The Falcon's Feathers Read online

  “Well, I still think Grace Lock-wood’s the one,” Josh insisted. “We should tell Curt about her.”

  “Tell him what, that she gave you a dirty look?” Dink asked.

  “For one thing, I’m gonna tell him about the initials on that leg band,” Josh said. “He might know what they mean.”

  Ruth Rose came back with a small bag of pellets. “Want some?” she asked Dink and Josh.

  “Better not give any to Josh,” Dink said. “He might eat ’em!”

  “Haw haw,” Josh said, taking a few of the pellets from Ruth Rose’s bag.

  They fed the deer and the llamas, then left the zoo.

  Josh called Curt Striker’s office from the lobby of the Shangri-la Hotel.

  He hung up. “Not there.”

  “Now what?” Ruth Rose said.

  “Let’s go to his cabin again,” Josh said. “If he’s not there, we can leave a note.”

  “Saying what?” Dink asked.

  Josh dug a pencil out of his pocket. He got a piece of paper from Mr. Linkletter, the hotel clerk, and wrote on it.

  “This,” he said, showing the paper to Dink and Ruth Rose.

  Dink stared at Josh. “What do you think GL stands for?” he asked.

  Josh grinned. “Grace Lockwood!”

  “But what about the KS?” Ruth Rose asked.

  Josh shrugged. “That’s what we’ll ask Curt. Come on!”

  The kids hiked up River Road to Bridge Lane. Halfway there, Ruth Rose suddenly stopped.

  “What’s the matter?” Dink asked.

  She was staring into space. “Something’s bugging me. It was something I saw at the DEP office, but I can’t remember what!”

  “Maybe it was that stuffed owl,” Josh said. He made big owl eyes at Ruth Rose.

  “No, I think it was something I saw on a desk.” She stomped her foot in the dusty road. “Why can’t I remember?”

  A few minutes later, they reached Curt’s cabin. Josh walked up and knocked on the door.

  There was no answer.

  “Guess he’s not home,” Dink said.

  “Maybe he’s in the backyard,” Josh suggested. “Let’s take a look.”

  The backyard was empty except for a pile of firewood.

  Ruth Rose pointed to a dirt path that led into the woods. “Maybe this is how he got to the tree yesterday,” she said.

  Suddenly, they heard a low whistle.

  “What’s that?” Josh said.

  “Just someone calling his dog,” Dink said. “Come on, let’s get out of here. We’re trespassing.”

  The whistle sounded again. Josh started running up the path. “That’s a falcon!”

  Dink and Ruth Rose followed Josh. They found him standing in front of a small shed. On one side, a window flap had been propped open.

  “Listen,” Josh whispered.

  The kids heard tweeting sounds and more whistles coming from the shed.

  “There are falcons in there!” Josh said. He ran around the side and started tugging at a thick padlock on a door.

  “Stupid thing is locked!” Josh said.

  Ruth Rose went back to the window. “Boost me up, guys.”

  Dink and Josh crisscrossed their arms. Ruth Rose climbed on and hoisted herself up. “There are about ten cages in there filled with falcons!” she said.

  Josh and Dink let her down.

  “I’m going inside,” Josh said.

  “We’re going with you!” Ruth Rose said.

  A wooden barrel lay in the tall weeds a few yards away. The kids rolled it over and stood it under the window.

  Standing on the barrel, Josh was able to crawl through the opening.

  Ruth Rose went next. Then Dink.

  The inside of the shed was cool and dark. In the dim light from the window opening, Dink counted at least a dozen falcons in cages.

  The birds flapped their wings and let out low whistles. Their dark eyes watched the kids’ every movement.

  Suddenly, the light from the window was blocked. Curt Striker was glaring in at them!

  “You brats just couldn’t mind your own business!” he said. “You had to snoop, didn’t you?”

  Then his face disappeared. A moment later, the window flap slammed shut.

  Dink stared at the spot where daylight had been. He could feel Ruth Rose and Josh come closer.

  “What if he doesn’t let us out?” Ruth Rose asked.

  “Let’s try to get that window flap open again,” Dink said.

  Dink and Josh hoisted Ruth Rose up to the window. She shoved against the flap. “Forget it,” she said. “He must have locked it.”

  They tried pushing against the door, but it too was solidly locked.

  “What’re we gonna do, guys?” Josh asked. “No one even knows we’re here!”

  Dink walked around the dim shed, feeling the walls for openings. In one corner, he stumbled over some rakes and shovels.

  “Guys, look!” Ruth Rose said suddenly.

  “Look at what?” Josh asked.

  “On the floor, by my foot,” she said.

  Dink looked down and saw a round spot of white.

  “Sunlight!” Josh said.

  They looked up. There was a small hole in the roof.

  Dink ran to the corner and grabbed a shovel. “Maybe we can bust through!” he said.

  Josh took a rake. Together, they tried to poke at the small hole.

  “I can’t reach!” Josh said.

  “Some of these cages are empty” Ruth Rose said. “Maybe you could stand on them!”

  Together, Josh and Dink dragged four cages over and made a platform. Standing on it, they found that they could easily reach the ceiling.

  They smashed at the hole. After a few minutes, it was the size of a soft-ball. Hunks of wood, shingle, and tar paper fell on their heads and shoulders.

  Dink stopped to wipe his eyes.

