Who Gives a Hoot?--Calpurnia Tate, Girl Vet Read online

  “I’m happy to, but I can’t promise much. Birds are not my normal patients. Hello, Calpurnia. I’d shake your hand, but I see you have your arms full.”

  The owl was dripping all over me. I didn’t mind. (Mother would have minded, but then, she wasn’t there, so it didn’t matter, right? I figured I’d be mostly dry by the time we got home.)

  He went on, “Let’s leave it in the net until we get to my office. Do you need any help?”

  “No, thank you, I can manage. It hardly weighs anything.”

  “That’s because birds have hollow bones, a special adaptation for flight,” said Granddaddy.

  I carried our patient the short distance to Dr. Pritzker’s office. It lay still in my arms, probably scared half to death, and glared at me. Somewhere during the rescue, it had managed to rip a hole in my butterfly net, and I wasn’t too happy about that, so I glared back at it. I’d have to save my allowance for a new net. (I found out later that owls always glare, even when they’re happy. It’s just the way their faces are made; you can’t take it personally.)

  We followed Dr. Pritzker into his office, and I put the owl on the exam table. It started to thrash again and screamed at the top of its lungs.

  Have you ever heard a barn owl scream? At the top of its lungs? At close range? I’m not sure I can describe it but I’ll try: Think of, oh, say, a million cats fighting in a sack; think of a witch being boiled alive—no, make that a dozen witches; think of … well, it’s like nothing else on earth.

  Dr. Pritzker threw a small towel over its head, and it fell silent.

  Whew.

  We uncovered our ringing ears, and Dr. Pritzker said, “How did you find it?”

  “It fell into the river, and we fished it out,” I said.

  “But owls don’t just drop on you from the sky.”

  “This one did,” I said.

  “Indeed, it remains a mystery,” said Granddaddy, “a mystery that we hope you can solve for us.”

  He held the owl while Dr. Pritzker unfolded one of the wings and gently stretched it out to its full length. The wing was cream and gold colored, with spots and bars of brown scattered over it. For having such a small, light body, the bird had surprisingly large wings.

  Granddaddy said to me, “Look, Calpurnia. Notice the very fine fluff along the leading edge of the wing. This muffles the noise as it flaps its wings. It is the only bird we know of that can fly silently. You see, it has to in order to catch mice, which have very good hearing.”

  I thought about the birds in our lives—pigeons, herons, chickens—and realized that every one of them made some kind of noise while flying.

  “Hmm,” said Dr. Pritzker, “this wing looks fine. No feathers missing. I don’t see any blood.” He gently ran his good hand along the bones of the wing. “Nothing broken here. Now let’s look at the other one.”

  The towel slipped, and the owl snapped at Dr. Pritzker’s good hand, making a loud tchikk. Granddaddy quickly put the cloth back in place before the bird could shred one of the doctor’s remaining healthy fingers.

  “That was close,” Dr. Pritzker said. “If I injure my good hand, I’ll be out of business.”

  “You don’t need to worry, Dr. Pritzker,” I said. “I’ll be your partner. We can do it together.”

  He smiled one of those smiles that grown-ups smile when they’re not taking you seriously. Why would he do that? He’d told me several times what a good helper I was. Now, if only I could get him to convince Mother …

  Granddaddy said, “Farmers find these owls useful because they control mice and snakes. They must catch four or five mice every day merely to survive. They hunt by their acute sense of hearing. It is said they can hear a mouse’s heart beating under a foot of snow.”

  “Really? Gosh.” I tried to imagine this kind of sensitivity. I doubted I could hear a mouse’s heartbeat even if I stuffed it all the way down my ear hole. (And even though I had done many strange things for Science, this was—even for me—pretty unlikely.)

  Dr. Pritzker examined the claws before slipping off the towel and taking a look at the big black eyes.

  Dr. Pritzker inspected the other wing and said, “I can’t find anything wrong with it.”

  We stared at the owl. The owl glared back. It was slowly drying off.

  “Do you think it’s hungry?” I said.

  Dr. Pritzker ran his hand over the bird’s stomach and said, “It hasn’t eaten for a while.”

