It was a normalish kind of day for pretty much everyone in Room Eight. The electric fan buzzed mindlessly and infuriatingly in the back of the room. Ever since Amy had dropped her Science book on top of it last year, it had made a noise like a bee buzzing very close to your ear. It was so mind-numbing, in fact, that most of the time nobody wanted it on. But today, nobody wanted it off. Why?

Because it was hot.

The heat was off the charts. Nobody understood it, either- San Francisco just didn't get to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. It just didn't happen. Fog City liked to keep itself wrapped in a nice, cozy blanket of chilly sea mist. To have it burned all away by the merciless sun was simply too much to handle for most of its inhabitants. So they broke out the pairs of shorts and the flip-flops and the spaghetti-strap tops and such and fled to the beach for safety, or the pool, or the ice cream shop, or at least somewhere with adequate air conditioning. But not Jenna.

No, not Jennifer Juliet Jones, not Jenna, oh no, nearly the end of the school year and she still had to sit in a stupid classroom with all the stupid windows closed and that stupid fan blowing all her papers off her desk every other minute. And she had to wear a skirt. And she hated nobody asked her opinion, because they were all much too busy passing notes to notice her sweltering and squirming in the back of the class.

"I hate school," muttered Jenna to nobody in particular.

It hadn't always been this bad. Once upon a time, Jenna had had a best friend named Kim. She was smart and pretty and had long red hair and green eyes, and she had always looked like she had some kind of sly little trick up her sleeve. The pair had spent long evenings planning pranks to play on the more annoying boys, watching mystery shows, and coming up with ways to make life more fun. They had even started their own detective agency, way back in third grade. They called it the Fox and the Hound, like the old Disney movie. Kim was the Fox and Jenna was the Hound. Even though they never got any cases, they had loads of fun playing detectives, complete with the odd hats and magnifying glasses, and striding around saying detective-y sounding things like "elementary" and "aha!". "Hound" hadn't really stuck to Jenna, but "Fox" had stuck to Kim like glue and had eventually become her permanent nickname.

But last year, Kim and her family had moved to England and left Jenna all by herself in a class full of people she actually didn't know that well, despite having gone to school with them for five years. They still talked through email, but it just wasn't the same.

Jenna sighed loudly and realized that she had been doodling a cat in her notebook. She smiled at the drawing. Here was something to do, at last! She hunched over the page and set to work.

Fifteen minutes later, Jenna had a very detailed drawing of a cat and nothing to do again. She stared absently out the classroom window. The sun roasted the asphalt outside to the point of possibly egg-frying heat. It also roasted the telephone wires, until the black casing on the outside got so hot that the birds didn't want to sit on them anymore. Normally there were at least ten pigeons sitting outside the window, but today the wire was empty save for an... owl?

Jenna looked at the owl in amazement.

The owl stared back at her.

"There's an owl," murmured Jenna, amazed. "There is an owl outside, in broad daylight, on a telephone wire, and it's staring at me."

She blinked.

The owl continued to stare.

"Hoo," said the owl.

"Um," said Jenna. She raised her hand. "Mr. Stelton?"

"Yes, Jennifer?"

"There's an owl..."

Mr. Stelton looked up from the textbook he was reading out of. "Nonsense. Owls do not fly during the day, because they are- Class?"

"Nocturnal," chorused the rest of the class in a bored monotone.

Jenna looked back at the owl, wanting to point it out, but it was gone.

…...

As soon as Jenna got home, she threw her backpack onto the bed with very unnecessary force and slumped into her chair. She was exhausted. She flipped open her laptop and began to type.

To: kim-hart

From: jjjones

Subject:

Jenna paused. What was interesting enough about today that she could tell it to Fox?

Subject: Owls

Hey Fox,

How was school 2day? I bet ur school is way more interesting thn mine. It's even more boring now that ur gone. Today in Sci a big owl was outside, though. That's weird, right? Owls r supposed to sleep during the day, rnt they?

Plz email me back.

-Jenna

Jenna yawned and clicked "send". She was really tired. Maybe the heat made her sleepy. Maybe she should just take... a quick nap...

She was out before she even finished the thought.

Twenty or so minutes later, Jenna woke up to a very impatient tapping sound.

I bet that's Mom, she thought, coming to see if I'm doing homework.

"I'm asleep!" called Jenna. "Please leave a message after the beep. Beeeeeep."

The tapping noise didn't stop.

Jenna cautiously opened one eye.

The noise wasn't coming from her door, it was coming from her window, where a large owl was tapping on it with its beak.

"Aaah!" said Jenna.

"Hoo," said the owl, looking rather pleased that it had managed to wake her up.

Not knowing what else to do, Jenna walked to the window and opened it. The owl hopped into her room and deposited a letter on her bed before promptly flying out again. The letter was addressed in green ink. It had a wax seal and it looked dreadfully important. It read:

Miss J. Jones

The Attic Room

1541 Willow Ave, San Francisco, California

Jenna looked at the letter. She shrugged to nobody and picked it up. At the same time, her laptop made a bing noise.

From: kim-hart

To: jjjones

Subject: Re: Owls

Have you got your letter yet?