“It flew out the door,” Dad said. “Magnificent!”
“I’m fine,” I said. “What happened to Barrymore Sprocket?”
“I’ve got him,” Michael said. “Where’s Rob?”
“Limping around outside,” I said.
I made sure both eyes were working properly, and fingered the owl gash in my cheek and the Spike bite on my arm, both of which were bleeding, though neither badly enough to kill me. I vaulted back out of the pen, grabbed one of the milk crates, and threw it down over Spike, to keep him from becoming an owl hors d’oeuvre. Then I walked over to where Michael was.
“I thought you said you had him,” I said. He wasn’t holding Barrymore down. He was standing at the foot of the ladder leading to the loft, staring up.
“I’ve got him cornered,” he said. “He scurried up the ladder.”
“Barrymore!” I called. “Come on down.”
We stood with ears cocked toward the loft, but heard no sound from Barrymore.”
“Come on,” Michael called out. “You have to come down sooner or later. There’s no other way out.”
I heard a rattling noise from above.
“Unless he uses the rope and pulley in the hayloft door and rappels down,” I said. “Which, unless I’m mistaken, is what he’s doing.”
“Damn,” Michael said. “I’ll run outside and catch him. You guard the ladder.”
I took his place at the foot of the ladder, and decided that instead of just waiting, I might as well climb up. Not that I thought we had much of a chance to catch Barrymore. It was a long way around to the hayloft door. Maybe if it took Barrymore several minutes to get up his nerve—
Too late. I heard a motor start up outside.
Then again, that couldn’t possibly be Barrymore’s car, unless his car needed the mother of all tune-ups. It sounded more like a small generator. I jumped off the ladder and ran to the back door, where the noise came from.
“Don’t worry!” Rob called. “I’ve got him!”
He had climbed into the cab of the boom lift, started its motor, and was slowly swinging the arm and extending it, aiming the raised platform at the hay loft door. Was he planning to catch Barrymore, crush him against the side of the barn, or just scare him silly? Whatever he planned, the sight of the boom lift platform creaking and lurching toward the barn was pretty terrifying. Barrymore, who had climbed halfway down the rope, began climbing up again, a lot faster. He looked scared and he didn’t even know, as I did, how singularly inept my brother was with mechanical objects. How well could Rob possibly have learned how to operate the boom lift?
The platform hit the side of the barn a few feet below Barrymore. The barn stayed in place, though I could hear bits of rubble falling inside, and the impact threw Barrymore off balance. He fell six feet onto the platform, and Rob immediately raised the arm, taking the platform higher and higher until it was perched forty feet above the ground at the end of the fully extended arm.
“Good job,” I said, and ran back inside to make sure Spike and Dad had survived the falling rubble.
Dad was lying peacefully, legs still bound, and I deduced from how loudly Spike was barking that he was still safe under the plastic milk crate.
“Are you okay?” I asked Dad, as I started to untie his legs.
“It was amazing,” Dad said. “I’ve never seen a great horned owl that close.”
“I’ve never wanted to,” I said. “After I untie you, can you patch my cheek?”
“Are you okay?” Michael asked, running back in. “You’re bleeding.”
“She’ll be fine,” Dad said, peering at my face. “It’s only a superficial laceration. Though we should clean that wound as soon as possible. Owls eat a lot of carrion, you know.”
“Thanks for sharing that,” I said, as I finished untying Dad’s feet. “There; you’re free again. Let’s fix my wound.”
“Should I call 911 and tell them to send an ambulance?” Michael asked.
“No, but call and ask Debbie Anne why the heck none of the police have arrived yet,” I suggested.
“Wasn’t that cool?” Rob asked, strolling into the barn.
“Very cool,” I said. “Why aren’t you keeping your eye on Barrymore?”
“Relax,” Rob said. “He’s forty feet in the air in the boom lift. He’s not going anywhere.”
As if on cue, we heard the boom lift’s engine start again.
“I turned that off,” Rob said, in a puzzled voice.
“And Barrymore’s probably turned it back on,” I said, heading for the door.