The Understory (25 page)

With the capybara as my furry and dawdling (wicked-slow) taxicab, I rode for three hours, until he abruptly stopped next to a meandering river full of floating, colossal (gigantic) (big) lily pads.

“Don’t dip your toes in the river,” he said. “The caiman don’t like it. Now the river moves fast, so you’ll be able to reach the tree by—”

“You’re leaving me? To float to my certain death?!”

His small, black eyes blinked once, and then he said, “All journeys require some solo effort. It was your wish. Don’t you remember? ‘I can do it myself!’” It was an annoyingly accurate impression of me. “‘I’m not a baby anymore!’”

I swallowed. “But that was when my parents were hovering over me while I was doing my math homework.” I folded my arms. “And wanting to walk to the mall by myself is not the same as—”

“When you get to the tree, it will still be light, so begin looking for it right away. “

“For what? Looking for what?!”

My panic unsettled him. “The magic treasure box, of course,” he said. “It will be hidden underneath leaves and roots, and on it you’ll see an intricately carved kapok tree, the tree of life. Its lid will have a curvy, inviting handle made of several woody vines called lianas, interwoven in a braided arc. And shortly after you find the treasure box, you’ll also find the moonflower.” He paused and trembled, and fear enveloped (took over) his face. “Unless . . .”

“Unless that freaky fierce thing eats me! That’s what you were thinking, weren’t you?!” I said.

He seemed to search his mind for a comforting answer. After a moment, he shivered and squeaked out, “Yes.”

“Who sends an unarmed eight year old into the jungle? Who’s in charge around here? I wanna talk to the manager!” I yelled at him. “Who would that be?”

He hung his hairy head. “That’d be the Fierce One.”

“The one who wants to eat me? He’s in charge?” I nodded in angry defeat. “Excellent.”

“Just figure out his riddles and you’ll be fine.”

I whimpered. This was bad news. Riddles were my one weakness. They were Kryptonite to my otherwise impenetrable (impassable) intellect. “And what if I don’t? Figure them out, that is?”

Who knew a capybara could grimace?

“Fine,” I sighed, resigned to doing enigmatic (unfathomable) (puzzling) battle with the beast. “How am I supposed to know when I get to this special tree?”

“You’ll know.” His voice was soft but serious. “It is the most majestic tree of all, the tree of life—it is the keeper of the forest.”

My face sobered. “And if I do all this, if I do everything right, I get to go home. Right?”

As soon as I said it, I knew, once again, I’d gotten ahead of myself.

“First the treasure box, and then the moonflower,” he said, as he helped me aboard a lily pad so huge, even my imagination seemed surprised.

“Ma’am?” the clerk said.

“Shhh,” Story said, shooing her away like a fly. “She just jumped aboard a giant lily pad . . .” Story’s right finger glided over the next page, forging furiously ahead to find where Hope discovered the treasure box. “Uh-oh,” she said, her face twisting into a sincere expression of doom. “I think something really bad is going to happen.”

“It is,” the clerk said, directing Story’s attention to a sign which read
No Loitering—Offenders Will Be Prosecuted
.

“You think I’m loitering?! This is a bookstore, is it not?” Story’s tone became meaner and louder, as she thought about how much she still needed to get done today. “A place where one might find books, that one might want to
read
!” she said, still holding the book in her hand as if it were her own.

“Ma’am, please put the book down,” the clerk said, backing away from Story as if she was armed.

Story tried to defuse the situation by lowering her voice, and the book. “Look, I’m sorry I yelled . . . and I’m sure you’re sorry . . . for being such a bitch,” said Story, “so why don’t you just let me pay for the book, and I’ll be on my way?”

In a bitter, definitive tone, the clerk said, “I told you. It’s not for sale.”

“What do you mean, it’s not for sale?” Story said, walking toward the clerk and pointing to the price tag. “Nineteen-ninety-five. See, right there.”

“It’s a store copy,” said the clerk.

“Well, you’ve got to have another!” Story said. “There’s a display in the window!”

The clerk stood her ground and stared Story down. “We have the right to refuse service to anyone who we feel is—”

“Service? You call this service?” she said, shaking her finger in the clerk’s face. “You . . . are a giant pain in my ass!” By now, the two of them stood at the center of the store in a face-off. Story, still clutching the book with her left hand, said, “Now, I’m going to go over by my bag, get my wallet, pay for this book, and leave.”

As she turned to walk away, the clerk tried to grab the book. Story resisted at first, retaining the book in a death grip, but then the book slipped out of her grasp, and with no more resistance, the book’s hard corner drove back into the clerk. With her face in her hands, the clerk dropped to the ground and screamed, “My nose!”

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” Story said, crouching down to help, while the clerk hid behind her own hands. “Here, let me see,” Story said, trying to see the damage. When the clerk moved her hand, she revealed a snarling face smeared with blood.

And thanks to the other clerk who’d made the call, two prepubescent security officers with attitudes showed up just as the bloody clerk-victim, wearing a Sundance Books button that ironically read,
Hi, My Name Is Carrie
, yelled, “Get. Her. Away. From. Me!”

