Chomp (13 page)

The cameraman in the director’s airboat eased carefully into the water. He was toting an expensive Steadicam that allowed him to wade beside Derek while shooting, with very little motion or bumpiness in the picture.

“Everybody ready?” the director hollered. “And … action!”

Derek said, “Wait! What’s my line?”

Raven stood ready with a copy of the script. “Your line is:
I’ve been fighting my way through this swamp for four, possibly five hours straight—I’ve lost track of the time
.”

“Right,” said Derek. “Let’s do it.”

“Take two. Action!”

“I’ve been fighting my way through this swamp for hours and hours—I’ve lost all track of time.…”

When he got to the part where he was supposed to feel something swim between his legs, Derek stopped. The director brusquely motioned for Mickey to get in the water.

“Where’s your scaly little pal, Mr. Cray?”

“Right here. What’s my cue?”

“The line is:
Ah! There it goes again!
That’s when you release the snake near Derek.”

“No problem.”

“And be sure to keep your paws out of the shot!” Derek interjected.

Wahoo thought:
Uh-oh. Here we go
.

Yet somehow his father remained calm. “All due respect, Mr. Beaver, this ain’t my first rodeo,” he said mildly.

“It’s Badger, not Beaver!”

Gently Mickey removed the newly named Fang from inside his shirt. Its reddish tongue flicked inquisitively as the snake coiled around Mickey’s forearm.

Hearing a distant rumble of thunder, Wahoo and Tuna glanced up at the darkening sky.

The director looked, too. He clapped and said, “Okay, ready? Three, two, one and … action!”

Derek continued:

“I just felt something slither between my ankles! It was either an eel or a snake, hopefully not a poisonous one. The Everglades is literally crawling with deadly cottonmouth moccasins. One bite, even from a baby, and I could be a dead man
.

“Ah-ha! There it goes again!”

Reptiles are cold-blooded, which means their energy and alertness vary greatly depending on the temperature. During periods of chilly weather, a snake’s metabolism slows down, and it becomes sluggish and sleepy. The warmer the air, the more active and lively it becomes.

By letting the banded water snake rest for so long against his skin, a comfortable 98.6 degrees, Mickey Cray had made sure the creature would be wide awake and full of attitude by
the time he released it back into the pond. He also knew it would not take kindly to being grabbed again.

“Gotcha!”
Derek crowed, carelessly snatching the snake by its middle.

From that moment on, the script was in tatters.

As Mickey had anticipated, Fang went nuts. First it bit Derek on one arm, then it bit him on the other. It bit him on a knuckle. It bit him on a wrist. It even bit him on the chin.

“Crikey!” he whimpered over and over, but he wouldn’t let go of it.

Tuna pressed against Wahoo’s shoulder. “Wow” was all she said.

The director was so stunned by what he saw that he forgot to yell “Cut!” Sitting behind him in the airboat, Raven Stark hunched down and covered her eyes.

Meanwhile, the cameraman toting the Steadicam dutifully zoomed in on the bloodbath. Derek struggled in vain to gain control of the twisting, squirming, snapping reptile while at the same time he tried to recite his lines:

“Looks like it’s not—ouch!—your lucky day, mate.”

His determination to kill and eat his supercharged captive was fading with each new puncture wound. Still, he labored to keep a brave face for his TV fans.

“Dinner!”
Derek squeaked unconvincingly. Then: “Aaaggghhh!”

Nerodia fasciata
had found one of his thumbs and begun to chew.

Derek flapped his wounded hand and toppled backward, producing a barrel-sized splash. By the time three guys from the crew had fished him out, he was spitting up pond water and the snake was long gone.

“Good Fang,” Mickey said quietly.

Tuna looked at Wahoo, and Wahoo looked away, trying hard not to laugh.

Derek Badger was rushed back to the camp, where his bite marks—tiny but numerous—were slathered with antibiotic cream. He was so shaken by his battle with the feisty water snake that he declared he was finished for the day.

“Call the chopper,” he said to Raven. “I’m going back to the hotel.”

She informed him that the helicopter was grounded in Miami due to bad weather.

“That’s ridiculous,” Derek said just as a wave of thunder grumbled ominously in the western sky.

“They can’t fly in lightning. It’s too dangerous,” said Raven.

