Squirm

by Carl Hiaasen

  Mom looks sad. “He’s got a whole new life now, honey.”

  “That’s bull,” I say. “Just because you get a new zip code doesn’t mean you get a new life. Look at us.”

  She closes her eyes for a moment, then says: “I wish I could let you go, but it’s not a great idea. He got remarried.”

  “Doesn’t he still ask about me and Belinda?”

  “I send him pictures.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Let’s not talk about this now, Billy.”

  Back in my room, I go online to check the balance of my bank account: $633.24. This is what I’ve saved up from Christmases and birthday presents, and also from working at Publix for five weekends until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Bagging groceries requires friendly conversation with strangers, which I’m not especially good at.

  Truthfully, I’m surprised I’ve got so much cash in the bank. There’s a travel site offering $542 round-trip tickets from Orlando to Bozeman, Montana, so I write Mom a check and slip it into her handbag after she goes to bed.

  Then I “borrow” her credit card to order the plane ticket off the airline’s website.

  * * *

  —

  The last day of school is short because I’ve got only one final exam, in algebra. I’m done at noon, and Mom is waiting in the parking lot. She found my check in her purse, and she’s angry.

  “You are not going to Montana,” she declares.

  “It’s a nonrefundable ticket.”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass, Billy. I don’t even have your father’s phone number!”

  “Then how do you know he’s married?”

  “He told me in a letter. This was a few years ago.”

  “Were you mad?”

  “I’m mad he doesn’t call you guys. That’s all.”

  “And you seriously have no idea what he does for a living?”

  Mom sighs. “He says he’s working for the government—whatever that means.”

  “How come you never told me?”

  “Because I was embarrassed I didn’t know more.”

  I reach over and squeeze her arm. “If he doesn’t want to see me, I’ll come straight home. That’s a promise.”

  She says, “This is all my fault.”

  “Please don’t cry. It’s just a plane ride.”

  But she knows better than that. So do I.

  Too much time has passed. I need to talk to the man.

  That evening, I take the snakes out of their tanks and put them in pillowcases, which I knot snugly at the open ends. My mother drives me down Grapefruit Road until I find the right place to stop. She stays in the car, as any normal person would, while I walk into the trees, open the pillowcases, and free the snakes.

  I’d waited until dark so they could crawl away safely. Most hawks don’t hunt at night, another piece of information you’ll probably never need.

  The next morning, Mom takes me to the airport. I’ve told her I spoke to my father and he’s excited about my visit.

  Not true. I’d spent an hour on the internet but couldn’t find a phone number anywhere. All I have is the return address on that envelope.

  And now I’m getting on an airplane, flying across the country to meet a man who might not even want to see me.

  Brilliant.

  TWO

  My family moves around so much because Mom has a weird rule:

  We’ve got to live near a bald eagle nest, and by “near” my mother means fifteen minutes, max. She’s totally obsessed with these birds, which I agree are pretty impressive. Still, it’s a strange way to arrange your life.

  You can go online and look up all the active nests in the state. Mom always picks one close to a good school district, and that’s the neighborhood where she buys a house.

  Sunday is our eagle-watching day. The nests are usually at the top of a tall dead tree. Mom, Belinda, and I each carry our own pair of binoculars—like I said, we’re not poor—and for an hour or two we’ll just sit on the hood of the car, looking up at the birds.

  “They mate for life,” Mom often whispers.

  Many do, but some don’t. I leave that subject alone.

  Florida baldies usually don’t migrate north once they find a mate. After the babies grow up and leave, the mother and father birds sometimes fly off. I’ve explained to Mom that they often build more than one nest, but she always starts worrying if they don’t show up again after a few days. She thinks they got sick from eating fish in polluted water, or somebody took a shot at them. Those things do happen, but there are times when eagles go away just because they’re in a mood to explore.

  Then the nest starts to crumble, and pretty soon you’re staring up at an empty heap of sticks and dead branches.

  Before long, Mom starts tap-tapping on her laptop again, searching for a new nest to adopt. Next thing I know, the house goes up for sale, a moving van appears, and we’re on our way to another eagle town. In the time since my father left, we’ve lived in Key Largo, Clearwater, Everglades City, Punta Gorda, and now Fort Pierce.

  Of all those places, Everglades City was my favorite, because it’s surrounded by wilderness—or the closest thing to wilderness that’s left in Florida. We stayed there two years and three months, until the nest was blown down by a funnel cloud, which is basically a tornado over water. The nest was a short boat ride from our house, and on Sundays a neighbor would loan us his skiff to go see the eagles. They usually had two babies, both fledged and gone by midsummer. It was the first weekend of October when the funnel cloud dropped out of a thunderhead on Chokoloskee Bay and shredded the nest.

  After that we didn’t see the mother and father birds again, though I doubt they died in the storm. Baldies are tough. They probably just made a new nest somewhere else. Mom didn’t want to talk about it—she was so bummed.

  I thought of a plan to cheer her up so we could stay in Everglades City, but it sort of backfired and she sold the house anyway. The night we took down the FOR SALE sign, I bagged up my snakes and let them go near a gravel road off the Tamiami Trail.

