The Case of the Barfy Birthday (3 page)

“Fine work, Doyle and Fossey,” said the doctor. “You’ve saved us a lot of trouble. As busy as we are today, I don’t know if we’d have made the connection. We’ll test the chicken salad for bacteria, and meanwhile start the appropriate treatment. Your friends should feel much better in a day or two. Of course we’ll notify the proper authorities.”

“The authorities!” cried Zoe. “Oh my gosh, I’m going to prison over chicken salad!” And she crumpled on the floor in a heap of trench coat.

The doctor looked confused. “Uh—no, actually, I was talking about the public health authorities. They like to know about food-poisoning outbreaks. Anyway, job well done, Doyle and Fossey. I’ll take it from here.”

That evening before dinner, Drake wrote in his lab notebook:

Case of the Barfy Birthday Solved. Never underestimate bacteria. Received Zoe’s recipe for health shake. (YUCK. MUST SHRED RECIPE BEFORE MOM FINDS IT.)

Paid in full. (I THINK.)

I
t was a rather warm Saturday morning and, once again, Drake was busy in his laboratory. On this particular occasion, he carefully swabbed his nose. (On the inside, to be scientifically precise.) Then, lifting the lid of the petri dish, he rubbed the swab over a jellylike substance.

“There,” he said with satisfaction, closing the lid. He put the petri dish in the incubator, washed his hands, and scribbled in his lab notebook:

Goober extraction complete.

Bacteria should grow quite nicely.
Check in 24 hours.

Just then, Mrs. Doyle popped her head around the door. “Dr. Livingston is here to see you.”

“Send him in,” replied Drake.

Dr. Livingston trotted in. Drake scratched behind Dr. Livingston’s ears and said, “Good boy.” Then Drake withdrew a note from the pouch that hung around Dr. Livingston’s neck.

“Y5X6.Y4X3.Y3X2.Y2X6.Y4X5.Y3X2.Y2X5.Y1X6. Y3X4.Y5X6.Y3X5.Y5X3.Y1X5.Y3X4 . . .” began the note. (Of course, to anyone else, it would look like gibberish. But Drake was a detective, and a fine detective at that. And, like all fine detectives everywhere, Drake was never without his code book.) Wasting no time, he whipped his pencil out from behind his ear and got to work. Soon he had the message decoded. It read:

Detective Doyle,
A terrible tragedy is at hand. Meet me at
Nature Headquarters ASAP.

Signed,

Naturalist Nell

Drake pushed up his glasses. “A terrible tragedy is at hand!” he exclaimed. “We must hurry to Nature Headquarters!”

Woof!

• • •

Now, in case you think Nature Headquarters was nothing special, think again.

Enormous leaves dangled from papier-mâché trees. Chameleons changed colors. Hamsters took hamster naps. Ants scurried about. And fruit flies hatched. You see, Nature Headquarters was the code name for Nell’s bedroom. Everything there had to do with nature. (This was only natural, as naturalists love nature.)

Drake moved a few vines. He wiped the steam off his glasses. Then he took a deep breath (of swamp gas, snake breath, and iguana toots), braced himself for the worst, and said, “Tragedy, you say?”

Nell sat at her desk, her mouth in a thin line. Beside her, under the lamp, was a small box. “A terrible tragedy,” she replied.

“How so?”

“See for yourself.” And she opened the box. Inside were six baby birds, nestled in a soft bed of grass. “There were eight hatchlings,” said Nell, “but two of them have died already. These six are barely alive.”

“Poor things,” murmured Drake. “A terrible tragedy indeed.”

Woof
, said Dr. Livingston sadly.

“Where did you find them?” asked Drake.

“That’s just it,” said Nell, scratching her head. “Someone dumped them on my doorstep, box and all.”

Drake gasped. “No note?”

“Nothing. My mom tripped over the box on her way to a wildlife convention. She wanted to help me, but had to hurry off and give a speech. She said to feed the hatchlings mushed-up fish and water, which I did.”

“So now what?” asked Drake.

Nell got out her magnifying glass and examined the hatchlings. “From what I can tell, these are baby terns.”

“Terns?” Drake pushed up his glasses.

Nell began to pace, moving vines and leaves. Dr. Livingston paced beside her. “You see, Detective Doyle, terns are related to gulls.”

“Ah yes, Naturalist Nell,” murmured Drake. “Gulls like to live by water, such as the ocean, or rivers, or lakes perhaps—”

“Correct,” continued Nell. “So do terns. But this is no ordinary tern. No, indeed. The fact of the matter is, this species of tern is very rare.”

“Rare, you say?” Drake took another peek into the box.

“When even one of these terns dies, it’s a tragedy.”

“What do you propose?” asked Drake.

Nell stopped her pacing and put her hands on her hips. “We must investigate Sand Island.”

“Sand Island?”

“It’s the nearest tern nesting site for a hundred miles.”

