Lost in the Jungle

by Bill Nye

  “The architect,” Matt said. “He designed Brasilia, the capital city, right?”

  “Yes, yes! You know architecture?”

  “They know everything,” I said. So much for me being the expert on the country.

  The man eyed me and scratched his bearded chin with a calloused finger. The sound was like a scrub brush digging into a dirty pan.

  “You,” he said, pointing to me. “I like your tie.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I know you,” he continued. “From where?”

  Matt reached forward and shook the man’s hand. “We wrote The Lonely Orphans,” he said. “It was just published in Brazil last year. The sales haven’t been as great as—”

  “Orphans? Why are you talking about orphans? I don’t know about these orphans. But you,” he said, pointing at me with his thumb, “who are you?”

  Adjusting my hair, tweaking my bow tie, I replied, “I’m Jack. This is Ava. He’s Matt. Are you the owner?”

  “Ah, yes, of course. Joaquim Andres da Silva Ribeiro. Chef and owner.”

  “That’s a lot of names.”

  “In Brazil we like names. My brother has eleven names. But we just call him Boo.”

  I laughed. Matt kicked me.

  “It’s okay,” Joaquim said. “It’s funny.”

  “Do you have a business card?” I asked.

  Matt sighed. “Not now, Jack.”

  A few months earlier, I’d started collecting business cards. Asking for them was probably the best part. It made me feel official. Grown up.

  Joaquim passed me a clean card printed on fine green paper. I slipped it in my pocket as he grabbed a tablet from the desk. “Do you have a reservation?”

  “Actually, we’re not here to eat,” Ava said.

  “This is a restaurant. This is why people come here. To eat.”

  “We’re hoping you could help us find a friend of ours,” Ava explained. “He was here recently.”

  “Recently? You mean like yesterday?”

  “Sometime in the last few months.”

  Joaquim winced and breathed in through his teeth. “We serve one hundred people every day. Thousands have eaten here in the past few months.”

  “I could show you a picture,” Ava suggested. She patted her pockets. Then she looked at me. “My phone. I don’t have my phone.”

  Matt searched through his pockets, too. “Mine’s gone.”

  Now they were both looking at me. I shrugged. “I didn’t do it. And I left mine in my room.”

  “Did you walk here?” Joaquim asked.

  Matt nodded. “Yes. Why?”

  “And maybe along the way you bumped into some cute and friendly kids about your age?”

  “We did,” I said. “They were so nice! I feel like we really made a connection.”

  The chef shrugged. “They have your phones.”

  For a few seconds, none of us spoke. I don’t know about the other two, but I was silently replaying the scene in my head. The high fives. They totally pickpocketed us during the high-fives.

  “Seriously?” Ava asked. “They stole our phones? I’m calling the police.”

  Joaquim suggested this was not worth our time. “You have your wallets?” he asked. I had mine; Matt and Ava both nodded as well. “Good. See? These boys are not so bad. They leave your wallets. And you will be fine, so there is no use calling the police. They could say that you committed a crime by not being more careful with your devices. Still, I understand your problem. Now you do not have a picture of your friend.”

  My sister said something in Portuguese. He handed her the tablet. She searched online, found a photo of Hank, and showed it to him. Joaquim studied the image for a few seconds before apologizing with a shrug. But Ava wasn’t giving up. She pointed to the cameras in each of the four corners of the room. “Can we look through your security footage to see if he was here?”

  The chef folded his arms across his chest and tilted his head. He breathed deep several times and watched each of us through partially closed eyes. “Why is this so important? Who is this man?”

  “He is very famous,” I said.

  Joaquim laid his arm across my shoulders and pointed back into the room. “There is the mayor of Manaus,” he said, pointing to a woman with short gray hair. “The woman next to her is one of the most powerful businesspeople in all of Brazil.” He pointed to the next table. “That man was once one of the best football players in the world. The famous and powerful dine here every night.”

  “His name is Dr. Henry Witherspoon,” Matt said. “But we call him Hank.”

  Nothing.

