Chomp

ELEVEN

Wahoo had been riding in airboats since he was two years old, but this was the biggest one he’d ever seen. It was designed to carry a driver and fifteen stout tourists.

Wahoo’s father said, “It’s nuthin’ but an old tin barge.”

“Hop in, mates!” Derek Badger chirped.

The other passengers included Raven, the director, two cameramen (without their cameras) and Tuna.

“And who would you be?” Raven asked.

“Oh, I’m the taxonomist,” Tuna replied as she took her seat.

Wahoo said, “It’s okay, Ms. Stark. She’s with us.”

Raven looked doubtful. “A taxonomist?”

Tuna nodded cheerfully.

“What happened to your eye, young lady?”

“I fell down the stairs. What happened to your hair?”

Raven’s face purpled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Derek rose and demanded to speak with Mr. Sickler.

“He ain’t comin’,” said the airboat driver, a beefy, dull-eyed man called Link.

“And why not?” Derek couldn’t understand why anyone would pass up the opportunity to take a nature ride with a world-renowned survivalist.

“Because he too big,” Link said.

Derek misunderstood. “You hear that?” he sneered to the others. “Mr. Sickler is too ‘big’ to be bothered with the likes of us.”

“Nossir, he too big for the boat,” Link explained. “He climb in now, we sink like a rock.”

Everybody laughed except Derek. Before starting the engine, Link handed out earmuffs to dampen the roar. Raven had difficulty fitting hers over her stupendous cliff of red hair, Tuna and Wahoo watching with amusement.

The airboat skimmed along a watery trail through the saw grass for only a couple minutes before Link cut the power and glided the craft to a stop.

“Bull gator,” he announced triumphantly, as if expecting a cash tip.

The specimen was an eight-footer that appeared to be sunning on a log. Its mouth was yawning wide.

Mickey Cray busted out laughing. Obviously Sickler hadn’t informed the driver that this wasn’t an ordinary group of suckers.

“What so funny?” Link demanded.

“That poor thing’s stuffed,” Mickey said, yanking off his earmuffs.

“No, it ain’t!”

Derek Badger stared curiously at the motionless reptile. It was a closely guarded secret that Expedition Survival! occasionally used taxidermied animals when the live ones were not cooperating. Still, he couldn’t tell if the alligator was real or not.

Raven elbowed the director, who spoke up. “We’re not here for the tour,” he said to Link. “We’re scouting locations for a TV production.”

The driver pondered that information, then said, “That-un’s Old Sleepy. He be round here ’morrow, you wanna get some video for your show.”

Mickey moved to the bow. “That gator’s way beyond sleepy.”

“Let it go, Pop,” Wahoo implored.

“But they’re lyin’ to everybody! It’s a scam.”

“Tourists don’t know any better,” said Wahoo.

His father’s shoulders stiffened. “I wasn’t talkin’ about the tourists, son. I was talkin’ about nature-it’s an insult to nature, putting a stuffed specimen in the middle of the swamp.”

Tuna whispered, “He’s got a point.”

Wahoo grunted. “Don’t encourage him.”

“Mister, sit down,” Link snapped at Mickey from the stern of the airboat.

“Yes, Mr. Cray, please,” said Derek. “Who cares if the alligator’s fake?”

“But he ain’t!” It was Link, looking both confused and indignant.

For a moment Wahoo wondered if the man actually believed that Old Sleepy was alive, napping in the exact same place and in the exact same pose, week after week, month after month, never moving a muscle.

Mickey was squinting and rubbing his brow again. “Show some pride, brother,” he said to Link. “Tell Sickler to put that stupid thing in the gift shop, where it belongs.”

Link scowled hatefully. Derek spun around and muttered something to Raven that Wahoo couldn’t hear.

“Outta my boat!” Link commanded.

Mickey looked at Wahoo and shrugged. “See what we’re dealing with?”

“Sit down, Pop.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Tuna.

Derek huffed. “We’re wasting valuable time. Let’s go.”

Wahoo’s father pointed wryly at Old Sleepy. “You want to practice your wrestlin’ skills, Mr. Beaver? That’s one gator you can probably handle.”

“Very funny,” said Derek through clenched jaws.

Link was also not amused. He charged to the bow of the airboat, seized Mickey Cray by the seat of his pants and heaved him like a sack of cement into the water.

The director crammed a knuckle into his mouth to stifle a laugh. Wahoo’s father, who was an excellent swimmer, began paddling on his back in a circle, like a lazy otter.

“Paradise,” he said.

Derek snapped two fingers at Raven, who told the driver to start the engine.

Link grinned, showing more gums than teeth. “We be gone.”

“But what about Mr. Cray?” Tuna cried.

Considering Link’s temper, Wahoo decided his father was probably safer in the water than he was on the boat.

“Don’t worry about Pop,” he said, repositioning his earmuffs. “He’ll find his way.”

The crew of Expedition Survival! was using Sickler’s Jungle Outpost and Juice Bar because Raven Stark’s request to base the program in Everglades National Park had been rejected. A secretary for the park superintendent had informed Raven that, because of the earlier egg-robbing incident at Yellowstone, Derek Badger had been blackballed from the entire federal park system.

“For how long?” Raven had asked.

“Eternity,” the secretary had replied politely.

Sickler’s place turned out to be a convenient one for scouting video locations using airboats. The director of Expedition Survival! selected for the first camp a tree island, far out of sight of the highway. The island was surrounded by a natural moat that was shallow enough to wade, but then the crew encountered a fierce tangle of thorny vines and clawing shrubs. It required tough work with sharp blades to hack a path into the cool canopy of the interior.

