another.

He stepped out from behind the tree and into the glare of Mrs. Malinovka.

“I should have the police arrest you for trespassing,” she snarled from the verandah.

The cop car backed out of the drive.

He called out, “Is Sam okay?” But Sam's aunt had already escaped inside, with the door banging behind her.

Harry watched the gleaming car disappear around the corner. He didn't bother to chase them, because he knew their visit had nothing to do with his buddy. Otherwise, Mrs. Malinovka would've marched him right up to the cops, telling them it was Harry's fault her nephew was in trouble, just as she
did whenever she caught them up to one of Sam's tricks.

So Harry continued on his quest, figuring Sam was bird watching too and would be home when Harry returned this way.

Harry followed a narrow path through the woods to one of the many streams that trickled down Mont Orford. His guide said that the Yellow Warbler preferred mature deciduous forests, particularly along riverbanks. He knew of a perfect spot, off the beaten path with little chance of someone coming along and scaring his target away.

Another hundred metres and he arrived at a break in the hardwood forest, where the stream widened into a deep pool of clear crystal water. Large irregular boulders, some flat, some round, lined one side of the pool; dense thickets the other.

Jumping from stone to stone, with a refreshing soaker or two, Harry crossed over to the thickets. He found a small break in the bushes where he could hide and still get a good view of the other side of the pool. He removed his binoculars, notebook and a can of Pepsi from his pack and sat down to begin what he hoped wouldn't be as long a wait as last year. He couldn't. He had a cello masterclass at five.

A hot breeze stirred the trees. A dragonfly flicked back and forth over the still water. He caught sight of a flutter of movement in some foliage on the opposite bank, but the colours were orange and black, not the gold he was waiting for. He wiped his brow, sipped his Pepsi and tried not to think about how good a swim would be.

He'd finished the Doritos and was starting into his second Pepsi when he saw a brief shimmer of gold further downstream.
It vanished then appeared again a few seconds later, this time closer. He sucked in his breath and held it. And finally let it out in one low whistle, when the female Yellow Warbler landed directly across from him on one of the flat rocks.

I was right, he thought gleefully. Now all she had to do was make her call, and he'd finally beat Sam.

He silently raised his binoculars and focused them on his target. Wow! Too much! This was the best sighting of all. None of the others had revealed so much. He couldn't wait to make Sam turn green.

And when the first tentative notes of the call finally drifted from the rock, he almost peed his pants. Too bad, though, the call didn't go with the looks.

He watched and waited, certain of what would happen next. And sure enough, within fifteen minutes the menace arrived, bobbing along. The American Robin—though he could hardly be called “American”—with his puffed up red breast.

But rather than leaving as he usually did, annoyed at the intrusion, Harry stayed and watched. His eyes almost popped through the lens when he saw what happened next. Way better than health class. He should've stuck around those other times too.

He was surprised, however, by how little time it seemed to take for the action to reach its climax. Before he knew it, he was left panting for air, while the robin calmly sauntered away, his red breast puffed out even further.

Then he noticed another robin, this one a female, peeking through some bushes beyond the rocks where the Yellow Warbler preened. Curious, he watched this new red-breasted menace bob from tree to tree until she stopped behind a large maple not more than a few metres away from his target.

But when he saw the look in her black beady eyes and a
wing that wasn't a wing slowly rising, a sudden chill went down his spine. He was about to discover why his two other sightings had gone missing.

“Zoë, get out of the way!” Harry yelled, bursting from his cover. “Mrs. Malinovka has a gun!”

Zoë dove into the water, Harry after her. The gun exploded.

Feeling like a bull's eye, he clung to the naked girl on the bottom of the transparent pool and waited for another bullet to rip through the water.