- Curly tells Delinko about seeing the young boy around the construction site but declines his offer to fill out a police report.
- Both men are staying the night on the Mother Paula's property and Delinko vows to remain awake this time.
- He decides to go around the property with his flashlight to ensure no one is trespassing and messing with anything.
- Eventually he hears some noises and meets up with a baby burrowing owl.
- The baby's parents start circling Delinko and he backs off. Smart move.
- He backs all the way away until he bumps into the bulldozer.
- Suddenly he realizes what will happen to the owls when construction starts. And he doesn't like it.
- The next morning Roy learns that the groundbreaking for Mother Paula's would be the following day.
- Roy is incredibly saddened that he forgets that it's Current Events Tuesday at school and he needs to bring in an article to discuss in class.
- Declining a ride to school, Roy grabs the newspaper and asks to borrow his mother's camera.
- Instead of waiting at his normal bus stop, Roy goes all the way to Beatrice's house.
- They talk on the way to the bus stop about how Beatrice really broke her tooth (biting a ring off her stepmother's toe) and how her father and stepmother saw Mullet Fingers at the house.
- While on the bus, they discuss what they can do about the Mother Paula's groundbreaking.
- Roy indicates that he has a plan and pulls out his mother's camera.
- At school, Roy's morning begins with an interrogating from Ms. Hennepin regarding Mullet Fingers using his name while at the hospital. She doesn't tell him anything he doesn't already know.
- During lunch Roy sneaks out of school and bikes out to the junkyard to check on Mullet Fingers and show him the newspaper ad about the groundbreaking.
- Roy exclaims how he and Beatrice want to help.
- Dismissing his friend's grand statement, Mullet Fingers says, "I'm not draggin' you two into the middle of this mess" (18.133).
- But Roy won't take no for an answer. He tells Mullet Fingers his plans of getting pictures of the owls as proof that they burrow on the construction site.
- However, Mullet Finger isn't sure it'll work.
- He throws Roy out of the ice-cream truck saying, "this is my war from now on" (18.146).
- Roy tells him to hold on to the camera for now and wishes him good luck.
- When it comes to Roy's turn for the current events article, he points directly to the ad for the Mother Paula's groundbreaking.
- He tells the class everything he's learned about the burrowing owls from research and his own experience. And then he drops the bomb that the little guys will be buried with the groundbreaking the next day.
- The rest of the kids in his class start to get just as upset as Roy and that's when he announces that at noon the next day he'll be at the Mother Paula's groundbreaking ceremony protesting the construction.