by Darin Harris
Alligator Hunter
Darin S. Harris
Copyright 2013 Darin S. Harris
Discover other titles by Darin S. Harris at:
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Connect with Darin Online:
My blog: https://www.darinsharris.net
E-mail: [email protected]
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Table of Contents
Beginning
About the Author
Discover Other Books by this Author
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Beginning
“Hey, Keegan, did you hear about it?”
Brandon had been eating a honey bun, so it sounded like “Hey Kee’an, di’ you hea’ ‘bou’ i'?” Brandon always hears everything before I do, but mostly, it’s just dumb stuff, so I’m usually not that interested. I just shook my head. If I'd had any idea how exciting this news was, I would have been jumping up and down. OK, not really, but I would have been much more interested.
“They found an alligator in the sewer, and it was huge.”
We had been standing by the wall in the school cafeteria before class. It had rained that morning, so most of the kids hung out there and waited for the first bell to ring. It was loud in there, and I could barely hear Brandon, but my eyebrows arched up when he said it. Sometimes Brandon knows things, and sometimes he makes it up.
“Yeah, right.” I didn’t know if he was telling the truth or not, but I was secretly excited at the thought. It would be SO cool to see an alligator!
“I’m serious. It was over nine feet long.”
I rolled my eyes. “I haven’t heard that one, but I did hear about the monkeys in the park.” Actually, I’d heard that New York City had rumors about alligators in the sewers, but we lived in a little town in southwestern Oklahoma.
“It was dead.” Brandon was licking the sticky glaze from the honey bun off his fingers as he whispered. “They think it died, and someone dumped it in there, but they don’t know who.” Brandon whispered a lot. In the four years I’ve known him, I’ve never heard him yell. His mom doesn’t like yelling.
Joey walked up right then. “Are you talking about the alligator? I heard they think it came from Old Man Gentry’s place.” Okay, maybe this story was for real. Everybody hears about stuff before me.
I would have loved to see an alligator, but the thought of Mr. Gentry having alligators was pretty funny. “That’s crazy. Why would Mr. Gentry have alligators?” I was shaking my head at the thought of it.
“I don’t know, have you ever seen that old house of his, with that big fence around it?” Joey was waving his hands around, gesturing like he always did when he was excited about something. He wore his brown hair kind of long, and when his hands got to waving, usually his bangs started waving too.
Brandon nodded. “I heard he keeps his dead wife up in the attic.”
“I heard that too. Jasmine said her cousin’s friend’s boyfriend went inside the house once, and no one’s ever seen him since.”
I rolled my eyes again, but didn’t say anything. The bell rang, and we headed out to class. The morning went by fast, and at lunch, we all sat down together at our usual cafeteria table.
“I think the three of us need to get inside his backyard to search for clues.” Joey was getting that look he always got when he was going to get the three of us in trouble. Joey had dark curly hair and dark eyes, and when he talked about something that would get us in trouble, his eyes seemed to shine in a dangerous way.
“Clues to what?” Brandon looked like he was sensing that Joey was going to get us in trouble too, and Brandon didn’t like trouble. His mom was really strict, so even though he didn’t like it, he was usually in it most of the time.
“Where he’s hiding the alligators, duh.” Joey looked at Brandon like he was dense.
I shook my head. “Why would Mr. Gentry have alligators? He’s about 80 years old.”
“Maybe he has them to eat the bodies.”
Brandon’s green eyes registered fear, and his already-white face got ever whiter when Joey said that. “Maybe we should let the police handle it.”
Joey’s head snapped toward Brandon. “Are you mental? If we do this, we won’t be the seventh graders everyone makes fun of. We could be heroes.” We went to Crusaders Christian School, and seventh through twelfth grades were in the same wing together. Seventh graders got picked on by everyone.
Where Joey was my height, Brandon was quite a bit shorter than us. He was pudgy, and wore glasses, and got picked on probably a little bit more than Joey or I, but it didn’t seem to bother him as much. But, because his mom didn’t let him do much, he tended to be more scared than either of us.
I shook my head again. “Even if we did find that Mr. Gentry had alligators, which I don’t think he does, how would that make us heroes? It’s not like we would be saving someone’s life or anything.”
Joey thought about that for a minute. “Unless he uses them to eat the bodies. Then we might be saving someone’s life, and even if we’re not heroes, we might be more popular."
“What if one of us gets eaten by an alligator? That will make us dead… Famous, but dead.” Brandon’s eyes went wide, and his face was kind of pale.
The way that he said "dead" reminded me of how we first met. That's another story, but, well, I've got time if you do.
Would you like to learn more about how the boys met? C1
Would you like to stick to the story? A2
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A2
“Come on, Brandon, don’t be a chicken. Keegan’s not scared. He always say he wants to be like the Alligator Hunter or one of those other guys on TV. Are you ready to face the gators?”
