Little Tiny Teeth

THEmain dish that night was something a little different: freshly caught piranha. While the Adelita had been tied up at the checkpoint, the crew had passed the time fishing from the deck. Using bloody gobbets of lizard as bait (according to Vargas, the bait, if untaken, had to be changed every couple of minutes; as soon as the blood drained away, it was of no interest to the piranha), they’d hauled them in by the dozen. The piranhas were served up from the buffet table in filets of firm, white meat, much like halibut in taste and texture. In addition, a sort of centerpiece for the dining table had been made up of four whole ones arranged in a circle, with their tails together in the center, and their ferocious little sharp-toothed mouths facing out.

Gideon had seen photos of them, and some dried specimens as well. Still, he was surprised at how small the celebrated “cannibal fish of the Amazon” were: six or seven inches long, chubby and pink, and almost cute when looked at from the side. But seen head-on, there

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was nothing cute about that open mouth crammed full of those justly famous little teeth, as sharp and pointed and vicious-looking as a shark’s.

Because Scofield was the only one at the table who had any personal knowledge of piranhas, they were naturally a subject of curiosity to the others. Scofield, feeling his oats—he was almost manic—was regaling them with scientific and not-so-scientific piranha lore. These particular specimens were Pygocentrus natterreri, the infamous red-bellied piranha, that could strip an unlucky live cow or human down to a bare, white skeleton in thirty minutes or less. As far as Gideon knew, this was an exaggerated account. He was fairly certain that there were no verified accounts of human beings having actually been killed by piranhas, although many a barefoot native fisherman had less than his full complement of toes as a result of standing in a dugout and continuing to fish while freshly caught, still-living piranhas flopped about on the floor. And there was no doubt about their ability as scavengers to peel the flesh off an already dead creature in short order (even if thirty minutes was pushing it a bit). But tonight it was not an issue. The piranhas were the eatees, not the eaters, and it was they who were being made short order of.

Cisco showed up late for dinner, as he did now for most meals— when he bothered to show up at all. As usual, he was weaving a little, as if the boat were on the high seas and not on a slow, brown, jungle river. Also as usual, he ignored the main dishes and went straight for the dessert, which was local finger-length bananas sliced up in honey. He loaded up a good four servings’ worth in a soup bowl, the tip of his tongue sticking out with the effort at eye-hand coordination that was required. Holding the bowl carefully in both hands, he wandered

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unevenly back to the others, where he took his usual place as not quite part of the group, his chair pushed back from the table, so that he had to hold the bowl in his lap, where it claimed his whole attention while Scofield continued regaling the others.

“What’s more . . .” Scofield continued, “this is known to be the only species—”

Cisco laughed abruptly. “Hey, piranhas,” he mumbled, apparently his first notice of them. “Whoa. How you doing, little guys?” He put his emptied bowl aside and leaned forward to run his fingers over the razor-sharp teeth.

“Little...tiny...teeth,” he said dreamily, moving from tooth to tooth with each word. And once again, as if he were reciting something: “Little...tiny...teeth.”

The helper behind the buffet table tonight was the cook, Meneo, a wizened, five-foot-tall Huitoto Indian who spoke no English and only a few words of Spanish, but who seemed to find everything the passengers said sidesplittingly funny. Cisco’s crooning was no exception. Narrow shoulders jiggling, tears of glee streaming from his eyes, small, brown hands keeping time, he sang along with Cisco.

“Widdoo... ty’ee...teet’. Widdoo... ty’ee...teet’ ...”

Meneo’s hilarity was hard to resist, and pretty soon everybody was doing it, hooting with laughter and beating time on the table. “Widdoo... ty’ee...teet’ ...”

Gideon, chortling and beating away with the rest of them, shook his head in self-amazement. “Somebody send for a doctor,” he said to Phil. “I think we’re all getting jungle fever.”

***

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ON Wednesday afternoon, twenty minutes into their trek to meet with the famous Orejon curandero Tahuyao (celebrated for his plant cure for inflammation of the kidneys, reputed to be highly effective and entirely risk-free—other than its propensity to turn the skin iguana-green for four to six months), the outing was called off. Cisco was not feeling well. According to what he told Scofield, his headaches had flared up. According to what he told Phil, an old knee injury was bothering him. To Tim he explained that his back just wasn’t up to a long hike that day.

Whatever the cause, he disappeared back toward the ship, sighing and groaning piteously. The passengers had to content themselves with a self-guided botanical exploration of the jungle within easy range of the Adelita, a disappointment to most, but not to Duayne. Before he left, Cisco had pointed to some pendulous, bulbous birds’ nests hanging from low branches over the river. “Oropendela nests,” he’d told Duayne. “There ought to be some cockroaches in there. They love the birdshit.”

Ten minutes later, an overjoyed Duayne had come back cradling a trembling, monstrous, black, gold, and brown cockroach that completely covered the palm of his hand. “Blaberus giganteus,” he’d proudly told anybody who would listen. “I admit, it may not be the most massive cockroach in the world— that’d be the Australian burrowing cockroach—but it’s every bit as long or even longer. This particular beauty measures more than four inches in length, and that’s not counting the antennae! And I’m betting the wingspread is a good twelve inches, maybe even more! And they can actually fly, you know—really fly—unlike our earthbound homegrown variety. They say they do it in great hordes. Wouldn’t that be something to see? Ten

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thousand of these on the wing, flapping away?” His eyes turned dreamy at the thought; a small, blissful smile played about his lips.

Gideon too enjoyed the outing, but for a different reason. Not long after Duayne had returned to his cabin to carry out the regrettable but necessary execution of his Blaberus, Gideon noticed that the