of Distinction, which was shaped like a navel orange and not usually awarded to TV celebrities.
The wave of media attention gave a major ratings boost to Expedition Survival! Consequently, no one (besides Derek himself) was more shocked than Raven when Derek’s contract wasn’t renewed. The show’s executive producer, Gerry Germaine, went on Entertainment Tonight to say that, after the grueling Everglades ordeal, Mr. Badger would be taking some time off to “recharge his batteries” and “explore other career opportunities.”
That was Hollywood code for getting fired.
It was Derek’s own fault. Hoping to cash in on his new hero status, he’d demanded an even more outrageous raise for his new contract, which Gerry Germaine had been all too happy to reject. Brick Jeffers, the buff young outdoorsman from New Zealand, was grateful to work for half of Derek’s salary.
Raven had been bitter about Derek’s dismissal until Gerry Germaine called her on the road. She assumed he was going to yell at her for taking the motor coach, but instead he offered her a line producer’s position on the new, revamped edition of Expedition Survival!
At first she had said no, but then she Skyped with Brick Jeffers for an hour. He turned out to be charming, extremely good-looking-and he was at least twenty-five IQ points smarter than Derek Badger.
So Raven had accepted the job, and now Derek wasn’t returning her calls.
He was sulking on his yacht, the Sea Badger, moored off the Caribbean island of St. Barts. That’s where he watched his final appearance on Expedition Survival!
He thought the program was suitably flattering, although his life-or-death fight with Jared Gordon would have made a more spectacular ending than his wrestling match with Mickey Cray’s pet gator. Unfortunately, the police helicopter pilot had forgotten to turn on the video camera, so there was no tape of Derek’s real-life act of valor on the swamp island.
Getting fired from the show had dented his oversized ego. He’d immediately filed a grievance with his TV union-Guild 154 of Mountaineers, Ice Truckers and Survivalists-but he’d received no response. A couple of other networks wanted him to star in new reality programs, and he’d been pondering his options.
He was leaning toward the Catastrophe Channel, which had offered him a sick pile of money to intentionally place himself in the path of oncoming hurricanes, typhoons, lava eruptions, wildfires, mud slides, avalanches and tidal waves. Best of all, the show-titled Bring It On! — would be shown during the same Thursday-night time slot as Expedition Survival! giving Derek an opportunity to humiliate young Brick Jeffers in the ratings contest and make Gerry Germaine miserable.
There was only one catch: the producers of Bring It On! wanted Derek to perform his own stunts, including the opening parachute jump. Currently he wasn’t in prime physical shape, having gained nineteen jiggly pounds during his sojourn in St. Barts, a cruel calorie trap for lovers of Brie cheese, souffles and chocolate mousse.
Normally Derek would have relied on Raven Stark to endure his childish whining, but she’d deserted him. So he sat alone in the Sea Badger ’s master cabin, engulfing his third cinnamon eclair of the evening and watching his own breathless finale on Expedition Survival! As soon as the show ended, he dialed up the menu of his private video library and ordered all three Night Wing movies, to be played one after another in high-def.
Through the port hatch, Derek spied a full moon, pale as the petals of a spider lily, in the tropical sky.
Life, he admitted to himself, could be a whole lot worse.
Back in Florida, surgeons had successfully removed a bullet fragment from Link’s right lung. Once he was out of the hospital, he bought another flip phone and called up Wahoo Cray, the kid who’d saved his life by tackling the shooter at the tree island.
“Thanks for what you done,” Link said.
“Sure.”
“You ever want ’nother airboat drivin’ lesson, jest lemme know.”
“It’s a deal,” said Wahoo.
After all the media coverage about the dramatic events in the swamp, Link found himself a minor celebrity among his fellow Gladesmen. That made him uncomfortable, since he wasn’t a person who liked to socialize.
