the shop to ask if the airboat drivers had seen any sign of the big cats, which was sort of pointless. Powered by large automobile engines, the airboats were equipped with deck-mounted aviation propellers that worked as giant fans, pushing the flat-bottomed crafts at high speed. They were so loud that panthers heard them coming from miles away and ran for cover.
Raven raised a hand. “How about bears?”
“Absolutely, ma’am,” said Sickler, who hadn’t seen a bear since a field trip to the Atlanta zoo with his third- grade class, forty years earlier.
But Derek was sold. “We’ve come to the right spot! Now, where’s Cray?”
“Right here.”
The wrangler was leaning against a soda machine in a corner of the souvenir shop, where he’d been listening to Sickler’s baloney.
“Can you deal with a bear?” Derek asked Mickey. “What about panthers?”
Mickey gave Sickler such a cold, cutting stare that the crooked proprietor sheepishly excused himself and waddled off to the stockroom.
To Derek, Mickey said, “Whatever’s out there, I can handle.”
The TV star raised a cheery thumb. “That’s all I need to hear, mate.” Through a window he caught sight of the catering truck, and he hurried out the door on a quest for boysenberry pancakes.
Raven, who’d lain awake all night worrying about the show, asked Mickey if she could have a word with him.
“Aw, don’t worry,” he told her. “We’re not gonna run into any bears or panthers.”
“Promise me you’ll stay close to Derek,” she said. “We cannot have a repeat of what happened with your alligator. Is that clear?”
“Lady, do I look like a bleeping babysitter?”
“He nearly died.”
“Yeah, because he’s a fool,” Mickey said. “There’s no known cure for that.”
“Then do whatever’s necessary to keep him from getting harmed.”
Mickey chuckled. “You got a call from your bosses in California. Am I right?”
Raven blinked, but her tone remained firm. “We need Derek in one piece. He’s the whole franchise.”
“The franchise, huh?” Mickey whistled sarcastically. “Then I guess we’d better make sure a cottonmouth doesn’t crawl into his sleeping bag and bite him on the butt.”
Now it was Raven’s turn to chuckle. “Oh, Derek won’t be camping with the rest of us, Mr. Cray. He’ll be staying at the Empresario.”
“Isn’t that a hotel?”
“One of Miami’s finest,” Raven said.
Mickey was puzzled. “How’s he gonna get from the middle of the Everglades to the middle of the city every night?”
Raven touched a red fingernail to her ear. “Hear that?”
“What?”
“Listen.”
Mickey heard it now. “I should’ve guessed,” he muttered.
It was the sound of a helicopter.
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.
