"Me, Beatrice. Chill out, man."

"What are you doing here!"

"Shh. Not so loud."

Roy heard her slide out from underneath the bed. Quietly she stood up and moved to the window. There was just enough moon in the sky to light up her curly blond hair and cast a reflection in her glasses.

"How'd you get in our house?" Roy struggled to keep his voice low, but he was too rattled. "How long have you been hiding here?"

"All afternoon," Beatrice replied, "while you guys were gone."

"You broke in!"

"Relax, cowgirl. I didn't bust any windows or anything. The sliding door on your porch popped right off the track-they all do," Beatrice said, matter-of-factly.

Roy hopped out from under the sheets, locked the door, and switched on his desk lamp.

"Are you completely wacko?" he snapped at her. "Did somebody kick you in the head at soccer practice, or what?"

"I'm sorry about this, I really am," Beatrice said. "It's just, uh, things got kinda hairy at home. I didn't know where else to go."

"Oh." Roy was instantly sorry he'd lost his temper. "Was it Lonna?"

Beatrice nodded gloomily. "I guess she fell off her broom or somethin'."

"That really sucks."

"Yeah, her and my dad got in a huge fight. I mean huge. She threw a clock radio at his head, so he beaned her with a mango."

Roy had always thought that Beatrice Leep wasn't afraid of anything, but she didn't look so fearless now. He felt bad for her-it was hard to imagine living in a house where the grownups behaved so idiotically.

"You can stay here tonight," he offered.

"For real?"

"Long as my parents don't find out."

"Roy, you're pretty cool," Beatrice said.

He grinned. "Thanks for calling me Roy."

"Thanks for letting me crash here."

"You take the bed," he said. "I'll sleep on the floor."

"No way, Jose."

Roy didn't argue. He gave Beatrice a pillow and a blanket, and she stretched out happily on the carpet.

He turned off the light and said good night. Then he remembered something he meant to ask her. "Hey, did you see Mullet Fingers today?"

"Maybe."

"Well, he told me he had something planned for last night."

"He's always got somethin' planned."

"Yeah, but this stuff can't go on forever," Roy said. "Sooner or later, he's gonna get caught."

"I believe he's smart enough to know that."

"Then we've gotta do something."

"Like what?" Beatrice asked faintly. She was fading toward sleep. "You can't stop him, Roy. He's too darn thickheaded."

"Then I guess we've gotta join him."

"'Scuse me?"

"G'night, Beatrice."

SEVENTEEN

Curly stared hard at the phone, as if staring would make it quit ringing. Finally he braced himself and picked up the receiver.

On the other end was Chuck Muckle, of course.

"Do I hear the sound of bulldozers, Mr. Branitt?"

"No, sir."

"Why not? It's Monday morning here in beautiful Memphis, Tennessee. Isn't it Monday morning in Florida, too?"

"I got some good news," Curly said, "and I got some bad news."

"The good news being that you've found employment elsewhere?"

"Please, lemme finish."

"Sure," said Chuck Muckle, "while you're cleaning out your desk."

Curly hastily spilled his version of what had happened Saturday night. The part about the missing bulldozer seats definitely took some shine off the rest of the story. Not wishing to make things worse, Curly didn't mention that his pistol had somehow ended up submerged in a portable toilet.

A fuzzy silence lingered at the Memphis end of the conversation. Curly wondered if Mother Paula's vice-president for corporate relations had hung up on him.

"Hullo?" Curly said. "You there?"

"Oh, I'm here," Chuck Muckle replied tartly. "Let me get this straight, Mr. Branitt. A young man was arrested for attempted burglary on our property-"

"Right. Assault and trespassing, too!"

"-but then on the very same evening, another person or persons unknown removed the seats from the bulldozers and backhoes and whatevers."

"Yessir. That would be the not-so-good news," Curly said.

"Did you report this theft to the police?"

"'Course not. I didn't want it to get in the newspaper."

"Maybe there's hope for you yet," said Chuck Muckle. He asked Curly if it was possible to operate the machines without driver's seats.

"Only if you're some kinda octopus."

"So I'm correct in assuming there'll be no bulldozing today."

"Or tomorrow," Curly reported grimly. "I got new seats on order from the wholesaler in Sarasota, but they won't be here till Wednesday."

"What a happy coincidence," Chuck Muckle said. "That turns out to be the last day that Miss Kimberly Lou Dixon is available to us. Her mutant-insect movie begins shooting next weekend in New Mexico."

Curly swallowed. "You wanna do the groundbreaking this Wednesday? What about the site clearing?"

"Change of plans. Blame it on Hollywood," said Chuck Muckle. "We'll do the ceremony first, and as soon as everybody leaves you can crank up the machines-assuming they haven't been stripped down to the axles by then."

"But it's just… Wednesday's the day after tomorrow!"

"No need to soil yourself, Mr. Branitt. We'll arrange all the details from our end-the advertising, the press releases, and so forth. I'll get in touch with the mayor's office and the chamber of commerce. Meanwhile, your job is incredibly simple-not that you won't find a way to screw it up."

"What's that?"

"All you've got to do is lock down the construction site for the next forty-eight hours. Think you can handle that?"

"Sure," Curly said.

"No more alligators, no more poisonous snakes, no more stealing," Chuck Muckle said. "No more problems, period. Comprendo?"

"I got a quick question about the owls."

"What owls?" Chuck Muckle shot back. "Those burrows are abandoned, remember?"

Curly thought: I guess somebody forgot to tell the birds.

"There's no law against destroying abandoned nests," the vice-president was saying. "Anybody asks, that's your answer. 'The burrows are deserted.'"

"But what if one a them owls shows up?" Curly asked.

"What owls!" Chuck Muckle practically shouted. "There are no owls on that property and don't you forget it, Mr. Branitt. Zero owls. Nada. Somebody sees one, you tell him it's a-I don't know, a robin or a wild chicken or something."

A chicken? Curly thought.

"By the way," said Chuck Muckle, "I'll be flying down to Coconut Cove so I can personally accompany the lovely Miss Dixon to our groundbreaking. Let's pray that you and I have nothing more to talk about when I arrive."

"Don't worry," Curly said, though he was plenty worried himself.

Beatrice Leep was gone when Roy awoke. He had no idea how she had slipped out of the house unnoticed, but he was glad she'd made it.

Over breakfast, Roy's father read aloud the brief newspaper account of Dana Matherson's arrest. The headline said: "Local Youth Nabbed in Break-in Attempt."

Because Dana was under eighteen, the authorities weren't allowed to release his name to the media-a fact that rankled Roy's mother, who believed Dana's mug shot should have been plastered on the front page. The story identified him only as a student at Trace Middle and said that the police considered him a suspect in several recent vandalisms. It didn't specifically mention Mother Paula's as the target.

Dana's arrest was the major buzz around school. Many kids were aware that he'd been picking on Roy, so they were eager to get Roy's reaction to the news that his tormentor had been nailed by the cops.

Roy was careful not to gloat or joke about it, or to draw any special attention to himself. If Dana blabbed about the imaginary cigarette stash, he might try to blame Roy for the bungled theft. The police had no reason to believe anything the kid said, but Roy wasn't taking any chances.