Chomp j-4 Read online

  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.”

  Raven Stark reappeared at Wahoo’s side and tapped her wristwatch. He held up a finger, seeking one more minute on the satellite phone.

  Susan Cray was saying, “When this job is over, you and your dad should take your friend to the police station so she can report what happened.”

  “But the black eye might be gone by then.”

  “They’ll still believe her. They’d better believe her.”

  “Miss you, Mom.”

  “I miss you, too, big guy. What’s her name? Your new friend.”

  “It’s not important.”

  “Are you kidding? Tell me.”

  Wahoo braced himself. “They call her Tuna.”

  Susan Cray laughed warmly. “Wahoo and Tuna! Maybe it’s fate.”

  “I knew you’d think that was funny.”

  “Hey, you’ve got to admit. It’s quite a fishy coincidence.”

  “I’d better go now,” said Wahoo. “This lady needs her phone back.”

  “Not before you tell me how your father’s doing?”

  “Much better, Mom. Really.”

  “Does that mean he’s behaving himself?”

  “Well,” Wahoo replied carefully, “we haven’t been fired yet.”

  The weather got worse, not better. One band of thunder-showers was followed by another, and then another. Late in the afternoon, Derek Badger emerged from his private luxury tent and glared at the roiling sky.

  “Still no chopper?” he said peevishly to Raven Stark.

  “It doesn’t look good,” she allowed, which was an understatement. The radar app on the director’s iPhone showed a series of flame-orange waves sweeping in from the west.

  “The helicopter can’t possibly take off or land in this mess.”

  “Then how am I supposed to get back to the hotel?” Derek protested.

  Sometimes Raven was surprised by her own patience. “It doesn’t look good,” she said again. “We might be spending the night out here with the crew.”

  Predictably, Derek pitched a tantrum, cursing and hollering like a brat. He drop-kicked a plastic bottle of mosquito repellent into the woods. He dumped a tray of turkey sandwiches into the mud. He snapped off a dead oak branch and hurled it wildly, inconveniently slicing a hole in his own tent.

  And of course he vowed to fire the helicopter pilot for insubordination.

  The childish performance ended abruptly when a spear of lightning struck no more than a hundred yards from the camp. Derek turned gray and retreated into his leaky quarters, where he cowered until nightfall.

  Dinner was served late, during a break in the storm-braised chicken, wild rice, buttermilk rolls and a garden salad. The wondrous aroma was too much for Derek, who crept out of his tent and joined the others beneath the caterer’s canopy. The wicks of the tiki torches were too soggy to hold a flame, and no one had thought to stockpile dry wood, so the crew members built a fire using folding chairs that they tore apart with hammers.

  After his third helping of chicken and rice, Derek croaked out a burp and asked, “What’s for dessert?”

  “Cheesecake,” the chef replied, “with bing cherries.”

  Derek beamed. “Hallelujah! Bring it to baby.”

  Firmly, Raven said, “One small slice for you.” She was scoping out his gut, a bulging orb that threatened to bust the buttons off his safari shirt.

  “Oh, lighten up, Mother,” he said. “After the terrible day I’ve had, I deserve to eat as much as I please.”

  His attack on the cheesecake was a gross spectacle. Raven could only stare in disgust. The director and the cameramen turned their backs on the scene; someone broke out a deck of cards, and a game of gin rummy was organized.

  By the time Derek finished gorging, there wasn’t a crumb on the platter. His snakebitten chin was shining from the creamy combination of cake goo and antibiotic ointment. He dabbed a paper napkin to his mouth and nodded at Raven.

  “The scene we shot this afternoon,” he said in a half whisper, “did you look at the footage?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Here’s a thought-what if we said it was a cottonmouth that fanged me?”

  “Then we’d get boxes of angry letters from snake collectors and herpetologists who would notice that it wasn’t a cottonmouth.”

  Derek smirked. “Come on, Raven, use your imagination. CGI?”

  He was referring to computer-generated imaging, a technique often used in movies to create illusions and special effects. “Those little geeks in postproduction,” he said, “they can turn it into a cottonmouth or rattler, or any kind of snake we want. Then we can shoot a scene where I’m injecting myself with the antidote and saving my own life!”

  Raven sat back and folded her arms. “You said we were done faking it. You said you wanted to put the ‘real’ back into reality.”

  Derek was annoyed to be reminded of his recent conversion to integrity.

  “Whatever,” he muttered lumpishly.

  The sky strobed, a jagged stutter of ice-blue light. A ripple of thunder rattled a tray of silverware.

  Derek frowned. “Get someone to patch that hole in my tent. Chop-chop.”

  “Fine,” said Raven.

