My Life as Crocodile Junk Food

by Bill Myers

  My Life As

  Crocodile Junk Food

  Tommy Nelson® Books by Bill Myers

  Series

  SECRET AGENT DINGLEDORF

  . . . and his trusty dog, SPLAT

  The Case of the . . .

  Giggling Geeks • Chewable Worms

  • Flying Toenails • Drooling Dinosaurs •

  Hiccupping Ears • Yodeling Turtles

  The Incredible Worlds of Wally McDoogle

  My Life As . . .

  a Smashed Burrito with Extra Hot Sauce • Alien Monster Bait

  • a Broken Bungee Cord • Crocodile Junk Food •

  Dinosaur Dental Floss • a Torpedo Test Target

  • a Human Hockey Puck • an Afterthought Astronaut •

  Reindeer Road Kill • a Toasted Time Traveler

  • Polluted Pond Scum • a Bigfoot Breath Mint •

  a Blundering Ballerina • a Screaming Skydiver

  • a Human Hairball • a Walrus Whoopee Cushion •

  a Computer Cockroach (Mixed-Up Millennium Bug)

  • a Beat-Up Basketball Backboard • a Cowboy Cowpie •

  Invisible Intestines with Intense Indigestion

  • a Skysurfing Skateboarder • a Tarantula Toe Tickler •

  a Prickly Porcupine from Pluto • a Splatted-Flat Quarterback

  • a Belching Baboon . . . with Bad Breathe •

  The Portal • The Experiment • The Whirlwind • The Tablet

  Picture Book

  Baseball for Breakfast

  www.Billmyers.com

  the incredible worlds of

  Wally McDoogle

  MY Life As

  Crocodile Junk Food

  BILL MYERS

  MY LIFE AS CROCODILE JUNK FOOD

  Copyright © 1993 by Bill Myers.

  Cover illustrations by Jeff Mangiat.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts in reviews.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Tommy Nelson®, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. Visit us on the Web at www.tommynelson.com.

  Tommy Nelson® books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail: SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

  Scripture quotations are from the International Children’s Bible®, New Century Version®, copyright © 1986, 1988, 1999 by Tommy Nelson®, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Myers, Bill, 1953–

  My life as crocodile junk food / Bill Myers.

  p. cm.—(The incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle ; #4)

  Summary: Twelve-year-old Wally visits missionaries in the South American rain forest, and stumbles into a series of what he thinks are impossible predicaments, until he understands the commandment to put others first.

  ISBN 0-8499-3405-2 (trade paper)

  [1. Missionaries—Fiction. 2. Christian life—Fiction. 3. Humorous stories.] I. Title. II. Series : Myers, Bill, 1953– .

  Incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle ; #4.

  PZ7.M98234Mys 1993

  [Fic]—dc20

  92–46748

  CIP

  AC

  Printed in the United States of America

  05 06 07 08 09 RRD 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Mackenzie—

  Thank you for your joy, laughter, and love.

  “He [Jesus] said to them, ‘There are a great many people to harvest. But there are only a few workers to harvest them. God owns the harvest. Pray to God that he will send more workers to help gather his harvest.’”

  —Luke 10:2

  Contents

  1. Just for Starters

  2. Techno Boy to the Rescue

  3. Hello in There . . .

  4. A Little River Cruise

  5. Guess Who’s for Dinner?

  6. Party On

  7. Farewells

  8. Reunion with Some Old Buddies

  9. McDoogle Munchies

  10. Wrapping Up

  Chapter 1

  Just for Starters

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I shouted over the roar of the airplane engines.

  The pilot threw our plane into a steep turn. By steep I’m not talking your average tilt-the-wing-and-turn stuff. I’m talking your getting-thrown-across-the-cockpit-until-your-seatbelt-digs-into-your-gut, worse-than-riding-the-Octopus-at-the-carnival, I-wish-I-hadn’t-eaten-all-that-pizza-’cause-it-looks-like-I’m-going-to-be-seeing-it-all-again-real-soon type of steep.

