Survivor Girl

by Erin Teagan

  I stop, stupefied once more. There are snakes in all sizes and shapes of evil stacked in plastic terrariums, a mountain lion, an alligator, a clear tub filled with fish, an aquarium full of mice, and two colorful birds in a cage. “Is this for real?” I say to Dad, as he strides right up to the mountain lion, who is casually squatting on a tree stump next to what looks like a dog house, in a giant chainlink enclosure. “I thought you said there weren’t any alligators!”

  “There aren’t,” Dad says. “That’s why we had to bring one. It’s my responsibility as Survivor Guy to show my audience what to do in case of an encounter with a deadly animal.”

  Marshmallow lady comes out of the enclosure, peeling her suit off, and hands me a hunk of raw meat. She nods to the alligator. “That’s Lucy. She’s super friendly.”

  “Throw it!” Isabel jumps up and down, clapping, and I lob it over the side of the pool, which hardly looks sturdy enough to hold back a newborn puppy. The alligator is sitting on a mound of sand surrounded by shallow water. It lunges and snaps at the treat.

  “Samuel?” the animal trainer calls to Dad’s stunt double, a clipboard in her hands. “I have you down for one snakebite on the edge of the lake this evening and a baby-bird rescue at sundown. Alison?”

  I’m staring at the massive carnivorous beast of a mountain lion in front of me.

  “Her name is Pudding,” Isabel says. “Her favorite color is pink, like me.”

  “Alison?” The animal trainer waves me over, Isabel on my heels. “Rick? George? Is this right? I have Alison for an eight o’clock standoff with Lucy?”

  “Excuse me?” I say. “As in, Lucy the alligator?”

  Rick looks at his clipboard.

  Dad now has a snake around his neck and is kissing it. What is wrong with him? If Grandpa saw him kissing a rattlesnake on the set of this so-called survivor show, he’d shake some sense into him right here and now. He might also fry up the rattler for supper. Supposedly they’re high in fiber, and taste like tuna.

  “Yes, that’s correct.” Dad puts a hand on my shoulder. “An alligator for my little Ali-Gator. Thank you, Laura.”

  “Uh, what?” I back away and trip over a root, falling hard onto the ground.

  “Alison fell on her bum-bum!” Isabel squeals.

  The camerawoman bolts over to me. “Show me agony! Defeat!” Rick calls.

  I’ve got something I could show him, all right, but I count to ten and breathe through my nose like Dr. Tom says to do in Healthy Is Happy! It doesn’t work.

  I’m not surprised though, because basically nothing is working right anymore.

  Thirteen

  “The big question,” Rick says, “is can you climb a tree?” All of a sudden the rest of the crew is staring at me.

  “Um, sure,” I say, although I’ve never actually climbed one before. But I must have a ton of arm muscles from all the archery I’ve been doing. You can get muscles from archery, right?

  “FACT! I’ve seen you scale that tree in the front yard a thousand times,” Dad declares.

  “Actually”—I swat a fly from my face—“that was Jake. Like ten years ago.”

  Adam must have walked up while I wasn’t paying attention, because I hear him laugh behind me. And then everyone looks as if they’re sizing me up, wondering if I’m as much of a Survivor Girl as I should be. Except for Isabel, of course, who keeps extending a hand to pet the mountain lion like it’s a housecat, while Laura, the animal trainer, pushes her away.

  “Let’s go have a look then, shall we?” Rick says.

  Everyone descends on the golf carts, four of them all lined up neatly next to the crew trailers. “Where are we going?” I say, trying to mask the desperation in my voice. Because am I going to have to climb a tree? Right now?

  “It’s all about safety here,” the animal trainer says, sliding into the back seat with Adam. “If an alligator is going to chase you up a tree, we have to make sure you can climb that tree.”

  Isabel’s crawling over me to get into the seat next to Dad again, all elbows and bony knees to my gut, talking on and on about the “big kitty” and how she looks sad in her cage.

  “I don’t think I have the right shoes,” I say, pointing to my hiking boots. “I mean, look at them, they’re clearly for tromping through lakes and—”

  “They’re perfect,” the animal trainer says.

  “Totally perfect,” Adam chimes in, grinning.

