Chomp (2 page)

“Are you crazy, boy? Look at me, I can’t see straight, I can’t hardly walk, my skull’s ’bout to split open like a rotten pumpkin—”

“Pop!”

“What?”

“I said
we
,” Wahoo reminded him. “You and I together.”

“But what about school?”

“Friday’s the last day. Then I’m done for the summer.”

“Already?” Wahoo’s dad didn’t keep up with Wahoo’s academic schedule as closely as his mother did. “So who called about the job?”

Wahoo told him the name of the TV show.

“Not him!” Mickey Cray snorted. “I’ve heard stories about that jerk.”

“Well, how does a thousand bucks sound?” Wahoo asked.

“Pretty darned sweet.”

“That’s one thousand a
day
.” Wahoo let that sink in. “If you want, I’ll call ’em back and give him Stiggy’s number.”

“Don’t be a knucklehead.” Wahoo’s father rose off the sofa and gave him a hug. “You did good, son. We’ll make this work.”

“Absolutely,” said Wahoo, trying to sound confident.

Hundreds of iguanas had died and tumbled from the treetops during the big freeze in southern Florida. As far as Wahoo knew, his dad was the only person who’d been seriously hurt by one of the falling reptiles.

Mickey Cray had been standing with a cup of hot cocoa beneath a coconut palm in the backyard when the dead lizard had knocked him stiff. Later, after he was brought home from the hospital, Mickey had ordered Wahoo to search the property, capture any iguanas that had survived the frigid weather and relocate them to an abandoned orchid farm half a mile away.

Wahoo hadn’t searched very hard. It wasn’t the fault of the iguanas that they’d frozen to death. They weren’t meant to be living so far north, but Miami pet dealers had been importing baby specimens from the tropics for decades. The customers who bought them had no idea they would grow six feet long, eat all the flowers in the garden and then leap into the swimming pool to poop. When that rude reality set in, the unhappy owners would drive their pet lizards to the nearest park and set them free. Before long, South Florida was crawling with hordes of big wild iguanas that were producing hordes of little wild iguanas.

The cold snap had put an end to that, at least temporarily.

On the first morning of summer vacation, Wahoo found his father in the backyard scanning the trees.

“See any, Pop?”

“All clear,” Mickey Cray reported.

Although months had passed since the accident, he was still paranoid about getting clobbered with another falling lizard.

“You must be feeling better,” Wahoo remarked. He was pleased to see his dad up and moving around so early.

“My headache’s gone!” Mickey announced.

Wahoo said, “No way.”

“All those pills the doctors made me swallow, they didn’t do a darn thing. Then all of a sudden I wake up and, boom, it’s like a miracle.” Mickey shrugged. “Some things just can’t be explained, son.”

But Wahoo had a theory that his father had been cured by five simple words:
one thousand dollars a day
.

Mickey said, “Go fetch some lettuce for Gary and Gail.”

Gary and Gail were two ancient Galápagos tortoises that Wahoo’s dad had purchased from a zoo in Sarasota many years earlier, when he was new to the wildlife business. These days there wasn’t much demand from the TV nature shows for Gary and Gail, because tortoises were not exactly dynamic performers. Mickey Cray kept them around mainly for sentimental reasons. Each of the animals was more than a century old, and he didn’t trust any of the other wranglers
to treat them properly. The night before the big freeze, Mickey had gone out back and carefully cloaked Gail and Gary with heavy quilts so they wouldn’t die. Wahoo had watched from his bedroom window.

“I don’t suppose he’s interested in these two,” Mickey muttered while the tortoises munched loudly on their lettuce.

“No, they said he wants Alice,” said Wahoo, “and a major python.”

They were talking about their famous new client, Derek Badger. He was the star of
Expedition Survival!
, one of the most popular shows on cable. Every week, Derek would parachute into some gnarly wilderness teeming with fierce animals, venomous snakes and disease-carrying insects. Armed with only a Swiss army knife and a straw, he would hike, climb, crawl, paddle or swim back to civilization—or until he was “rescued.” Along the way, he’d eat bugs, rodents, worms, even the fungus on tree bark—the grosser it looked, the happier Derek Badger was to stuff it into his cheeks.

Wahoo and his dad had watched
Expedition Survival!
often enough to know that most of the wildlife scenes were faked. They were also aware that at no time was Derek’s life in actual danger, since he was always accompanied by a camera crew packing food, candy, sunblock, water, first-aid supplies and, most likely, a large gun.