  “While we’re on the subject, don’t they make one of those bloody things with air-conditioning? It must be ninety degrees in there-”

  Just then, a piercing scream arose behind them. They spun around and saw one of the catering staff, a lanky middle-aged woman sporting a green hairnet, hoppi
ng frenetically. She was pointing at a long-tailed clump of fuzz that lay quivering on the cake platter.

  Raven stood up and gasped. “What is that-a bird?”

  Derek was standing, too. “Birds don’t have big ears,” he said.

  “A rat!”

  “No. Rats don’t have wings.” Approaching the platter, he leaned down to examine the furry, twitching intruder. When he turned back to Raven, he was grinning.

  “Just as I suspected-a bat!”

  She said, “Lord, that’s a big one.”

  “Indeed.” Derek’s eyes twinkled in the golden flickering of the campfire.

  “It must be sick or hurt,” Raven said. “I’ll go get Mr. Cray.”

  “Wait, I’ve got a better idea.” Derek motioned to the director. “How long will it take you blokes to set up some lights?”

  The director folded his cards. “Seriously?”

  Raven looked down at the woozy bat, then back at Derek Badger.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “Oh yes!” He licked his upper lip. “Let’s do this!”

  FIFTEEN

  Raven Stark had asked Wahoo to stay and eat with the crew, but he said no thanks. When he got back to camp, Tuna was sitting on a corner of the tarp, reading by flashlight.

  “Nice outerwear,” she said. “Does this mean you’re officially part of the team?”

  He took off the Expedition Survival! jacket and put on a dry T-shirt. From his father’s tent came the familiar croaks and snuffles of snoring. Mickey had gone to bed early.

  “I scared you off, huh?” Tuna said.

  Wahoo shook his head. “The stuff about your dad, it’s sort of…”

  “Heavy.”

  “Definitely.” Wahoo sat down beside her. “You ever thought about going to the cops?”

  The question hung there in the empty night and then evaporated, like a wisp of smoke.

  Tuna said, “Today the airboat driver asked about my black eye. He thought it was you who socked me.”

  “He actually said that?” Wahoo was mortified. “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth, of course, and guess what? His old man used to do the same thing to him and his little sister.”

  So that’s what Link and Tuna had been talking about on the boat. Once again, Wahoo wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Even on Christmas they got slapped around is what he told me,” Tuna said.

  “Did they call the police?”

  “I didn’t ask.” Tuna closed the book and handed the flashlight to Wahoo. “Hey, I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

  “No, it’s all right. Anytime you want to talk.”

  “The rain’s quit. Let’s get some food.”

  They pulled up the tarp, which had kept the kindling dry. Wahoo started the fire and cooked hot dogs wrapped in bacon strips. It wasn’t a fancy catered meal, but it tasted great. Dessert was Fruit Roll-Ups.

  Afterward, Tuna began telling him about the wild orchids of the Everglades. “There’s one called the ghost orchid. It’s incredibly rare and beautiful!”

  Wahoo wasn’t paying close attention. He was thinking about what his mom said when he told her about Tuna.

  “Earth to Lance. Am I boring you?”

  “Sorry,” Wahoo said. “I was just-”

  “What?”

  “You said your mother’s up north.”

  “In Chicago,” Tuna said.

  Wahoo didn’t want to seem pushy, but there were things he needed to know. “When’s she coming home?”

  Tuna shook her head. “I’m not sure. My grandma’s real sick.”

  “Did you tell your mom what happened? What your dad did to you?”

  “She’s got enough to worry about.”

  “But-”

  “Listen, he’s slugged her before, too,” Tuna said.

  Again Wahoo was stunned. He couldn’t picture his dad ever hurting his mother. Living with Mr. Gordon must have been terrifying.

  “Mom wanted me to go up with her to take care of Grandma,” Tuna said, “but I decided to stay here and finish out the school year. So she took Daddy aside and said, ‘If you lay a hand on that girl while I’m gone…’ Anyhow, it didn’t stop him.”

  “When did all this start?” Wahoo asked. “The hitting, I mean.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Sometimes you wait for somebody to change, and you end up waiting too long. Soon as Mom gets back, we’re outta there.”

  “But isn’t there anyone else you could stay here with until then? Aunts or uncles?”

  “I’m tired, Lance.”

  “Sorry. This is none of my business.”

  “Hey, we’re good.” Tuna smiled sadly. “If it was happening to you, I’d be asking the same questions.” She said good night and ducked into her tent.

  Wahoo had no hope for sleep. He moved closer to the fire and poked the embers with a stick. Aiming the flashlight up in the branches, he counted a half-dozen air plants topped with dark red flowers. They looked like crazy Halloween wigs. Something fluttered with hushed wings among the treetops-probably a barred owl or a hawk.