  And now my desperation turns to dread as the golf carts start up and zoom across the set and onto a tiny fire road behind the animal area. I don’t even have a strategy. What’s my strategy for tree climbing? There’s nothing about tree climbing in Grandpa’s book.

  “I’ll check the tree for critters first,” the animal trainer says. “You know, snakes and poisonous spiders that like to hang out in the shade of the trees.”

  I’m sick. The little dinner that I had is burning a hole in my stomach. Did I just burp up orange fizz pizzazz?

  “I have to go potty,” Isabel shouts.

  I regret all the mean thoughts I’ve ever had about her. “We should go back.”

  “Is it an emergency?” Dad asks.

  “Of course it is!” I say. “You can’t let her pee her pants!”

  Isabel crosses her arms. “I don’t pee in my pants. I can hold it.”

  The golf carts park next to a little red flag that says SURVIVOR GUY, stuck into the ground to the side of the fire road. Everyone else hops out, but I take a long time retying my shoes, until Rick calls me molasses and makes me get out of the vehicle.

  We hike into the dense woods, my boots sinking in the watery muck, until we come to a small clearing where there’s a tall tree coming out of the bog.

  “Let’s roll camera,” he says, motioning Bianca and Wes over, “but we’re really just making sure the skill level here matches our expectations of the shot.”

  They’re talking about my skill level. I look at Dad, feeling lightheaded, but he’s playing swords with a tree branch.

  Rick is studying the woods. “Let’s use camera two as well.”

  Bianca whistles and a second camera guy trots over.

  “So, say you were being chased by an alligator and you came into this small clearing. What would you do?” Rick says, talking to me again.

  “Uh, run?” I look around, most of the crew staring at me. “Like, for my life?”

  Rick steps closer. “Knowing that alligators can’t climb trees, maybe you would . . .” He waits for me to answer.

  “Climb a tree?”

  Rick claps. “Yes! And, maybe you’d be coming from this direction, out of breath—or something—and then encounter this bog with the alligator nipping at your heels. You’d have to leap—make sure you’re on the right foot—over the water and then climb this tree.”

  He gestures toward a swampy pool of water in the ground that, in all honesty, I probably couldn’t even shoot an arrow over. Like, maybe if I were a giant gazelle with superpowers I could leap across it.

  “Climb that tree with no branches?” I say.

  “Just a suggestion.” Rick massages his chin.

  “Can I do it?” Isabel asks, raising her hand, jumping up and down.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Rick says, ignoring her, and everyone peels off to the sides of the clearing, leaving me a path to do my thing. All except for camera two, which is about an inch from my face. Bianca is at the other end by the mud pit, moving her camera from it to me. Do we really need to record this?

  “Oh. Okay. No problem.”

  Dad gives me a thumbs-up and I inhale.

  “One-two-three-GO!” Isabel says, and I just stand there because I’m not about to listen to some bossy little—

  Rick pushes me in the shoulder. “Now is as good a time as ever! Just a suggestion.”

  I launch from my spot, picturing myself leaping a vast bog and climbing an unclimbable tree. Dr. Tom always says the key to success is visualization and determination, and maybe he’s righ
t, because the crew starts chanting my name, and I hear my dad say, “You can do this in your sleep, Survivor Girl!”

  But what really gets me moving, past the paralyzing fear that when I try to leap over this bog I’ll barely get off the ground before belly-flopping, is Adam’s smirky face staring at me. He might think my dad’s a fake, but not this girl. I’m no fake, and I’m just going to have to prove it to him.

  I fly like an arrow and the running feels good. I feel fast, actually, my shoes slurping in the grass, spraying mud onto my legs. And I’m nearly at the bog, counting the steps until I need to jump. But then I remember that jumping is not my specialty. Not my specialty at all. And my feet are all wrong and my thighs are rubbing together and my shirt is hiking up.

  I leap. It’s pathetic. The opposite of a gazelle. My feet barely lift off the ground and I feel like I’m five hundred pounds. I manage to stop myself before hitting the water. “I tripped,” I say, out of breath. “I think.” Gasp. Sputter. “Tree root. Or something.”

