In a stiff tone, Raven Stark said, “Mr. Cray, you signed a contract.”
“Which I intend to use as toilet paper-”
Wahoo cut in with a bluff: “Our lawyer looked at the contract. She said it won’t stick.”
Julie wasn’t really a lawyer yet, but it wouldn’t be long.
“Good luck finding another tame gator like Alice,” Mickey said.
Raven Stark bristled. “We paid you a deposit, remember? Eight hundred dollars.”
“Good luck finding that, too.”
Wahoo volunteered to show the fake Everglades set to Derek so he could see for himself how authentic it looked. Raven walked to the car to get him, but she returned alone.
“He’s on the phone,” she reported soberly, “with our producers in California.”
Mickey mumbled something sarcastic under his breath and headed back to the house.
“Look, we can still make this work,” Wahoo said to Raven.
“Not if your father insists on being difficult.”
“I’ll deal with Pop, okay?”
“You’re only a kid, no offense.”
Wahoo tried to remain polite. “I’m his kid. He listens to me.”
“And you guys need the money, right?” Raven looked around at the pens and cages. “It’s got to be expensive, keeping all these animals. This would be a nice payday for your family, no?”
Wahoo felt his throat tighten. “Tell Mr. Badger we’re on.”
Raven was smiling. “How old are you, Wahoo?”
“Old enough to get it done,” he said.
Back at the house, he found his father lying on the couch with an ice pack over his forehead.
Wahoo sat down beside him. “Pop, this show is really important.”
“So’s Alice.” Mickey reached for the TV remote. “Hey, look what I TiVo’d the other night.”
He touched a button and an episode of Expedition Survival! came on the screen-Derek Badger, roaming a rainy jungle in Costa Rica. A teaser at the beginning showed the star sleeping in a hammock made of vines while a fat hairy spider crawled up his bare arm.
Wahoo’s father shook a scarred finger at the TV. “Five bucks says he kills that thing and fries it up for dinner!”
“I’m not taking that bet.”
“You know there’s a cameraman standing two feet away with a can of Raid, ready to blast that poor, pitiful tarantula.”
“It’s showbiz,” said Wahoo.
“The guy’s such a tool!”
“I know, Pop, but we need the work.”
They watched the program for a little while longer. Sure enough, Derek Badger pretended to awaken just before the creeping spider reached his neck. Then he knocked it away and stomped it with a boot. He didn’t fry the flattened victim, though; he grilled it over a small fire, all the time smacking his wormy lips and yammering about how he’d narrowly escaped a horrible, painful death.
However, Wahoo and his father knew something that most faithful viewers of Expedition Survival! didn’t know-that tarantulas almost never bite people. When they do, the sting is no worse than a bumblebee’s.
Grumbling in disgust, Mickey Cray switched off the TV and tossed the remote onto the coffee table. “The other shows we’ve done, even the lame ones, were all about the wildlife,” he said, “but this is just about him.”
Wahoo didn’t like the idea of working for Derek Badger any more than his father did. “Pop, we’ve got bills to pay,” he said. “Alice needs to eat, right?”
“Okay, but Alice doesn’t travel. And that’s final.”
“Fine, Alice doesn’t travel,” said Wahoo. “But you’ve gotta admit, it would’ve been fun watching those bozos try to haul her out of the pond.”
Mickey Cray laughed. “Oh yeah.”
FIVE
Although she would never say it aloud, Raven Stark believed she was grossly underpaid. Her job title was “senior production assistant,” but in reality she was also a babysitter, nurse, chauffeur, bartender, courier, valet, personal groomer and amateur psychologist.
Derek Badger was a handful.
“We’re late,” she said, knocking once more on the door of his hotel suite.
There was still no response, so she used the plastic key card. Derek wasn’t inside the room; he was standing on the balcony, overlooking a golf course.
Raven said, “For heaven’s sake, put on some clothes.”
The star of Expedition Survival! was clad only in tartan boxer shorts and a pair of black knee-high socks. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
“I refuse to work with that ignorant redneck,” he said, meaning Mickey Cray.
“People are staring, Derek. Let’s go inside.”
“Are you telling me that’s the only humongous alligator available in South Florida, which is the humongous alligator capital of the world?”
Raven was quite familiar with Derek’s tantrums. “This particular specimen happens to be perfect for what we need.”
“Perfect how?” he whined.
“Time to put on your pants. Let’s go.”
The script for Derek’s Everglades adventure called for him to swim beside a huge gator, which required renting one that would tolerate Derek’s nonsense and resist the urge to bite off his fool head. Mickey Cray’s son had assured Raven that Alice had never purposely hurt anybody (he’d again blamed himself for the thumb removal), and that the reptile was accustomed to the noisy presence of camera crews.
“But we can’t stage our biggest scene in some nitwit’s backyard,” Derek complained in the car, traveling to the Crays’ house.
Raven assured him that the family’s Everglades set didn’t look like a backyard. “It looks like a real-life swamp. You’ll be impressed.”
Derek sniffed. “No, they’ll be impressed when they see me jump that monster gator.”
“Not happening. The insurance company says no way.”
“They said the same thing about the cobra dance, but I did it anyway.”
Thanks for reminding me, thought Raven.
They had been shooting an Expedition Survival! in Cambodia when Derek decided to play snake charmer with a spitting cobra that had been rented from a local handler named Mr. Na. When Mr. Na saw what Derek was doing, he leaped between Derek and the dangerous reptile just as it released a jet of deadly poison. A few drops landed in Mr. Na’s hair, and as a precaution he rushed off to take a shower. Upon returning to the set of Expedition Survival! Mr. Na was dismayed to learn that Derek had chopped up his pet snake with a rusty machete and eaten it for supper in the program’s final scene.
“The Crays won’t let you lay a finger on Alice,” Raven said.
Derek chuckled to himself. “We shall see about that. What sort of people would name a dumb old alligator Alice?”
“The sort of people who treat it like one of the family.”
“Hillbillies,” Derek said. “Did you bring extra cash?”
The crew of the television program arrived early to set up. With amazement the cameramen and lighting technicians watched Mickey Cray lead Alice from her enclosure to the swamp-like Everglades set at the other end of the property. Swishing her thick armored tail for balance, the huge gator trailed Mickey like a puppy. He was carrying a plump thawed chicken under each arm, so Alice would have followed him anywhere.