  “We’re buzzing the landing strip!” the pilot shouted back to me. “We’ve got to scare off all those cows grazing on it!”

  “What are cows doing at an airport?” I cried. But as soon as I looked out the window, I realized I’d asked the wrong question. It should have been, “What are we doing landing in a cow pasture?”

  Suddenly, my life flashed before my eyes. Well, not all of it. That would have been too painful. And the way the plane kept rushing at the ground, it looked like I’d be feelin’ plenty of pain soon enough. So, instead, I just remembered the part where Dad talked me into all of this . . .

  “It’ll be great, Son,” he had said, slapping his brawny hand on my not-so-brawny back. After I finished coughing to death and checking for broken bones, he continued. “It will show you a whole different part of the world. It’ll let you see what other Christians are doing. And most importantly—”

  Uh-oh, I thought, here it comes . . .

  “—it’ll teach you to be a real man.”

  “To be a real man.” How many times have I heard that? It seems to be Dad’s only concern for my life. Maybe it was because he was All-State something or other in college. Or because I want to be a movie writer when (or if) I ever grow up. Or maybe it’s just because I look like Steve Urkel.

  In any case, when Dad signed up at church to help build some clinic for a bunch of missionaries in South America, my name mysteriously appeared on the form, too. What a coincidence.

  “Cheer up,” he said. “It’ll be a great week.”

  Right . . . a whole week of sitting in some hut, slapping flies, and preaching to ignorant savages. I can hardly wait. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure these missionary guys think they’ve got a life . . . but seven days without TV, Nintendo, or the mall sounds like seven days of nonstop boredom.

  Unfortunately, my arguments didn’t do much to change Dad’s mind. So here I was, up in a little plane diving toward the not-so-little ground. I reached for Ol’ Betsy, my laptop computer. If we were going down, we’d go down together.

  I took one last look out the window. Our little buzz over the pasture did the trick. It scared off the cows. It did a pretty good job of scaring me off, too. But since I didn’t have any place to run, I just sat there, strapped into our flying coffin, as we finished circling around for the final approach.

  It was late in the day. Below us two or three dozen buildings stood in the low light. They had brown thatched roofs like something out of Gilligan’s Island. Past the buildings was a winding little river, then jungle, more jungle, and . . . you guessed it, even more jungle.

  “Keep an eye out for any major holes!” the pilot shouted to Dad, who was sitting beside him in the front seat.

  “Got it!” Dad yelled back.

  The pilot leveled the plane off, and we started for the pasture.

  I guess lots of the natives heard us buzz the field ’cause now they were all running out to watch the show. You can’t blame them—they probably enjoy seeing a good fiery crash as much as civilized folks. But instead of being naked and carrying spears, they w
ere all dressed in soccer shorts and T-shirts. That was good news. It meant they weren’t total savages, which meant, if we survived the crash, there might be a chance we wouldn’t be eaten.

  I stared out the window, watching the field grow closer and closer, until finally:

  K-RRR-THUMP, BANG, BANG, BUMP, BUMP, BUMP . . .

  We hit the ground. The pilot fought the steering wheel for all he was worth.

  “DEAD AHEAD!” Dad shouted. “BIG HOLE DEAD AHEAD!”

  The pilot gunned the engine, and we took off a few feet before coming back down, this time even harder.

  BUMP, RATTLE-RATTLE, BRUISED GUT, BRUISED GUT, RATTLE-RATTLE.

  He slammed on the brakes (or whatever pilots slam on) and we slowed down. It was so bumpy that we still managed to shake out a few of our tooth fillings along the way. Finally, he turned the plane around, and we approached the mob of people racing toward us.

  In the lead, riding a motorcycle, was a guy with a build like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sitting behind him was a kid my age—about twelve and pushing thirteen.

  “That’s Mr. Rodriguez,” Dad pointed. “And his son, Jamie.”

  “That’s the missionary?” I yelled.

  Dad nodded.

  “But he’s so . . . so . . . ”

  “Non-geeky?” Dad asked.

