Flush

FIFTEEN

Mom and Dad left on their “hot date” at exactly a quarter to seven. The Coral Queen opened for business at eight, so Abbey and I didn't have a moment to spare.

We rode our bikes to Rado's house and jumped the wooden fence, which turned out to be a real bad idea. Rado and his parents were still vacationing in Colorado (which I knew), but they'd left Godzilla at home in the backyard (which I didn't know).

Godzilla isn't the world's smartest dog, but he's the biggest I've ever seen. Rado says he's “part rottweiler, part Newfoundland, and part grizzly bear.” He easily outweighed my sister and me put together, and he wasn't all that happy to see us.

“Good dog,” I said in the calmest voice I could fake.

“Nice try,” whispered Abbey, “but we're still gonna die.”

Godzilla had cornered us against the fence, and we didn't dare make a move. I was hoping the beast remembered me although it probably wouldn't matter, if the neighbors had forgotten to feed him. Abbey would be the appetizer and I'd be the main course.

“Here, boy,” I said, holding out my right hand.

“Are you crazy?” Abbey hissed.

“Dogs never forget the smell of a person they've met.”

“Says who?”

“Says the Animal Planet, that's who. They did a whole show on dogs' noses,” I said.

“Yeah, well, obviously you missed the episode on dogs' teeth.”

But Godzilla didn't chomp off my hand. He sniffed it suspiciously and nudged it with his moist snout. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't shaking.

“Noah, his tail's not wagging,” Abbey said under her breath.

“Thanks for the bulletin.”

“If he bites you, I'm biting him.”

“Easy, girl,” I said.

They say you can look into a dog's eyes and know whether he's friendly or not. Unfortunately, I couldn't see Godzilla's eyes because they were hidden beneath thick tangles of black Newfoundland hair. A pearly string of drool hung from his mouth, which meant he was either hot or hungry, or possibly both.

With my left hand I fished into my pants and took out a green apple that I'd brought along for a snack.

Abbey grunted. “Noah, you've got to be kidding. Dogs don't eat fruit!”

“It's the best I can do, unless you've got a sirloin steak in your backpack.” I held out the apple and said, “Here, boy. Yum!”

Godzilla cocked his anchor-sized head and let out a snort.

“It's a Granny Smith,” I said, as if he actually understood. “Go on and try it. It tastes good.”

“Yeah, if you're a squirrel,” my sister muttered.

But to our total amazement the huge dog opened his huge jaws and clamped down his huge fangs on the apple, which he firmly tugged from my trembling hand.

As Godzilla trotted away with his prize, I said to Abbey, “Check out his tail.”

It was wagging cheerfully.

Abbey and I hurried toward the canal, where Rado kept a blue dinghy tied to the seawall. His father had salvaged the little boat off a scuttled motor yacht and patched up the fiberglass as good as new. It wasn't more than ten feet long, but it was dry and sturdy, with high sides and a deep hull. Rado, Thom, and I often took it out on calm days to snorkel around the bridges.

When we climbed into the dinghy, I tossed Abbey one of the life vests. She insisted she didn't need it, but I told her we weren't going anywhere until she put it on.

Next I gave her a quick lesson on cranking the outboard motor. It was an ancient little Evinrude that could be stubborn before it warmed up. I showed Abbey how to use both hands to yank the starter cord, which was tricky. If you didn't let go in time, the pull-back could wrench you off balance and spin you overboard.

After a half dozen hard tugs, the motor spluttered to life in a burp of purple smoke. Rado's dad always made sure the gas can was full, but I checked anyway, just in case. Getting stranded would be a total disaster.

My sister moved to the front of the dinghy and untied the bow rope. I unhitched the ropes and shoved off.

“Ready?” I asked her.

“Absolutely,” she said, and flashed me a double thumbs-up.

As we cruised slowly toward the mouth of the canal, I glanced back and saw Godzilla watching us from the seawall. He barked once, but the noise was muffled by the juicy green apple still clenched in his jaws.

Growing up near the ocean, you learn about some strange superstitions. For instance, lots of fishing captains won't let you bring a ripe banana on board because they believe it's bad luck. Nobody knows how that one got started, but Dad told me it's been around the docks since before Grandpa Bobby's time.

Another superstition is that dolphins bring good luck, so I was glad to spot a school of them herding baitfish as Abbey and I motored up the shoreline. By counting the dorsal fins, we figured out there were six grown-up dolphins and one baby-and they were having a blast, zipping in frothy circles, tossing mullets high in the air. I don't know if they're really a good omen, but seeing wild dolphins always makes me feel better. Any other time I would have stopped the boat to watch them play, but Abbey and I were in a hurry.