  “Inventor of the nose vacuum?” I added.

  Still Joaquim had no clue.

  Ava rattled off a dozen of Hank’s best-known inventions.

  Joaquim told her to stop. “I don’t want to know about these accomplishments. Why are you looking for him? Is he your friend? Your uncle? Your father?”

  None of us answered. I looked to Matt. But he was waiting for Ava to explain it. Finally, I said, “That’s a tough question.”

  “Not really,” Joaquim said.

  “He’s not our dad,” Ava said.

  “No?”

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  “Yes or no.”

  I didn’t want to answer. Neither did my siblings. “Look,” I said, “we just really need to find him, okay? Can we please scan the footage?”

  “Please?” Ava added.

  Joaquim quickly sucked air in through his nose, then replied. “No.”

  “Please?” Matt asked.

  “No.”

  So I was almost thirteen years old. My pouting face should have been retired permanently. But we needed to see that video. We needed this guy’s sympathy. We needed him to really, truly feel for us. So I tilted my head forward and down. I raised my lower lip. Then I tried to remember how I’d felt before I met Ava and Matt. I conjured a few of my worst memories, all those first moments in a new foster home, when I had no idea what to expect. Or the nights I’d lie in my bed in our apartment, wondering what it would be like if I had a parent to tuck me in or even just lean through the doorway and wish me sweet dreams. My jaw tingled. My vision blurred as tears formed around my eyes. The first drops raced down my cheeks. And then I fluttered my long eyelashes.

  Suddenly, Joaquim’s expression changed. “Yes! Yes! I do know you! I know this face!”

  This was not the reaction I’d expected.

  “You know him?” Matt asked.

  The chef reached forward and grabbed my face in his hands. He wiped the tears from my eyes with his huge thumbs. His fingers smelled like salt and spices. Then he shook my head a few times, gently, before letting go. “The video! The puppy . . . You are the boy who gave CPR to that adorable dog!” Holding his hands in the prayer position, he spun to face the kitchen and yelled something in Portuguese. Several cooks came rushing toward us.

  Now, about the puppy. There’s this video out there of yours truly giving CPR to a very adorable little dog. The moment when I turn my pouting face to the camera with tears in my eyes is definitely stirring. The video is insanely popular, too—nearing sixteen million views the last time I checked. But it’s also just a tiny bit fake. The little guy wasn’t really unconscious. We concocted the idea while we were in the middle of the court case. My brother was trying to argue that we didn’t need foster parents, and that we could take care of ourselves, and we figured the puppy video would sway people to our side and show them that we had heart, too. Matt and Ava insist that his legal argument won the case, but I have to believe the puppy played a role, too. Still, I’d never met any fans of the video in person before.

  Joaquim swung his arms around the shoulders of two of his smiling chefs and explained. “Every day we watch this video, as a staff, to remind ourselves that there is good in the world, that the people we serve could be capable of this kindness. Our mission is to honor every diner as if he or she were the magnificent boy in that video. And now
. . . this boy is here! In my restaurant. Please, you will eat. You must eat. I will find you a table.”

  Joaquim twirled, surveyed the dining room, and marched to a group of four. Two men and two women sat below a painting of a monstrous, scaly fish. One of the women was steering a reddish chunk of steak toward her open mouth with a bright silver fork when Joaquim grabbed her plate. Next he grabbed her neighbor’s dish. He called to a waitress. She rushed over and took the other two plates of food. The woman with the steak jumped to her feet and began yelling at Joaquim. He shouted back.

  “Can you tell what they’re saying?” I asked.

  “I haven’t learned insults yet,” Ava said. “But I think she said something about a capybara.”

  “A huge rodent common in the jungle,” Matt explained. “Great swimmers.”

  I knew that. They kind of looked like mutant groundhogs.

  “You think he’s kicking them out for us?” Ava asked.

  The two men glared at me.

  “Looks that way,” I said.

  The woman yelled another insult, and Joaquim pressed his fists against his eyes and began to cry. Then the woman started to sob, too. A moment later, they hugged.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” Ava said.