  From the other pup tent came a faint moan. Wahoo peeked inside and saw his dad was having a nightmare. Gently Wahoo shook him awake.

  “My head,” Mickey murmured.

  “You want Tuna’s pills?”

  “All I want is to feel normal again.” He sat up, blinking.

  Wahoo held up four fingers in the flashlight’s beam. “How many do you see, Pop?”

  “Quatro.”

  “Very good.”

  “What if that bleeping iguana gave me a brain tumor?”

  “That’s not even funny.” Wahoo had worried about the same thing after Googling his father’s medical symptoms. “A concussion won’t give you a brain tumor,” he asserted, although he wasn’t absolutely certain.

  “You know what I dreamed?” Mickey said. “I dreamed some poacher got after Alice. It was ugly.”

  As Wahoo helped him out of the tent, he couldn’t help but notice that the muscles in his father’s arms and shoulders were still as taut as ship cables. Even after weeks of inactivity, the man was in fairly solid shape.

  “Tell the truth, Pop. You ever had a dream that turned out to be true? I mean good or bad?”

  “Never once.”

  “There you go. Alice is just fine.”

  Mickey cocked his head and sniffed at the sky. “Rain again?”

  “Hey, I talked to Mom,” said Wahoo.

  “What! When?”

  “While you were asleep. Ms. Stark let me call on her sat phone.”

  “You should’ve got me up,” Mickey said crossly.

  “She thinks we should take Tuna to the police so she can tell them what her dad did.”

  “Yeah, then what?”

  “Exactly.”

  Mickey rubbed a knuckle across his stubbled chin. “What if the cops just take a report and send her back home? Or lock up her old man, like you said-then where the heck’s she supposed to live?”

  The wind picked up, cooler than before. Wahoo zipped on the Expedition Survival! jacket and said, “Let’s think on this. We don’t have to decide tonight.”

  “Well, boys, let me know when you do!” It was Tuna speaking, from inside her tent. “It’s only my life you’re talking about.”

  Wahoo had no time for another apology, because at that instant a tremulous cry pierced the darkness, followed by another and still another…

  The Florida mastiff bat is the largest in the southeastern United States, reaching a length of almost seven inches. Its short, glossy hair can be black or cinnamon, and a thin, mouse-like tail extends well beyond its winged membrane. The wings are long and slender.

  Believed to have been carried by hurricane winds from Cuba to Florida years ago, the mastiff is quite rare and considered an endangered species. By day it sleeps, often in the shady crevices of palm fronds. It emerges not at dusk, as other bats do, but in the deep of night. A swift flier, the mastiff travels great dist
ances in search of food. It feasts mainly on insects and has no natural appetite for the flesh or blood of humans.

  The specimen that ended up in the Expedition Survival! catering tent was a young female whose internal sonar had malfunctioned as she’d swooped low in pursuit of a flying beetle. After bouncing at high speed off the canvas, the creature had landed in a muddle on Derek Badger’s cheesecake platter.

  Like other nocturnal animals, the mastiff is extremely sensitive to light. The one that crashed at the TV camp was therefore frightened by an artificial blast of whiteness much brighter than that of the sun. The bat couldn’t see where this strange, blistering glare was coming from, nor could she see the cluster of humans that surrounded her.

  With leaf-sized ears she absorbed strange vocal vibrations that only heightened her confusion:

  “Deep in the Everglades, the swamp is unforgiving and food is scarce. Survival depends on making the best of the situation, and that means eating whatever you can get your hands on. Tonight the heavy squalls and dangerous thunderstorms have made it impossible for me to leave camp to hunt for the juicy bullfrogs and crayfish that I was hoping to cook for supper.

  “But by sheer luck-and, believe me, that’s what you need out here-the violent weather has literally dropped on my platter a tasty morsel that will provide enough nutrition to get me through another brutal day in this tropical wilderness.

  “Here, have a look…”

  Mastiffs, like most species of bats, are equipped to hang upside down. However, they are not accustomed to being snatched by their tails and dangled in midair.

  And even when half blinded by light, they are able at close range to recognize the presence of predators, particularly if such a predator has a shiny chin, a big oval mouth and vivid, orange-tinted hair.

  “There are probably only fifteen grams of meat on this fellow’s bones. But when you’re as hungry as I am, this little bugger looks as juicy as a T-bone steak!

  “Unfortunately, the rain has soaked all the tinder, so I can’t make a fire for cooking. That leaves me only one choice, I guess.

  “Now, please don’t try this yourself-wild bats can be vicious, and their teeth are needle sharp. Remember, I’m an experienced survivalist. I know how to handle these unpredictable rascals…”