Survivor Girl

by Erin Teagan

  “Wait,” Adam says, glancing back at me. “You’ve never been on set before?”

  I feel red-hot-lobster face creeping up my neck. “Sure, like a million times.”

  “Wow. A million.” He smirks. “That’s sure a lot.”

  There must be more than twenty or thirty people walking around, carrying fishing nets and piles of wood and pushing rolling crates full of props. Flopped over the side of one is a plastic bat wing, painted swirly black and gray. The big bat-attack scene in the Rocky Mountain cave episode? Was that just a prop?

  “What did you think?” Adam says. “That your dad was a real survivor guy?”

  Yes. I thought he was a man with a camera and miles and miles of unforgiving wilderness. It’s what the deep-voiced narrator says at the start of each episode. And why wouldn’t I believe that? Adam nudges me toward one of the tents and I feel a familiar fire in my belly. The one that always starts up when the nonbelievers in school tell me my dad’s a big fake.

  “He fended off a school of man-eating sharks when he was thirteen, you know.” I cross my arms, trying not to scratch.

  “Man-eating, huh?” Adam flaps open the door to the tent, the scents of fresh bread and fried chicken and bug spray wafting out. “I never said it’s not a good show.” He disappears inside and I check once more to see if Dad and Jake are back on shore yet, then follow.

  There are more people in here, heaping fried chicken and buttered rolls onto their plates. There’s a meat carver. An actual guy wearing a fancy white uniform slicing off succulent pieces of ham. “How long has everyone worked here?” I ask Adam, who’s taking an extra long time choosing a piece of fried chicken goodness. My stomach growls.

  He licks his fingers and picks up his tray. “What do you mean? Um, like, forever I guess.”

  “Never mind, how would you know, anyway?” It’s obvious I’m not going to be friends with this kid. “You’re just an intern.”

  He tongs a butter roll. “Whoa. Sensing some hostility here. Don’t get mad at me about all this.” He plops the bread onto my plate. “Wabam.”

  My belly is burning hotter and hotter as I take in the dining tent, because there are exactly zero grasshoppers or swamp muskies on the menu. It’s a full-on food paradise here, and it’s like I’m the only one who didn’t know. I fork a piece of chicken, skip the green beans even though they’re swimming in butter, and sit at the nearest empty table. I wish there was a curtain I could just disappear behind and blot out the rest of the world. But there’s Adam, right behind me.

  “I’m fourteen, by the way. Going to high school next year.” He slides into the chair across from me. “What are you, like, ten or eleven? Why haven’t you been on set before?”

  “Twelve, thank you very much.” I pick up a piece of greasy chicken. “And I’m too busy with archery to come on set all the time like some people. I get most-improved player every year. My team can’t survive without me.”

  “Wow, that sounds like a lot of responsibility.” Is he snickering? I drop my drumstick, ready to tell him a thing or two about archery responsibility, when a guy sits down at the table with us.

  “This is Samuel. Your dad’s stunt double.” Adam points to him. “This is the guy that sleeps outside.”

  “For part of the night, at least,” Samuel says, scratching his own arms swollen with yellow fly bites.

  I do my best impression of a smile and pick the fried part off my chicken. I thought I’d be eating beetles and small rodents cooked over a fire. Surviving in the wild is supposed to mean sacrifice. Grandpa once survived three nights in a crevasse in the middle of a glacier with only a bag of almonds. Across the tent, I see a soft-serve ice cream station and bowls of candy toppings. A little bit of sacrifice, at least.

  And then I hear the “zip-a-dee-doo-dah” whistle, and Jake and my dad walk in, Dad rubbing his belly with one hand and waving to the crew with the other. “Evening, folks!” Jake already has a plate and is digging into a vat of baked beans.

  Everyone stands up, whistling “zip-a-dee-ay” back to Dad. Even Adam. Samuel shoots up from the table and greets Dad with a handshake and a rough swat on his shoulder like they’re old college buddies. The kitchen staff hustles together a plate and delivers it to Dad, who heads toward me, shaking hands and fist-bumping all the way.

  “Everyone’s excited about the news,” Adam whispers.

  “What news?”

  Dad sits next to me, pounding the table with a fist. “Episode seventy-five, here we come!”