  “Fascinating,” Matt remarked, watching them. He reminded me of Hank when he said it, but he didn’t need to hear that.

  The waitress led the four diners into the kitchen, and Joaquim called us over as he cleared the table. A waiter quickly laid down clean plates and silverware. Joaquim followed my stare toward the kitchen. “You are worried about them? Do not worry. She is my sister. She eats here once a week. They can finish their food in the kitchen. No problem.”

  Later, I’d have to ask him for that capybara insult. Matt deserved that one now and then. My brother leaned over the table, studying the menu. He leaned toward Ava and whispered, “I’m not sure we can afford—”

  “Afford? You will not pay.” Joaquim clapped me on the back so hard my heart did a double beat. “Please. Sit. Order. Eat.”

  Matt and I slid into the chairs, but Ava remained standing. “What about the security videos?”

  “You can watch them later.”

  “I’d like to get started now.”

  Joaquim scratched his chin. He watched Ava through narrowed eyes, and she stared back, clear and strong, as if some kind of light were shining from deep inside her brain. The chef’s stern expression changed slowly into a smile as he gave in to my sister’s demand. “I’ll show you the way,” he said.

  “Order me something basic, like pasta,” Ava called back.

  Matt called the waiter and asked for an English menu, but there wasn’t one. So my brother suggested they bring us cheeseburgers. Plus some pasta. The waiter smiled. I didn’t like his smile.

  “Why would Hank eat here?” Matt asked.

  “Because he was hungry?”

  “Ha. Very funny. I mean, why this place? He’s vegetarian now, right?” My brother nodded to a neighboring table. The plates were stacked with juicy steaks and pork. “Looks like everything in here is for carnivores.”

  “Maybe someone invited him here.”

  “Who?”

  “Hopefully Ava will find out.”

  When the food arrived, I nearly jumped out of my seat. The waiter smiled again and said something in Portuguese. On the plates he set down in front of us, four large cubes of yellow-orange mangoes sat in a brownish purple sauce. And perched atop each mango was a large black ant. I gently poked one with my fork. Thankfully, it was dead.

  “Did you think it was going to run? They’re not alive,” Matt said. “Insects are a great source of protein.”

  “Then you eat one.”

  He paled. I knocked one of my ants off its fruity perch, pushed the mango around in the sauce, and devoured it. Matt watched me. “It’s delicious,” I said. “Honestly.”

  “You like my tucupi?”

  Joaquim stood over us. “Tucupi?” I asked.

  “The sauce. I add ground-up ants. Very complex flavors.”

  Ava squeezed by him. “Where’s my pasta?” she asked.

  “They serve ants here.”

  She shrugged. “Oh, well. Good source of protein.” Then she forked one of the little creatures and its mango and chomped away. “Not bad. Kind of lemony.”

  I was supposed to be the adventurous one. The risk-taker. Couldn’t she just let me have that? Even if it meant I had to eat ants?

  “How’d it go? Did you find anything?”

  Ava finished chewing. “We should get a hit within the hour.”

  “A hit?”

  “I downloaded a software program that analyzes videos for faces, then I gave it a few pictures of Hank, so it knows what to look for. The search should take about an hour.”

  “Nice,” Matt said.

  “And it’ll find Hank?”

  “If he’s in those videos, it should,” Ava said. “Hank and about a hundred other people, probably.” She crunched down another ant. “The program captures still pictures from the videos. It’ll be easier for us to pick him out of a hundred or so pictures than months’ worth of video.”

  Joaquim returned and pointed to my plate. I was the only one who hadn’t tried one of the little crawlers. “Jack?”

  I scooped one up, closed my eyes, and crunched away. Ava was right. The taste kind of reminded me of Thai food. The back of the ant popped in my mouth like a ripe grape. “Definitely lemony.”

  Our host beamed. “Good! You tried my ants. Now I will bring you pasta and hamburgers.”