I guess I should explain. Like a lot of people I watched the Alligator Hunter several times a week, and when I saw on the news that Stan Borlan had died I couldn’t believe it. He was hiking in Africa and got trampled by a rogue elephant. Even though I’d never met him, it felt like I’d lost a good friend, and as Grandma said, “The world seemed like a sadder place.”
For as long as I could remember, I had wanted to be like the Alligator Hunter, and after he died, I made a decision. Someday, I was going to do what he did. Once I heard about the alligator, I had started thinking maybe I’d really get to be the next Alligator Hunter.
Anyway, Joey looked at me, and I nodded. “See? Come on, Brandon; nothing’s going to happen. You’ll see.”
Brandon looked at me and nodded slowly. “Okay, I guess.”
Joey lifted a forkful of some currently-unidentified casserole type substance to his mouth. “We need to go check out the old campground. Maybe it came from there.” Brandon’s eyes went wide.
“But I heard the new owners are devil worshippers or something,” Brandon whispered.
“Come on, Brandon; you know that’s just something people made up.” Joey scooped up another forkful of casserole. Brandon was already finished with his. I tasted one bite of mine.
“Brandon, how can you be afraid of the campground but not scared of this creepy casserole?” I lifted up a spoonful and tipped it over so it plopped on the pale, pink, plastic plate.
"Hey, that was good casserole," Brandon said. "It was almost as good as my mom's." I had eaten at Brandon’s house several times, and unfortunately, he was right. This casserole was almost as good as his mom’s. She mad creepy casserole, too.
“I think, if we bike over to the creek on Johnsonville Road, we can probably sneak into the back of the campground.” Joey tried to draw a map in his applesauce with his fork, but his lines kept running back together. Brandon and I laughed, and chocolate milk bubbled out of Brandon’s nose.
“Gross, Brandon,” I handed him my napkins. �
��I’ll bet you could make a good map in the mashed potatoes.”
Joey looked up, excited. “Yeah, I wish I had some mashed potatoes.” We all looked at each other and laughed. No one wished for tasteless cafeteria mashed potatoes, not even Brandon.
Joey gave up on his map drawing. “If we go in the back way, we can follow the creek right up to the buildings, and if we walk in the creek, we can stay out of sight most of the way.”
“Yeah, but if there are alligators, won’t they be in the creek?” Brandon whispered again.
“If we go in after school, it will still be light enough to see. Besides, the creek is too shallow for alligators, unless they’re babies.” Joey and Brandon both nodded. When it came to information about animals, they trusted me. I hoped I was right.
I’d read quite a bit about alligators, but since they don’t live in southwestern Oklahoma, I’d never really thought about where they might be around here. I considered it for a few minutes while pushing the creepy casserole around my tray. The more I thought about it, the more sure I was that we’d be safe, unless one of us fell in the pool.
I had another thought. “Hey, Brandon, can you bring your mom’s digital video camera?” I realized we’d need to document our find. Brandon’s mom had a good camera that she used to film each of their vacations and birthdays. I figured if we were lucky, we could get a video of me catching an alligator – well, a baby alligator. I’d watched Stan Borlan (may he rest in peace, as Grandma always says.) catch plenty of alligators, and I was sure I could do it to, and if we had video of it, I would be on my way to being the next Alligator Hunter.
“No way! My mom will never let me take it out."
Oh well, it was a good try.
“So, should we check out the campground or Old Man Gentry’s first?” Joey asked. I knew a good reason not to go to Mr. Gentry's place, something that would probably put a damper on this whole adventure if I said it out loud.
Should Keegan keep quiet and go to the campground? D1
Should Keegan say what he knows about Mr. Gentry? B1
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B1
“It’s not Mr. Gentry,” I told them. Since Joey was planning an assault on Mr. Gentry’s house, I had to say something. Brandon and Joey stared at me waiting for the explanation. I tried to keep it quiet, since our table was so close to the stage. That's where the teachers ate their lunch, and there they sat, with a perfect view of all the students.
Most of the teachers seemed to ignore the kids completely, but there were a few like Mrs. Strickland. She perched up there like a hawk looking for prey, just waiting for some kid to misbehave so she could strike. Because of that, most of the kids wanted to sit as far away from the stage as possible; that meant that seventh graders like Joey, Brandon, and I had to sit near the stage. Since Crusader is a small school, seventh through twelfth graders all ate at the same time, and though we didn’t really have to sit at that table, there we didn’t get picked on by the high school football players, who seemed to find joy in giving wedgies.
“Look, I know Mr. Gentry doesn’t have any alligators.” I paused, not wanting to go on. “And, he doesn’t keep his dead wife in the attic. Don’t tell anyone this, but I’ve been in his house.” Joey and Brandon looked at me like I’d sprouted antennas and a third eye.
“No way!” Joey finally said. Brandon shook his head.
“Yeah, lots of times, with my Grandpa.”
“Is it scary?” Brandon whispered even though the cafeteria was really loud.
“It was the first couple of times, but not anymore.”
“Why do you go there?”