“Derek’s never done a show in the Everglades,” Wahoo said to his father.

“They say he’s a humongous pain in the butt, this guy.”

“Just be nice, Pop. It’s a lot of money.”

Mickey promised to behave. “So, when do we get to meet the man himself?”

“His assistant is supposed to stop by later.”

“What kind of python do they want—Burmese? African rock?”

Wahoo said, “Honestly, I don’t think it matters.”

They set to work building a pen for a young bobcat that was being delivered from a ranch up in Highlands County. The cat had been struck by a Jeep and suffered a broken leg that wouldn’t mend, so it could never be released back into the wild. Mickey Cray had agreed to raise the animal, and he hoped to make it tame enough for TV work.

Bobcats were strong, meaning the pen had to be sturdy. Wahoo knew that a person with double vision shouldn’t be using a nail gun, so he put his dad in charge of measuring and cutting the chicken wire. By noon Mickey’s headache came roaring back, and he was in misery. Wahoo steered him to the house and made him lie on the couch and fed him four aspirins.

Minutes later, somebody started knocking on the front door. Mickey raised up and said, “That’s probably the guy with the bobcat.”

Wahoo looked out the window and saw a woman with a shining stack of red hair. She wore tan shorts and jeweled sandals, and she was carrying a leather briefcase.

“No cat,” he said to his father.

“Well, open the darn door.”

“But what if she’s from the bank?” Wahoo whispered. The Crays were months behind on their mortgage payments.

Mickey peeked out the window. “She is definitely
not
from the bank.”

Wahoo invited the woman inside. She introduced herself as Raven Stark.

“I’m Derek Badger’s production assistant,” she said. “I brought your contract.”

“Excellent,” said Mickey.

Wahoo noticed that Raven Stark had a strong accent. He tried not to stare at her hairdo, which looked like a sculpture made of red chrome.

She asked, “May I take a look around?”

“Nope,” said Wahoo’s father.

Raven Stark seemed surprised.

“First you’ve got to sign a release form,” Mickey said. “I don’t want to get sued if you fall into the gator pond and get bit.”

She laughed. “I’ve been doing this a long time, Mr. Cray.”

“You sign the release, my son will be happy to give you the grand tour.”

A few years earlier, Mickey Cray had invited Wahoo’s elementary school class to come see his wild animals. A boy named Tingley had ignored Wahoo’s warning and reached into one of the cages to tug the tail of a grumpy raccoon, which had spun around and clawed the kid’s arm so badly that it looked like a road map of Hialeah. Mickey paid for
Tingley’s doctor bills, though not before telling his parents that their boy was dumb as a box of rocks. Ever since then, Mickey’s insurance company insisted that everyone who came on the property had to fill out a legal form saying it wasn’t Mickey’s fault if they got hurt.

While Raven Stark signed the release, Mickey signed the contract from
Expedition Survival!
Wahoo noticed that he scrawled his name crookedly below the line where it was supposed to go, which meant his eyesight was still jumbled.

“How long is the shoot going to take?” Mickey asked.

Raven Stark said, “Until we get it right.”

Wahoo’s dad looked pleased. “So it’s one thousand a day, plus location fees and the animal rentals.”

“Correct.” She took an envelope from her purse and handed it to him. “Here’s eight hundred dollars as a deposit.”

Mickey counted the cash and then turned to Wahoo. “Son, go show this fine lady whatever she wants to see.”

Because it was going to be an Everglades show, Raven Stark was keenly interested in Alice the alligator. Wahoo led her to the pond and unlocked the gate.

Raven whistled. “That’s a monster, eh?”

“Twelve feet,” said Wahoo.

“How much?”

“One hundred and fifty dollars a foot, so that’s …”

“Eighteen hundred even,” Raven said. “No problem.”

Wahoo couldn’t wait to tell his father.

“Do you have another one that’s smaller?” asked Raven.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Something Derek could wrestle?”

“Wrestle?”

“Maybe a four-footer,” Raven said. “Five feet, max.”

“I’ll have to check with Pop.” Wahoo foresaw trouble. His father didn’t like anybody messing with the animals.

“Where are your pythons?” Raven asked.