It stays light pretty late during the summer, so it was a clear ride to Dusty Muleman's marina. By the time we reached the channel markers, the waves had gotten choppy. I nosed the dinghy into some mangroves, cut the engine, and hopped out, balancing in my skateboard shoes on the slick rubbery roots. My sister dug through her backpack and took out a bottle of Gatorade, some bug spray, a Lemony Snicket book, and a flashlight. Then she handed the backpack to me.

“Sure you're okay with this?” I asked. “I'll be gone awhile.”

“Oh, gimme a break,” Abbey said. “'Course I'm okay.”

“Stay right here until you hear me yell ‘Geronimo!' Then you know what to do.”

“Why ‘Geronimo'?” she asked.

“Because I saw somebody do that in a movie once.”

“What the heck does it mean?”

“It means ‘Hurry up and rescue me before I get my butt kicked by Dusty's big ugly goon,'” I said. “No more questions, okay? Keep out of sight and I'll see you later.”

As I began working my way toward the docks, I heard Abbey call out, “Be careful, Noah!”

I waved over my shoulder, but I didn't look back.

By the time I broke free of the mangroves, my shoes were soaking wet and my shins were scraped from the barnacle-covered roots. Crouching low, I dashed across a clearing and ducked behind Dusty Muleman's ticket shed. There on the ground, side by side, were the two large crates that Shelly had told me to look for.

Peeking around a corner of the shack, I saw that the parking area was filling up with cars. Customers were already lined up to board the Coral Queen. There weren't any kids in the crowd because kids weren't allowed on the casino boat; that's why I had to be so careful.

Using the sharp edge of a rock, I pried the lid off the first wooden crate. It was full of liquor bottles-rum from Haiti, according to the labels. Silently I replaced the cover and moved to the other crate.

As Shelly had promised, it was empty. I squeezed inside and dragged the heavy lid back into place. In order to fit I had to lie flat and pull my knees to my chest. Abbey's backpack, stuffed with containers of food dye, served as a lumpy pillow under my head. I was so cramped it felt like I was hiding in one of those magician's boxes, pretending to be disappeared.

The crate was dark and musty inside. At first I was afraid I couldn't breathe, but soon I felt whispers of air seeping under the lid. I took a few gulps, closed my eyes, and began to wait.

Before long I heard the scuff of footsteps and then the low sounds of men talking. The first voice I didn't recognize, but the thick accent of the second one was unmistakable: It was Dusty's bald gorilla, Luno.

The men grunted as they hoisted the first crate and hauled it off to the Coral Queen. By the time they returned, my heart was thumping like a jackhammer. Luno lifted one end of my crate while his companion grabbed the other. I went rigid and held my breath. I could hear them swearing and complaining about the weight.

With every step, the crate tipped and lurched and bounced. I knew I'd be dead meat if the lid fell off, so I dug my fingernails into the wooden slats to keep it in place.

Finally, the goons set me down with a jolting thud, and I knew I was on the boat. Once they were gone, I seriously thought about kicking my way out of that miserable wooden tomb. I could have done it, no problem, except that I'd promised Shelly to stay put until she got there.

So I waited some more.

And waited. And waited.

The Coral Queen was getting noisy as the customers piled aboard. Nobody else came near the crate, though, so I figured I must be in a storage area behind a wall or a door. Wherever it was, there was definitely no air-conditioning.

Before long I was sweating like a horse, and my throat was as dry as sawdust. I wondered how much longer I could stand it inside that moldy old box.

It seemed like I was cooped up for hours, but it probably wasn't even twenty minutes before Shelly tapped three times on the side. She helped me climb out and handed me a cold bottle of water-nothing in my whole life had ever tasted so good. I hugged her, tangerine perfume and all. That's how grateful I was.

She put a finger to her lips and motioned for me to follow. It was impossible not to notice that she was wearing those wild fishnet stockings and tippy high-heeled shoes that made her about five inches taller than normal. She led me along a dim corridor that opened onto one of the busy casino decks. The noise hit me like a roar-the slot machines clanging, people laughing and hooting, some lame calypso band mangling a Jimmy Buffett song.

“There it is, Noah.” Shelly pointed to a door. On it hung a hand-carved sign that spelled out the word “Mermaids.”

“Don't move,” she told me, and promptly disappeared into the stall. Seconds later the door cracked open, and Shelly's blond head poked out. She looked around warily, then signaled for me to join her.

