Boots was sweaty and tired after track practice and wanted nothing more than a hot shower and maybe a quick nap before supper. Of course that meant the second he tried to push his way into the dorm room he shared with Bruno Walton, he met resistance in the form of his grinning roommate surrounded by paint and posterboard and a giant stuffed bird blocking the doorway. Boots, now horizontal to the ground, pushed himself onto his hands and rolled off the bird in question.

"Hiya, pal," Bruno said, waving a paintbrush and splattering paint against the curtains. "Oops."

Boots managed to climb onto his bed without stepping on any of the wet-paint-covered posters that now carpeted room 306's floors. "What are you doing?"

"Dormitory 3's world is the world of the Acadian Flycatcher," replied Bruno, dotting the i's on a sign that read 'Catching flies? Close your mouth and save the Acadian Flycatcher!'

"Elmer put you up to this?" Boots raised an eyebrow. "What's he got on you?"

Bruno batted his eyelashes in a vision of absolute innocence. Boots just hoped no one had been killed. "Can't a man help one of his friends save an endangered species out of the goodness of his heart?"

"You can't," said Boots.

There was a knock at the door, then a shove, and the stuffed bird Boots could only assume was a toy replica of the Acadian Flycatcher went flying across the room. In the doorway stood Elmer Drimsdale having fits of apoplectic glee.

"Oh, this is wonderful, wonderful, Bruno!" Elmer said, bending over to get a better look at the posters. "Mr Sturgeon is sure to let us set up an animal preserve!"

Boots was struck by a horrible vision of Bruno sitting by the flagpole, making friends with a deer. "You two are trying to get the Hall turned into an animal preserve?"

"Not all of it," Bruno replied indignantly, as though he'd never had an outrageous, impossible idea in all his life. "Just the woods behind the school so Elmer's birds have somewhere to get down and have little Flycatchers."

"I seem to have adopted two over Christmas break," Elmer informed Boots, adjusting his glasses. Boots was pretty sure Elmer didn't mean that they fell from the sky and landed in his lap. "They're on the endangered species list. Think of what I did for the bush hamsters!" Elmer Drimsdale, Macdonald Hall's resident genius and environmentalist (and birdcall expert) had a new cause. And now Bruno was involved, too. Boots felt a headache coming on.

"Show Boots its explosive birdcall," said Bruno with a thumbs up. "That'll get him on our side."

"Oh! Oh, of course." Elmer stretched out his neck and cleared his throat and shouted, "Peet-SAH! Peet-SAH!"

Boots would have fallen over if he hadn't been sitting down. Out in the hallway, he heard Mark Davies ask, "Did another squirrel get stuck in the heating vents?"

Elmer glanced at his watch. "Goodness, look at the time! I have to set up my telescope. Venus is in retrograde and there's a spectacular view of the Cancer nebula that I've been waiting months for. Bruno, at dinner we can discuss ways to improve the anatomical correctness of the stuffed Flycatcher."

"Got it, Elm!" said Bruno, waving the paintbrush again, this time splattering Boots's bedspread.

Once Elmer shut the door behind him, Boots pointed at the abused stuffed Flycatcher. "If he doesn't have anything on you, what's Elmer doing for you?"

"Oh, nothing much, nothing much," Bruno replied airily. "He just said he'd...er, help me set up a radio transmitter in the room."

"Bruno."

"The Hall needs a radio station! It deserves a radio station."

Boots covered his face with his hands. "With you at the helm, I bet."

"It's not hurting anything! Elmer gets his bird sanctuary, I get my radio station, and the woods behind the school become something more notable than a zucchini stick cemetery. It's win-win-win."

"Except for the Fish when he finds out about Bruno Radio."

"WBRN," corrected Bruno. "C'mon, Boots. I need a cohost."

Boots didn't want to be a cohost. But he also found it impossible to deny Bruno Walton with a cause. He slid off the bed and knelt on the floor. "Fine. Hand me that paint can."

Bruno grinned and handed one over with a thoughtful, "Hey, how do you think you spell peet-SAH, anyway?"

END.