"A great horned owl," Dad said.

"Dad, what happened?" I asked, as I worked at the knot in the rope on his wrists. "Who tied you up?"

Though I suspected I already knew the answer. Glancing around, I saw three plastic milk crates placed upside down, as if someone had been using them for tables or stools. Our cash box lay on the middle one, its lid open and all its compartments bare.

"Sshh!" Dad said, putting his finger to his lips. "Barrymore. Went thataway!"

He pointed to the barn door-the back door, not the one we'd come in.

We heard a clank outside, as if someone had tripped over a saucepan.

Michael and I looked at each other.

"Can you untie your ankles, Dad?" I said. "While Michael and I see if we can catch him."

Dad nodded cheerfully, though he didn't lean down to begin working on his feet. Instead, he lay back and stared solemnly up at the rafters, as if looking for something important. I grabbed Dad's flashlight, but turned it off. No sense letting Barrymore know precisely where we were.

Well, help should be on the way-should d.a.m.n well be here already, for that matter-and the most important thing was to keep Barrymore Sprocket from doing any more damage, I thought, as Michael and I crept out of the barn.

I heard another faint clang from the far side of the yard sale enclosure. I smiled to myself. Barrymore appeared to be stumbling away from the gate, rather than toward it. Perhaps he'd taken a wrong turn on his way out of the barn.

He'd need to get back to the gate to leave. So maybe we should just make our way to the gate and wait for him to stumble into our hands.

Unless he planned to pull up a couple of the stakes holding the fence to the ground. If he tried enough of them, he might find a couple that were loose enough to give way. Or he could cut a hole in the fence. Maybe that was the noise we were hearing-Barrymore making himself a new gate.

I moved forward, and I could hear Michael, a few feet to my right, following suit.

We had the advantage of numbers. But Barrymore had the advantage of the terrain, I realized, as I knocked over something that sounded like a stack of aluminum pie pans. He was the proverbial needle in the haystack. We probably couldn't see him unless we got right next to him, and he could easily slip by us while we stumbled in the dark.

Then again, Barrymore couldn't see any better than we could. Which meant there was always the possibility that we'd all three stumble around the fenced-in area till dawn, like inept players in a giant game of blindman's bluff.

One of us should watch the gate.

I turned around and headed back, but I must have gotten off course, because after about three feet, I ran into the deer fence.

Over to my left, I could hear Michael getting tangled in a nest of coat hangers dangling from something overhead.

Or was that Michael, knocking over the stack of gla.s.s objects to my right?

Long moments of silence followed as we all stood still and tried not to breathe too loudly.

Chapter 42.

My eyes had adjusted to the dark. If I got close enough, I could see objects silhouetted against the sky. Not clearly-the sky was only a shade lighter than the objects. But I could see vague shapes looming up ahead of me as I moved around.

Unfortunately, this didn't help me navigate safely through the clutter, since most of the things lying in wait to trip me crouched close to the ground, where I couldn't see their silhouettes. It wasn't even rea.s.suring, since to my overactive imagination most of the looming shapes looked remarkably like thugs wielding cudgels.

I steered by sound, aiming for a point midway between the coat hanger sound and the breaking gla.s.s sound.

The figure to my left knocked over a lamp-I heard the light bulb explode on impact with something hard.

The figure to my left tripped over something, fell, and muttered, "d.a.m.n!"

I couldn't tell if it was Michael or Barrymore. And apparently we'd all three stopped to listen.

All I heard was a sheep baaing, as if startled. Closer than I expected. Had the sheep gotten inside the yard sale fence? If they did, they could do a terrific amount of damage. We'd probably have to throw a ton of stuff away.

Yay, sheep.

Just then, I heard someone stumble a few feet ahead and to my left.

"Michael?" I called.

"Over here," came his voice, from somewhere behind me.

Something slammed into me, hard, and knocked me into a pile of stuff.

"Get him," I shouted.

I heard clanking and scrambling behind me as Michael gave chase. From my new position, flat on my back, I realized that I'd been felled by the portable toilet door, which someone hiding inside had suddenly slammed open to make a run for it. And when I fell, I'd knocked over a large plastic bin. I was lying in a heap of spilled toys. Every time I tried to get up, I'd slip on some of the marbles, and every time I fell again, another half dozen toy soldiers would bayonet me with their tiny sharp weapons.

And then, when I paused to catch my breath, I realized that I could still hear the clacking of marbles and the faint grunts that suggested the miniature soldiers might also be attacking someone else, perhaps six feet away.

Barrymore.

I waited a few seconds until I was sure I had a fix on his position, and then launched myself toward him. I wasn't trying to stand up, just land on top of him, so this time the marbles helped.

"Oof!" he exclaimed, as I knocked the breath out of him.

"Got him!" I shouted, as I pulled his arm behind him and sat down on his back.

"Hang on!" Michael shouted.

"Meg!" my captive gasped. "It's me! Rob!"

I switched on the flashlight to reveal the swollen face of my brother. I hoped the swelling was only left over from his allergy attack, and not something I'd done.

"What happened to you?" I asked, standing up.

"I've been stumbling around trying to find whoever tied up Dad," Rob said. "I keep falling over stuff."

"Barrymore Sprocket," Michael said.

"Is that who it is?" Rob said.

"If we've been chasing Rob, then where's Sprocket?" Michael said.

I played the flashlight beam over the junk around us. Michael and Rob held their breath.

"Not out here," I said.

"Then where-"

Just then, we heard a yelp of pain from the barn, followed by frantic barking.

"Spike?" Michael muttered, turning his head toward the sounds.

"Dad?" Rob said, sitting up.

"Barrymore!" I exclaimed, and sprinted for the barn, closely followed by Michael. Rob, apparently, had injured his foot in falling, and followed more slowly.

