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 distances 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…”
The mastiff bat that Derek Badger slowly lowered toward his gaping maw wasn’t vicious. She simply didn’t want to be eaten.
And so she reacted defensively and without hesitation. She chomped down on the first chompable target that came within reach, which happened to be Derek’s plump, purple-blotched tongue.
“Aaaieeeeeegh! Aaaieeeeeegh! Aaaieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeegh!”
The shrieks were not part of the script that he’d hastily composed on a paper napkin following the bat’s unexpected arrival. The shrieks were totally spontaneous.
“Don’t move! Don’t move!” Raven Stark cried, but Derek did move. He tipped backward into a wet patch of ferns, the flapping mammal still attached to his bloody face.
“Cut!” barked the director. “Somebody go get Cray!”
Wahoo’s father stood over the fallen TV star, who lay rigid and goggle-eyed. The front of his safari shirt was dappled with wet crimson splotches, and the bat dangled from his mouth like a bizarre holiday ornament.
“Unbelievable,” Mickey said.
“Do something!” Raven pleaded.
Mickey turned to his son. “I’ll need my serious gloves.”
While Wahoo ran back to the other camp, Tuna stepped closer to take a look. “What kind of bat is that?” she asked. “It’s a freetail, I know, but what species?”
Wahoo’s father shrugged. He directed the crew to re-aim their bright lights toward the spot where Derek Badger had fallen, illuminating the scene like a hospital operating room. As soon as Wahoo returned with the heavy gloves, Mickey fitted them on and told everybody to stand back.
“Is he still breathing?” Raven said. “Please tell me he’s still breathing.”
“They’re both breathing.” Mickey knelt beside Derek and pondered how to remove the frightened creature without also removing the tip of Derek’s tongue.
Wahoo happened to know his father wasn’t fond of handling bats. They were tricky to wrangle and, like other mammals, they sometimes carried diseases. However, this was an emergency, and nobody else at the campsite was qualified to deal with it.
Mickey leaned in to whisper in one of Derek’s ears: “Blink twice if you can hear me.”
Derek blinked two times. The director clapped in relief, and some of the other crew members cheered.
“Hush!” Mickey snapped over his shoulder. Then, to Derek: “Don’t worry, we’ll get your dumb butt out of this mess. The trick is to not make your furry little friend any madder than it already is. So you’ve gotta stay still, mate, no matter how much this hurts. Blink once if you understand.”