  Adam is staring at me, eyebrows raised. I take another bite, ignoring him.

  “Samuel.” Dad nods to his stunt double. “We have quite a doozy set up for after dinner. How do you feel about snakes?”

  Jake stumbles over to the table, his arms and face puffed and seepy with bites.

  “Jake!” I say. “How many bites do you have?”

  Adam and Samuel lean away from him, as he sits and looks at me with glassy eyes. “This steak looks delicious.”

  “That’s fried chicken, dude,” Adam says.

  “Are you feeling okay?” I ask.

  Dad touches Jake’s head. “He’s fine. Just a few bites.”

  Adam pulls back Jake’s shirt sleeve. “Some of these are hives.”

  Jake takes a giant forkful of baked beans from his plate, staring at it. “Actually, I think maybe—”

  And then he passes out cold on the floor.

  Eleven

  Before I know what’s happening, Adam lunges across the table and jabs Jake in the thigh with an EpiPen. I stand up, my chair thumping to the dirt floor, helpless. Dad bolts out of the tent, a chicken thigh still in his hand.

  One of the kitchen staff sprints over with an open bottle of glass cleaner and puts it under Jake’s nose, trying to wake him up, splashing his shirt, the stench of ammonia reaching all the way to me. Adam is going through all the proper survival first-aid procedures I’ve read about and know by heart. Checking for a pulse, stabilizing his neck. And I just stand there, stupid.

  Jake opens his eyes and tries to sit up, shivering in the ninety-degree heat.

  “Allergic reaction,” Adam says to him. “You’ll be okay.”

  Dad jogs back into the tent with a blond lady carrying a backpack with a red cross on it, and the crowd around my brother clears a path. “Who had an EpiPen?” she says. “Nice job.”

  Jake is sweating and shivering and scratching his arms and neck. The woman pulls his hands away and checks his vitals while Dad paces behind them. I pull at my shirt and redo my ponytail, feeling like everyone’s looking at me, wondering why the daughter of a famed survivalist didn’t know what to do when her own brother keeled over.

  Adam helps heave Jake to his feet and the woman and Dad guide him toward the exit. Even his legs are covered in hives, and I wonder if this means we’re going home. And I hope Harper doesn’t ever ask me about how I got to spend two hours on the Survivor Guy set, because then I might have to tell her the truth about all of Dad’s lies. She’ll think we’re just a big family of liars.

  “Hornets,” Adam says to everyone still standing around. “I’m allergic to hornets. Always have an EpiPen or two.”

  The medical bag hangs open on one of the chairs, so I zip it up and sling it over my back, jogging to catch up to Dad and Jake. I follow them outside, checking for yellow flies over my shoulder, flapping my hands over my head just in case of an attack, when a little girl comes racing out of one of the other tents. “George!” she squeals, rocketing herself into Dad’s arms.

  Dad lets go of Jake and the medical lady barely catches him. I hurry to his side and grab him, staring at the little girl with Dad. He’s flipping around pretending he doesn’t see her even though she’s hanging off his elbow. “Isabel? Isabel? Where’d she go?” He used to do the same thing to me.

  “I’m here! I’m here!” she screams, grabbing Dad’s cheeks and squeezing them into a fish face.

  The woman peers around Jake. “I’m Claire. I’m the medic
on set.”

  I peel my eyes off the scene behind me and shake her extended hand. Jake coughs and stumbles. “Is he going to be okay?” I ask.

  Claire pats him on the back. “A little rest and epinephrine will do him just fine. I take it you’re Alison?”

  I nod my head, and Dad gallops past us into the tent, Isabel hanging on to his neck by her spindly arms.

  “Be careful with that child!” Claire yells. “He’s a silly man.” She shakes her head. “Always playing. Never serious.” It’s exactly what Mom says. Even in the middle of a fight, he’ll make a joke or give her a death-grip-tickle to the knee. She hates that. “It’s why everyone loves him so much.”

  I cough. “Right, yes, exactly why.”

  Inside the tent is a makeshift hospital. There are two beds and an IV pole and some kind of monitor on wheels. There’s another room in the back, its canvas door flapped open to reveal rolls of bandages, a pair of crutches, and other medical stuff. Dad is leaned over one bed, catching his breath. The little girl runs up to me, nearly pirouetting into a basket of gauze.

