Racing the Rain (5 page)

“Going to make fish stew?” Cassidy asked, gesturing at the pail.

“Oh, yeah. Best part of the fish, in my opinion. Can't beat grouper throats and cheeks. You like fish chowder?” Trapper was hosing fish slime off the rough planks.

“I could eat the lips off a fish chowder,” said Cassidy.

Trapper laughed so loud Willie the parrot flew to a higher limb.

“Well, come on up. And bring your turtles. There won't be any fish chowder for a few hours yet, but scrambled eggs with chanterelles will only take ten minutes.”

“Shanty who?”

“Ah, city slickers. Well, after this morning you'll have one entirely reliable mushroom in your repertoire,” he said, taking the burlap bag from Cassidy and wrapping the canoe's painter around the dock post. He picked up the zinc pail with the other hand and started for the cabin, motioning for Cassidy to bring the fillet knife and the stack of unused rags.

* * *

Cassidy sat lazily swinging his legs off the edge of Trapper's deck, trying to talk to Willie the parrot, who ignored him. Cassidy had washed the dishes while Trapper did some paperwork at his desk. When he started getting ready to leave, not wanting to overstay his welcome, Trapper handed him a handful of peanuts.

“Just sit with these in a pile next to you for a few minutes,” he said. “When Willie sees you have them, he'll be a lot friendlier. Just don't be too obvious about it. Let him think it's his idea. I've got a little more work to do, then we can talk a bit.”

Sure enough, as soon as he saw the peanuts, Willie flew over and landed on a perch mounted to the deck rail. Cassidy could tell the bird spent a lot of time there because the deck underneath the perch was all white and green with his droppings.

Cassidy turned his back to the bird and watched the river, where every few seconds a meaty projectile of a fish would launch itself into the air and land with a robust splash. Out of the corner of his eye, Cassidy could see the bird hop down to the deck rail and take a few pigeon-toed steps in his direction.
That's right, Willie.
Just watching some mullet. Nothing going on here. Just me and my peanuts watching the fish jump.

He reached down and picked up a peanut, bringing it to his mouth and biting down on the shell so that it made a crunching sound, immediately getting the bird's attention. The feathers on Willie's head flattened as he stretched his neck up into the air like an ostrich. He took a few more awkward steps in Cassidy's direction.

Cassidy pretended to grab another peanut and crunch it, which brought the bird closer, though still well out of reach. He was getting close enough to the peanuts to try for a quick grab, so Cassidy slid the pile closer to himself. This irritated the bird, who started pacing and grumbling. Trapper was now at the door, watching.

When Cassidy pretended to eat another peanut, the bird flapped his wings and yelled, “Cracker!”

“Okay, that's his word for food. He's almost ready to be friends,” said Trapper. “Hold one out to him, but act like you don't care if he takes it or not.”

When Cassidy did so, the bird retreated a few clumsy steps.

“Cracker?” the parrot said.

“That's good. He's getting used to you. And he wants to make friends before all the nuts are gone, so pretend you're eating another one.”

Cassidy crunched another one. The bird held his wings up in the eagle pose again. “Willie! Cut that out!” he yelled.

Trapper chuckled. “Okay,” he said, “offer it to him again.”

Cassidy held the peanut out while concentrating his attention on the river. The bird edged closer, carefully craning his neck out toward the nut.

“Take it back some. Make him trust you a little,” said Trapper.

When Cassidy did so, the bird sidestepped a little closer to him, craning his neck out ridiculously. He had all but toppled over when Trapper said, “Okay, let him have it.” Cassidy handed the peanut over. The bird snatched it from his fingers and immediately flew back to his perch, cackling evilly.

“What do you say, Willie?” Trapper called.

“Cut that out!” the bird screeched, then bit into the peanut, pulling one of the pink nuts expertly out of the shell with the sharp tip of his beak.

“I guess it's going to take some work to get ‘thank you' into his vocabulary,” said Trapper, sitting down next to Cassidy with a paper plate of what appeared to be strangely shaped flowers.

“Next time he'll treat you like a long-lost buddy, especially if you have peanuts. You might even get him on your hand, but probably that'll be the time after that. Willie, come here!”