Drake thought hard. “And you think something’s gone wrong at the nesting site? Trouble perhaps?”

“Precisely,” said Nell. “How else would someone have tern hatchlings? We must leave immediately. Doyle and Fossey to the rescue!”

Sand Island was, quite simply, made of sand. It was an attractive place . . . if you happened to be a tern. Really, there was nothing to be seen. No trees. No rocks. No shrubs. No nests.

And not a single tern.

Nell and Drake stepped out of the boat. (They’d left Dr. Livingston behind on the shore with Mr. Doyle. You see, while both Drake and Nell enjoyed Dr. Livingston’s company immensely, they knew that dogs don’t mix well with birds and hatchlings and nesting sites.)

Nell had brought the six hatchlings, hoping to reintroduce them to nests. But now she left the box in the boat and just shook her head. “The tragedy deepens.”

“Indeed,” said Drake.

“Where have all the terns gone?” she asked. “And why? Normally they dig a shallow depression in the sand for their nests, but I don’t even see any of those.”

“It’s a mystery,” said Drake. And he whipped a pencil out from behind his ear and opened his lab notebook, ready to investigate this most tragic mystery.

And so, like good detectives, they began to snoop.

“Hmm,” murmured Nell as she examined some footprints with her magnifying glass.

“Aha,” said Drake as he carefully took a sample of charred wood and placed it in a plastic bag for later analysis.

“Tragic,” Nell said as she found a beer bottle here, a cigarette butt there, and used fireworks everywhere.

And just like that, their investigation was over.

The answer was simple. Tragic, but simple.

A
s soon as they finished strapping the boat onto the car, they climbed in and told Mr. Doyle about the deepening tragedy.

“That’s terrible,” he said. “What’s next?”

Now, normally, this is an excellent question. But on this particular day, knowing what they knew, it was a tragic question. Because there was no easy answer. Drake and Nell just looked at each other and sighed sadly.

“I don’t know,” Nell finally answered, gazing out the window. “This case has taken a turn for the worse.”

Then, just as Mr. Doyle turned left on Main Street, Drake and Nell got what you might call a lucky break.

There, flying high in the sky, was an adult tern.

“Oh my gosh!” cried Nell. “Follow that tern!”

“Roger that!” said Mr. Doyle.

“And step on it!” cried Drake.

“Check!” said Mr. Doyle. They peeled around this corner and that, up one street and down another, all the while following the tern. (Mr. Doyle, as you know by now, was quite handy for turning sharply, stepping on it, and peeling around corners.)

Finally, they screeched to a stop in front of Barko’s SuperMart.

They gasped at what they saw. Hundreds of terns were nesting on the roof, flying around, and living the bird life. “We’ve found them,” whispered Nell.

“Target acquired,” said Drake.

“They must have nested on the roof because they couldn’t live on Sand Island anymore,” said Nell. “A flat gravel roof was the best they could find.”

Drake and Nell and Dr. Livingston hopped out of the car. Nell had the box of hatchlings under her arm. Just then, a friend from class came running up to them, looking quite frantic. Her name was Willow Barko, and her father owned Barko’s SuperMart. Willow was a friendly girl, always passing out sale flyers. She knew all about merchandising and clipping coupons and how to choose a cart without squeaky wheels. “Did you get my note? Did you get my note?” cried Willow.

“What note?” asked Nell.

“The one I left with the box of baby birds, asking you to take care of them and telling you to come quickly!”

Drake frowned. “Must have blown away. No matter. The important thing is, we’re here now. How can we be of assistance, Ms. Barko?”

“This way!” she cried, and off she ran.

Drake and Nell exchanged glances and then ran after her. Willow stopped outside the entrance and pointed up. “The poor little hatchlings keep falling off the roof. I gathered up all the live ones, but they need your help or more will fall. I don’t know what else to do!”

“We’ll need a ladder,” Nell said simply.

And without further ado, they propped a ladder against the side of the building and climbed onto the roof. (Dr. Livingston waited patiently below, picking a nice spot in the shade.) Scrappy nests were everywhere, scraped together with dirt, debris, and gravel. In the nests were tiny brown eggs and fluffy hatchlings. Adult terns flew around, some of them with fish in their beaks. Squawks and cheeps and flurries and flutters filled the air.

“Hmm,” said Nell, walking carefully. “Notice how the adults must leave to find food to feed their chicks? There’s nothing to stop the chicks from tumbling over the edge while their parents are gone.”

Drake nodded, loosening his collar. “Not only that, but it’s quite toasty up here. And there’s zero shade for the hatchlings.”

“Excellent observation, Detective Doyle.” And, after putting on some gloves, Nell took the hatchlings from the box and placed one chick in each of six nests. “The best thing is to put them back into nests that already have hatchlings,” she told Willow. “The adult birds will adopt the babies and take much better care of them than we can.”