“Dangerous? Ha! Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”

When Mickey Cray approached, Derek held out his arms to display the result of the reptile’s attack.

Mickey said, “That’s what happens when you go raw.”

“But you’re the wrangler! We’re paying you big bucks to control these animals.”

“Look, Mr. Beaver—”

“Stop calling me that!”

“There’s no such thing as a snake whisperer,” said Mickey.
“I have some fat, sleepy ones back home that wouldn’t nip even if you tied them in a knot. But you wanted wild, and wild is what you got.”

Derek jutted his chin to reveal yet another U-shaped series of dot-sized punctures, which glistened from the medicine cream. “This is all your fault, Cray!”

Mickey felt no urge to apologize. He turned his attention to Raven.

“So what’s next? You want me to trap a raccoon? Or maybe a skunk?”

“We’re taking a break,” she said.

“Good plan. There’s some heavy-duty weather moving in.”

Derek muttered, “Thanks for the bulletin.” Then, to Raven: “Try the chopper pilot one more time. Make it fast.”

Mickey returned to his mini-camp, swallowed a couple of Tuna’s headache pills and stretched out on his sleeping bag for a nap. To prepare for the oncoming downpour, Wahoo and Tuna were staking a blue plastic tarp over the fire pit so the wood stayed dry. Just as they finished the job, a double flash of lightning lit up the clouds. A blistering crack of thunder followed.

The airboats all took off toward Sickler’s dock. Minutes later, the wind kicked up and the rain began to fall hard. Wahoo and Tuna scrambled into her tent and closed the flap, the squall drumming loudly on the canvas.

Outside, another heron squawked between thunderclaps,
prompting Tuna to remark: “That would be
Ardea herodias
, commenting on the foul weather.”

Wahoo was mystified by this odd talent of hers. He said, “How many Latin names have you memorized?”

“I don’t know—a couple hundred maybe.”

“But why?”

“Because I like to,” she said. “Every single species on earth has been classified that way by science. I’ll never learn them all, but I’m gonna try.”

Wahoo couldn’t get over it. “My brain hurts when I’ve got to memorize one little poem for English class. What’s the secret?”

“I told you. I study a lot.” Tuna paused to wait out another roll of thunder. “Before the bank took our house, I’d just go in my room, lock the door and start Googling like a fiend. Some nights I worked on insects. Other nights it might be fish or amphibians, whatever. I’d sit there and say their scientific names over and over again until they stuck in my head.”

“Too much like homework. I couldn’t do it,” Wahoo said.

“Sure you could—if your old man was trashed out of his skull and acting like a maniac. Then you’d find a place of your own to hide,” she said, “and something to keep your mind off all the craziness.”

Wahoo felt his face turn hot and he thought he might be sick. He excused himself with a mumble and pawed his way
out of the tent. Sucking raw shallow breaths, he began walking nowhere in particular, through the teeth of the storm.

The rain lashed his cheeks, and soon his clothes were soaked. Fingers of blue lightning split the sky, but he never flinched; he just kept tromping like a zombie. Tuna’s story had made him feel angry and guilty at the same time—angry at her father for hurting her, and guilty because his own life was so good, so easy. Compared to hers, Wahoo’s world was paradise, a day at the beach. Nobody ever got drunk and tore up the house. Nobody ever punched him in the eye.

“Get out of the rain, for heaven’s sake!”

“What?” Wahoo looked up and realized he was standing in the main camp.

Raven Stark motioned for him to come under the big fabric awning where the catering service was headquartered. Most of the crew members had gathered there to wait out the storm, which had somehow failed to disturb a single red hair on Raven’s head.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked Wahoo. “All we need is for you to get barbecued by a lightning bolt. Then your crazy father would sue us.”

Wahoo was still in a sad daze. “Where’s Mr. Badger?”

“Over there.” Raven waved toward a white hexagonal tent that was being puckered by gusts of wind. The entrance had been zippered tight. “He’ll come out after the thunder stops,” she said. “Here, put this on before you catch cold.”

She gave Wahoo a shiny blue weather jacket that had
the
Expedition Survival!
logo stenciled in gold lettering on the front. He peeled out of his dripping shirt and wrapped the jacket around his bare shoulders.

On a nearby table sat a telephone in a black case that looked waterproof.

