Carl Hiaasen - Hoot

Roy remained on the floor, catching his breath and trying to sort out what had just happened. Maybe Mr. Ryan had overheard the sounds of the struggle; he was plenty strong enough to hoist Dana like a bale of alfalfa.

Eventually Roy flopped over and got to his feet. He fumbled for the light switch and re-armed himself with the broom handle, just in case. When he poked his head out of the closet, he saw that the hallway was deserted.

Roy dropped the broom handle and streaked for the nearest exit. He almost made it, too.

"I missed my bus," Roy muttered.

"Big deal. I'm missing soccer practice," said Beatrice.

"What about Dana?"

"He'll live."

It wasn't Mr. Ryan who'd saved Roy from a whupping in the closet; it was Beatrice Leep. She had left Dana Matherson stripped down to his underpants and trussed to the flagpole in front of the administration building at Trace Middle School. There, Beatrice had "borrowed" a bicycle, forcefully installed Roy on the handlebars, and was now churning at a manic pace toward an unknown destination.

Roy wondered if this was a kidnapping, in the legal sense of the term. Surely there must be a law against one kid snatching another kid from school property.

"Where are we going?" He expected Beatrice to ignore the question, as she had twice before.

But this time she answered: "Your house."

"What?"

"Just be quiet, okay? I'm in no mood, cowgirl."

Roy could tell by her tone of voice that she was upset.

"I need a favor," she told him. "Right away."

"Sure. Anything you want."

What else could he say? He was hanging on for dear life as Beatrice zigged across busy intersections and zagged through lines of traffic. She was a skilled bicyclist, but Roy was nervous nonetheless.

"Bandages, tape. Goop to stop infections," Beatrice was saying. "Your mom got any of that stuff?"

"Of course." Roy's mother kept enough medical supplies to run a mini-emergency room.

"Good deal. Now all we need is a cover story."

"What's going on? Why can't you get bandages at your house?"

"Because it's none of your business." Beatrice set her jaw and pedaled faster. Roy got a queasy feeling that something bad must have happened to Beatrice's stepbrother, the running boy.

Mrs. Eberhardt greeted them at the front door. "I was getting worried, honey. Was the bus late? Oh-who's this?"

"Mom, this is Beatrice. She gave me a lift home."

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Beatrice!" Roy's mother wasn't just being polite. She was plainly delighted that Roy had brought home a friend, even if it was a tough-looking girl.

"We're going to Beatrice's and finish up some homework. Is that okay?"

"You're welcome to stay here and work. The house is quiet-"

"It's a science experiment," Beatrice cut in. "It might get pretty messy."

Roy suppressed a smile. Beatrice had sized up his mother perfectly: Mrs. Eberhardt kept an exceptionally neat house. Her brow furrowed at the thought of glass beakers bubbling with potent chemicals.

"Is it safe?" she asked.

"Oh, we always wear rubber gloves," Beatrice said reassuringly, "and eye goggles, too."

It was obvious to Roy that Beatrice was experienced at fibbing to grownups. Mrs. Eberhardt fell for the whole yam.

While she fixed them a snack, Roy slipped out of the kitchen and darted to his parents' bathroom. The first-aid stash was in the cabinet beneath the sink. Roy removed a box of gauze, a roll of white adhesive tape, and a tube of antibiotic ointment that looked like barbecue sauce. These items he concealed in his backpack.

When he returned to the kitchen, Beatrice and his mother were chatting at the table, a plate of peanut-butter cookies between them. Beatrice's cheeks were full, which Roy took as a promising sign. Enticed by the sweet warm smell, he reached across and grabbed two cookies off the top of the pile.

"Let's go," Beatrice said, jumping up from her chair. "We've got lots of work to do."

"I'm ready," said Roy.

"Oh, wait-you know what we forgot?"

He had no clue what Beatrice was talking about. "No. What did we forget?"

"The ground beef," she said.

"Uh?"

"You know. For the experiment."

"Yeah," said Roy, playing along. "That's right."

Immediately his mother piped up: "Honey, I've got two pounds in the fridge. How much do you need?"

Roy looked at Beatrice, who smiled innocently. "Two pounds would be plenty, Mrs. Eberhardt. Thanks."

Roy's mother bustled to the refrigerator and retrieved the package of meat. "What kind of science experiment is this, anyway?" she asked.

Before Roy could answer, Beatrice said, "Cell decay."

Mrs. Eberhardt's nose crinkled, as if she could already smell something rotting. "You two better run along," she said, "while that hamburger's still fresh."

Beatrice Leep lived with her father, a former professional basketball player with gimpy knees, a beer gut, and not much enthusiasm for steady work. Leon "Lurch" Leep had been a high-scoring point guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers and later for the Miami Heat, but twelve years after retiring from the NBA he still hadn't decided what to do with the rest of his life.

Beatrice's mother was not an impatient woman, but she had eventually divorced Leon to pursue her own career as a cockatoo trainer at Parrot Jungle, a tourist attraction in Miami. Beatrice had chosen to remain with her father, partly because she was allergic to parrots and partly because she doubted that Leon Leep could survive on his own. He had basically turned into a lump.

Yet less than two years after Mrs. Leep left him, Leon surprised everyone by getting engaged to a woman he met at a celebrity pro-am golf tournament. Lonna was one of the waitresses in bathing suits who drove electric carts around the golf course, serving beer and other beverages to the players. Beatrice didn't even learn Lonna's last name until the day of the wedding. It was the same day Beatrice found out she was going to have a stepbrother.

Lonna arrived at the church towing a somber, bony-shouldered boy with sun-bleached hair and a deep tan. He looked miserable in a coat and necktie, and he didn't hang around for the reception. No sooner had Leon placed the wedding ring on Lonna's finger than the boy kicked off his shiny black shoes and ran away. This was to become a recurring scene in the Leep family chronicles.

Lonna didn't get along with her son and nagged at him constantly. To Beatrice, it appeared as if Lonna was afraid that the boy's quirky behavior might annoy her new husband, though Leon Leep seemed not to notice. Occasionally he'd make a halfhearted attempt to bond with the kid, but the two had little in common. The boy held no interest in Leon's prime passions-sports, junk food, and cable television-and spent all his free time roaming the woods and swamps. As for Leon, he wasn't much of an outdoorsman, and was leery of any critter that wasn't wearing a collar and a rabies tag.

One night, Lonna's son brought home an orphaned baby raccoon, which promptly crawled into one of Leon's favorite moleskin slippers and relieved itself. Leon seemed more puzzled than upset, but Lonna went totally ballistic. Without consulting her husband, she arranged for her son to be shipped off to a military prep school-the first of several failed attempts to "normalize" the boy.

He seldom lasted more than two weeks before running away or being expelled. The last time it happened, Lonna purposely didn't tell Leon. Instead she continued to pretend that her son was doing fine, that his grades were good and his conduct was improving.

The truth was, Lonna didn't know where the boy had gone and didn't intend to go looking for him. She was "fed up with the little monster," or so Beatrice overheard her say on the telephone. As for Leon Leep, he displayed no curiosity beyond what his wife had told him about her wayward offspring. Leon didn't even notice when the tuition bills from the military school stopped coming.