I shrugged. “Grandpa and Mr. Gentry’s son, Jerry, were best friends. A few years ago, Jerry got cancer, and just before he died, he made my grandpa promise to take care of Mr. Gentry. Grandpa’s been doing it ever since, and sometimes he takes me with him.”
“So he hasn’t murdered anyone, and there are no alligators?” Joey looked disappointed.
“No. He’s really a nice old man, but I think he’s pretty lonely.”
“Great, now I’ll never be a hero.” Joey looked even more depressed than when he found out professional wrestling was fake. Brandon seemed fine knowing he didn’t have to face any alligators. I sat there discouraged.
Maybe I would never find any alligators or crocodiles. Maybe I would never be the Alligator Hunter.
THE END
[back to the beginning]
About the author:
*~* I was pretty sure I wanted to be a writer in the fifth grade. (or a cowboy...or a soldier...or...)
*~* In the twelfth grade I wrote a 5-page paper entitled, "When I grow up I want to be a _____." (I found out not many people want to be a line when they grow up.)
*~* I got a 100 on the paper, and decided I wanted to be a writer more than a line, but I waited 25 years before I started working on it. ("Better late than never," they always say - whoever they are.)
*~* Oreos dunked in milk may be what the Bible calls manna from heaven. (I could be wrong on that.)
*~* My wife is super-cool and I've decided to keep her around. My two boys are super-cool too, but one joined the Army and one went to college, so I guess I won't keep them around.
Keegan Scott: Bike Wrecks & Bad Days
Keegan Scott: Bearded Dragon Bandit
Right Arm
Runners
Connect with Me Online:
My blog: https://www.darinsharris.net
E-mail: [email protected]
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C1
I should probably let you know that Brandon Turner and Joey Spinelli and I have been best friends since the third grade.
Our friendship started on a really bad day.
“Keegan, you’re not doing anything. What’s wrong?” Ms. Shoemaker had taken over for Mrs. Benton, my third grade teacher, when Mrs. Benton had her baby.
Back then, I didn’t really like Crusader Christian School. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be back at my old school with my old friends, but here I was in Mrs. Benton’s third grade classroom, with Ms. Shoemaker, who was always giggling and drawing happy faces on everything. Gag me. Anyway, Ms. Shoemaker had asked me why I wasn’t doing anything, so I told her.
“It’s a stupid assignment.” I said it quietly while I tapped my pencil lead against the paper.
“Oh, it’s not a stupid assignment, Keegan. I’m just interested in you and your family. I’m trying to get to know you, Silly.” She giggled.
“It is a stupid assignment, and I don’t want to get to know you.”
“Keegan, that was a very mean thing to say.” I knew it was mean when I said it, but I didn’t care. It was true. I didn’t want to know her. I just wanted to be left alone. “Maybe I should call your father and tell him that you don’t want to tell me about his job. I bet that would hurt his feelings. You don’t want to hurt your dad’s feelings do you?”
Can you hurt your dad’s feelings when he’s dead? I started to cry. It was third grade - I was just a kid.
"Oh, now Keegan, don’t cry. I’m not really going to call your father. I just want you to write a paragraph telling me what he does for a living.”
“My dad is dead!” I shouted it and then put my head down on my desk.
I don’t remember much of what happened after that, but Joey told me that Ms. Shoemaker freaked out. According to him she said, “Oh my, oh my,” about a hundred times. I just remember wishing my mom and dad would come into class and take me back home – not to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, but to our home where we lived before the car wreck.
I didn’t go to school the next day, and when I went back the day after that, Ms. Shoemaker apologized and told me it wasn’t a very good assignment. At recess, Brandon came up to me. I was standing under a tree, as far as I could from all the screaming kids on the playground. Brandon and I sat at the same table for math, but we hadn’t ever really talked.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“I don’t have a dad either.” He was the same height as me back then, but he was already pudgy.
I shrugged. “Do you have a mom?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t.”
“Sorry.” We were both looking at the ground, moving dirt around with the toe of one shoe. “My mom isn’t fun anymore. She was before dad left. Now she’s always hugging me and crying, and telling me to be careful. I think she thinks I’m going to leave too.” He spoke so quietly I could barely hear him over the kids shouting on the merry-go-round and slide.
I looked up at him, and he looked as sad as I felt. “Sorry.” We both shrugged and smiled – then we were interrupted by Joey.
“Dude, that was kind of cool! I never saw anyone make a teacher freak like that before. I mean, not that Ms. Shoemaker is a real teacher.”
Brandon and I scowled at him, and he added, “It was a stupid assignment.” He paused long enough to look at Brandon and me. “Um, sorry about your dad. My dad split when I was three, so I don’t have a dad either, but I don’t even remember him.” He pushed his curly brown bangs out of his eyes. “I almost got a new dad a couple of years ago. Biff – he was big and hairy, and he stunk. I called him Barf.”
Brandon and I laughed, and Brandon said, “So you don’t have a dad either?”