“Do you get a signal way out here?” Wahoo asked.

Raven said, “It’s a satellite phone, dear. I could get a signal on Mount Everest.”

“Can I borrow it?”

She looked amused by the request. “Exactly who are you going to call?”

“Please?”

“Sit down, young man.”

As she toweled off his hair, Wahoo groped through his pockets until he located the piece of paper with the number written on it. The paper was wet, so he opened it slowly to keep it from falling apart.

Raven removed the phone from the case and turned it on.

“I’ll pay you back,” Wahoo said.

“No worries. This is a company phone.”

He handed her the number. “It’s in China,” he whispered. “Look, whatever it costs, you take the money out of my paycheck.”

She smiled skeptically. “Who can you possibly know in China?”

“My mom. She’s working there.”

“Doing what?”

“She’s a language teacher.”

Fortunately, Raven seemed to believe him. She checked her watch and said, “Your mother’s probably sleeping now. It’s the middle of the night in that part of the world.”

Wahoo nodded. “Yeah, I know. Please?”

The thunderstorm was sliding to the east, and the rain had softened to a drizzle.

As Raven dialed the number, she said, “Let me tell you a secret: I use this phone to call my mom back home every day, no matter where I am.”

“Where does she live?” Wahoo asked. From Raven’s accent, he figured it was someplace exotic, like South Africa or New Zealand.

“Fairhope, Alabama,” said Raven.

“You sure don’t sound like you’re from Alabama.”

She handed the satellite phone to him. “Ten minutes, okay?”

Susan Cray wasn’t sleeping; she was sitting up in bed, staring at a bulky old-fashioned telephone. When it rang, she knew who was calling even before she answered.

Ever since Wahoo was little, he and his mom had shared an unusual mental connection that was almost telepathic. One day, in kindergarten, he’d fallen on the playground and received a nasty gash on his head. Susan Cray had arrived at the school before the ambulance did—before, in fact, Wahoo’s teacher had phoned to tell her about the accident.
Susan had confided to her son that a strange and anxious sensation had swept over her at work, and that she’d known instantly that he needed her.

The same thing had happened on the afternoon that Alice the alligator accidentally ate Wahoo’s thumb. Susan Cray had arrived at the house right behind the paramedics—and no one had called her about the mishap.

When she picked up the phone in Shanghai, the first thing she said was: “What happened?”

“Nothing, Mom. I just called to say hi.”

“Well, that’s very sweet,” said Susan Cray, “but I don’t believe you.”

“I’m fine. Pop’s fine. The job is going … okay.”

“But what?”

“I didn’t say ‘but’ anything,” Wahoo noted.

“You don’t have to. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Okay, there’s this girl—”

His mother groaned.

“Mom, come on.”

“I’m listening.”

“She sort of ran off with me and Pop.”

“Sort of?”

“Her dad beat her up,” Wahoo said.

Susan Cray was silent on the other end.

“Her mom’s gone. She didn’t have anywhere else to go.” Wahoo was still waiting for a response. When he didn’t get one, he said, “So we brought her along on the job. She’s out here in the Glades with us.”

Finally his mother spoke. “How old is your new friend?”

“She’s in my same grade at school.”

“Your father should have called the police.”

“He wanted to,” Wahoo said. “But if they locked up her old man, she’d be all alone. Mom, they live in the Walmart parking lot.”

“Get out.”

“I’m serious. In a crappy old RV.”

Susan Cray said, “The police wouldn’t let her stay there alone. They’d find someone to take care of her.”

“You mean, like foster parents?”

“Or family. Doesn’t she have any aunts or uncles?”

Wahoo said he hadn’t asked.

“Well, find out.”

“This wasn’t the first time it happened. Her dad, he drinks all the time.”

“That’s awful.”

“It’s hard to listen to her tell about it.” Wahoo heard his voice quaver and he thought,
What’s the matter with me?

His mother said, “She needs somebody to talk with. You have to be strong.”

“I know. It’s just …”

“Just what?”

“She’s
little
, Mom. I don’t understand how a person could do that to their own kid. He slugged her with his fist!”

On the other end, Wahoo’s mother sighed. He could picture her expression.

“You can’t make sense of it,” she said, “so don’t even try. There are some seriously messed-up people in this world.”