Wahoo led her to the heavy glass tanks where the constrictors were kept. South Florida had become infested with huge exotic snakes that, like the iguanas, had been imported for the pet trade. Hurricane Andrew had blown apart several large reptile farms and scattered baby pythons and boa constrictors all over the place.

“Derek wants a beast,” Raven stated.

Wahoo showed her a fourteen-footer that had been captured while devouring an opossum in a Dumpster behind the Dadeland Mall. The man who’d found the snake was supposed to turn it over to state game officers, but instead he’d sold it to Mickey Cray for three hundred bucks.

Raven agreed it was an impressive specimen. “But can he be handled safely?”

“It’s a she,” Wahoo said, “and she’s a biter.”

“Oh.”

“Pop can work with her. She’ll be okay.”

“I hope so,” said Raven Stark. “How much?”

“Seven hundred for the day.” Wahoo tried to sound steady and businesslike. He wasn’t used to handling the
negotiations. The standard rental rate for pythons was fifty dollars a foot.

“Okay, fine. What did you say your name was?”

He told her.

“Is that ‘Wahoo,’ like the fish?”

Everybody made that assumption. “My dad named me after a wrestler,” the boy explained.

“How interesting.”

“Not really,” said Wahoo.

“Can I ask what happened?” She pointed at the white bump on Wahoo’s right hand, where a thumb should have been.

“Yes, ma’am. Alice got it.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Quickly Wahoo said, “It wasn’t her fault, it was mine.”

One day he’d been showing off for a girl who had come over after school to see the animals. Wahoo had brought her down to the gator pond for a feeding, but he stepped way too close to Alice, who jumped up and snapped the thawed chicken out of his grasp, taking his thumb along with it. The girl’s name was Paulette, and she’d fainted on the spot.

Changing the subject, Wahoo asked, “Where is Mr. Badger?”

“Paris,” Raven said.

Wahoo had never heard of any dangerous jungles or swamps in Paris, so he assumed the famous survivalist was taking a vacation.

Mickey Cray came outside and joined them at the snake
tanks. Wahoo told him that Ms. Stark was interested in using Beulah, the big Burmese.

“Good choice,” said Mickey. He appeared to be feeling better.

“You’ve seen the program, of course,” Raven said.

“Sure,” said Wahoo. “It’s on Thursday nights.”

“And rerun every Sunday morning,” she said. “So you already know that we’re all about verisimilitude.”

Wahoo didn’t even pretend to understand what the word meant. His father just looked at him and shrugged.

“Making it real,” Raven explained. “On
Expedition Survival!
, we’re all about making it real. Derek considers that his sacred mission, a bond of trust with our viewers.”

Wahoo glanced at the massive snakes, coiled in their tanks. They were real enough; they just weren’t wild and free.

The production assistant turned to Wahoo’s father. “Any questions?”

Mickey smiled. “We put our animals on TV all the time. That’s what we do.”

Raven Stark bent down and tapped a scarlet fingernail on the glass panel that separated her from Beulah the python.

“Well, Mr. Cray,” she said, “I promise you’ve never done a show like Derek’s.”

Derek Badger’s real name was Lee Bluepenny, and he had no training in biology, botany, geology or forestry. His background was purely show business.

As a young man he’d traveled the world with a popular Irish folk-dancing group until he broke a toe while rehearsing for a street parade in Montreal. As he waited in the hospital emergency room, he happened to meet a talent agent who had gotten ill from eating tainted oysters. The queasy talent agent thought Lee Bluepenny looked tough and handsome, and asked if he’d ever considered a career in television.

As soon as Lee Bluepenny’s dance injury healed, the agent arranged for him to fly to California and audition for a new reality show. The producers of
Expedition Survival!
loved Lee Bluepenny’s new Australian accent, which he had shamelessly copied from the late Steve Irwin, the legendary crocodile hunter. The producers also liked that Lee Bluepenny could swallow a live salamander without throwing up. What they didn’t particularly like was his name. Lee Bluepenny was okay for a jazz piano player or maybe an art dealer, they said, but it wasn’t rugged-sounding enough for someone who had to claw and gnaw his way out of the wilds every week.

After trying out a few different names—Erik Panther,
Gus Wolverine, Chad Condor—the producers settled on Derek Badger, which was fine with Lee Bluepenny. He was so thrilled to be on television that he would have let them call him Danny the Dodo Bird.