On the night of Derek Badger’s last show, Link had reluctantly agreed to attend an Expedition Survival! screening party at Sickler’s Jungle Outpost and Juice Bar. Sickler was in jolly spirits because the publicity about the lost survivalist and fugitive gunman had turned his cheesy roadside shop into a hot spot for curious tourists.
Scammer that he was, Sickler had acquired a large poster of Derek Badger, forged the star’s autograph on the bottom and tacked it to the wall beside the cash register. He’d also strung the weather-beaten mount of Old Sleepy from the ceiling beams, telling customers that it was the very same alligator Derek had wrestled on the TV program and that it had drowned after he battled it to exhaustion.
Sickler’s souvenir business was booming, with eager suckers lining up to purchase overpriced coconut carvings, polyester rattlesnake skins and “authentic” Seminole bead shirts that were actually made in Vietnam.
The crowd at the store that night cheered throughout the broadcast of Expedition Survival! the loudest applause erupting when Sickler’s name appeared among the credits as a “location consultant,” whatever that was. Link himself wasn’t particularly enchanted by the television show and grew bored with the repeated slow-motion replays of Derek Badger being tossed like a rodeo cowboy by the gator.
Ten minutes before the big ending, Link snuck out Sickler’s back door and went home to tinker with his airboat, which he’d recently named Lucille in honor of the kind-hearted girl with the mean, hard-drinking father, like his own. Eventually Link became a tour guide at the Miccosukee reservation, and he never took his boat on another TV job.
Wahoo Cray watched Derek’s last episode at home. His mother had returned at long last from China (and, naturally, did not believe Mickey’s version of how he’d lost his big toe). However, Susan Cray had been pleasantly surprised to learn that the house mortgage had been paid up, thanks to Mickey and Wahoo’s earnings from Expedition Survival! She’d been even happier to see that her husband had completely recovered from his iguana concussion and was no longer suffering with headaches or double vision.
Despite his damaged foot, Mickey had resumed work soon after surgery, hobbling around the backyard pens and tending to his animals. Beulah the python had made the mistake of trying to chomp him again and gotten her teeth stuck in his cast.
The night that Derek Badger’s Everglades adventure was broadcast, the Cray family sat down with a large bowl of buttered popcorn in front of the television. Wahoo thought the program turned out pretty tame, compared to what had really gone down in the swamp. Still, he was impressed by how the video editors had stitched the different scenes together in an entertaining way, including a shaky tree-climbing sequence they’d salvaged from Derek’s broken Helmet Cam.
Mickey Cray didn’t have much to say about the show, except that Alice had performed like a champ. Susan Cray thought the whole thing was overhyped and hokey.
The first phone call came from Julie, Wahoo’s sister.
“Let’s hear your review,” he said.
“The show was okay. That Derek guy, though, he’s still a tool.”
“He’s not so bad, Jule.”
“I’m just glad you and Pop finally got your money.”
“Thanks to you,” Wahoo said.
Gerry Germaine at first had refused to give the Crays the agreed-upon wrangler fee, claiming their involvement with Tuna Gordon and her trigger-happy father had disrupted the show’s production, endangered the crew and cost the company thousands of dollars.
The next day, Julie Cray had placed a phone call to Mr. Germaine, threatening to sue both him and the Untamed Channel for gross negligence by failing to provide safe working conditions on the set of Expedition Survival! She’d noted that her father’s traumatic foot injury had reduced his agility when handling large reptiles and other unpredictable creatures, which made his job more dangerous and even life-threatening. For extra ammunition, Julie Cray had also listed several obscure wildlife regulations that Expedition Survival! had ignored, information that she volunteered to share with the prosecutor’s office in Miami.
Gerry Germaine backed down in a heartbeat. He told Julie Cray that he’d be happy to pay Wahoo and Mickey the full contract amount for their services, and also take care of Mickey’s medical bills, which amounted to thirteen thousand dollars. It was Wahoo’s belief that his sister had a bright future in the legal profession.
At the end of his conversation with Julie, Gerry Germaine had a brainstorm: Would Mickey consider a full-time
