Annie surrendered to the common sense of her friends. “I see your point, Ian, and appreciate your willingness.” She drew a line through the last sentence she had started and exchanged Ian’s name, position, address, and the phone number of Town Hall. “Did I leave anything out?”
Peggy ticked off the necessities with her fingers. “One: sporran, two: ferrules with hawk and rose, three: Gunn or Rose family, four: plea to give the information to owners, five: Mr. Mayor’s address and phone number—sounds like everything important to me.”
“How many copies of the request should Annie write?” asked Alice. “I think one should go to Leathan Gunn.”
“And one to Finley the falconer,” added Wally, “even if we don’t know his last name. What happened after lunch makes it pretty obvious he’s involved somehow.” He turned to Ian. “Maybe it would be easier to get it to Brooke and ask her to deliver it to Finley.”
Ian nodded his agreement with the idea. “If he’s trying to keep things under wraps, I should think Brooke would be more effective as a messenger than any of us.”
When Emily noticed Annie writing her notes, she ran over to Peggy and added, “Mom, I should write the note to Kyla now. We can’t forget about her shoes!”
“Sure, Em.” Peggy rummaged around her bag and found the pad of drawing paper she had brought in case her daughter got bored during the car ride. “After we write the message, we’ll figure out how to get it to her uncle.”
Emily’s face brightened. “What should we write?” She sat down with the pad and pen, her mother at her side in case she needed help with the note.
Annie finished the three messages. “I’m going to write two more messages—one for Mr. MacTavish and the other for the vendor at Kilt and Caboodle, in case there’s someone else who needs the information, someone we may not know about yet.” She flipped to the next page and started writing again.
“If we don’t hear from anyone, at least we’ll know we did our best,” Alice said. She moved over next to Emily, who had finished the note to Kyla and now had colored pencils for illustrating it—first adding some purple and pink lupines, and then with black shoes, en pointe between the blooms. “That’s really pretty, Em,” Alice said.
Emily’s tongue slipped between her lips as she completed the ribbons on the shoes, just so. She looked over her artwork, and then nodded in satisfaction. “Thanks, Miss Alice. I hope Kyla likes it too.” She handed the paper to Peggy.
“How could she not?” said her mother, smiling over the words and pictures. “She’ll be thrilled to have her shoes back too.” She carefully folded the note into a tidy rectangle small enough to slip into the shoes. Pulling one of the black shoes out of her bag, she tucked the paper inside before settling it back into its nest.
Annie signed the last of the notes. “There! All done.” She bent over the notebook as she tore the papers out along the perforated lines. Handing them to Alice, she proceeded to pack away the book and pen.
While the ladies had been focused on the note writing and decorating, Wally had been keeping an eye on the Sheaf Toss competition. He jerked a thumb toward the field. “Hey, if you’re all done with the notes, we should probably start back to the vendors. It looks like the last couple of guys are doing their final toss, and there will be a stampede from here in a couple minutes.”
Alice quickly folded the last note. “Let’s go then.” The six friends walked out from under the shade of the trees and followed the path toward the main thoroughfare.
When they reached the Highlanders encampment, Emily pointed out her favorite hat to Wally. “Daddy, see the hat with the red feather? It’s called a tam-o’-shanter, all because of Robert Burns.” She waved at the man, who lifted his gun and saluted the young girl with it.
“That Robert Burns guy sure did get around,” said Wally, grinning down at his daughter. He drew his eyes back to the men at the encampment. “Gotta feel a little sorry for the guys with the heavy wool uniforms. They must get mighty hot some days, standing out in the summer sun.”
“Especially if they travel south to other Highland Games,” exclaimed Annie. “I can’t imagine wearing that during a Texas August!” She fanned herself at the thought.
Ian looked slyly over at Wally. “You have to admit, Wally, wearing a kilt would be cooler in the South.”
“Ayuh,” came the response from Wally’s perfectly straight face. “That’s another reason I’m just fine with staying put where I was born.”