  “My arms are killing me,” Josh said, sitting on the cages to rest.

  “At least now we can see better,” Ruth Rose said. She walked around, looking at the caged falcons.

  “The cages all have labels,” she said. “The first two initials are different, but the second two are always KS.”

  “Guys, I found Flash,” Dink said.

  He was looking at a cage holding three young falcons. The label on the cage door read GLKS-6-17.

  “OH MY GOSH!” Ruth Rose yelled. “I just remembered what I couldn’t remember!”

  “What?” Dink asked.

  “When we went to Curt’s office, I saw a nameplate on his desk,” she said. “His name is spelled with a K, not a C!”

  “I don’t get it,” Josh said.

  “I do,” Dink said. “The KS on Flash’s leg band stands for Kurt Striker, right, Ruth Rose?”

  “Right! And I bet the GL stands for Green Lawn!” she said.

  “Now I get it,” Josh said. “He labeled the falcons with the place he found them and his own initials.”

  “We have to tell Officer Fallon,” Ruth Rose said.

  “First we have to get out of here!” Josh grabbed his rake and climbed back on the stack of cages.

  With Dink and Josh both smashing at the roof, they made the hole larger. Sunlight poured in on their sweaty, dirty faces.

  Finally, the hole was wide enough to crawl through.

  “Pile up more cages!” Ruth Rose said.

  With two more cages on the stack, the kids could climb out onto the shed roof.

  They sat for a minute, breathing in the clean air and feeling the sun on their faces.

  “It was him the whole time,” Josh said, sounding disappointed.

  “At least we found the falcons,” said Dink.

  Josh walked to the edge of the roof and looked down. “The barrel’s still there,” he said. “Come on, we can climb down.”

  As soon as they were on the ground, the kids ran toward Main Street and the police station.

  An hour later, it was all over. Doc Henry, Grace Lockwood, and
Officer Fallon sat with the kids in a booth at Ellie’s Diner.

  “They caught Kurt Striker in Massachusetts,” Officer Fallon said. “He’s sitting in a jail in Springfield right now, waiting to be shipped back here.”

  “So he took the falcons from the nest?” Josh asked.

  “Not only that nest, Josh,” Grace Lockwood said. “He took birds from nests in three other states that we know of.”

  Doc Henry smiled. “I think we owe you kids an explanation,” he said. “Grace isn’t a vet. She’s an undercover agent with the Department of Environmental Protection. She was assigned to Green Lawn for one reason: to keep an eye on our falcon population.”

  Josh stared at Grace. “I knew there was something weird about you!”

  Everyone laughed. “Grace knew about the nest,” Officer Fallon told Josh. “And she knew that you were out there a lot with your binoculars.”

  “I watched you watching the falcons,” Grace said. “At first I thought you had taken them.”

  “You thought it was Josh?” Dink said. “He thought it was you!”

  “I know,” Grace said, smiling at Josh. “You kept looking at me funny!”

  “Did you suspect Kurt Striker?” Ruth Rose asked.

  Grace shook her head. “Not a clue. We have you kids to thank for figuring that out.”

  “So what was he doing with the falcons?” Dink asked.

  “You kids were right about that one, too,” Doc Henry said. “Striker had a little business going. He was taking young falcons and training them to race.”

  “What will happen to them?” Dink asked.

  “We’d like to set them all free,” Grace said. “But they’ve had a lot of human contact, so they probably wouldn’t make it in the wild. Don’t worry, there are plenty of wonderful zoos that keep animals happy and safe.”

  “Maybe Flash could live in the Green Lawn Petting Zoo!” Josh said.

  “Now, there’s a great idea!” Doc Henry said. “I’ll talk to them about adopting all three from Flash’s nest.”

  “As for Kurt Striker, he’ll spend some time in jail,” Officer Fallon said. “He’ll no doubt rat on a few of his cronies, and they’ll join him.”

  Ellie came over carrying a large tray. “Ice cream on the house!” she said. “I brought vanilla for every—”

  “But I always get pistachio!” Josh said.

  “You didn’t let me finish, Josh,” Ellie said.

  “You’ll have to excuse Josh,” Ruth Rose said. “He gets cranky when he’s hungry.”

  “And he’s always hungry!” Dink added.

  “As I was saying,” Ellie went on, “vanilla for everyone except Joshua Pinto, the boy who saved our falcons!”

  She set a huge dish of pistachio ice cream in front of Josh. “And I want you to eat every bite,” she said, smiling.

  “Don’t worry about Josh,” Dink said. “That’ll be gone in a flash!”

  Text copyright © 1998 by Ron Roy.

  Illustrations copyright © 1998 by John Steven Gurney.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Roy, Ron. 1940- The falcon’s feathers / by Ron Roy;

  illustrated by John Steven Gurney.

  p. cm. — (A to Z mysteries) “A Stepping Stone book.”

  SUMMARY: Josh and his two friends look for the person who stole a peregrine falcon from its nest.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-52335-8

  [1. Peregrine falcon—Fiction. 2. Falcons—Fiction. 3. Mystery and detective stories.]

  I. Gurney, John, ill. II. Title. III. Series: Roy, Ron, 1940- A to Z mysteries.

  PZ7.R8139Fal 1998 98-10784 [Fic]—dc21

  A STEPPING STONE BOOK is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  A TO Z MYSTERIES is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  v3.0