Carl Hiaasen - Flush

He spun around to face me. “Noah, you understand why I sunk the Coral Queen, right? Every time Dusty empties her holding tank, it's like flushing a hundred filthy toilets into God's ocean!”

It made me sick to think about it. Still, I couldn't afford to let my father get himself all wound up again. There was something else I needed to tell him; something even more important.

“Mom wants you to come home right now,” I said. “She said it's not open for debate. No more speeches, she said, no more excuses. Just come home.”

“Aw, she'll settle down.”

It was like talking to a brick wall… so I took out the sledgehammer.

“Dad, listen to me,” I said. “Mom's thinking about filing for divorce.”

“What? No way!”

“I overheard her say something on the phone to Grandma Janet.”

My father stood knee-deep in the water, blinking and cocking his head like he wasn't sure if he'd heard me right.

“She actually used that word. Divorce? ”

“Loud and clear. She's already spoken to Mr. Shine. Abbey was eavesdropping.”

“Oh man,” Dad sighed. “What a mess.”

At long last, reality seemed to be sinking in. I could see he was really worried about what Mom might do next. So was I.

“Come on,” I said, “let's go.”

He reached down and scooped up a baby blue crab, which he cupped in his hands. When he bent down to inspect it, the crab promptly fastened its miniature claws to his nose and hung there, like a weird painted ornament. My father and I broke out laughing until the crab let go and plopped back into the water.

“Go tell your mom I'll be home shortly,” he said. “We'll take the skiff out this evening-you, me, and Abbey. Catch some snappers for supper.”

I felt pretty good when I hopped on my bike and headed for home. I'd done the tough job that I needed to do, and Dad had responded the way I'd hoped. As I rode along, my thoughts were still bouncing all over the place and I wasn't paying attention to what was ahead of me.

Unfortunately.

One second I was pedaling full speed, the next I was hurtling over my handlebars. I landed hard on my right shoulder and rolled. When I came to a stop, I was flat on my back.

Staring up at the pinched, angry face of Jasper Muleman Jr.

“Hey, dorkbrain, where's your training wheels?” he said.

I heard a dumb hick laugh that was unmistakably Bull's. He and Jasper Jr. must have spotted me coming and ducked into the woods to wait. I sat up and saw my bike on the ground, a freshly snapped gumbo-limbo branch sticking out of the front spokes.

“That's original,” I said to Jasper Jr.

Bull snatched me up by the collar and dragged me into the trees. I could hear Jasper Jr. running after us. When we got to a clearing, Bull straightened me up, spun me around, and pinned my arms.

Jasper Jr. got right in my face. “So where's your big white-trash bodyguard? The one who knocked over my wheelbarrow.”

I wondered if he already knew that something bad had happened to Lice Peeking.

“He wasn't my bodyguard,” I replied. “He was my personal chauffeur.”

Jasper Jr. said I was a real comedian. Then he hauled off and slugged me in the gut.

“That's for Snake Creek,” he snarled, “for making me sink my johnboat.”

The punch knocked the wind out of me, and I went limp as a noodle in Bull's grip. I remember thinking of something clever to say, but all I could do was squeak like a leaking balloon. It seemed to take forever to catch my breath, and right away Jasper Jr. slugged me again.

“And that's for your crazy father sinking my father's boat,” he said.

At that point the world turned fuzzy and gray, and I thought I was history. My mouth was flapping but absolutely nothing was coming out.

I heard Jasper Jr. say, “Bull, you wanna turn?”

“No, bro, I'm good,” Bull said, and let me drop to the ground.

Immediately I closed my eyes and let my tongue hang out and pretended I was dead. It might work fabulously for possums, but it sure didn't work for me.

Jasper Jr. kicked me so hard in the thighbone that his big toe made a sharp popping sound. He started hopping around and hollering that I'd busted his foot. Bull remarked that it was usually a smart idea to put on shoes before you started kicking somebody. Jasper Jr. told him to shut up and gimped away, moaning. I heard Bull chuckling as he followed his wounded friend back to the road.

I would've been chuckling, too, if it hadn't hurt so much.

It isn't easy pretending everything's wonderful when you feel like you've been thrown off the roof of a building. Luckily, there weren't any bruises that Mom or Dad could see because this time Jasper Jr. had socked me in the stomach (not my eye), and the ugly knot on my thighbone was covered up by my pants.

I didn't tell my parents what happened because they would've freaked and gone straight to Dusty Muleman, or maybe even the police, which was not how I wanted to handle it. So I just sat around like a lump in front of the television, trying not to move. In the summer I'm always outdoors-fishing or snorkeling or skateboarding-so Abbey got suspicious about me hanging around the house every day. Mom thought it was weird, too, but she was busy keeping an eye on my father.

Mr. Shine had arranged for Dad to return to the jail and surrender himself. The sheriff couldn't wait to send him back home, although a judge put him under “house arrest” until the Coral Queen case was settled. To keep track of his whereabouts, they clipped an electronic bracelet on Dad's right ankle. If he stepped so much as three inches past our front door, a signal would beep at the sheriff's station and they'd come after him again.

For a week we were like a seminormal family, except that my father wasn't allowed out of the house. One of us always stayed with him, not just to keep him company but also to make sure he didn't try anything cute, like prying off the ankle bracelet.

We played lots of video games and watched fishing shows on ESPN and didn't talk at all about Dusty's casino boat. Abbey's new project was building an Olympic village for hermit crabs, and Dad really got into it. Abbey and I collected the crabs (there were scads of them in the woods along the Old Highway) while my father sat at the kitchen table working with his tools. Before long he'd put together a miniature track, a lap pool, a pole vault, even a hurdle run.

Unfortunately, the average hermit crab isn't particularly athletic, having to haul a clunky seashell around on its back, so the sports competition part of Abbey's project sort of fizzled. Most of the crabs hunkered down and refused to budge. Still, it gave Dad something to do that kept his mind off the Coral Queen.

Until Shelly showed up late one afternoon.

Abbey watched her get out of the Jeep and said, “This oughta be good.”

Shelly was dressed in her casino-boat bartender's outfit, which was loud and skimpy. She wore high heels and stockings that looked like they were made from a mullet net. As I opened the door to let her in, I decided it was probably a good thing that Mom wasn't home.

“Long time no see,” Shelly said to my father, and gave him a brisk, businesslike hug. Then she introduced herself to Abbey, who was gawking at the barbed-wire tattoo on Shelly's bare arm.

“How about something cold to drink?” Dad offered.

“Iced tea would be super. I can't stay long,” Shelly said.

We all sat down in the living room, Shelly crossing her legs and sipping her tea. My father was on the edge of his seat, looking like he was dying to pepper her with questions.

“How you doin', Noah?” Shelly said to me.

“Great.”

“Feelin' okay?” She gave me a narrow look to let me know that she knew I wasn't telling the truth. It was creepy how sharp her radar was.