Summer of the Spotted Owl Read Free Page B

all future development off Marisa Drive. And trust me,” he barked out a laugh, “when Rock speaks, the other councillors don’t chip away at him!”
    Under his sandy hair, Jack’s brow furrowed. “You mean, you’re backing us? No kidding?”
    â€œI never kid, kid,” Councillor Cordes chuckled —though without humor in his beady eyes. “So?” he challenged the crowd. “Are you pleased with the Rock, or what?”
    Jack glanced round. Being short, I couldn’t tell what at, but he muttered to me, “tv news cameras are being set up. Cordes wouldn’t dare make this up, no matter how badly he wants to get rid of us.”
    Into the megaphone Jack said, “Yeah, that is great, Councillor. Let’s hear it for what a small but caring group of people can do — and let’s hear it even louder for the spotted owl!”
    Afterward, to Councillor Cordes’s annoyance, the reporters mostly rammed microphones in Jack’s face. On the evening news, the perky, helmet-hair-sprayed anchorwoman, Mary Lou Burke, would coo about “this cute up-and-coming activist, Jack French.”
    â€œYou’re not even a fellow resident of the area,” Councillor Cordes pointed out to Jack, through a gritted-teeth smile, as the cameras whirred.
    â€œI’m a fellow resident of the planet, though,” Jack responded pleasantly.
    I ducked a corner of a protest sign. “What’s next for you guys?” I asked the dark-haired girl holding it.
    â€œSoak,” she said.
    â€œAh,” I nodded, thinking of the Urstads’ pool. “Me too. Unfortunately my inflatable turtle got stolen —something I’m going to have to investigate.”
    The girl regarded me strangely. “Not soak . soac. As in, us. The Spotted Owl Advocacy Committee. We’ll continue with our protests elsewhere. There’s still so much work to be done on behalf of the spotted owl. I myself volunteer at the soac office as a receptionist. I certainly don’t take time off to swim .”
    She gave a righteous sniff, which would’ve had a dramatic effect except for a sudden, eardrum-cracking splinter. Then an equally deafening yowl from Councillor Cordes.
    The crate he’d been standing on had buckled and broken under his weight.
    â€œLet’s just say, the event then bottomed out for Councillor Cordes,” Mary Lou Burke would twinkle later, on the evening news.

Chapter Three

Rowena Pickles
and One Very Disappointed Reporter
    â€œ S OAC wants to work with developers, not against them,” Jack explained.
    Sprawled in one of the Urstads’ deck chairs, Jack was discussing with Madge, who of course was sitting daintily in her deck chair, ways to plan neighborhoods without threatening wildlife.
    A worthwhile idea, I thought. Therefore, I decided not to aim a large splash ! at them, as I usually did when I jumped in the pool.
    â€œEvery kind of life in the forest, whether it’s a spotted owl, an ant or a pine needle, is part of the whole,” Jack was saying. “If you destroy one, you start diminishing the health of the whole forest.”
    This was getting theoretical, which I wasn’t really into. Madge, however, regarded Jack with solemn intensity. “More logging companies just have to listen to groups like yours, Jack. You certainly forced that horrid Councillor Cordes to pay attention!”
    Jack managed a crooked grin. “I don’t want it to seem that way — that soac forced itself on anyone. It sounds too confrontational. I just want environmentalists to work together with loggers and developers. As for Cordes, yeah, that was something. He caved in to us almost too easily.”
    Madge gave him one of the adoring looks that the two of them were so fond of exchanging. If I hadn’t been blowing bubbles and pretending I was a manta ray, I’d have made barfing noises.
    She said, “Councillor Cordes