The bird flew over and landed on Trapper's forearm. His head fluffed up and turned sideways and Trapper rubbed the yellow spot over his beak and all around his fuzzy green cheeks. Then he gave the bird one of Cassidy's peanuts, which he quickly snatched and flew back to his perch.

“You're welcome,” Trapper said.

The bird cackled.

“You recognize these?” Trapper held up the paper plate to Cassidy.

“They're like the ones you chopped up in the eggs?”

“Right, chanterelles. They're what make ordinary scrambled eggs into food for the gods. You've seen them in the woods, right?”

“I think so. Sometimes the baby ones are bright orange?”

“Well, those are a little different. They're cinnamon chanterelles. They're edible, too, but it takes a thousand of them to make anything. These are golden chanterelles, the ones the chefs want. Even chefs in Paris, France. Hold one up to your nose and see if you smell anything.”

Cassidy sniffed. “Don't think so,” he said.

“Try again. It's kind of subtle.”

“Oh, yeah. Kind of nice, like a flower or something.”

“Right,” said Trapper. “Like a gardenia, maybe, something like that. Very faint, but it's there. No other mushroom I know of smells anything like that. So that's one clue. Now turn it upside down and look at the underside of it. What do you see?”

“Just the gills, I guess.” Cassidy studied the fungus.

“Right, but with a chanterelle they're not gills but ridges. About the only thing out there you might confuse a golden chanterelle with is a jack-o'-lantern, because the colors are similar. It would be a bad mistake, because it's a completely different species and poisonous as all get-out. The gills are the best way to tell them apart. I wish I had a jack-o'-lantern so you could see them side by side.”

“I think I've seen them,” said Cassidy.

“Probably. They grow in big bunches, usually right on a piece of wood. Chanterelles grow separately on the ground. But the big thing is, jack-o'-lanterns have actual gills, not ridges. They also have a different smell. Pleasant, but not like a gardenia. You can really tell them apart at night because the jack-o'-lantern's gills glow in the dark. That's a jack-o'-lantern for you, and of no use to man nor beast. In fact, it'll make you sick as three dogs.”

“Maybe I'll just stick to plain eggs.”

“No need. You can learn to tell the difference. But if you ever run into any and want to try them, just bring them by here first. I'll check them out and make sure you don't poison yourself.”

“Okay.”

“I've checked out your turtles and they look fine. Got a male and a female there, in case you were wondering. The female has a really nice pattern. Remind me and I'll show you how to tell the difference.”

“Sure,” said Cassidy.

“Now, here's your fifty cents, and you've got to scat. If you want to do a little run some morning, I'll meet you at the inlet. Right now I have to get my chowder started and get this place ready for guests.”

“Guests?” Cassidy couldn't tell if he was being put on.

“I kid you not. Dave Brooker brings a boatload of tourists up from Jupiter twice a week. Calls it Trapper Nelson's Jungle Cruise. I dress up like Tarzan, wrap a black snake around my neck, feed them a bowl of chowder, sell them some trinkets, and send them on their way.”

“What kind of trinkets?”

“Oh, a rattlesnake rattle or a conch shell, almost anything carved from a cypress knee. Amazing what city people will buy.”

“Like maybe a box turtle?”

“Hmmm.” Trapper scratched his chin. “Maybe.”

“And about how much would a city person pay for a box turtle?” asked Cassidy.

There was the big laugh again. Willie flapped his wings and screeched.

“Whatever the market will bear, Youngblood! Whatever the market will bear!” said Trapper Nelson.

C
hip Newspickle was famous for having a hilarious name. He shared this distinction with a sad little girl named Amarylis Character and the irrepressible Richard “Dick” Hertz, the designated class clown since kindergarten.

But Chip Newspickle, in addition to his compelling moniker, was famous for being a fast runner. Astoundingly fast.

By the time he got to junior high school, Cassidy had gradually relinquished his illusions about being truly fleet of foot. Even Demski now found himself surrounded by kids who could leave him behind with ease. Cassidy turned his attention to basketball, at which he had shown some meager neighborhood-level ability, and Demski, lacking any kind of coordination whatsoever, was now much taken with model airplanes.

