The Aviary (25 page)

“Brilliant. We could set up a nest of traps somewhere and lead him into it unawares if he threatens us with a pistol.”

“But, Daphne, even if he’s covered with rattraps, he’d still be able to fire on us.”

“True, but then we could always put up our hands and apologize and act terribly sorry and cry ‘boohoo!’ while we draw close enough to paralyze him with a kick. Pardon me, but anyone who points a pistol at two little girls deserves nothing less.”

“I should say so,” agreed Clara.

Daphne drummed her fingers. “The more I think about it, I’m sure we shouldn’t let Mr. Booth into the house.”

“Won’t he find that peculiar?”

“Let’s lead him to the boiler room through the backyard door. I think that if we let him in and he intends to do us ill, he’ll find more things to use against us. Fire pokers, kitchen utensils. You never know.”

Clara wished to present a courageous front, but
Daphne’s constant references to their physical peril were making her stomach upset. “If you don’t mind, I need to talk to the birds and let them know that Mr. Booth will be here. The sooner, the better.”

Daphne agreed. The girls decided that they would prepare the house for Mr. Booth the day before his visit. Until then, Daphne would scour Rover Boys books for ideas, and Clara would ask the birds.

“I’d never have thought in a million years that I, Clara Dooley, would lead an intrepid life. But here I am,” she said aloud to give herself courage. But secretly, she wondered if there weren’t something important she hadn’t taken into account.

“What news?” asked Frances as Clara approached.

“Mr. Booth is coming. We’ve had an answer from him.”

The birds did not celebrate this information, and their gravity made Clara wonder if they weren’t also a little afraid.

“We will be ready,” Frances said.

“You will be our first defense.”

“We know,” George said. “Look.” He stretched out the talons on his left foot, which were indeed impressive.

“I could use any ideas you have.” Clara told them of the plans so far. “Are there other traps we could set up?”

Arthur and Peter fluttered and squawked to Frances.

“They say find powdered lye. Put it in glass jars in the rafters,” she told Clara.

Arthur cackled again.

“Without the lids on, he says,” added Frances.

“Thank you, boys,” Clara said. “You’re both quite diabolical.” To which they laughed uproariously.

Helen tsipped for attention next.

“She says glue the floors! Use great, deep puddles!”

“Good idea,” Clara told her. “And what about you, Frances? Any other secret weapons?”

The mynah hopped over. “Doctor,” she said. “In the blue bottle.”

“What?”

“Go to the medicine cabinet and get the blue bottle.”

Clara went upstairs to the bathroom. She climbed on the little stool beside the basin and opened the mirrored cabinet. Glass containers of old patent medicines with yellowing labels had sat there for years. Mother’s Remedy, Pink Quartz Brain Tonic, Stomach Bitters, Epsom Salt … 
There!

On the cobalt-blue bottle was a picture of a man with bushy side-whiskers. Above him was written “DR. PINCUS’S CHLORAL SEDATIVE.” Below him, in smaller script: “The Sandman’s Friend.”

“Good for insomnia, restlessness, nervous complaints, extraction of teeth and minor surgery, female ailments, cough, catarrh, and neuralgia. One teaspoon dissolved in cold water …” Clara took the bottle in hand and went down to show Frances.

“Yes!” Frances said. “For Mr. Booth. Nighty-night. Sleep tight!”

“Will it put him out completely?”

“Double the dose,” Frances said, “and doubt not.”

“Getting him to drink it might be a problem. But I’m glad to have it on hand just in case.”

“Don’t worry.” Frances drew her claws quickly through a page of newspaper. “We can persuade him.”

“I see,” Clara said, surveying the shreds. “I also have a request for you and George.”

“Ask,” George said.

“If things don’t go as we plan, and Daphne and I are in danger, we’ll need you to get help. And it has to be either one of you, because you both speak. Would you be willing?”

“I will!” declared George.

“He will not,” said the mynah.

Clara began to wonder why she ever thought she could rely on Frances’s cooperation, when the bird added, “I will go.”

“Frances, how courageous of you.”

“No!” George interrupted. “Not Frances. I’m stronger.”

Frances peered up over her shoulder at him. “Look at you: Bright white! A yellow crown! Some brat will slingshot you. No one will notice me.”

“You have a point, Frances. I think you’ll be safer than George would be,” Clara said. “And goodness, you speak so
well now, you could converse with anyone, should we get in trouble.”

“Have Arthur go with you,” George said. “Please, Frances.”

Arthur raised a fuss until Frances consented. “It would be practical. Arthur can come too.”

Immediately, George fluttered down from his perch, lowered his head, and clicked his bill against the mynah’s. Clara thought it was one of the sweetest displays of brotherly love she could imagine.

“Enough now,” Frances said briskly. She hopped forward. “Clara?”

“Yes, Frances?”

“You are not stupid.”

“Hmm,” Clara said. “It is good to be recognized as not stupid, so thank you.”

“You are a brave girl and a smart one. Like me.”

Clara bowed to Frances, deeply touched by the compliment. “That is because I am a Glendoveer,” she said.

“Unmistakably so,” Frances said. “Agreed?”

“A Glendoveer,” said George.

“Tsip-tsip!” said Helen, joining Peter and Arthur in a crazy song.

It was enough to make Clara’s heart swell. She didn’t dare tell them all how much she loved them for fear of offending Frances with mush.

“Let me go find a story for us to read,” she said. “Something for a summer afternoon.”

“Yes!” said George. “Let’s read!”

“Bee-tee-wee! Wee tee!” chirped Peter.

“He asked you to make sure it’s funny,” Frances said. “And as for me, you know.”