As one security guard, who looked barely eighteen, grabbed hold of Story and dragged her out of the store, the other one grabbed her suitcase. Story hollered, “My mother’s a very important woman who will not be happy about this!” Her voice trailed behind in a blur of threats. “She’s very rich and very mean! Beverly Easton—get to know that name!” And after remembering she was now rich, too, she yelled, “I could’ve spent a lot of money in this store!”

After escorting her to the mall security office, they told her she’d have to wait for the “local authorities,” who were on their way. “The cops?!” Story shrieked, as they sat her down on a dirty couch in their office, where she imagined many a shoplifting teenager had sat. “Why are
they
coming?”

The taller one with a badge claiming he was “Rusty” read Story her shopping mall rap sheet. “Ma’am, you’re charged with shoplifting, resisting arrest, assault—”

“With a deadly book? Are you kidding me?” She shook her head in defiance. “I was trying to pay for it! And I don’t think I can technically be resisting arrest if you’re not real police officers.” After they scowled at her, she said, “No offense, but you don’t need this mess. You need a babysitter.”

“No offense, taken . . .
offender,”
Rusty said, just as two police officers entered the office and put Story in handcuffs.

“Is this necessary?” she said, now bound and humiliated.

The stocky, olive-skinned officer, who looked a bit like Eric Estrada, put his hand on her wrist and said, “Just procedure, ma’am.” He laughed, and added, “Don’t have any more books on your person, do you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m packin’ a fully-loaded
Huck Finn
in my underwear.”

The other officer threw a covert glance at her nice ass. For safety’s sake.

After an embarrassing, extra-long frisking, a lengthy car ride, and a litany of stupid questions, Story found herself in front of a police station mug-shot camera, the last place she thought she’d end up on a simple shopping excursion. Treating it as if it was her driver’s license, Story asked to see her final mug shot photo—an unusual request, but she figured it would be the only mug shot she’d ever have, and she wanted to look decent. Her half-smirk was the only cute thing about the picture. Hair—flat and lifeless. Lips—dry and cracked. And her outfit—so atrocious, it made the other criminals look fashion-forward.

In the middle of viewing her hideous picture, she heard her cell phone ring. It had been confiscated and stuck in a small bin of personal effects, which was stowed away on a shelf just a few feet away from the desk she sat behind. “That’s my phone,” she told Officer Sharpe, who was sitting in front of her, working on the incident report.

Dingaling.

“What?” he said, not looking up from the paperwork in front of him.

Dingaling.

“I need to get it. Don’t I get one phone call? In the movies, the accused gets a phone call. I have rights, you know. I’m not sure you’re following protocol, here, Officer Sharpe, and—”

Dingaling.

When he gave her the phone, she answered it with a loud, “Hello?!”

“Story, it’s Angela. What are you up to?” Angela said.

“Oh, not much. What about you?” Story said, holding her phone with both cuffed hands.

“Well, the good news is I took care of the visas—”

“That’s awesome! That’s fan—”

“Wait. There’s bad news.”

“Okay,” Story said, her bound hands now stuck together in prayer, while she used her neck and shoulder to clutch the phone.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t see it when I first looked . . . It’s so unfortunate . . . and actually quite surprising—”

“What?!”

Angela let out a defeated sigh. “The flight is full. I can’t get you on it.”

Story’s stomach knotted up, putting her half-digested Mammoth Burger in an unforgiving chokehold. She looked around the police station, searching for a place to hide—any sort of metaphorical moonflower in which to curl up and smother herself to death would do—but with nothing of the sort in sight, she opted to steal a therapeutic phrase from a belligerent and feathered friend.

“Fuck it all!”

“S
tory,” Angela fired back, “you had to know this was an impossible situation. The passport itself has oodles of complications, not to mention how strict they’re getting about immunizations, and . . .” Story whispered to herself, “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show,” then lifted her tiny phone up to her ear with her hands still fastened together by silver cuffs. “I need the passenger manifest for that flight, Angela,” Story said, as if she was at the office asking someone for a pencil.

“You
what
?!
”
Angela said. “This trip is not going to happen for you, Story. With some more time, I’d be happy to—”

“Nope, no time. Need to be on that flight,” Story said. She thought about the look on Cooper’s face when she told him what he’d won, and she couldn’t get it out of her head. “I need the passenger list, Angela.”

Angela scoffed. “Sure. Okay. Totally reasonable request—illegal—but still, a really productive angle, especially since it can’t possibly do you any good.” Fully worked up by now, she said, snidely, “What? Are you gonna break into someone’s house and steal their passports?”

Not a bad idea,
Story thought, imagining herself sneaking through sliding glass doors and ransacking drawers, but she needed to take care of this before nighttime came. She’d have to devise another plan. “Just get me the passenger list, Angela.”

“Do you have any idea how much trouble I could get into?”

“Get it, and I’ll double what I gave you before.”

“We’re talking about losing my booking license, Story—”

“I’ll triple it,” said Story. “Last offer.”

Slowly, Angela breathed a nervous sigh, and said, “Okay. I know a guy. Who knows an ex-con. Who works for an airline.”