Derek Badger and Raven Stark were standing in the living room. Wahoo said goodbye to his mother and set down the phone. Then he told his father to put away the fire extinguisher.
“I’m serious, Pop.”
“But they’re supposed to be gone!”
Raven said, “We need to chat, Mr. Cray. Please?”
“I don’t ‘chat.’ ” He pulled the trigger on the fire extinguisher, blasting a cloud of white vapor toward the ceiling. “Now get out!”
“Knock it off,” said Wahoo.
Derek puffed his chest. “Mate, there’s no need to be cranky. We come in peace.”
It was hard to take the man seriously because he was dressed in a purple bathrobe and matching slippers. Mickey placed the fire extinguisher on the kitchen counter. Wahoo suggested that everybody sit down, which they did.
Raven said, “Derek’s got something he wants to say.”
“Imagine that.” Mickey was rubbing his temples.
Derek leaned forward. “That wrestling scene with the alligator-”
“Alice is her name.”
“Yes, Alice. The scene turned out fabulously, Mr. Cray. Perhaps the most extraordinary thirty-three seconds of footage in the history of Expedition Survival! ”
“But you almost got drowned.”
“Exactly! And the best part is it was real.”
“You’re seriously gonna use that in your show?” Mickey asked, and right away Wahoo knew what his father was thinking.
“Of course we intend to use it,” Raven said.
“It’ll be all over YouTube the same night,” Derek added. “Trust me-we’re talking worldwide viral. Millions of hits!”
Mickey’s eyes narrowed. “That means you’re gonna pay us the rest of the money, right?”
Derek chuckled. “Not only are we going to pay you all of it, we’re hiring you to lead us into the Everglades to put the finishing touches on this masterpiece. What do you think of that?”
Wahoo felt slightly queasy.
“What do you need me for?” his father said to Derek. “You’re gonna fake the rest of it, same as you always do.”
Derek didn’t seem even slightly insulted. He twirled the sash on his robe and said, “You’re the most fearless man I’ve ever met, Mr. Cray. With you guiding us on location, we won’t need to ‘fake’ anything.”
“In our line of work,” Raven cut in, “it’s known as ‘re-creating’ events for the camera.”
Wahoo spoke up. “He can’t go. He’s got another job lined up that starts tomorrow.”
Mickey threw him a puzzled look. “What job?”
“You know, Pop. That scorpion scene for the Rain Forest Channel.” Wahoo was hoping his dad would get the hint and play along. A swamp trip with Derek Badger promised nothing but trouble.
Mickey scratched his head. “I don’t remember booking a scorpion gig.”
“And even if you did,” Derek said with a wink, “will it pay you two thousand dollars a day for four days?”
Wahoo was stunned. With that kind of money, they could cover what they owed on the house and the truck. His mother wouldn’t have to give a nickel of her China paycheck to the bank.
“Hold on-what about the boy?” Wahoo’s father said to Derek. “He’s my right hand.”
“Then make it twenty-five hundred-plus we’ll give him screen credit as ‘First Assistant Wrangler.’ ”
Mickey stroked his chin. “Let me think on this.”
Derek looked aggravated. “Are you serious? This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Wahoo didn’t know whether he should be flattered or suspicious that Derek had agreed to put him on the payroll. Five hundred dollars a day was more money than he’d ever made on any job. He was also secretly excited at the idea of seeing his own name among the crew credits that would roll on the screen at the end of the broadcast.
Yet while part of him wanted his dad to accept Derek’s offer, another part of him feared something bad would happen. The real Everglades was a very different place from the homemade marsh in the Crays’ backyard.
Feeling torn, he excused himself from the meeting and jogged down to see about Alice. She was still pouting; only her black nostrils showed on the surface of the pool. Wahoo sat down on a plastic milk crate and watched a baby leopard frog hop across the lily pads.
Soon a piece of pale, ragged cloth floated to the top of the water. Wahoo used the bamboo pole to retrieve it: Derek’s torn khaki shorts. Two large, hollow alligator incisors remained stuck in the fabric.
“You’ll grow new ones,” Wahoo said to Alice. The average gator went through three thousand teeth in a lifetime of chomping.
“Yeah, she’ll be pretty as ever.” It was his father, who’d come up behind him. “And she knows it, too.”
“What did you tell ’em, Pop?”
“You mean the Dorkster?” Mickey Cray smiled. “He showed me the video. They put it on a disk.”
“Come on. Did you take the job or not?”
“They’re gonna cut me out of the gator scene. Make it look like an ‘escape’ instead of a rescue. One minute that knucklehead will be spinning like a propeller underwater, and next minute he’ll be lyin’ on the shore-as if he got free from Alice all by himself!” Mickey seemed more amused than upset. “You said it yourself: showbiz!”
“You told them yes, didn’t you?”
“Son, we seriously need the dough.”
Wahoo couldn’t argue with that. He said, “After what happened today, maybe Derek learned his lesson.”
“Sure. And maybe the raccoons will start their own lacrosse team.” Wahoo’s dad kicked the TV star’s shredded shorts into the cattails. “Now go fetch a chicken from the freezer. Let’s walk sweet old Alice back to her pen.”
“Two chickens, Pop. She earned it.”
NINE
That evening, they drove down to Florida City and stocked up at the Walmart: sodas, Gatorades, bug spray, sunblock, coffee, bacon, powdered eggs, granola bars, Pringles, frozen hot dogs, black beans, matches and first-aid supplies, including a bottle of five hundred aspirins for Mickey.
When they got to the register, Wahoo slipped ahead of his father and paid for the supplies with cash.
Mickey eyed him warily. “Where’d you get that money?”
“Robbed a bank,” Wahoo said. Actually his mother had left three hundred dollars inside an envelope in his sock drawer, for emergencies.
Mickey said, “Don’t be such a wise bleep.”
“Okay, I didn’t rob a bank. I won the lottery.”
“I’m warning you.”
“Here, grab a couple of these bags,” Wahoo said. He’d promised his mom he wouldn’t tell his dad about the cash in the drawer.
They were loading the provisions into the back of the pickup truck when Wahoo heard someone call, “Wait up!”
He turned around and saw Tuna Gordon, a girl from school. She had curly ginger hair and was small for her age, but she wasn’t shy. Wahoo didn’t know her well, although she had caught his attention in biology class because she knew the Latin names of all the local snakes and lizards.
“I need a ride,” Tuna said. She wore a camo weather jacket, blue jeans and bright green flip-flops. Her canvas tote bag looked as if it weighed more than she did.