“I do,” said Clara, reluctantly thinking of the day that they might fly away forever. “No birds, Frances.
No birds.
”

It was Clara’s task to falsify a document to present to Mr. Booth. She found some old monogrammed stationery and, by candlelight, wrote out a list of charges against him:

Every few minutes, she’d check the candle to see if Mrs. Glendoveer had any opinions on her actions, but the flame burned steadily until her work was finished. When Clara came to the end of the document, she dated it, signed a shaky facsimile of Mrs. Glendoveer’s signature, and examined it.

“Hope that’s all right,” she said. The candle blazed a warm orange, so Clara felt Mrs. Glendoveer approved.

When the day before Mr. Booth’s arrival came, Clara was prepared. She had so well convinced Ruby that the house was overrun with rats that there were now dozens of traps upstairs and down. She’d had quite a job of it, setting them off with a stick so that they could be brought safely down into the boiler room and reset.

She was placing a bottle of Royal Glue she had plucked from the mudroom in a corner when Daphne knocked on the doorframe.

“Already hard at work, are you?”

“I don’t think I could keep still even if I tried,” she said. Clara gave her friend a tour of the variety of weapons she had stashed around the room. Daphne picked up the umbrella and held it against her shoulder like a soldier.

“This is a good one. You can leave it out in the open. He’ll never suspect its purpose.” She dug into her pocket and produced a box. “Look what I brought.”

“Tacks,” said Clara.

“I say we find an old chair and place these beneath the upholstery. When he sits down …”

“Ouch. Suppose he asks us to take a seat instead?”

“Never thought of that,” Daphne said.

“But look at these,” Clara said, pointing to a row of glass jars she’d lined up on a box. “Arthur says to fill them with lye and put them in the rafters!”

“And bomb Mr. Booth? That’s the best idea yet.”

“I haven’t brought the lye down yet, though. There’s always a chance that this will be the day Ruby decides to make soap. I can’t risk her missing it.”

“And don’t forget to open a little window. In case we need the birds to get help.”

“Done.”

“Well, then …”

Clara thought she read something in Daphne’s expression that was not completely polrumptious. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes. I’ll understand if you say no, but I would be assured—not that I’m
not
assured now—but still, if I could know that the birds are fully enlisted in our cause, it would be helpful to me.”

“You want to speak to them?”

“Actually, I’d like them to speak to
me
. The success of our plans depends so much upon them. Do you think you can arrange it?”

Clara understood Daphne’s jitters. If their situations were reversed, how confident would Clara be feeling right now? “Wait here,” she said, and proceeded to the aviary.

The birds flapped their wings and chattered as they saw her approach.

“Tomorrow,” said George, “is our day!”

“A day for the Glendoveers!” Frances said. “A long time coming.”

“It is,” Clara said. “It is our day. But you know, don’t you, that there is someone else here who has helped make that day possible. Someone without whom I never would have found Mr. Booth—”

Here, she was interrupted by rusty squawks. Peter was poking Arthur under the wing in a most annoying manner.

“Arthur thinks she’s pretty,” Frances said grimly. “The little towhead girl.”

Arthur leaned down to shriek his protest, but Clara could see right away that he was merely embarrassed.

“Arthur’s right,” Clara said. “Daphne is pretty. And she’s taking a risk for all of us. What did we do to deserve such generosity from a stranger? Isn’t she remarkable?”

All the birds except one gave their loud approval. It was George who asked Frances, “Don’t you think we should thank her?”

“I’ll thank her later.” She sat down in her nest to show she was through discussing it.

Clara leaned forward and propped her hands on her knees. “Frances? I think it would help Daphne to hear from you. It would shore up her loyalty to feel part of our family.”

“Please, Frances …,” said George.

“Ohhhhh,” Frances said, still sounding irascible.

Clara brought Daphne back around in a flash and took her inside the cage.

Frances flew up out of her nest, and the other birds backed up on their perch to make way for her. Clara could feel her friend trembling and pulled her in close beside her.

“This is Daphne Aspinal, my best friend,” Clara announced. “She has a very important part to play in our plan. Tomorrow she will be the first to greet Mr. Booth and lead him to our trap. We rely on her courage and quick thinking! Therefore—”

“Does she talk?” Frances asked sharply.

“Why, yes, I do,” Daphne said. “Very well, thank you.”

“Oh?” said Frances. “Because it’s hard to tell with you standing there breathing through your mouth.”

“Frances, be kind!” commanded George, and the others began scolding their rude elder sister.

“Ah, it’s fine for the towhead to come gawking, trying to get
me
to speak!” said Frances. “But should I ask her to talk, why it’s a positive insult!”

Clara clapped her hands for their attention. “If we cannot give Daphne an assurance that we are all behind her and grateful, I don’t know that we deserve her help.”

“Daphne,” said George, “I thank you very much.”

“Tsip-tsip!” said Helen, flying down to alight on Daphne’s shoulder.

“I’m happy to help,” Daphne told them. “And proud to know you.”

Peter sat on Daphne’s head and chirped. Frances flew down and paced at the girls’ feet. But Arthur put his head under his wing and extracted a shiny black feather, which he dropped down for Daphne to catch.

“For good luck!” Daphne said. “I’ll keep it in my pocket.”

“Me too,” said George. And he pulled a downy white feather for Daphne.

Peter reached around and caught a bright yellow tail feather, and Helen plucked a tuft of green fuzz from her breast.

“What a lovely
voluntary
gesture,” Clara said, training her sights on Frances.

“Who, me?”

The birds chattered at her until she twisted around, bit a feather from her left wing, and placed it on the toe of Daphne’s shoe. “Here. You are an honorary bird.”

“Much obliged,” Daphne said.

“Don’t be silly,” Frances said. “No one
wants
to be a bird—not anyone who has once been a child. It’s a start, though. When we recover Elliot,
then
I’ll make you a Glendoveer.”