But everyone in school knew about the phenomenon that was Chip Newspickle. He was very low-key about it, but then again he could afford to be; he had newspaper clippings.

Despite being only an eighth grader, Chip held the school and county records for the fifty- and hundred-yard dashes. He was such a star on the track team people had forgotten how funny his name was; it now just seemed cool.

Quenton Cassidy had taken his share of grief over his own name and was envious of anyone who had done something noteworthy enough to make the transition from funny name to cool name. But he had a hard time believing Chip Newspickle had actually run that fast. Cassidy had seen him ambling along the sandy hallways of Glenridge Junior High, and while he seemed maybe a little cocky—who wouldn't be?—he looked altogether mortal.

All of Cassidy's friends knew their times for the fifty-yard dash. Cassidy's was exactly 7.2 seconds, which had been one of the best in his gym class, though two of the ninth graders had gone under seven. To Cassidy, a time of 6.9 or 6.8 was comprehensible, but just barely. He had run enough time trials in phys ed to become familiar with what a tenth of a second meant on a running track, and he knew just how flat out he had had to run to get that 7.2. Moreover, when he ran it again at the end of the semester, he ran exactly the same time again, despite trying so hard he almost lost his Pop-Tarts on the infield.

Huffing and puffing, he walked back to where Coach Bickerstaff was studying the stopwatch.

“Seven point two. Good job, son,” said Bickerstaff, who had no idea why Cassidy walked away so unhappy.

For the first time in his life he was coming up against the cold, hard judgment of the stopwatch, and he now knew that his 7.2 represented the outer limits of his ability. It was disconcerting to think that some other mortal, some kid more or less his own age, could finish the same distance in “six something,” could simply fly on up ahead of him so many yards in such a short distance. But then he heard about Chip Newspickle and had to get his mind around the idea that there were human beings who not only ran in the sixes, but in the fives!

Chip Newspickle ran the fifty-yard dash in 5.8 seconds!

And now, this morning, in second-period gym class, there was Chip Newspickle in the flesh, sitting there doing butterfly stretches as Coach Bickerstaff took roll. He was dressed out, too, even though this was not his gym class. He wore red-and-green-plaid gym shorts and a Glenridge T-shirt, like nearly everyone else, but also something Cassidy had never seen before: tight-fitting bright white kangaroo-skin track slippers with wicked-looking long spikes and three perfectly spaced black stripes slanted on the sides. They were the most amazing shoes Cassidy had ever seen.

Coach Bickerstaff finally looked up from his clipboard. “All right, gentlemen, this morning we're gonna be doing 440 time trials,” he said. “This is part of President Kennedy's fitness program, like the sit-up and pull-up tests we did last week. We'll do all this again at the end of the year, and your times will be recorded and compiled in a report that will go to the superintendent's office, then to Tallahassee, and eventually on up to President Kennedy in Washington, D.C.”

That sobered everyone. No one wanted to let President Kennedy down. He had been on a PT boat that got sunk.

“Everyone will line up at the starting post and we've got two watches so we'll run two at a time like we did last time. If you don't already have a partner, Coach Burke will pair you up with someone close to your speed so you'll have some competition.”

There was nervous grumbling. A 440 was a whole lap, and everyone could see what a long way that was. Even a 100 seemed like a fairly long race compared to the 50, and a 220 was way beyond that. Twice a 220 was hard to imagine.

“Oh, and before we get started, y'all probably noticed Chip here. He needs to get his 440 done this period because he has a dentist appointment this afternoon. So, who wants to run with Chip?”

Everyone laughed. Exactly nobody wanted to run with Chip Newspickle.

“All right, settle down. Hohlmeister, Castleberry, you're the fastest guys in class. How about it, one of you?” They were the two ninth graders who were under seven seconds. They were both on the football team, but neither of them wanted any part of Chip Newspickle in a foot race.

“Uh, we're running with each other.” Castleberry pointed to Hohlmeister sitting next to him. Hohlmeister nodded vigorously. “We already decided,” he said.

Bickerstaff looked at the group and suppressed a sigh. He couldn't really blame them. He was about to announce that Chip would run by himself when he heard a thin voice from the back of the throng.