Summer of the Spotted Owl by Melanie Jackson Page A

the nick of time to avoid being jabbed by a skinny elbow.
    Unfortunately he also stepped right in front of Jack, who was barreling toward Itchy. Smash ! Down they both went.
    â€œOh, Rock,” the instructor moaned. “Always causing trouble!”
    â€œIt’s not my fault,” Itchy replied, as I’d guessed he would. “If only people would let me live my life, do what I want to do — soar with the birds.” He hoisted the metal bar high; the nylon fluttered in the breeze like a dangling purple bracelet.
    â€œMaybe you should take lessons before you soar,” I shouted.
    Itchy gave a bitter snort. Hang glider held aloft, he began to run down the hill.
    Jack had been helping a shaken Mr. Lake off the ground. At the sight of Itchy, he let go, causing Mr. Lake to stumble and fall again. Jack exclaimed, “No way Itchy’s going to —”
    â€œOh yes, he is,” the instructor sniffed. “Rock Cordes does what he wants, when he wants to. That’s why he got fired a few days ago. He just took off on a glider, totally abandoning his students. Rock doesn’t give a fig about anyone else.”
    Rock Cordes ? Same name, and both Itchy and Councillor Cordes had carrot-colored hair. This couldn’t be a coincidence. “Are you related to Councillor Cordes?” I bellowed.
    Ignoring me, Itchy kept sprinting down the slope. The nylon ceased fluttering and ballooned upward, full of air.
    â€œRock worked for High Spirits Hang Gliding?” I asked the instructor.
    â€œSure. He was an instructor, like me. We thought he’d been hired because of his dad’s influence, but we changed our minds,” she said grudgingly, “when we saw how beautifully he flew, and what an expert navigator he was.”
    An expert navigator who crashed into pools. Oka-a-ay. I let that go for a moment. I had to clarify this Councillor Cordes connection. “His dad would be Rock Cordes Senior , I take it.”
    The instructor sniffed. “Everyone knows that. But even Councillor Cordes’s influence couldn’t save Rock Junior when he took a hang glider without permission and lost it.” She treated her hair to another angry backward flip. “ Lost a glider ! Can you imagine?”
    â€œLost, no. Crashed, yes,” I murmured. Now I understood why the burly man had shown up so fast to remove the hang glider from the Urstads’ pool. Itchy had told his dad about the crash, and his dad had sent a district employee, pronto.
    Itchy continued running. Briefly he removed one hand from the metal bar to give his right side a hefty scratch.
    Slowly the hang glider lifted Itchy off the ground and bore him away. “So arrogant,” the instructor commented. She blinked at the increasingly speck-like Itchy as if unable to believe what had happened.
    Mr. Lake jabbed an accusing forefinger at her. “This was not covered in the training manual.”

Chapter Six

Sylvester’s Spirits Get Dampened
    T he next day, Madge and I obliterated a flowery meadow. Madge was glum about the non-progress of her work, but I enjoyed myself. Swish , swish ! With a wide, white-painted brush stroke I blotted out a winsome daisy and a smiling bumblebee.
    â€œI don’t see what was wrong with your meadow,” I said. “Mrs. Urstad said she wanted a cheerful mural.” I stood back to survey the dining room wall, now almost whitened back to its original blandness.
    â€œBut the meadow didn’t mean anything,” Madge fretted. “It was just some silly greeting-card fantasy. It wasn’t real. I’m into real .”
    I thought of Madge’s usual paintings, like garbage cans with morning glory frothing around them, or doorways splattered with sun and shadow. Yeah, they were better than these greeting-card murals she kept attempting.
    We finished painting over the field, cleaned the brushes with stinky paint remover and then soaped and washed them in a