And Condors Danced by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Read Free Book Online Page A

to tug Barney’s head up out of the grass patch. Then he noticed what Carly was doing. “Lordy, Carly,” he said in a screeching whisper. “What are you doing now?”
    “What does it look like I’m doing?” Carly said. “I’m taking off my shoes and stockings.”
    “Why?” Matt wailed. “We got to get going.”
    Like a lot of Matt’s “whys,” that was one Carly didn’t intend to answer. It ought to be obvious. Riding bareback on a donkey was a hairy, sweaty business, and legs were a lot easier to wash than white stockings. But to explain that, one would have to use the word legs , which, of course, was not a proper thing to say in mixed company.
    “Why not?” she said as she tucked the stockings into her shoes and hid them in the hedge. “You’re barefoot.”
    “Yeah, but you’re a girl.”
    That was a sore point. Carly had been through dozens of arguments about why boys got to go barefoot all summer and girls, at least girls in the Hartwick family, never did. Giving Matt her version of the glare that Arthur called “Father’s bone-chiller,” she jumped up on her stomach across Rosemary’s back, swung her leg over, and set off at a sharp trot.
    “I’m not a girl,” she called as she whizzed past, leaving Barney and Matt in a cloud of dust. “I’m Sherlock Holmes.” She was nearly to where the Ridge Trail turned off from the Hamilton Valley Road before she slowed Rosemary down and let Barney catch up.

Chapter 8
    A T FIRST THE trail wound up through low, rolling foothills and Carly and Matt were able to ride side by side—if Carly held Rosemary in and Matt kept up a steady tattoo on Barney’s ribs. As the donkeys made their way slowly across dry creek beds and between clumps of oaks and madrones, Tiger scouted around them in a frenzy of excited sniffing, and Carly tried to explain about Sherlock Holmes and the art of being a detective.
    “Like in ‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,’” she said, “—there’s an old hat that a friend of Sherlock’s found with a goose—”
    “The goose was wearing a hat?” Matt interrupted in a sarcastic tone of voice.
    “No, ninny! Just be still and let me finish. The goose was dead. Somebody had dropped it, along with the old hat, on the sidewalk, and this friend brought them both to Sherlock Holmes. And it turned out the goose had a precious jewel in its craw, so Sherlock examined the hat to find out whose it was. And just by examining the hat with a magnifying glass he found out all kinds of things about the man who dropped it.”
    “Like what?”
    “Well, guess. What do you think he found out?”
    “Okay, I’ll guess. Wait a minute. Lemme think.”
    Lost in thought, Matt forgot about kicking, and by the time he came up with an answer Barney had fallen several yards behind. Carly watched him over her shoulder.
    “Okay. I got it,” he yelled finally. “Pull up a minute.”
    Carly stopped Rosemary, and Matt thumped Barney’s ribs so soundly that he broke into a bone-jarring trot. “Okay,” Matt said proudly as he reined in, clutching his derby to keep it from flying off. “He knew how big the man’s head was, and how rich he was, and if he had cooties. How’s that?”
    Carly smiled indulgently. “And,” she said, “that he had been rich but now he was poor, and that he was a drunkard, and that he was pretty old, and what kind of hair tonic he used, and that he didn’t have gaslight in his house even though most people in London did by then, and that his wife didn’t love him anymore.”
    “Shucks,” Matt said, “I don’t believe that. Do you?”
    “Sure I do. That was easy for Sherlock Holmes. All he had to do was observe, and that’s what I’m going to learn how to do.”
    “Yeah?” Matt said. “Why?”
    “Well,” Carly said, “it’s just that…” and then she stopped. She knew why. It was just hard to put into words. It was hard to explain why the idea of being able to look at things—simple, ordinary,