Carl Hiaasen - Chomp

She was flipping through the bat chapter of the book. “I’m sure I’ll hear from Daddy, soon as he needs his laundry done. That’s the usual program. He’s the king of fake tears and phony apologies.”

“You’ve run away before?”

Tuna looked up. “Sure. Twice.”

“And you go back.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like forever. Mom’s serious about leaving him.”

Wahoo had an idea. “Soon as Pop and I get paid for this job, we’ll get you a plane ticket to Chicago.”

“No,” said Tuna, “but thanks anyway.” She turned away, trying not to choke up.

“School’s out for the summer. There’s no reason for you to stay here.”

She tucked the field guide in her bag and popped to her feet. “Look, I know you guys are tryin’ to help, but I’ll be okay. I can deal with my dad until Mom gets home.”

“All right,” said Wahoo, thinking: But the man’s got a gun.

Tuna broke into a smile when she spotted three striped butterflies, flitting in a casual ballet through the hammock.

“Hey, Lance, check it out!” she said. “Zebra swallowtails. Eurytides marcellus! ”

Wahoo wondered if the butterflies were traveling together or had met by coincidence. High overhead he saw a string of somber turkey buzzards, riding the thermals under a mat of gray-blue clouds. The sun had been up for some time, but the heavy sky gave no clue it was morning. Wahoo was tired of the lousy weather, tired of being wet.

His father stepped out of the scrub holding a pair of Everglades rat snakes. They were good ones-five-footers, dark orange with grayish stripes and butter-colored underbellies.

“Look who I found,” he said cheerily.

“Biters?” asked Wahoo.

“Big-time.”

Tuna agreed that the snakes were beautiful, but she kept a distance.

“All right, Lucille,” said Wahoo, “tell us what Mr. Linnaeus would call ’em.”

“Wait, I’m tryin’ to remember.” She closed her eyes in concentration. “The scientific name is Elaphe something-or-other. It’ll come to me.”

Wahoo grinned. “Way to go, Pop. I think you stumped her.”

Mickey wasn’t listening to the conversation. He heard something nearby-the heavy snapping of branches. “We got a visitor,” he said.

Link, the hulking airboat driver, stalked into the clearing. He wore a grime-streaked undershirt, faded Wranglers and rotted hiking boots with no laces. He scanned the campsite, sneering slightly when his eyes settled on Mickey and the snakes.

“Where’s he at?” Link demanded.

“Who?” said Wahoo.

“The TV man.”

Tuna stepped forward. “You mean Mr. Badger?”

“Yeah. He be gone.”

Wahoo’s father muttered, “If only.” He had an Elaphe entwined on each arm.

“Keep dem tings ’way f’me,” Link warned.

“Aw, don’t be a baby.”

“TV man be gone from his tent dis mornin’.”

Tuna said, “Maybe he went for a hike.”

“Or mebbe he out here wid you.”

Mickey laughed. “That’s right, Sherlock. We kidnapped him in the middle of the night! I remember now.”

“Pop, lay off,” said Wahoo. Link was built like a refrigerator, and he didn’t have a rollicking sense of humor.

“Dey tole me to come’n git him,” the airboat driver went on. “Take him back to Sickler’s. Hospital sent a ambulance on account of he got bit by a otter.”

“Actually, it was a bat,” Tuna interjected.

Wahoo couldn’t imagine why Derek Badger took off, or where he might have gone. The tree island wasn’t very large, maybe fifteen acres. “We’ll help you find him,” he said to Link.

While Mickey bagged the rat snakes in a pillowcase, Tuna and Wahoo varnished themselves with bug spray. Link accepted a Gatorade, which he downed in four gulps. Then they all set out through the vines and the hardwoods in search of the missing reality TV star. Wahoo’s father led the way.

Before long, they crossed paths with the director and the crew, accompanied by a distraught Raven Stark, her red hair laced with spiderwebs.

“We’ve looked everywhere,” she lamented. “Derek’s gone! Vanished!”

“Not possible,” said Mickey.

The director pulled him aside and whispered, “What if a bear got him?”

“Florida bears don’t eat people. Plus, there’d be blood and bones.”

“Then he must be lost out here someplace…”

Mickey said, “He’s not lost. He’s hiding.”

They were gathered at the low, skinny tail of the island, where the trees thinned out.

“Hiding?” Raven exclaimed. “From what?” She turned and called Derek’s name.

Wahoo and Tuna felt obliged to do the same. There was no response. Mickey advised the group to split up once more and work their way back toward the main camp.

“Here. Take a walkie-talkie,” said the director.

That’s when they heard the loud growl of the airboat engine, cranking up. Link at first appeared confused, then angry.

“DAT’S MINE!” he bellowed, and lowered his shoulders, crashing like a mad buffalo through the underbrush.

The director cursed, and Raven let out a despairing moan. Wahoo and Tuna could hardly believe what was happening.

Mickey Cray shook his head. “It just gets better and better.”

The executive producer of Expedition Survival! was a man named Gerry Germaine, a crabby, bullet-headed fellow who drove a canary-yellow Ferrari and wore loafers that cost nine hundred dollars. The sprawling office from which he ruled his television empire was in Studio City, California, not far from downtown Los Angeles. In addition to Expedition Survival! Gerry Germaine produced three other popular reality shows- Rattlesnake Roundup, Shrimp Wars and Polar Madness, which featured a quarrelsome family that lived on a melting iceberg.

Gerry Germaine seldom watched his own TV programs, but he paid close attention to the budgets. Derek Badger was a constant problem, and his latest salary demands had angered the bosses at the Untamed Channel, which broadcast all of Gerry Germaine’s reality shows. Having recently purchased an expensive vacation home in Aspen, Colorado, Gerry Germaine wanted to remain on good terms with the Untamed Channel. Therefore it was his view that Expedition Survival! would do just fine without Derek Badger, whose frequent tantrums and mishaps were expensive.

“What do you mean by ‘gone’?” Gerry Germaine asked Raven, who had contacted him on her satellite phone from the Everglades.

“Last night he was bitten by a bat.”

“What else is new?”

“A seriously ticked-off bat. Derek was bleeding all over the place,” Raven said. “And this morning, when we checked his tent, he was gone.”

“Hmmm.”

“It appears that he stole-let’s say ‘borrowed’-an airboat. We don’t know why.”

“Where did that klutz learn to drive an airboat?” wondered Gerry Germaine.

“Two years ago we taped that show in the Louisiana bayou. The one where Derek finds an old beat-up airboat and uses his Swiss army knife to fix the engine so he can escape-remember?”

“I remember the bills,” Gerry Germaine said. “Twenty-four hundred bucks we paid some Cajun fisherman for ‘vessel repairs.’ ”

Raven cleared her throat. “That’s the one. Derek crashed it into a cypress stump.”

“Naturally.” In his mind, Gerry Germaine was sorting through the options. “What’s your plan to find him?”

“Well, the local sheriff has a search team.”

“Absolutely not. I don’t want to see this all over the media.”

“But he’s hurt,” Raven said. “He needs help.”

“How badly hurt? You think he might… die?” Gerry Germaine had pondered such coldhearted fantasies before. It would be a humongous night for the show’s TV ratings if Derek Badger failed to survive one of his survival expeditions. It would also open the way for him to be replaced with another actor who wasn’t as pompous, demanding and clumsy. Plenty of guys would jump at the job, for half the pay.