  “We brought our lunch with us; maybe it would eat some of that.” I opened one of our knapsacks and pulled out what was left of my sandwich. “Do you think this will do? It’s ham and cheese.”

  I handed Dr. Pritzker a hunk of sandwich. He placed it near the owl’s foot. Nothing. It paid the ham and cheese no attention at all.

  “I think,” said Granddaddy, “that we will have better luck with its native food, namely, a mouse. Doctor, do you by any chance happen to have any mice about you?”

  Dr. Pritzker laughed and said, “I just might. Calpurnia, will you please check the mousetraps in the storeroom and see if there’s anything in there for this fine fellow to eat?”

  The storeroom contained, among other things, sacks of grain, always appealing to the common house mouse, Mus musculus, along with his country cousins. Dr. Pritzker always kept traps baited with cheese in all four corners of the room. Sure enough, an unfortunate victim lay dead in one of the traps; unable to resist the cheese, it had paid for it with its life. I picked it up by the tail, trap and all, and took it back. Granddaddy was telling the doctor about the many species of owls in Texas and how they were classified.

  “Ah,” Granddaddy said, “let us see if we can tempt our new friend’s appetite.”

  Now, mouse for lunch is not my idea of a treat, but then, the owl probably felt the same way about my sandwich.

  “We’ll need to take it out of the trap,” said Dr. Pritzker.

  Granddaddy was holding the owl, and Dr. Pritzker couldn’t do it one-handed. Which left me. Oh, good. I put the trap/mouse on the table and pulled up the spring bar to release the body. Which was kind of awful. Buck up, Calpurnia, I told myself, it’s all for Science. You can do this. And don’t look squeamish about it. You can’t look squeamish when you’re trying to be taken seriously. (Good thing my sensitive younger brother Travis wasn’t there. Travis loved all animals, especially cute little furry ones. Plus he tended to faint at the worst moments.)

  I think I did a pretty good job of not looking squeamish. The limp body lay on the table in front of the owl, which ignored it.

  “Come on, bird,” said Dr. Pritzker, “time for you to eat.”

  It showed no interest at all.

  “We need a piece of string,” said Granddaddy, “between two and three feet long.”

  String? What for? We both stared at him for a moment. But since Granddaddy knew everything there was to know about Nature, Dr. Pritzker did not question him. He fetched a ball of twine and scissors, and I cut it to the right length.

  “Tie it loosely to the mouse. Not too tight.”

  I followed his instructions and made a loop around the mouse’s hind paws.

  “Now,” said Granddaddy, “pull the mouse across the table, and stand back as far as you can.”

  Uh-oh. You really needed to pay attention when Granddaddy told you to stand back from something. He didn’t kid around about such things.

  I stood back and pulled on the string. The mouse slid across the table. Faster than we could blink, the owl spread its wings, jumped a foot in the air, and pounced on the mouse and ripped it loose from the string and flipped it upside down and swallowed it whole. Headfirst. It was all over before we knew what had happened.

  4

  “Gosh!” I said.

  “Good heavens,” said Dr. Pritzker.

  “Yes, the predatory instinct is impressive,” said Granddaddy. “Think of the owl as a machine built by Nature to hunt mice—moving mice, that is. Its hunting instinct is triggered by a small anima
l moving quickly. This instinct exists in larger animals as well, and that is why one should never run from a bear or vicious dog—it will pursue you.”

  We could see the bulge of the mouse moving down the esophagus to the stomach. Not a pretty sight. (I was really glad Travis wasn’t there. He’d have keeled over on the spot. It’s handy he turns a pale greenish color before he flops over; it’s usually enough of a warning for me to catch him before he hits the ground.)

  Granddaddy went on, “The owl digests the mouse’s flesh, but it cannot digest the fur or tail or skeleton. It will bring the skeleton back up in a few hours encased in a pellet.”

  “Bring them back up … as in…?” I said.

  “Regurgitate, yes.”

  “Oh.”

  “The pellets make for interesting study, containing, as they do, the mouse’s skeleton.”