  “Well, yeah . . . ”

  The pilot shut down the engines, and the people swarmed around the plane as we opened the door. The outside air hit us like a hot, wet blanket.

  “It’s the humidity.” Dad laughed as he saw the expression on my face. He stepped out on the wing and called back, “You’ll get used to it.”

  He climbed down to meet Mr. Rodriguez. The two men threw their arms around each other like they were in a bear hug competition. When they’d finished breaking each other’s ribs, Dad turned to make the introductions:

  “Paulo, this is my son, Wally. Wally, my good friend, Paulo Rodriguez.”

  We shook hands. I don’t want to say that the guy’s grip was strong, I just hoped that in a couple of weeks I’d be able to use my fingers again.

  Mr. Rodriguez turned to the kid next to him. “And this is my son, Jamie.”

  The kid and I stood for a moment checking each other out. Since Jamie had spent most of his life in the jungle and since I was the more intelligent and civilized of the two, I knew it would be up to me to break the ice. “Me Wally,” I said with a big forced grin. “You Jamie.”

  Jamie threw a concerned look up at his dad. Mr. Rodriguez gave an encouraging smile and nodded.

  But it was obvious I wasn’t getting through to the poor kid.

  I pushed up my glasses and tried again. “Me Wally,” I said thumping my chest. “Wally very happy to meet Jamie.”

  The boy scrunched up his face in confusion and then shrugged. Finally, he motioned to Ol’ Betsy, which was slung over my shoulder. “Is that a Pentium?” he asked. “Do you have a DVD burner in that thing? How many gigs in your hard drive?”

  The walk down the dirt road to Jamie’s house was like a giant parade—with us as the main attraction. But instead of fancy horses and marching bands, we had squealing pigs and clucking chickens.

  Everybody clamored around us. Little kids fought to carry our baggage, and older ones checked out my clothes to see what was in fashion. (I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I was a Dorkoid, which meant I was at least two years out of style in everything, including life. But I wasn’t worried. I figured they’d find out soon enough.)

  I was right. It had taken Jamie only 7.8 seconds to realize he was cooler than me. No biggie for him. But it was for me. It meant I was not only the North American Champion in Dorkiness, but I was probably the South American Champion as well. How exciting! How thrilling! (How embarrassing.)

  I also learned that Mr. Rodriguez was a Bible teacher and his wife was a doctor. They’d moved here from Los Angeles about eight years ago and had been working and living with these native types ever since. Now they were building a medical clinic, and Dad and a bunch of other guys from different churches were flying down to help them build it.

  “What about you?” Jamie asked. “Are you handy with tools?”

  “Me?” I kind of croaked. (Obviously, he wasn’t as smart as I thought.) I tried to explain. “My older brothers Burt and Brock always pay me to help when they build stuff.”

  “You’re that good?”

  “Not exactly—they pay me to stay away.”

  Jamie laughed. “You sound about as coordinated as me. Instead of helping with the clinic, maybe my dad will let us go upriver and talk to some of the village kids.”

  “Cool,” I said. “What would we talk about?”

  “You know—God and stuff.”

  I felt a cold knot form in my stomach. Me? Talk about God? To total strangers?

  Before I could point out that I wasn’t exactly the next Billy Graham, we turned off the road and into Jamie’s front yard.

  “WHO GOES THERE, WHO GOES THERE?”

  A giant red and yellow parrot raced toward me, flapping its wings and squawking, “WHO GOES THERE, WHO GOES THERE?”

  “Chill, Millie,” Jamie scolded. He turned to me with a shrug. “You’ll have to excuse Millie, she’s our watch parrot.”

  “Watch parrot?” I asked.

  “Yeah, instead of watch dogs, people down here have watch parrots,” he explained. “Sometimes, though, she gets a little neurotic.”

  “CRAAAWWWK . . . BUT I’M CUTE, BUT I’M CUTE!”

  We headed down the walk, stepping over more chickens and pigs, until we finally ducked into the house. The rest of the crowd waved and continued on to their own homes.