Sickler’s boat drivers spent the remainder of the afternoon shuttling back and forth between the dock and the campsite, hauling the TV crew’s tents, provisions and gear. Wahoo and Tuna found some shade on the porch of the souvenir shop and waited there for Mickey to return. They made small talk and avoided the topic of fathers.

Tuna captured a brilliant green anole lizard and helped Wahoo memorize its scientific name, Anolis carolinensis, which was a mouthful.

Then, out of nowhere, she asked, “You got a girlfriend, Lance?”

“Please quit calling me that.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“No, Lucille, I do not have a girlfriend.”

“How come?”

“ ’Cause I’m too busy.”

“Oh please. Boys are never too busy for girls,” Tuna said.

Wahoo was desperate to change the subject. He had told her the truth-he’d never had a real girlfriend. Most of his time, outside of school and sports, was spent tending his father’s animals. It was a high-maintenance, two-man operation.

“I had a boyfriend once,” Tuna volunteered. “His name was Chad and he could do a hundred push-ups. Unfortunately, he had the personality of a cabbage, so I dumped him.”

“Dumped him where?”

“Ha-ha,” she said. “Aren’t you ever gonna tell me what happened to your thumb?”

Wahoo was thrilled to be talking about something else, even a foolish injury. “Alice ate it,” he said. “My fault, totally.”

“Can I see?”

Without waiting for permission, Tuna reached over and took his right hand. She touched two fingers to the bony scar in such a gentle and curious manner that Wahoo didn’t mind at all. The delicate lizard, which she’d placed like a green brooch on the collar of her camo coat, jumped to the deck of the porch and disappeared between the planks.

“If we lose this job,” Wahoo said, “the bank’s going to take our house.” He was startled to realize he was holding her hand, and she was squeezing back. “Yesterday they left a message on my cell phone. Actually, it’s our cell phone. Me and Pop share.”

Tuna puffed her cheeks in sympathy. “I know all about banks. That’s how we ended up living at the Walmart. But here’s the difference, Lance: nobody’s drinking up your mortgage money the way my old man did. At least your dad’s out there trying.”

“You saw what happened on the airboat today-it’s only a matter of time before he gets us fired from the show.”

“No, he won’t,” Tuna said, “because we won’t let that happen.”

“You don’t know him like I do.”

“And you don’t know me.” She smiled and let go of his hand. “Now look sharp. You’ve got company.”

Raven Stark marched up the steps of the porch and asked to speak with Wahoo privately. Tuna departed with an impish wave, leaving Wahoo stranded.

“Listen to me, young man,” Raven began sternly. “Your father’s pushing his luck…”

The remainder of her lecture was drowned by the rising whine of a helicopter revving. Raven glanced irritably over her shoulder. Turning back to Wahoo, she shook a finger and mouthed the words, “One more chance, buster!” Then she bustled off toward the vacant lot where the chopper carrying Derek Badger was preparing to depart.

Wahoo heard someone call his name and he jogged down to the water. The director and a few remaining crew members were waiting in Link’s airboat to be ferried to the campsite for the night. Tuna had saved a place for Wahoo in the bow. He picked up his backpack and stepped aboard.

“What about your dad?” she said.

One look at Link and Wahoo knew there was no point in asking him to wait; the guy didn’t want Mickey on his boat again. Link unhitched the dock rope and climbed up in the driver’s perch, slapping a hairy left hand on the steering stick. He turned the ignition, and with his right foot he pumped the gas pedal, revving the engine.

Instantly the large propeller began to turn. The airboat eased along briefly before gathering speed and shooting forward through the grassy, cinnamon-tipped sedge. Link took the first bend fast, producing a steep sideways slide that never failed to delight the tourists. For balance Tuna locked arms with Wahoo, who would have enjoyed the moment had he not been distracted by an object that appeared dead ahead in their path, no more than a hundred yards away.

“Stop!” Wahoo yelled as they flew closer, but Link couldn’t hear him over the engine. It seemed impossible that from his elevated seat the driver didn’t see what Wahoo-and now the others-plainly did:

A bare-chested man stretched out upon a black, knobby object, which he was paddling like a surfboard across the water.

“Look out!” Tuna hollered.

By now, the other passengers were waving and shouting, too. Yet the airboat wasn’t veering away or even slowing down. Link sat erect and stone-faced as the wind made his grungy hair dance.

Psycho! Wahoo thought. Shaking free of Tuna, he yanked off his backpack, raised it above his head with both hands and hurled it at the control deck.

Somehow he got lucky. The flying satchel knocked Link’s boot off the gas pedal, sending the boat into a sputtering stall. It skimmed to a halt only a few feet from Mickey Cray, who calmly grabbed on and hauled himself aboard.

“Howdy, pilgrims,” he said.

The other riders sat speechless. Their disbelieving eyes went back and forth from the dripping, shirtless man to the bizarre craft upon which he’d been traveling-a stuffed alligator bolted to a log.

“Anybody got a towel?” Mickey inquired.

Wahoo said, “Sit down, Pop.”

Link was glaring at both of them. “Yeah. Sit your butt down.”

Passing overhead, Raven Stark peered out the window of a rented Bell 407 helicopter and tried to make sense of the strange scene below. Sitting in front of her was Derek Badger, who was preoccupied by other matters.

“Call the hotel,” he told Raven through her headphones. “Tell them to move me to a room with a Jacuzzi. Chop-chop!”