  “Ah.”

  “I’m sure you’ll have a fascinating time dissecting it.”

  “Ah. Yes. I’m sure I will.”

  “Our new friend looks like it will be with us for a while, so we better think about a cage and a jess.”

  “What’s a jess?” I said.

  “It’s a leather ribbon you tie around the owl’s foot to use as a leash. People who hunt with falcons and hawks use them to control the birds. And you’ll need a stout leather glove and a cage to keep it in, of course, until it heals from whatever is ailing it.”

  “So you think it will live?” I asked Dr. Pritzker.

  “Well, it certainly has an appetite, and I can’t find anything obviously wrong, so those are both good signs. If it refused food, I’d be a lot more worried about it. But I won’t be able to keep it here,” he said, looking at me. “It’s going to need good nursing care and regular feedings, and it will be important to keep the cage clean.”

  Now Granddaddy was looking at me as well.

  “Oh. Okay,” I said.

  And just like that I was elected the owl wrangler. Which I supposed would be quite interesting except for the part about feeding it five mice per day. Every single day.

  How would we get it home? And then I remembered Polly the Parrot, who lived across the street at my father’s cotton gin. Polly was a huge bird who usually spent his time walking back and forth on a perch in the manager’s office, where he regularly alarmed visitors with his own sudden shrieks and hooked beak and sharp black claws. Polly had a carry cage that was seldom used, and I felt sure it would fit our new patient.

  I ran across the street to the gin to borrow it, leaving the doctor and Granddaddy deep in a discussion of bird anatomy.

  Luckily, the assistant manager, Mr. O’Flanagan, was in his office. He said he’d be happy to lend me the cage after I explained the situation. Polly paced back and forth on his perch and muttered quietly to himself like a crazy bird. Then, without warning, he erupted in one of his earsplitting screeches that always made Mr. O’Flanagan burst into laughter, and made me want to run for my life. And even though he was really, really loud, for the first time in his whole life Polly no longer held the title of The Loudest and Most Annoying Bird in Texas. That owl had him beat by a long shot, I’m telling you.

  I carried the cage back to Dr. Pritzker’s office. The doctor was busy wrapping a leather strap around the owl’s lower leg while Granddaddy held the bird and kept the towel in place. Dr. Pritzker’s clawed hand looked a lot like the owl’s foot.

  “There we go,” he said, standing back and inspecting his handiwork. “That’ll do for now. And look, Calpurnia, I’ve found a leather gauntlet.” He held up a stout leather glove that went halfway up the arm. “Can’t remember why I got this, but it’s perfect. Put it on.”

  “Me? Uh, okay.”

  The glove was far too big for me, but it protected my hand, which was the important thing.

  Granddaddy said, “Now, take the jess between your fingers and don’t let go. Let the bird perch on your hand. Keep your arm straight to keep it away from your face.”

  Uh-oh. I took hold of the jess, and he slipped the cloth off the bird’s head. The owl screeched and tried to launch itself into the air, flapping its wings like mad but going nowhere, the wind from its wings buffeting my face. Then, a few seconds later, it quit flapping and perched quietly on my wrist, pretty as you please. It looked like it had been sitting there its whole life.

  “Well, now,” said Dr. Pritzker, “that makes quite a picture.”

  “Indeed,” said Granddaddy. “It’s a shame we don’t have a photographer here in town to capture the two of you: GIRL WITH OWL.”

  While they admired us, I was busy worrying about the thickness of the leather versus the strength of those claws. But nothing happened, and we managed to slip the owl into Polly’s cage, where it sat quietly, swiveling its head in all directions. It actually looked quite at home. Maybe it just needed a mouse inside it to calm down.

  “There now,” said Granddaddy. “Shall we row it home, or would you rather walk?”

  It wasn’t all that far to walk, but the cage was awkward. Dr. Pritzker volunteered to drive me home in his wagon. Granddaddy went back to the Beagle, and I helped Mr. Pritzker harness his buckskin mare, Penny. We clip-clopped home at a gentle pace so as not to disturb our passenger.