  Mrs. Rodriguez was as cool as her husband. After going through the usual “How was your trip . . .Would you like something to eat . . . How about something to drink?” routine, Jamie and I were finally able to slip off to his room.

  “Wow!” I said as I walked in. “Is this cool or what?” It was like Hollywood meets Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise. On the walls were all sorts of movie posters and pictures. Lots of them were auto-graphed by big stars.

  “Friends of my folks,” Jamie said, shrugging.

  And surrounding the pictures were all sorts of jungle things . . . giant feathers, bracelets made from animal teeth, spears, blowguns, shields made of animal skin.

  “Are these all real?” I asked as I dropped my bags and crossed the room toward a nearby spear for a better look.

  “Sure.” He shrugged again. “Uh, Wally, I wouldn’t leave your bags on the floor.”

  “Why not?”

  He pointed to the wooden rafters above us. “Spiders.”

  I looked up and gasped. There were a couple of critters up on the ceiling. I don’t want to say they were big, but I thought I recognized one from an old Japanese sci-fi film.

  “Don’t worry.” Jamie chuckled. “They’re not poisonous, but it can be a little surprising when you slip on your pants in the morning and feel them crawling around inside.”

  “Yeah, right.” I smirked, figuring he was joking.

  The look on his face said he wasn’t.

  I quickly went back to my bags and tossed them on the bed—all the time keeping a careful eye on the ceiling. It was then I noticed a big white net hanging over my bed. “Hey, what’s this thing?” I asked.

  “Mosquito netting. It keeps the mosquitoes out . . . and most of the snakes.”

  “Snakes?” I threw him another terrified look.

  He grinned. This time he was joking.

  “So, uh”—I nervously glanced around for any more wildlife as I unzipped my suitcase and started to unpack—“what do you do for fun around here?”

  “Oh, the usual . . . swing on vines, outrun cannibals, find ancient treasures in hidden caves.”

  “No kidding?” I asked excitedly.

  “Yes, kidding,” he chuckled. (The guy got me again—why didn’t somebody tell me I was rooming with a comedian?) “Well, except the part about the hidden caves,
” he said. “That part’s true.”

  “Really?”

  “There’s all sorts of legends about hidden gold and jewels and stuff—and spirits that are supposed to guard them.”

  “Cool. You think we could, like, go explore them or something?”

  “Sure,” he said, plopping down on the other bed, “but you’re only here for a week. I thought you might want to go upriver and minister to some of the local tribes. You know, tell them about—”

  Before he went any further, I cut him off. “Listen, uh, Jamie . . . about this ministering stuff . . .” I cleared my throat, feeling a little embarrassed. “I don’t think I’m like, you know, cut out to preach at them or any—”

  Jamie gave an easy laugh. “Relax, they’ve already heard about God—lots of ’em are already Christians. They just like to hear about what God’s done in your life, that’s all.”

  “I don’t know . . .” I hesitated.

  “Jamie . . . Wally?” It was Mrs. Rodriguez. “Get washed for supper.”

  “Okay,” Jamie called as he hopped off the bed. Then, turning back to me, he continued. “Look, I don’t want to push you into anything. We don’t have to go upriver. If you just want to chill a few days, that’s cool. Maybe we can go check out those caves, instead.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Buried treasure, that’s more my style.”

  He gave a nod and started toward the door. I followed.

  “Uh, Wally, you might want to close up your bags.”

  “The spiders?” I asked, throwing a nervous look up at the rafters.

  “No, the cockroaches.”

  Chapter 2

  Techno Boy to the Rescue

  Sitting around eating supper wasn’t bad. Well, except the eating part. I kinda like to know what I’m putting into my mouth . . . and mangoes, manioc, yucca, and paca are not the stuff you normally pig out on at the local Golden Arches. I mean, if I could barely say their names, how could I be expected to eat them?

  Jamie’s sense of humor wasn’t much help. Telling me they were monkey brains, pigs’ feet, and ant eggs didn’t exactly increase my appetite.