Fossils from ancient sea eagles suggest they’ve been around for 25 million years.
“Huh? What? What are you doing here?” My eyes felt like they had sand in them. My throat was dry, and my shoulders were stiff and sore. I lifted my chin and arched my back to get rid of the aches I’d gotten from leaning against the hard, cool, rock wall.
Looking out across the lake, I realized the sky had gone from black to a deep, early-morning blue. Then I sat up straight as Gavin’s words sunk into my sleepy brain. Looking skyward, I saw only three eaglet heads. No adults. How could one of the eagle babies be gone?
“But … I only closed my eyes for a minute!” I jumped to my feet. Hearing a snore, I looked down to see Packrat curled up against the wall, a little bit of drool forming at the corner of his wide-open mouth. I nudged him with my foot.
When I looked to Roy, who was standing nearby, rubbing his eyes, he said, “Don’t ask me. He just woke me up, too.”
I shaded my eyes and looked up at the nest. “You miscounted!”
Gavin stood beside me, staring up too. “No. I kept both eyes on the nest as I paddled over here to find you. There’s only three.”
“Then one fell out! Or … or maybe the raccoon doubled back!” I did not want to hear what I knew Gavin was going to say.
“Raccoon?” Gavin looked confused for a second. “No, it wasn’t a raccoon, Cooper.” He held up a fist full of multicolored rope. One end of it hung down, almost to the ground, swinging back and forth between us. “Raccoons don’t use this.”
“Where’d you get that?” I grabbed it, realizing right away this wasn’t your normal rope. It was thicker and stiffer, more like cord. The stuff for mountain climbing. For any kind of climbing.
“It wasn’t far from the bottom of the tree. Probably dropped by accident when they were leaving.”
“Who?” I cried.
“I don’t know!” Gavin’s voice rose a bit too. He ran a hand over his face. “Listen, I didn’t see anyone but you three when I got here. I didn’t pass anyone as I paddled over.”
Packrat finally got to his feet. “Wh-what? Who?”
I combed a hand through my hair, trying to clear my head. I remembered a game of Sorry, getting beaten soundly, using my stupid flashlight to make a scary face, Hawke in a canoe. I groaned.
I’d fallen asleep! What the heck kind of staking-out game warden was I, anyway?
Then I remembered. “Hawke paddled by just after one in the morning.”
Gavin shook his head. “Hawke? He—”
“Why are you here, anyway?” I turned my anger on Gavin.
Now his eyes narrowed. “If I wasn’t, those eaglet thieves would have an even bigger head start.”
Packrat stepped up beside me. “You didn’t answer his question, Gavin.”
“I went by your tent to see if any of you kids wanted to go fishing,” Gavin said, ducking his head for a second.
He’s lying, I thought.
“I didn’t think you heard me call in, what with all the snoring.” Gavin gave Packrat a small smile. “Nice job with the fake sleepover, by the way.”
“Thanks—” Packrat began.
“So I poked my head in.”
“I still don’t get why you’re here!” I pointed a finger at him.
Roy got between us to point a finger at me. “Hey! What’s it matter? Apparently we’re pretty heavy sleepers. We woulda slept till noon if he hadn’t come to help us!”
Help us? How could Roy still think Gavin wasn’t in on this?
“Cooper,” Gavin said, putting a hand on my shoulder, “you can’t keep getting mixed up in all this stuff. You’re going to get in trouble—or worse!”
I shook off his hand. “We need to go back,” I cut him off. “Back to the campground.” I didn’t want to know what he thought. This was my investigation. My campground. My eagles!
And my fault.
Roy, Packrat, and Gavin gathered our supplies and our sleeping bags while I took a look under the tree. Lots of footprints, including the raccoon’s. Most of the boot prints were huge, but there was one set of smaller prints, a little bigger than mine.
I went back, grabbed my sleeping bag off the ground, and threw it over my shoulder. “We have to stop them from leaving with that eaglet!”
“But who?” Packrat asked. “The goons? Hawke?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, studying the rope that was still in my hands. Could those clumsy goons have climbed the tree to get the eaglet? And silently, so silently that we slept through it? Hawke certainly could have. I looked at Gavin’s feet. Or did they have help from someone else?