  “I’m Isabel. I’m going to kindergarten.”

  Claire and I heave Jake onto the other bed. “Hi.”

  Isabel grabs my hand. “This is where I sleep.” There’s a third room, divided by a wall of towels clipped to the top of the tent. Princess and emoji and tie-dye. I peek inside. It’s the medic’s bedroom. Isabel pulls a hammock hanging between two of the tent poles and swings it wildly. “But we’re going home soon so we can sign me up for kindergarten where there will be kids my own age. And our house will have a giant big-kid bed with a closet and also a window. And there won’t even be any wild animals. Just normal walls and beds and stuff.”

  “I think you have a new friend.” Dad laughs behind me. “She must be able to tell how much you love kids.”

  Is he joking? I like kids about as much as I like veggie burgers. Not at all. I rub my now-sticky hand on my shorts.

  “Want to try? You’re kind of”—she puffs her cheeks out and pops them with a finger—“but I won’t be mad if you break it.” Isabel offers me her hammock, but I am open-mouthed offended at her insinuation. Who does this girl think she is?

  Jake moans from his bed. “My steak,” he says. “I didn’t get to finish it.” And I know he’ll be just fine. If ever there’s a time when Jake’s not hungry, that’s when you call for the medevac helicopter.

  A girl wearing a Survivor Guy cap pokes her head into the tent. “Animal encounter at seven, George. Don’t forget.” And then she swings back around, revealing a mesh bag hanging over her shoulder.

  “Are those snakes?” I ask.

  “Come on, my little alligators,” Dad says. “Let’s let Jake get some sleep.”

  Alligators? As in plural? I turn around and find Isabel koala-beared to Dad’s leg. He used to hate it when I did that. It reminded him of an unfortunate encounter with a lemur in Madagascar.

  “Don’t lose her, Georgie!” Claire calls, and Isabel squeals as Dad shakes her off his leg.

  I know I shouldn’t care, because she’s a little kid and lives in a tent, and I guess she’s cute, with her pudgy cheeks and pigtails. But all I can think is that there’s room for only one alligator in this swamp.

  Twelve

  Dad leads us to a golf cart with off-roading tires by a stack of heavy-duty containers. “What are those?” I’m about to sit down when Isabel squeezes past me and climbs into the seat next to Dad.

  “Gas. For the generators.”

  I push in, but half my butt is hanging out of the cart. I push harder.

  “Ow!” Isabel rubs her shoulder. “Can I sit on your lap?” And before I can say absolutely not, she hops right on me, half wringing my neck.

  “Crew gets grumpy without hot showers and running water,” Dad says, ignoring the fact that I’ve just been almost asphyxiated by a four-year-old. He hits the gas pedal and for a moment the breeze gives some relief from the heat. Then my hair starts sticking to my face and neck.

  “My new house will have a bathtub,” Isabel pipes up.

  “Dad?” I say. “I didn’t realize you had such a big crew.”

  “Yeah, I tried going solo for about two episodes and then got bit by a rattler and had to walk seven miles to find help.” He shakes his head. “Had to make a tourniquet out of my underwear.”

  Isabel snorts. “You said underwear.”

  “Really? Only two episodes? Does Mom know?”

  “Sure.” Dad’s driving way too fast on this tiny grassy island in the middle of the swamp. He hits a rock and I swear we’re going to tip, but somehow the golf cart manages to right itself and slam back down onto four wheels. “She’d have never let you come here otherwise.”

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I say. Isabel’s trying to braid my ponytail, her sweaty arms in my face, and I pull her away.

  “Guess I thought you knew,” Dad says, parking in front of a brown and black camper that looks like it belongs to a mega-millionaire celebrity. And then I remember my dad is the celebrity. Maybe not a mega-millionaire, but a celebrity.

  “Quick stop,” he says.

  Isabel scrambles out and races to the trailer. “I’m the rotten egg!”

  Dad laughs. “The last person is the rotten egg. You don’t want to be the rotten egg.”

  He pats me on the back like “isn’t she the cutest?” but all I can think is something sure smells rotten to me.

