Free NO ORDINARY OWL by Lauraine Snelling and Kathleen Damp Wright Page A

sweatshirt.
    “Ahhh.” It was a croak. With both her hands pulling down, her breathing returned to normal. Sort of.
    The question now? How to get off the spikes.
    “Esther!” Aneta stood about a foot below, jumping up and down, waving her hands. “Are you okay, Esther?”
    Esther’s shoulders jammed up under her ears made looking down impossible. No, she was not okay. About the only good thing about this entire thing was that Melissa was not around to see it.
    “Hey! Esther!” called a familiar, smirky voice.
    This was so not
living the yayness
.
    “What
are
you doing?” More than one familiar voice. Sunny and Vee.
    As Sunny would say, this was a major ughness. For a crazy second, Esther was almost glad she was leaving town.
    Sunny and Vee sprinted on their bikes from the road to the tree. Melissa was hanging out of the Cadillac moving through the gate, her voice quite clear. “Really, Esther, is that the best you can do?”

Chapter 13

    Not Even a Little Funny
    Y ou don’t think it was even a little funny?” Sunny was spinning in front of the other three, directing her question at a grumpy Esther.
    “I wouldn’t think so if I had to leave
my
hoodie on the spike.” Vee had come up with the idea that Esther put up both her arms and slide out of the hoodie. That had released her, but not her hoodie. None of the girls were tall enough to tweak it down. No branches long enough nearby either. Now the wind had picked up. Esther wrapped her arms around herself.
Lord, why does this only happen to me?
    With the now-familiar bitterness pinching again, Esther’s glare was her answer to Sunny. While Esther had been glad to see the other two girls as she wriggled on the fence spikes, it seemed that tight spot deep inside flamed angry every time one of the Squad members opened their mouth. She’d even yelled at Aneta when Aneta tried to push her up high enough on the spike to make the hood let go.
What is wrong with me?
    “I would not have liked to have Melissa say that to
me.”
Aneta slung an arm around Esther’s T-shirted shoulders.
    It never would have happened to you. Or Vee. Or Sunny. Just me
. The knot twisted tighter. She walked faster. They needed a clue, they needed it now, and she wanted to be the one to find it. So there.
    “I think Melissa isn’t so bad, after you get to know her.” Sunny skipped farther ahead and spun. “I mean, she’ll, like, never be my best friend, but she likes to help the owls and the other birds. Could a person be mean and do that?”
    Esther waited for Vee’s reply. Vee and she often butted heads, yet Esther liked how Vee told it the way it was.
    “I don’t trust her,” was all Vee said, but it was enough that Esther’s shoulders lowered a bit from around her ears. Her sore shoulders that had been
jacked up by the hoodie
. By the hoodie
still on the fence
, blowing in the increasing wind. The wind that was
very cold
, thank you very much. She shivered.
    With Esther trotting to keep up with the other girls, they were covering the distance to the building quickly.
    “How are the owls doing?” Aneta wanted to know, smoothing down the long blond strands the wind picked up and tossed around.
    “Has Melissa gotten to touch them?” Esther added. “Probably. She gets to do everything.” She pulled out the plastic bag. “We found owl pellets.”
    Another look between Sunny and Vee. The other two agreed that Byron would be glad to get them, as it would tell him more about the wounded owls.
    “Except it doesn’t tell us anything about that Awful Person,” Vee commented.
    Pinch
.
    “Nobody gets to touch them. Beake Man hopes to release both of them.” Sunny walked backward to face them while she was talking. Esther knew if she’d done that, she’d trip and break her head. “Did you know that wild bird helpers aren’t supposed to name the birds?”
    Yes,
of course
Esther knew that. When she’d checked out how to help wild raptors, she’d learned that “imprinting”