  Mom waited in the car with the doors locked. That’s our routine.

  * * *

  —

  On the morning I’m leaving to see my father, the last thing she says at the airport is: “Billy, please don’t bring back anything alive.”

  “You mean like snakes?”

  “I mean anything that needs a bag or a cage,” she says, and kisses me on the cheek.

  You can’t fly straight from Florida to Montana, so I’ve got to change planes in Atlanta. A skinny guy wearing a Delta name tag is waiting to walk me to the new gate, even though I tell him I can find my own way (which isn’t true, because the airport is ridiculously huge and confusing).

  The jet going to Montana is larger than the first one. Sitting beside me is a woman who smells like the bacon cheeseburger she gorped while we were waiting to take off. Her husband is reading a book about World War II on his tablet.

  I spend the entire flight with my face at the window. It feels like I’m gliding through an IMAX movie. We pass directly above the Mississippi River, winding and broad and muddy. After that it’s the Great Plains, checkerboards of gold and green. Some of the farm fields are cut in humongous perfect circles.

  But the best sight, by far, is the Rocky Mountains. From the sky, the first thing you notice is the foothills, which look like the bony brown knuckles of a giant. Then suddenly these amazing peaks appear, bright and jagged, with clouds wisping along steep ridgelines. Even in June the mountaintops are still white! I’m totally jacked because I’ve never seen snow before.

  The Bozeman airport is laid out next to a towering row of white-capped crests. After we land, a flight attendant asks me to stay in my seat until the other passengers get off. I can’t figure out what I’ve done to get m
yself in trouble. Once the plane is empty, the flight attendant leads me down the jet bridge into the terminal building.

  “Your uncle’s waiting right there,” she says, pointing to a young bearded dude wearing black jeans and a hoodie. I’ve never seen him before in my life. She hands him some papers to sign, then nods goodbye to me.

  I look at the bearded guy and say, “I didn’t know I had any uncles.”

  He grins. “Just go with it.”

  Apparently, kids my age aren’t allowed to travel alone unless an “approved” adult is meeting them when the plane lands. My mom has a friend whose nephew attends Montana State, and that’s who was waiting at the airport. Mom didn’t tell me ahead of time, probably because she didn’t want me to arrive with an attitude. I sure don’t need a babysitter.

  The guy’s name is Kurt and he tells me he’s majoring in middle-childhood education.

  “Perfect,” I say.

  “So, I’m giving you a ride to Livingston?”

  “Is that far?”

  Kurt chuckles. “In Montana there’s no such thing as far. People drive six hours to a Little League game and it’s no big deal. Livingston’s only thirty minutes on the interstate.”

  The first part of the car ride is almost as unreal as the flight, the highway climbing and dipping through valleys of bright green timber. Every third word out of my mouth is “wow,” so it’s obvious to Kurt that I’ve never been out of Florida. We zigzag through a steep pass called Bear Canyon, and like an idiot, I ask him if it has any bears.

  “Uh, yeah. Lots of ’em,” he says.

  “I’d love to see a grizzly.”

  “Ha, you and two jillion other tourists. I know lots of people born and raised here that have never laid eyes on one.”

  “How about you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Maybe I’ll get lucky,” I say.

  Kurt tells me about a roadside attraction that features captive grizzlies. The biggest of the show bears has appeared in major movies. “The place is just a few miles ahead,” he says. “They’re amazing critters. You want to stop?”

  “Thanks, but I’d rather see a wild one.”

  “Well, they don’t hang out in Livingston.”

  “They do in Yellowstone Park,” I say.

  “For sure. Major griz country.”

  “My dad’s gonna take me there. We see any bears, I’ll text you a picture.”

  “Yeah, right,” says Kurt.

  * * *

  —

  The house is on Geyser Street. It’s pale gray with navy-blue shutters. There is a genuine picket fence in front, a neatly planted garden, and a porch with a wooden swing. I’m a long, long way from Florida.

  Two bicycles are propped against the fence. I wonder if Kurt dropped me at the wrong place, so I double-check the address on my father’s envelope. It matches the number on the mailbox.

  I wheel my suitcase up to the front door and knock. A girl answers. She has long, straight brown hair and matching eyes, and she’s a little taller than me.

  “I’m looking for Mr. Dickens,” I say. “Dennis Dickens.”

  The girl sighs. “Oh brother. Come on in.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I said come in, brother.”

  I drag my bag inside. The girl’s name is Summer Chasing-Hawks. It turns out I’m actually her stepbrother. She says my dad “sort of” married her mother a few years earlier.

  “He’s not here,” Summer informs me.

  “When will he be back?”

  “You want some lemonade? Mom’s floating the river over near Billings. She won’t be home till dinnertime.” Summer goes to the kitchen and returns with two cans of Pepsi. “No more lemonade. Sorry,” she says, tossing me one of the cans. “We’re Apsáalooke Indians, which you probably never heard of. Nowadays they call us Crow. My mom met your dad on the rez. His drone crash-landed on our trailer.”

  “Aren’t the Crows the ones who nailed General Custer?”