Inside the ladies' restroom.

So I did. The two of us could barely fit.

“Where's the stuff?” she whispered.

I patted Abbey's backpack. The day before, Shelly and I had divided the stash of food coloring: seventeen bottles for me, seventeen for her.

“You got the sign?” I asked.

She smiled and held it up for me to see: a square piece of cardboard on which she had printed in capital letters with a jet-black marker: OUT OF ORDER.

“Guaranteed privacy,” she assured me.

“But what about you?” I was worried that she wouldn't have a safe place to flush her supply of the dye.

“There's another Mermaids' john up front. I'll use that one for my potty breaks.”

“But what if somebody's already in there?” I asked.

“Then I'll crash the Mermen's.”

“The men's room? You serious?”

Shelly shrugged. “Hey, who's gonna stop me?”

She had a point. “I gotta get back to the bar,” she said. “Billy Babcock's waitin' on me all moony-eyed. Poor sap thinks he's in love.” She gave my shoulder a friendly tweak. “Good luck, young Underwood.”

“You, too, Shelly.”

I locked the door the instant it closed. As soon as I heard her tack up the OUT OF ORDER sign, I unzipped Abbey's backpack and removed the dye bottles.

The head on a boat is basically a glorified closet, with barely enough room to sit and do your business. This one smelled like a mixture of stale beer, Clorox bleach, and Shelly's fruity perfume, but it was still less obnoxious than most public commodes.

And as uncomfortable as it was, it was way better than being sealed up inside a liquor crate.

For a moment I wondered what my father would have thought if he could see me there, locked in the Mermaids' head on the Coral Queen. The parent part of him would have been mad at me for sneaking aboard, while the nature-loving part of him would have been proud of me for trying to nail Dusty Muleman.

Knowing Dad, he would've had one firm piece of advice: Don't get caught!

When I opened the first bottle of food coloring, I saw that Shelly was right. The gel oozed out like molasses. Carefully I squeezed the plastic container until every gooey purple drop landed in the toilet hole.

Then I gave a good hard flush to make sure the dye went where it was supposed to go. Shelly had warned me that the stuff could get gummy pretty quick. If it stuck in the plumbing pipes, our plan would be ruined.

There was only one way to check it out. I knelt down, pinched my nose, and peered into the nasty depths of the head. Not a speck of fuchsia could be seen.

So far, so good.

One bottle down, sixteen to go.

Time passes incredibly slowly when you're trapped in a restroom.

Whenever I got ready to make a break, people would stop in loud groups outside the door-talking, laughing, singing along to the music.

I was dying to get out of there, but I had to be patient. I had to wait for a lull.

I kept thinking of Abbey, alone in Rado's dinghy, reading her book by flashlight. Even though there were no dangerous wild animals in the mangroves, I was afraid she might get spooked by some of the freaky night noises. If you've never heard two raccoons fighting before, you'd swear it was a chainsaw massacre.

When I wasn't worrying about my sister, I was thinking about what else was happening on board the Coral Queen. With so much partying, the other toilets were probably getting flushed nonstop. If Dusty Muleman pulled his usual trick, all that raw waste would be streaming out of the basin later.

It made me mad, which was good. I needed to stay mad in order to do what I had to. Every two or three minutes I looked at my watch, wondering why the hands weren't moving faster.

Mom and Dad were probably still at dinner. Afterward they were supposed to go to a late movie in Tavernier. That meant they'd be home around twelve-thirty, so Abbey and I had to be back at the house and in bed before then.

The Coral Queen closed at midnight. If I waited until then to slip away, we'd have less than thirty minutes to run the dinghy back to Rado's dock, grab our bikes, and race home. I didn't like the odds because it was dark on the water and the dinghy was slow. I also didn't like the idea of three more hours in the ladies' room.

I decided to make a run for it, crowds and all, and pray that nobody would try to catch me. Shelly had said that most of the regular customers were so heavy into the gambling that a rhinoceros could get loose on board and they wouldn't care. I hoped she was right.

Quietly I gathered up the empty dye bottles-the only evidence that could ever incriminate me-and stowed them in Abbey's backpack.

But as I reached out and unlocked the door, the metal handle began to jiggle violently. Somebody was trying to get into the head.

I grabbed the handle with both hands and braced my shoes against the sink.

“Hey, open up!” demanded a croaky female voice. “I gotta go!”

Either she didn't see the OUT OF ORDER sign, or she was so desperate that it didn't matter. From outside came a heavy grunt, and the handle was nearly yanked from my grip.

