“Honey Pie is missing!” shrieks Mrs. Bell as she runs out of apartment 4G. Rosie and I are in the hallway, on our way to go outside. But Mrs. Bell looks so upset that we figure we’d better help.

“Is Honey Pie a sweet treat?” asks Rosie.

“Of course not,” says Mrs. Bell. “She’s my precious bird. She can say hello in five different languages. Rosie and I look at each other. We are on the hunt for a bird.

“Actually,” I say, “I saw a feather at the other end of the hallway.

“Excellent,” Rosie says. “We’ll go on a feather hunt. We’ll follow the trail and I bet we’ll find Honey Pie at the end.” Mrs. Bell lets out a worried sigh.

Rosie and I head down the hall. She takes a notebook and pencil out of her pocket. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“Making notes.”

“Do you always carry a notebook around?”

“Of course,” she says. “Don’t you?” Nope, I think. But I stay quiet. Rosie is a new neighbor, and I’ve never seen her notebook before. “I’m a scientist,” Rosie explains. “I need to have a place to write my steps.”

“Your steps?” I ask.

“The steps for the scientific method. Step 1 – Make an Observation.”

I’m pretty good at making observations, so I give it a try. “Honey Pie is missing and there are feathers on the ground,” I say.

“Exactly!” Rosie beams as she writes this in her notebook. “Step 2 – Form a Hypothesis.”

I sort of remember learning something about that in school. But I must look confused, because she explains. “A hypothesis is a suggested solution. An educated guess. My hypothesis about the feathers is that they will lead us to Honey Pie. IF we follow the feathers, THEN we will find the bird.”

“So now what?” I ask.

“Now Step 3. Test the Hypothesis. We follow the trail.”

I thought we were doing that before she took out her notebook, but I guess it’s more official now.

I search around for feathers. When I look up, Rosie is farther down the hall. She is pointing to a feather near the fire extinguisher. She takes out her notebook.

“What are you doing now?”

“I’m recording our data. I’m making a map of every place we find a feather.”

We find a few more feathers. Rosie writes their locations in her notebook. I really hope this hypothesis is right. It would be pretty awful if we couldn’t find Honey Pie. I don’t think Mrs. Bell would take the news very well.

When the feathers eventually end, in front of the elevator, there’s no Honey Pie. We ride the elevator up and down, looking out on each floor. No feathers. No bird.

On floor 4 I call out, “Aloha!” Rosie whips her head around so fast the beads on her braids clack together.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“I’m seeing if Honey Pie will answer to one of the five languages she knows,” explain. I don’t really know any other languages, but I do know aloha. It means hello in Hawaii.

“That’s a totally different hypothesis,” Rosie says. “You have to test it separately.”

“Oh. Can we test it now? Since the other one didn’t work out?” I suggest.

Rosie writes some more stuff in her notebook. “I’m recording my conclusion. That’s Step 4. The feather hypothesis is wrong. But now, based on your observation, we have another hypothesis. IF we call hello in other languages, THEN Honey Pie will hear us and answer back.”

“Let’s hope we’re right this time,” I say. And we head off down the hall, calling “aloha!” as we go.