Free Life Guards in the Hamptons by Celia Jerome Page B

then put a leash on Little Red so I didn’t lose him in the dark. He hated being in the dog run with the old guys, most likely thinking they were going to gang up on him, which they never would. He yipped every time they got close, and yipped when they didn’t move. Aunt Jas deserved a quiet night, especially if she was too exhausted to eat peach pie. I led the Pomeranian around to the side of the house, in the new light from the wrap-around porch.
    He stopped, tail up, ears perked, straining forward. A skittering in the brush?
    “Red, heel up.”
    He didn’t, of course. I pulled him closer on his leash and got a better grip on the nylon loop in my hand in case it was a fox or a feral cat, not the usual rabbit.
    Now we both heard rustling in the trees. Red gave a low growl.
    I scooped him up. It might be a sleepy squirrel or a bird, but no night-hunting owl was going to get my little dog. Red growled again, at me, not the owl.
    I admit I was spooked, imagining threats without seeing any. “Hush up.”
    The big dogs didn’t bark. I took that for a good sign, except one couldn’t hear, the other barely saw. Watchdogs, they weren’t. So why hadn’t I brought the flashlight out with me, instead of relying on the light from the porch and the windows? It was one of those big suckers with rechargeable batteries that weighed a ton, if one were thinking of swinging it at someone’s head.
    Of course I was back up on the porch by this time, my cell phone in my hand ready to dial 911. My other hand, with Little Red in it, could still reach for the front doorknob.
    I waited.
    Nothing stirred but the hairs on the back of my neck. And I had to get Buddy and Shad back in the house.
    Then I heard it. Not the bullfrog. Not the high rustling. Not the low skittering, but a tweet. A definitely scratchy, loud, unfamiliar tweet, the way Susan had described it. Only more of a
twee
, without the final t. I put my hand over Red’s nose so he didn’t start yipping and there it was again,
Twee, twee
. Kind of plaintive, although maybe I read more into the squawks.
    I called back. “Twee.” I didn’t have that abrasive rasp in my call, but a “Twee” answered back.
    “Twee?”
    “Twee!”
    Buddy barked, his woof loud and deep. The night instantly turned silent. “Damn, you scared it away. It must think you’re some kind of bird dog, Buddy, instead of a couch dog.” I whistled the dogs inside, and shut Little Red in, too, just in case the bird turned violent. I could run faster without the Pom.
    I retrieved the flashlight from beside the door and went out again, feeling brave. I left the lights on, not feeling brave enough to face an unknown entity in the dark. I did step down off the porch to the edge of the glow castby the windows. We had floodlights for the backyard, but the noise had come from the front, maybe across the dirt road nearer to Aunt Jas’s house.
    I stayed where I was but called, “Twee? Twee?” This time my voice had a hoarse tone, from trying to make less noise. I didn’t want to wake my aunt and uncle, but I did want to catch a glimpse of this life-list bird. Not that I had a life-list, or ever intended to, but hey, if I started with the rarest avis I was ever apt to see, I was ahead of the game.
    I raised my voice a little, not to the raucous screak I’d heard, but almost a caw. And it answered back.
    “Twee?”
    Okay, I talked to Little Red all the time, and he didn’t understand much beyond cookie, out, and bad dog. Trying to hold a conversation with a wild bird—from a foreign country, no less—was dumber. Talk to it, Grandma Eve had said.
    “Okay, oiaca, tell me how to get you back to your friends.”
    “Twee.”
    Oh, boy.
    “Then come on out in the open and maybe I can—” I didn’t know what. If it had escaped from a zoo or a private collector, maybe it would land on my hand like the chickadees Matt tried to entice. I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out a couple of dog treats. One