  “Nope. Our tribe was on the other end of that deal—we sent scouts to help the U.S. soldiers.” She shrugs. “Back then we had major issues with the Lakotas.”

  I sit beside an orange tabby on a chewed-up sofa. The cat is old and twitchy, with a bald patch on its rump. There’s also a weird-looking mutt sniffing around. It looks half Labrador and half greyhound, a bad combination of goofy and fast. Summer says the dog’s name is Satan.

  “It used to be Sparky,” she adds, “until he ate Mom’s favorite boots.”

  “I’d really like to see my dad. Do you know where he went?”

  “I predicted you’d show up here one day, Billy.”

  “Is that why he took off?” I ask. “Because he found out I was coming?”

  “He travels for his job. Something came up, short notice.” Summer finishes off her Pepsi and crumples the can.

  The windows of the house stand open, and the air feels cool and dry. On one wall hang some framed photographs of my father and his new family. Dad’s hair looks lighter than mine, and in some of the photos he’s got a scraggly goatee. I don’t think I look anything like him, but Summer says she definitely sees a resemblance.

  “I knew who you were the minute I opened the door,” she says, nodding.

  “It sucks he’s not here. I flew all the way from Florida.”

  “Then your arms must be really tired.” She shrugs and smiles. “Old joke. Bad joke. Sorry about that.”

  “Can I hang out until your mom gets home? I need to ask her some questions.”

  “Of course you can hang here, Billy. Where else would you go?”

  We walk down to the Yellowstone. I can hear it from blocks away, which is wild. Florida rivers are so lazy and quiet that you can barely tell the water’s moving. Summer says the Yellowstone is running high and dirty because of heavy snowmelt from the mountains. Standing on the bank, I see the pure power of the racing current. I toss a stick and watch it vanish downstream.

  The sun is dipping behind the mountains and the air’s getting colder. Back at the house, Summer stacks a few logs in the fireplace and lets me light the kindling.

  “What exactly does my father do?” I ask. “His job description, I mean. My mother said he does something for the government, but she’s not sure what.”

  “You never asked him?”

  “I haven’t seen the man since I was little. Or talked to him.”

  Summer looks honestly surprised. “He’s never once called?”

  “Nope. But he always sends a check.”

  “Which arrives by the tenth of every month, right? Five thousand bucks.”

  It feels weird talking about this kind of stuff—about the money my family gets—with a girl I hardly know.

  “So, Dad must’ve told you,” I say.

  Summer Chasing-Hawks sits forward and holds her hands close to the fire.

  “Billy Boy,” she says, “I’m the one who writes those checks.”

  * * *

  —

  I hadn’t wanted to leave Everglades City. Belinda said she was ready for a change, ready for a town with an outlet mall.

  Not me. There weren’t many snakes in the salty mangroves, but I could ride my bike to plenty of places that were loaded. Once I went fishing in a canal where I saw a python and an alligator trying to eat each other. The battle went on for like three days, until finally they both gave up and swam away.

  True story. I got video to prove it.

  After the funnel cloud trashed the eagle nest, I came up with a scheme to calm my mother so we wouldn’t have to move. This was the plan that backfired.

  One afternoon I asked to borrow her laptop.

  “Why, Billy?”

  “You’ll see.”

  A couple of clicks later, we’re watching a mother eagle
feed tiny pieces of gnawed catfish to her baby. It was live-streaming from a nest at the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. The website said the nest was on top of a poplar tree.

  Suddenly the father baldy showed up with another fish, which he dropped into the nest beside the mother. The baby eaglet was small and fuzzy, a ball of gray lint.

  “Hey, look, there’s another egg!” Mom exclaimed.

  There were tears on her cheeks, she was so excited. We spotted a hairline crack in the other egg.

  “That one’s starting to hatch, too,” I said.

  “I know, I know! This is so amazing!”

  “See, Mom, we don’t have to keep moving. They’ve got these eagle-cams all over the country. You can watch ’em anytime you want.”

  “Really?”

  “And you can see way more on the video than you can with a pair of binoculars. Right? I mean, this is like being inside the nest. It’s like being one of the birds!”

  Her eyes were riveted to the screen of her laptop. “Billy, I’m worried about that other egg.”

  Oh no, I thought. Here she goes again.

  “Eagle eggs don’t always hatch at the same time,” I reminded her. “Sometimes one is late. Relax, Mom, I’ve read up on this.”

  She didn’t sleep or leave the house for days. You couldn’t pry the laptop from her hands. Belinda did the cooking, I took care of the laundry. Mom chewed her fingernails down so far that she needed Band-Aids.

  I was at school on the morning the second eaglet finally hatched. When I got home, my mother was snoring on the sofa, hugging the laptop. Belinda and I helped her to bed. That night she bought fresh stone crabs and threw a little party, just for the three of us. We toasted the baby eagle with Gatorade.

  The next afternoon, Mom was crying again. She said the big eaglet was being mean to the newborn.

  “That’s totally normal. They’re just fussing,” I said. “Don’t worry—the momma bird won’t let anything bad happen.”

  “But, Billy, she’s not in the nest all the time! When she’s out hunting with the poppa bird, she can’t keep an eye on those babies.”