  5

  My brothers Travis and Sul Ross were playing catch on the front lawn as we rolled up.

  They gaped at the owl and ran over to see it, babbling so many questions I didn’t know which one to answer first. The owl stepped nervously to the far end of the perch, trailing the jess.

  “Calm down,” I said to my brothers. “You’re scaring it.”

  I waved good-bye to Dr. Pritzker and told my brothers how we’d found the owl. Then Travis said, “What are you going to do with it?”

  This stopped me in my tracks. “I don’t know. I hope it gets better soon so we can release it.”

  “Can’t we keep it? I’ve already thought of a good name for it.”

  “No, no,” I said hastily. Granddaddy always said you should never name wild animals. It’s the first step in getting too attached to them to let them go. “No names.”

  “But it’s a good one.”

  “No!”

  “Let’s call it Ollie the Owl.”

  “No, Travis.”

  “Don’t you like it? I think it suits him.”

  “It might be a her for all we know, but that doesn’t matter. No names!”

  A few minutes later, we had Ollie the Owl in the back corner of the barn, where it was darkest. (He looked quite at home there, which I guess was only natural for a barn owl.)

  “Do you think he’d let me pet him?” said Travis.

  “That’s a terrible idea,” I said. “Don’t even think of it.”

  “She’s right, young man,” said Granddaddy behind us, and we both jumped. He’d made it home and joined us in the barn without making a sound. “Do not try to pet it. You could lose a finger or an eye. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to catch up on some reading. And do keep an eye out for the pellet; it should make for interesting study.”

  He left us as quietly as he’d arrived.

  “What’s the pellet?” said Travis. “What’s he talking about?”

  “Never mind,” I said.

  Travis eventually wandered off to tend to Bunny, his big, prizewinning fluffy rabbit, leaving Ollie and me to blink at each other. A few minutes later, the owl leaned on one foot and then the other, twitched its head, opened its beak wide, and horked up a large, dark mass.

  Now, I don’t know about you, but to me the word pellet suggests something small and dry and tidy, right? But not so. The pellet was a vaguely mouse-shaped wad of wet fur and bones at the bottom of the cage. Ack. It was one of the more disgusting things I’d ever seen, and, believe me, I’ve seen a whole lot of disgusting things in my time. But I told myself that it was for a good cause. And doing Science makes you tough. I didn’t want to end up all tenderhearted and lily-livered like Travis, fainting at the sight of blood and guts and the least littl
e thing. Honestly, what could you do with a boy like that?

  Anyway, rather than put my hand in there with that beak and those claws, I found a stick and dragged the wet pellet to the side of the cage close enough to reach it through the bars. I picked it up. Still warm. And squishy. Gaaah.

  Travis came back and said, “What’s that?”

  I said, “It’s probably better that you don’t look. The owl threw up what’s left of its lunch.”

  “You mean Ollie? He did?” said Travis, backing away. “So that’s owl vomit?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why?” He turned pale. That’s what he usually did before turning green.

  “It’s just what they do. You see, they—”

  “See you later,” he said, and took off.

  “Travis, wait! I need your help. We’ve got to find some mice. Dead or alive, it doesn’t matter.”

  No answer.

  “Hey!”

  Too late. He was gone. I was on my own with this one.

  We had our own mouse-control system, which consisted of two parts: the inside part and the outside part. Inside, we had Idabelle the Inside Cat, who patrolled the kitchen and the pantry, and slept in her own basket by the stove. Our cook, Viola, doted on her. Outside, we had mousetraps and Alberto, the hired man, who was in charge of baiting and emptying the traps.

  I went to him and said, “Uh, Alberto, you empty the mousetraps, right?”

  He looked at me. “Sí, Miss Calpurnia.”

  “So, uh, could you save me the mice?”

  “¿Qué?”

  “The mice. The dead mice. From when you empty the traps.”

  “You want me to give you the ratón muerto? The dead mouse? This is what you mean?”

  “Yes, please. As many as you can.”

  He frowned and said, “What for you want the dead mouses?”

  “I need them for, uh, an experiment.”

  “Is okay with your mama?”