Free The Case of the Dirty Bird by Gary Paulsen Page A

him, belched, and went to the bathroom all over the bottom of the cage.
    “Oh, man, that’s gross.” Amos turned away. “What do you feed him?”
    “Special seeds and shells and a wheat paste that he favors. Now, don’t you two bother him. He’s a very valuable bird, and we don’t want to upset him.”
    “How much is he worth?” Dunc asked.
    “He’s for sale for eleven thousand dollars.”
    “Eleven thousand dollars?” Amos turned back. “For something that smells that bad?I’ll bet you could buy my uncle Alfred for that—and he knows more words than the parrot. Well, maybe.”
    The pet-store owner had turned away, and Amos pulled at Dunc’s sleeve. “Come on.”
    “Just a minute.” Dunc held back. “I want to hear him talk.”
    “He’s not going to talk.”
    The parrot belched again—opened its beak wide—almost a yawn and said a word that Dunc had heard in the bus depot when two old winos were arguing over a bottle in a paper sack.
    “See?” Dunc said. “He talks.”
    “Right—just like Uncle Alfred.” Amos pulled on Dunc. “Let’s leave.”
    “All right, but we have to come back tomorrow.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know—there’s just something about the bird.” Dunc studied the parrot. “Something weird.”
    “Oh, man, don’t do this—the last time you looked like that I had to dress up like apuppet and hide in a toy store until somebody tried to steal me.”
    “What’s the matter?” Dunc followed him toward the door. “Didn’t you like it?”
    “Treasure.”
    “What?” Duncan tapped Amos on the arm. “What did you say?”
    “I didn’t say anything.”
    “You said ‘treasure.’ ”
    “Not me.”
    “Well, somebody did—wait a minute.” Dunc turned back into the store and stopped by the parrot’s cage again.
    “Oh, come on,” Amos said. “We’re going to be late, and I won’t get the chance for Melissa to notice me.”
    “He said it.” Dunc studied the parrot. “I heard him say ‘treasure.’ ”
    “You’re nuts—I’m going whether you come or not.” Amos turned, and as he turned his crazy bone hit the edge of a counter full of pet supplies. He said a word that Dunc had seen written on the side of a rail car.
    “Treasure map.”
    “There!” Dunc said. “He said it again. Iheard him. When you swore, he said ‘treasure map.’ ”
    Amos was doubled over holding his elbow. “So what?”
    But Dunc wasn’t listening to him. He was watching the parrot intently.
    And he definitely had that look.

“It’s like this,” Dunc said.
    “Don’t say that.”
    “Don’t say what?”
    “Don’t say, ‘It’s like this.’ ” Amos was sitting on their front porch. It was a warm summer afternoon and they were wearing shorts, and he was wondering if he should pick the scab off his knee. He’d gotten it two weeks before trying to get to the phone. He’d been in the bathroom and the phone rang, and he was sure it was Melissa and went for it and would have made it except that his mother had the oven door open and he took a shortcut through the kitchen. Hestepped in a cake, broke the oven door off, and buried his head in the cat box in the corner of the kitchen and scraped his knees on the oven door going down. “It’s never like ‘this’ when you say ‘it’s like this.’ It’s always like something else.”
    “About the business with the parrot. I’ve been thinking.”
    “You mean the one at the pet store, or Mrs. Burdgett’s parakeets?”
    “The one at the store. I don’t want to think about Mrs. Burdgett’s parakeets.”
    “Right. I don’t blame you.” Amos nodded. Dunc had found that a neighborhood woman had a dozen or so parakeets, and he thought she could help with his essay so they’d gone to visit. The problem was, she let all the parakeets out of their cages to show how smart they were and the front door had been slightly open. A loose cat had come to the door, seen the crack, and sneaked in. “How do you figure a cat