I could not believe it.
Tufty had flown out through my skylight!
"Tufty won't be able to find his way home!" Molly cried.
"He doesn't have a bell like I do," said Caswell sadly.
"Even if someone finds him, they won't know he's my parrot," Molly went on.
Her eyes filled with tears.
"I'll never see Tufty again!"
We ran into the living room and told my mom what had happened.
My mom sat down.
She looked worried.
"Are you sure Tufty flew through the skylight?" she asked.
"We looked all over my room," I said, "and he's not there."
"Go find Mr. Calabria," my mom said.
"See if he'll help us look for Tufty."
We found Mr. Calabria in his workshop.
He smiled when he saw us.
"Good news, everybody.
You'll be able to turn on your air conditioners again tonight!"
"We came to see you about something else," Molly explained.
"We need help finding my parrot."
"He flew through my skylight," I explained.
"Oh dear," said Mr. Calabria.
"Let's go see if we can spot him."
Everyone except Molly went up to the roof.
Her mom didn't want her to climb the narrow stairs with her boot.
From the roof of our building, you can see all over the city.
I could see the tops of apartment buildings and a big bridge.
But I didn't see any sign of Tufty.
We all looked and listened for him.
We heard car horns and subway trains, but this time they were real horns and real trains.
Mr. Calabria peered down at the street.
"A police car is stopping in front of our building!" he said.
"I'd better go down and see what the police officers want."
We followed Mr. Calabria downstairs.
And you'll never believe what happened next!
A policewoman stepped out of the car.
She was holding a big box.
"Do the O'Donnells live here?" she asked.
"Yes," said Mr. Calabria. "Is something wrong?"
The policewoman smiled.
"I have something for them."
I heard a sound from inside the box.
"My number is 555...
I never get it wrong!"
"That's Tufty!" I cried. "He's singing Molly's telephone number!"
"He's my parrot!" said Molly happily.
"We found Tufty in the park," the policewoman explained.
"We were able to trace the telephone number back to Molly's family."
Molly was thrilled to see Tufty.
After that the parrot spent all his time sitting on Molly's walking boot.
He loved to peck at it.
The rest of the summer went by really fast.
We kept trying to teach Tufty to talk.
But he just kept singing the telephone number song.
Luckily, he never made any more loud noises.
Oh, and guess what.
As soon as our air conditioners started working again, the heat wave was over!
"It's going to get cold tonight," my mom said.
"We might even need to put on our sweaters."
"Cool!" said Tate.
That made everyone laugh.
Molly grinned at me.
"I'm glad the heat wave is over.
But I'm also glad we had a heat wave.
Otherwise, you would not have invented an air-conditioned movie theater in your room, Iggy."
"Yeah," agreed Josh.
"And it's a good thing you thought of showing The Magic Music Box.
Otherwise, Tufty might have been lost forever!"
"Luckily, Tufty could sing his telephone number!" added Jenny.
So, as usual, my incredible inventions had worked.
They just hadn't worked the way I expected them to!