Inside we found Dad, still lying peacefully on his back, looking at Spike's pen, where Barrymore Sprocket was backed up against the barn wall, ducking left and right in a vain attempt to dodge Spike so he could reach the fence and make a break for freedom.

"Stop where you are and I'll call him off," I said.

"The police are on their way!" Michael added.

Barrymore hesitated, and perhaps he might have surrendered, but just then we heard another ghastly shriek, and a feathered missile plummeted from somewhere high up in the barn, heading for Spike.

"Look out!" I said, throwing the flashlight at the owl. Spike yelped and dived for cover, while Barrymore Sprocket seized his chance to leap over the fence.

"Leave him alone, Sophie!" Michael shouted. The owl swooped back up again, and Michael ran after her, waving the bicycle pump. I vaulted the fence and scooped up Spike.

"I've got Spike," I called. "Don't worry about Sophie-stop Barrymore."

Michael ran after Barrymore, and I ducked as another shriek announced that Sophie hadn't given up.

Only it wasn't Sophie. Instead of a small barn owl, with its winsome, heart-shaped face, a much larger owl was staring down at us from the rafters. Its beak looked sharper as well as larger, and the feathers around its face were arranged in a pattern that resembled a perpetual frown. It looked slightly cross-eyed and more than slightly annoyed, and I deduced from the large tufts of feathers sticking up on either side of its face that I was looking at a great horned owl.

"Look out!" Dad shouted. The owl moved. For some reason, I was expecting it to plummet, beak first, like a hawk. Instead, it launched itself, feet first, for all the world like a kid jumping into a pool and hoping to splash as many bystanders as possible. All that was missing was the cry of "Banzai!" Of course, it made sense. The talons were its weapons. I'd probably have stood transfixed as it flew into my face, but just then Spike bit me and made a run for it, and I tripped and fell out of the owl's path while trying to catch him. Even so, I felt the owl swoop by me; and something sharp raked my cheek. I hoped it missed my eyes. The owl swooped past, and I scrambled into the corner where Spike had retreated, putting myself between him and the owl, and grabbing his water bowl to serve as a shield. The feathered fury swooped past again, and then disappeared.

"Meg!" Michael called. "Are you all right?"

"It flew out the door," Dad said. "Magnificent!"

"I'm fine," I said. "What happened to Barrymore Sprocket?"

"I've got him," Michael said. "Where's Rob?"

"Limping around outside," I said.

I made sure both eyes were working properly, and fingered the owl gash in my cheek and the Spike bite on my arm, both of which were bleeding, though neither badly enough to kill me. I vaulted back out of the pen, grabbed one of the milk crates, and threw it down over Spike, to keep him from becoming an owl hors d'oeuvre. Then I walked over to where Michael was.

"I thought you said you had him," I said. He wasn't holding Barrymore down. He was standing at the foot of the ladder leading to the loft, staring up.

"I've got him cornered," he said. "He scurried up the ladder."

"Barrymore!" I called. "Come on down."

We stood with ears c.o.c.ked toward the loft, but heard no sound from Barrymore."

"Come on," Michael called out. "You have to come down sooner or later. There's no other way out."

I heard a rattling noise from above.

"Unless he uses the rope and pulley in the hayloft door and rappels down," I said. "Which, unless I'm mistaken, is what he's doing."

"d.a.m.n," Michael said. "I'll run outside and catch him. You guard the ladder."

I took his place at the foot of the ladder, and decided that instead of just waiting, I might as well climb up. Not that I thought we had much of a chance to catch Barrymore. It was a long way around to the hayloft door. Maybe if it took Barrymore several minutes to get up his nerve- Too late. I heard a motor start up outside.

Then again, that couldn't possibly be Barrymore's car, unless his car needed the mother of all tune-ups. It sounded more like a small generator. I jumped off the ladder and ran to the back door, where the noise came from.

"Don't worry!" Rob called. "I've got him!"

He had climbed into the cab of the boom lift, started its motor, and was slowly swinging the arm and extending it, aiming the raised platform at the hay loft door. Was he planning to catch Barrymore, crush him against the side of the barn, or just scare him silly? Whatever he planned, the sight of the boom lift platform creaking and lurching toward the barn was pretty terrifying. Barrymore, who had climbed halfway down the rope, began climbing up again, a lot faster. He looked scared and he didn't even know, as I did, how singularly inept my brother was with mechanical objects. How well could Rob possibly have learned how to operate the boom lift?

The platform hit the side of the barn a few feet below Barrymore. The barn stayed in place, though I could hear bits of rubble falling inside, and the impact threw Barrymore off balance. He fell six feet onto the platform, and Rob immediately raised the arm, taking the platform higher and higher until it was perched forty feet above the ground at the end of the fully extended arm.

"Good job," I said, and ran back inside to make sure Spike and Dad had survived the falling rubble.

Dad was lying peacefully, legs still bound, and I deduced from how loudly Spike was barking that he was still safe under the plastic milk crate.

"Are you okay?" I asked Dad, as I started to untie his legs.

"It was amazing," Dad said. "I've never seen a great horned owl that close."

"I've never wanted to," I said. "After I untie you, can you patch my cheek?"

"Are you okay?" Michael asked, running back in. "You're bleeding."

"She'll be fine," Dad said, peering at my face. "It's only a superficial laceration. Though we should clean that wound as soon as possible. Owls eat a lot of carrion, you know."

"Thanks for sharing that," I said, as I finished untying Dad's feet. "There; you're free again. Let's fix my wound."

"Should I call 911 and tell them to send an ambulance?" Michael asked.

"No, but call and ask Debbie Anne why the heck none of the police have arrived yet," I suggested.

"Wasn't that cool?" Rob asked, strolling into the barn.