  Later, after we’d each wolfed down a bowl of spaghetti and one of the most delicious burgers ever, Ava checked the back office, then returned with a piece of paper in her hand and a smile on her face. “Got him,” she said, laying the printout on the table.

  Our waiters returned with some kind of pineapple-based dessert that looked absolutely amazing. But it would have to wait. I leaned forward. The photo was slightly blurry, but there was no doubt it was Hank. He was seated at a table with two kids, a boy and a girl. The boy looked to be about my age, and his left foot was propped on the table and wrapped in some kind of cloth or towel. The girl might have been Matt’s age or maybe a little younger. Her eyes were wide, her face round, and her hair short and straight and dark.

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  “And why is Hank letting that kid eat with his foot on the table?” Matt asked. “He’d never let me do that.”

  Hands on her head, eyes squinted, Ava was straight-up confused. Me? I just felt kind of cheated. What was Hank doing with those two kids? We were supposed to be . . . well, maybe not his children, exactly, but definitely the only kids in his life. We were a kind of family. We were supposed to be special. But this made me wonder. Did he have a group in Russia, too, and China? Was there an Australian version of me? And if so, did he wear bow ties with boomerangs on them?

  Joaquim returned to the table. He tapped the picture. “Your friend—he knows Pepedro?”

  “Who’s Pepedro?” Ava asked.

  “The boy,” Joaquim answered. “Pepedro is the future of the Seleção, the future of Brazil.”

  I leaned toward Ava. “He’s a soccer star,” I explained. “The Seleção is another name for the national team.”

  “What’s wrong with his foot?” she asked.

  “Nothing!” Joaquim answered. “His left foot is brilliant. He can score from anywhere on the field with that foot. Once I saw him play at a small neighborhood field. He struck the ball so hard that he broke the window of a passing truck. The man who was driving was angry at first, but when he saw that it was Pepedro, he said he was honored and that he would never have the window repaired. Pepedro is more than a celebrity here. If I had to guess, I would say that his left foot alone is worth a million dollars.”

  “Seriously?” I asked.

  “In Brazil, we do not joke about football.”

  Ava pointed to the p
rintout. “Who’s the girl?”

  “His older sister, Alicia.”

  “Do you remember what they were talking about?” Matt asked. “Or maybe why they were meeting?”

  Joaquim held his hands out wide. “No. That is their business. Mine is to feed them.”

  “Okay, so how do we find them?” I asked.

  Joaquim grabbed the paper. “Your friend? I don’t know. Pepedro and Alicia? This boy cannot walk down the street without dozens of people following him for an autograph, so they are very private.” Joaquim stood and turned his head, looking back over his shoulder. A smile formed in the shade of his beard. “But Dona Maria might be able to help.”

  “Who is Dona Maria?” Ava asked.

  The owner nodded toward the center of the room. “She is seated over there, with the mayor.”

  “Is she a politician or something?” Matt asked.

  “No, a woman of business. She owns many companies and she knows every important person in Manaus. I will talk to her,” he said. He reached across the table and slid the dish of pineapple sorbet in front of me. “And you will finish your dessert.”

  The sorbet was totally delicious, and while shoveling huge scoops into my mouth, I studied the old woman across the room. Her frizzy gray hair was tied up in a bun. Her eyebrows looked like they’d been drawn on with a black Sharpie. Her chin was long and slightly twisted, and I wanted her to have a wart on the end of it. No, three warts. But I couldn’t see any warts.

  We’d been waiting for at least ten minutes when Joaquim finally approached her table. He squatted next to her, respectfully. After whispering a few words and pointing our way, he showed her the printout. Dona Maria pulled a pair of eyeglasses from a shiny pocketbook and leaned forward as she studied the photo. Then she removed her eyeglasses, spoke briefly to Joaquim, and waved him away with a dismissive flick of her hand.

  “That didn’t look good,” Ava said.

  Joaquim zigzagged between the tables, passed Ava the printout, and slapped a business card down on the white linen cloth. I grabbed it. “You’re in luck,” he said. “She says to go to her factory at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, and she will help you in any way that she can.”