  Rick is looking at my dad, who’s looking at me, probably wondering where all his Survivor Guy genes went. For the millionth time today I wish it was just me and Dad and miles and miles of wilderness, because then maybe I could do it. There are just too many eyes and cameras and animal trainers watching.

  “Can I pee in the woods?” Isabel asks, doing a serious potty dance, and everyone unfreezes from their thinking faces. The animal trainer takes her gloves off and whisks Isabel into the deep brush.

  Rick claps. “Should we try again?”

  But my body knows it’s over and my brain wonders what’s the point? I’ll never be Survivor Girl. Fending off alligators. Eating crickets for lunch. Scaling trees like a professional. Just because I’ve read the General’s words over and over to the point of memorizing doesn’t mean I’ve got his skills.

  They can see it in my face. I’m nothing like my dad and Grandpa and Jake. Nothing.

  “On second thought,” Rick says, checking his watch, “let’s break. Maybe rethink the scenario.”

  We trudge back to the golf carts. “Wanna drive?” Dad says to me.

  “I’d probably steer us off the road and into the swamp,” I say.

  Dad rubs my back. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Your legs are tired from the walk through the lake. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  Isabel comes busting out of the trees. “I peed in the woods!”

  Everyone laughs and turns on their motors. “Congratulations, Isabel,” Dad says.

  And then she climbs into his lap and drives us home.

  Fourteen

  “Ali?” I hear Jake, back from the medical tent. “Ali?”

  It’s nighttime. After the bog episode, I told everyone I had a stomachache and had to lie down. There’s no phone service here. I’ve literally just been lying in my bunk staring out the window at the crew running back and forth with cameras and props and animals in cages and snake bags. Isabel has knocked at least thirteen times.

  “Come on,” Jake says. “Get up, you lazy butt!”

  I should see if he’s okay, but it’s like I’m frozen on my belly gazing out at the swamp. I have to crane my neck to see the lake through the tiny bunk window, and despite the name of this place, it’s actually kind of beautiful. I wonder if the alligator sees what I see from the tiny sand island in her pool. A Great Dismal Paradise. When the animal lady opens her door, why doesn’t she just make a run for it?

  “Ali,” Jake says louder. I’m so good at ignoring him I can’t stop, and I start to think he went away until his swollen red face peeks under my curtain. “We have a production meeting in the cottage.”

  “Should you even be out of bed?” I push him away.

  “Maybe not, but I’m a fast healer.” He flexes his muscles. “And Claire made me promise to take it easy for the rest of the night. So, come on. Get up.”

  I try to sit, bonking my head on the ceiling. Jake snickers.

  “Maybe I don’t want to go,” I say, opening my curtain.

  “All actors must be present.” He reaches into a cabinet and pulls out a flappy piece of beef jerky. “That includes you.”

  I grimace and swing myself down from the bunk. “Ha. Actors.” I huff.

  Jakes chews with his mouth open. “What do you have against actors?”

  My shirt is pulling up again and I stretch it so far down there’s a ripping sound. “The whole point of the show is not to have actors.”

  “It’s a TV show, Ali.” Jake freezes with his hand in the jerky bag. “All TV shows have actors.”

  “A reality TV show. REALITY.” I slip my sandals on. “But there’s nothing real about it.”

  Jake snorts. “Reality TV is just as set up as regular TV. People aren’t going to watch a show that doesn’t tell a good story. Ask anyone.”

  It’s like I’m the only one who didn’t know. Betrayal, red-hot and burning, crawls up my body and pounds in my head. I think of all the times I’ve defended Dad. Once, in fourth grade, I even lost recess when I called Joshua a jerkface for saying Dad didn’t really kill a bobcat with his bare hands and then revive it back to life. Episode 43, deep woods of Tennessee. He missed my Fourth of July Girl Scout parade for it. But who could get mad when he saved the life of a mama bobcat? I remember the mountain lion in the cage next to the alligator and it strikes me like a bolt of lightning. Had the bobcat been a lie too?