We hauled our sleeping bags to the canoes, tossed them in, and climbed in over them. Packrat and I took one canoe, and Roy joined Gavin in his.
When we’d paddled away from shore, Packrat asked, “How long ago do you think they were here? We might be too late.”
Inside, I stormed. How could I mess up this badly? All the frustration of the last few minutes came out in a rush. I raised my canoe paddle and slapped it down on the water. Then I sighed.
Packrat stopped paddling and turned in his seat. “What if I called Aunt Lucy? She could check the site … To see if they’ve left? She did say to call if we needed help.”
We all went silent. Calling Aunt Lucy meant two things. One: She’d know those snores coming from Packrat’s tent all night weren’t us; and two: Packrat and I might as well forget about setting foot anywhere outside the campground for the rest of the summer.
But the eagles were more important than our getting in trouble.
“I guess. Yeah. Go ahead.”
Before Packrat could dial any numbers, though, his phone rang. Looking at it, he groaned.
“Busted.”
He hit the ANSWER button, but didn’t have to say a word. A voice came through immediately. He put it on speaker and held out the phone between us so I could hear too. It was Aunt Lucy.
“I went out to bring you boys hot cocoa. You’re not in the tent!”
“I know. We—”
“Where are you?”
“On the lake.”
“Who are you with?” Her voice was very sharp.
“Cooper, Gavin, Roy.”
“How long have you been out there?”
“Welllll …” Packrat hesitated.
Aunt Lucy’s voice cracked with indignation as she connected the dots herself. “You’ve been out there all night, haven’t you?” Silence, then, “Why?”
Packrat and I looked at each other. Why? Not, What do you think you’re doing? or, You’re too young to be out on the lake by yourselves at night? or even, How dare you take off in the middle of the night and not tell anybody?
I said, “Well, we thought—”
“This has something to do with those two men, doesn’t it?”
“Aunt Lucy!” Packrat had finally had enough. “Listen!”
There was a harrumph, then a sharp, but quieter “I’m listening.”
At Packrat’s yell, Roy and Gavin had turned around to look. I saw Roy point back at us with his paddle. Gavin nodded, and they turned their canoe around.
Packrat looked at me and raised his eyebrows with an are-you-sure? look.
I was gonna be in so much trouble, but I mouthed back Go ahead to him. It was the only chance the baby eagle had.
So he told her about how Mikey and Moose had mentioned taking one of the eaglets off its parents’ hands. How we’d hatched the plan to stake out the nest. How we’d fallen asleep and … then he mentioned one was gone.
Aunt Lucy didn’t skip a beat. “Did you see anything?”
“Nah. All we found was a rope at the bottom of the tree. That’s how we knew someone had been there.”
She said something that sounded like it could have been a swear word. “Cooper, did you tell your parents?”
“Do we have to?” Packrat pleaded. “You said that if they bothered us, we could come to you!”
“But you didn’t come to me before you snuck out by yourselves onto the lake in the middle of the night. I could get into as much trouble with your mother as you, if—”
Suddenly, we heard another voice. A younger, squeakier voice.
Molly!
I slapped a hand to my forehead as Packrat doubled over to put his head on his knees. There were murmured voices; Molly’s had question marks all over them, and Aunt Lucy’s were soothing. Hope rose in me like an eagle soaring on a windy day. I could almost see her turning Molly around and gently pushing her toward home with a good explanation.
“Well, that does it,” she said with a sigh. “I’m in as deep as you now. I fibbed for you. Get home immediately. I hope you’ve had a good time fishing early, early, early this morning.”
“Thanks, Aunt Lucy!”
“You’re the best!” I added.
“We’re coming!” Roy dipped a paddle in the water.
Gavin was weirdly quiet, staring back toward the eagles’ nest.
“See you in a minute,” she said.
“Aunt Lucy!” Packrat said quickly. “I almost forgot. Can you check on the goo—I mean, Mikey and Moose? Don’t let them leave if you can help it, okay?”
She sighed. “Leave it to me. But you owe me, big-time. And I will collect, young man.”