  Dad turns off the golf cart and we follow Isabel inside. She flings herself onto the leather couch and flips on the TV like she owns the place. I do a double take. There’s a fireplace in the wall, the propane kind that goes on with a switch.

  “Beds are back here,” Dad says, pushing through a curtain.

  Behind it, there’s a small hallway with a regular-looking bathroom on one side and two narrow bunk beds built into the wall on the other. At the end, there’s another door to a bedroom with a full-size bed, Dad’s duffel thrown on top. I look at the bunks, each with its own window facing the swamp and a ruffled drape to close for privacy.

  “Cozy,” I say, not like I’m complaining, since an hour ago, I had pictured myself sleeping on the ground fending off critters all night.

  “I knew you’d like it.” Dad pats me on the back again. “Go ahead and wash up.”

  I can’t wait to get out of this T-shirt and into my own clothes. Something more Survivor Girlish than “Sweet Treat Bake Shop.” Maybe I’ll wear the camouflage shirt with green and blue heart embellishments that Harper made for my birthday. She’s a genius with rhinestones.

  “Just don’t change your shirt, Ali. You’ve already been on camera with it and if we were in the real wilderness, you wouldn’t have a suitcase of fresh outfits.”

  “Seriously?” I say, because a new shirt is where my dad draws the line? Flat-screen TVs, full-size refrigerators, glossy floor and appliances, though—no problem. “But you don’t mind if we sleep in this monstrosity on wheels?”

  Dad’s inspecting his teeth in the bathroom mirror. “Monstrosity on wheels isn’t on camera.”

  I pull the General’s book out of my bag and slide it under the pillow on the top bunk.

  “But isn’t it supposed to be all about surviving?” I ask. “Like teaching people how to stay alive after a boat wreck in the middle of the Great Dismal Swamp or something? What would Grandpa say?”

  He flicks the bathroom light off and strides past me to the front of the camper. “The General would be proud of what we’ve achieved. With more support on set, we can reach more people. Teach them how to survive in the most dangerous conditions, without endangering ourselves.” He looks serious. “Maybe if he’d had a good crew, he’d never have disappeared.”

  “Who disappeared?” Isabel says, bouncing off the couch. “Is he dead?”

  Dad puts a hand on my shoulder. “My father was the best survivalist I knew. I learned everything from him. But he took chances. Risks. And that’s not something I’m willing to do. Not with two kid
s who are relying on me.”

  “And Mom, too,” I say. “Don’t forget about Mom.”

  “Sure.” He stands up straight, swinging Isabel squealing onto his shoulders. “And your mom.”

  I think of the last time Mason Maguire accused my dad of being a fake, and how I told him the story of the sharks. I mean, Dad survived three days and two nights in shark-infested waters. He doesn’t need all of this junk. He’s just doing it this way for the family. For us. For me.

  “Does the guy from Me in the Wild have all this stuff?” I ask.

  “FACT!” Dad says. “That guy is a joke. Everyone knows he sleeps in a hotel.”

  A golf cart whizzes past the window, and when I look out I see half the crew sitting around picnic tables with cookies and coffee. I wonder for a minute if all of this luxury changes things. My dad is still my dad. Survivor Guy. So, does that make all of this okay?

  Dad claps his hands. “Animal encounter time. Let’s go.”

  We’re back on the golf cart and I’m holding on for dear life with Isabel cutting the circulation off in my neck again. The animal encounter area is back by the medical tent, in the shade of the trees. Jake’s still in bed, which is a good thing because the yellow flies are swarming. The crew has fashioned a kind of bug-trapper contraption out of a ball covered in black duct tape and sticky stuff hanging from a pole. It’s working. The flies are all over it.

  Dad parks next to a circle of trailers, probably where the rest of the crew sleeps. They’re not as nice as Dad’s, but one of them has a door swung open and I spot a leather couch and flat-screen TV before Isabel grabs my hand and runs-hops-skips me toward the animals.

  The trainer is decked out in a suit made of pillows, looking like a giant marshmallow, standing next to an overweight alligator in a large kiddie pool behind a fence.

  “I want to feed him! I want to feed him!” Isabel yells.