Case of the Glacier Park Swallow Read Online Free PDF Page B

couldn’t see him clearly because it was dusk now, but she could tell that he was short, and that he was wearing a large old grey cap on his head.
    The man’s back was to her, and she could tell that he was interested in the swallow.
    She stepped toward him. The snow crunched under her boot, and he turned and noticed her. She retreated behind a tree, and watched as he slipped what looked like a notebook into his pocket. And then he was gone.
    She breathed then, and waited, and when she was sure that he wouldn’t return, she found a branch and carried it back to Max. Then she leaned out from the boardwalk and used the branch to slide the swallow toward her. She brought it in carefully and very slowly, because she was afraid that any minute a tiny spring of hot water would erupt under him.
    The swallow was still alive.
    She held it gently and showed it to Max and then she went to the place where the man had been.
    She saw his footprints in the snow and stood in them, and made a mental note that his bootprints were exactly the same size as hers.
    She went back to Max, and held the swallow out for him to see, and then she put it in her pocket and took it to Tom’s.
    She was scared, and she needed a friend. When she realized that he wasn’t there she felt sad and suddenly very young. She laid the swallow on a newspaper, removed the implant, and forgot for a moment that she was alone.
    It was a different swallow. She had been right about that. But it didn’t seem to matter to Max. He slept beside the box and waited.

7. THE LAST NIGHT
    T om returned the next morning. He seemed happy that she was there, and genuinely interested in everything that she had learned. Then he took her to her jeep and she drove it back to his cabin.
    She stayed another night, sleeping beside Max on Tom’s couch under a quilt that his grandmother had made for him, as the storm blew up outside the cabin. Tom had sat up with them until it was very late, poking the fire and listening to the wind, and asking questions that Juliet was sometimes hesitant to answer.
    He wanted to know everything about her. First he asked about her family, and then he asked where she went to school and what she liked to eat and what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.
    â€œI have a little sister,” she said. “Her name’s Katie and she’s eleven. I go to a big high school in Montana. After I graduate in June I’ll go to college in Montana. I love Montana.
    â€œI like puffed rice,” she continued, and peanut butter cookies, and animals of course. I love animals. I think I even like them better than people. My mother says that’s because they can’t talk or tell me what to do. She says I should have been born a wild animal so that I could scurry away whenever I wanted to. My mother understands me, even though I make her nervous.
    â€œI’m going to be a veterinarian,” she said, when he encouraged her to continue. “I work with a vet named Cam now, and....”
    She stopped, because she didn’t like to talk about people behind their backs. Her face must have given her away, because Tom said, “You don’t like him?”
    Juliet avoided the question. She ran her fingers through Max’s soft fur and when he snuggled closer to her, she pulled the quilt tighter around them.
    The wind was dying down outside and the snow was stopping. Suddenly Juliet found herself thinking about the drive home, and decorating the Christmas tree with her mother and father and Katie. She wondered if they still had the angel that she and Katie had made the year before.
    She didn’t want to talk any more. She just wanted to go to sleep and wake up and begin the long drive home.
    Tom wouldn’t let her. “Do you?” he asked.
    Juliet glanced over at him. “What?” she asked.
    â€œDo you like him?”
    â€œHe’s all right. But he brings out the worst in me. He makes me competitive,