  Jake stops chewing, staring at me. “This took him years to build. He started Survivor Guy as a web series. Just a tiny pocket camera and himself. Now look.” He opens the door and the moist and earthy swamp air fills the camper. We watch the golf carts and the crew carrying boxes and binders, hurrying from one tent to the next with headlamps. “They’re all getting ready for the big nighttime scene where Survivor Guy finds a sick bird by the lake.”

  “You mean his stunt double.”

  “This is TV, Alison. Show business.” Jake shakes his head.

  “Dad told me he was doing all this fake stuff for us, to keep safe so we’d still have him around. So that we wouldn’t lose him like he lost Grandpa.” I’m getting revved up now. “But what good is all that if he never comes home anymore? If he’s so busy making TV shows for his fans that he’s never around?”

  “What do you think paid for the pool in our backyard? All your trips to the mall with what’s-her-face?”

  “Harper,” I say.

  “Dad’s doing this for the money, Alison.” Jake tosses the bag of jerky back in the cabinet. “The ratings. So you can have your fancy life.”

  “No he’s not!” I yell, stopping Isabel as she skips past our camper. She peeks her head in and my face burns hotter. “He’s doing this because Survivor Guy’s in his blood. Just like Grandpa’s.”

  “It’s like you’re in your own world. You only believe what you want to believe. Just like Mom and Dad breaking up—”

  I brush past him, bumping him with my shoulder, and storm out of the camper. Isabel backs away.

  “It’s not nice to yell,” she calls.

  Jake’s right beside me and he does a showoffy leap across the little creek that cuts our camp in half while I thump across the bridge.

  “You’re just like him, Ali. I’ve heard you talk to your friends about how you go on adventures with Dad. How you’re an awesome Survivor Girl.” We race past the dining tent. “How is that reality?”

  I ignore him, walking even faster, around the portable bathhouses—which are air conditioned and called honey wagons, by the way—to the little cottage with the giant screened-in porch. It’s the only permanent structure here, an old house left over from when this place was a wilderness campground.

  “Dad’s not the only one good at living a lie,” Jake says, holding the door open for me.

  “You’re just being mean,” I say, and then I stomp hard on his foot as I pass, making him yelp. I’m so angry, I can barely breathe. How can he say I’m living a lie?

  Inside there are wood floors, and couches and chairs in front
of a giant stone fireplace. Tables are covered with computer screens and expensive-looking electronics. Samuel is sitting in a comfortable-looking armchair and Dad is sprawled out on a love seat sipping a steaming mug of frothy coffee. “Want a hot chocolate, Ali?” he says, but then seeing my face—“Not feeling better?”

  Jake sighs. “I told you not to bring her on set! She wants you to be like Grandpa and get yourself lost in the Alps.”

  I punch him hard in his muskie bite. “I didn’t say that.”

  Adam and Rick walk in, heavy with bags, their arms loaded with folders and papers. I stop talking.

  “Ali-Gator. We’re still the real deal over here. We’re just taking precautions and making sure everyone is comfortable and safe.” Dad wipes froth from his lips.

  “Maybe you should change your slogan then,” I say, trying not to look at Adam, who I’m sure has some annoying smirk on his face.

  Dad laughs. “Remember when we tried that, Rick?”

  “When we tried what?” Rick asks, passing us each a clipboard.

  “You know.” Dad slurps his coffee. “The one guy, one camera thing.”

  “Great slogan,” Rick says. “But do you know how hard it is to walk in dangerous terrain while trying to videotape too?”

  I can feel Adam staring at me. I use my clipboard like a fan, my face still on fire from Jake’s rude accusations. Sure, I’ve let a few friends think I’m really great at surviving in the wild. So what? That’s nowhere near as bad as having my own reality show that’s as far from reality as possible.

  Dad bursts out laughing, nearly spilling his drink as he pulls himself up and off the couch. “Remember in the Oklahoma grasslands when I fell into the ravine trying to walk backwards and tape the sunset?” Rick is hysterical now too, the giggles moving to Jake and Samuel and even a little bit to Adam. Not me though. I’m wondering what I was doing while Dad was tromping through some prairie pretending to be someone he’s not. Did I have a dance recital? An archery tournament? Maybe it was even my birthday?

  Adam hands out packets of papers. Mine has my name on the top. “Notes.” It’s as thick as Grandpa’s guidebook.