The door opened no more than two inches, but it was enough to give me a startling peek at the intruder. She looked about eighty-five in both age and weight, which wasn't what I expected. She was pulling so ferociously on the door that I wouldn't have been surprised to see a three-hundred-pound sumo wrestler on the other side.

“You open up right this second!” the old woman squawked. “I gotta go now!”

She wore a shiny copper-colored wig that fit like a helmet. Her face was caked with powdery makeup, and her sparkly fake eyelashes were longer than a camel's. A cigarette dangled from parrotfish lips that were puffy and painted the color of sliced mangoes.

“Can't you read the sign?” I asked through the crack.

“What sign, Einstein?”

That's when I spotted the piece of cardboard between her feet on the scuffed floor. Shelly's tack must have come loose.

“Hey, you're not even a Mermaid!” the old woman snapped, spitting her cigarette. “Get outta that bathroom 'fore I call Security.”

It took all my strength to pull the door shut.

“You little sicko!” She let out a string of cuss words that would have put my Grandma Janet into cardiac arrest.

“Go away,” I pleaded. “This is an emergency.”

“Emergency? I'll show you a damn emergency.” The parrotfish lady pounded at the flimsy door with her bony fists. “My bladder's about to blow like Mount Saint Helen, you hear me, young man?”

Now she was shouting like a maniac. I knew it wouldn't be long before a crew member came running to see what was wrong.

“Listen up, you brat,” the woman said. “I'm gonna count to five and then I'm bustin' in-and you better not be sittin' on that john when I do. You read me, junior? It ain't gonna be pretty.”

“Please don't,” I said, but it was hopeless.

“One! Two!…”

There was no other choice. I stood up from the toilet, put on the backpack, and lowered one shoulder. When the nasty old buzzard barked “Five!” I crashed out the door, ducked under her flailing, twig-sized arms, and took off running.

Nobody would've paid much attention if she hadn't started shrieking: “Catch him! Catch that rotten little pervert!”

Luckily, I'm pretty fast and not real tall, so I was able to dodge and weave through the legs of the gamblers. A few of them glanced up, and one or two actually made a lame grab for my shirt. Fortunately, most of them had been celebrating hard and were in no condition to chase after me.

Shelly's eyes got as wide as saucers when I flew past the bar. A bleary, leathery-faced man who I assumed was Billy Babcock spun on his stool and exclaimed, “Is that a kid on the boat?”

I headed topside. An angry yell rose from behind me, and I turned to see two humongous guys in hot pursuit. They looked seriously ticked off. Each wore a tight red T-shirt with the words EVENT STAFF silk-screened across the front.

Shelly had warned me about them-the bouncers.

They bellowed at me to stop, but that wasn't going to happen. I scampered to the upper deck and ran straight for the bow. Reflected below, in the glassy basin, were the twinkling, Christmassy lights of the Coral Queen.

It was a long way down to the water; longer than I'd imagined.

“Game's over,” a voice said.

I turned to face the bouncers, 400-odd pounds of meat and muscle. Panting from the chase, they wore cocky grins. They thought they had me cornered, but they were wrong.

One of them beckoned with a beefy finger. “Let's go, boy.”

I kicked off my shoes and stuffed them into Abbey's backpack.

The other one spoke up: “Chill out, shrimp. Don't try anything stupid.”

After that “shrimp” remark, I couldn't resist messing with them. “If I fall overboard and drown,” I said, “you guys are in deep trouble.”

“Yeah, right.”

“My mom and dad'll sue Mr. Muleman for every cent he's got, so you'd better watch it.”

The bouncers looked at each other and their smiles faded.

While they huddled to discuss their next move, I ducked under the railing and edged into position. I purposely didn't look down again.

One of the goons took a step toward me. “Whaddya think you're doin'? You nuts?” he asked.

They were getting ready to rush me, I could tell.

“Move away from there!” ordered the other bouncer, also moving forward. “You're gonna break your fool neck.”

“I wasn't planning on it,” I said.

Something like panic showed in their pudgy, squinting faces. They figured they'd lose their jobs, or worse, if they let something bad happen to me.

One of the men whipped out a walkie-talkie and held it close to his mouth. “Luno! Better come check this out!”

“Yeah, tell him to hurry,” the other man said. “This kid's a real space case.”

It was definitely time to go.

The bouncers reached out and lunged, but I was already in the air, falling sweetly to freedom.

Or so I told myself as I hollered, “Geronimo!”