Carl Hiaasen - Hoot

The Mother Paula's vandal was finally in custody, so there was no reason to spend the night on guard at the trailer.

After Officer Delinko gave him a lift home, Curly had entertained his wife and mother-in-law with a blow-by-blow account of the exciting events. For dramatic purposes, Curly had jazzed up a few of the details.

In his version of the story, for instance, the surly young intruder disabled him with an expertly aimed karate chop (which sounded more serious than having dirt thrown in your face). Curly also decided it was unnecessary to mention that he'd tripped in an owl burrow and fallen. Instead he described the chase as a breathless neck-and-neck sprint. Officer Delinko's role in the capture of the fleeing criminal was conveniently minimized.

Curly's performance went over so fabulously at home that he was confident Chuck Muckle would go for it, too. First thing Monday morning, Curly would call Mother Paula's corporate headquarters to give the vice-president the details of the arrest, and of his own heroics. He couldn't wait to hear Mr. Muckle choke out a congratulation.

After lunch, Curly sat down to watch a ball game. No sooner had he settled in front of the TV than a Mother Paula's commercial came on, promoting the weekend special: $6.95 for all the pancakes you could eat, plus free sausage and coffee.

The sight of Kimberly Lou Dixon playing Mother Paula made Curly think of the cheesy movie he'd rented, The Last House on Witch Boulevard III. He couldn't recall whether it was due back at Blockbuster that afternoon or the following day. Curly hated paying late fees on video rentals, so he decided to go to the trailer and get the tape.

On the drive there, Curly was distressed to remember that he'd left something else at the construction site: his gun!

During the night's commotion, he had somehow lost track of the.38 revolver. He didn't recall having it when he was riding in Officer Delinko's patrol car, so it must have slipped from his belt while he was scuffling with the kid outside the trailer. Another possibility was that he'd dropped it when he stepped in that darn owl hole.

Misplacing a loaded gun was a serious matter, and Curly was highly annoyed with himself. When he arrived at the fenced lot, he hurried to the area where he and the teenager had wrestled. There was no.38 lying around.

Anxiously Curly retraced his steps to the owl den and pointed a flashlight down the hole. No gun.

Now he was genuinely worried. He checked inside the trailer and saw that nothing had been disturbed from the night before. The door was too damaged to be reattached, so Curly covered the opening with two sheets of plywood.

Then he began a methodical search, back and forth across the property, eyes glued to the ground. In one hand he carried a heavy rock, just in case he encountered one of the poisonous moccasins.

Gradually a harrowing thought seeped into Curly's brain, chilling him like ice water: What if the teenaged burglar had swiped the revolver from his waistband while they were fighting? The kid could have stashed it in a Dumpster or tossed it in some bushes as he ran away.

Curly shuddered and pressed on with the hunt. After about half an hour, he'd worked his way down to the section of the property where the earthmoving equipment was parked in preparation for the site clearing.

By this time he'd almost given up hope of finding the gun. He was quite a distance from where he last remembered having it-and in the opposite direction from where the vandal had fled. Curly figured there was no possible way that the.38 could turn up so far from the trailer, unless an exceptionally large owl had picked it up and carried it there.

His eyes fixed on a shallow depression in a soft patch of sand: the imprint of a bare foot, definitely human. Curly counted the toes, just to make sure.

The foot appeared to be considerably smaller than Curly's own; smaller, too, than those of the husky teenaged burglar.

Farther ahead, Curly came across another footprint-and then another, and still another after that. The tracks led directly toward the row of earthmoving machines, and Curly advanced with a growing sense of unease.

He stopped in front of a bulldozer and shielded his brow from the sunlight. At first he didn't notice anything wrong, but then it hit him like a kick from a mule.

The driver's seat was gone!

Dropping the rock that he'd been carrying for protection, Curly dashed to the next machine in line, a backhoe. Its seat had disappeared, too.

In a snit, Curly stomped toward the third and last piece of equipment, a grader. Again, no driver's seat.

Curly spat out a cuss word. Without seats, the earth-moving machines were basically useless. The operators had to sit down in order to work the foot pedals and steer at the same time.

The foreman's mind was racing feverishly. Either the kid they'd caught last night had a hidden accomplice, or someone else had sneaked onto the property after Curly had departed.

But who? Curly wondered in exasperation. Who sabotaged my equipment, and when?

Fruitlessly he searched for the missing seats, his mood darkening by the moment. No longer was he looking forward to calling Mr. Muckle at Mother Paula's headquarters; in fact, he was dreading it. Curly suspected that the grumpy vice-president would take great delight in firing him over the phone.

In despair, Curly headed for the portable latrines. Having guzzled almost a whole pitcher of iced tea during lunch, he now felt like his belly was about to burst. The stress of the situation wasn't helping, either.

Curly armed himself with the flashlight and entered one of the Travelin' Johnnys, leaving the door slightly ajar in case a hasty exit was required. He wanted to be sure nobody had booby-trapped the toilet with foul-tempered reptiles again.

Cautiously Curly aimed his flashlight down the dark hole of the commode. He gulped as the beam illuminated something shiny and black in the water, but upon closer scrutiny he saw that it wasn't an alligator.

"Perfect," Curly muttered wretchedly. "Just perfect."

It was his gun.

Roy was aching to sneak over to the junkyard and visit Mullet Fingers. He wanted to find out what had happened last night at the Mother Paula's property.

The problem was Roy's mother. She invoked the Sunday rule as soon as he returned from the skateboard park, and a family outing was launched. Making good on his promise, Roy's father took them out the Tamiami Trail to an Indian tourist shop that offered airboat trips through the Everglades.

Roy ended up having a great time, even though the noise was so loud that it hurt his eardrums. The tall Seminole who was driving the airboat wore a straw cowboy hat. He said the engine was the same type used on small airplanes.

The rush of wind made Roy's eyes water as the flat-bottomed boat whisked across the sawgrass flats and weaved through the narrow winding creeks. It was cooler than a roller coaster. Along the way they stopped to look at snakes, bullfrogs, chameleons, raccoons, opossums, turtles, ducks, herons, two bald eagles, an otter, and (by Roy's count) nineteen alligators. His father got most of the action on video, while his mother took pictures with her new digital camera.

Although the airboat was very fast, the ride across the shallows was like gliding on silk. Again Roy was astounded by the immense flatness of the terrain, the lush horizons, and the exotic abundance of life. Once you got away from all the jillions of people, Florida was just as wild as Montana.

That night, lying in bed, Roy felt a stronger connection to Mullet Fingers, and a better understanding of the boy's private crusade against the pancake house. It wasn't just about the owls, it was about everything-all the birds and animals, all the wild places that were in danger of being wiped out. No wonder the kid was mad, Roy thought, and no wonder he was so determined.