Dr. Dressler didn’t know what to say. He reached in his coat and took out two packets of onion crackers from the school cafeteria. “I brought these for Nadine.”
In a flash the bird swooped across the room and snatched the treat from his hand, then flew back to the chair.
Duane Scrod Sr. scolded the macaw for bad manners. “What do you say to the man, Nadine?”
“Thanks a million!” the bird screaked. “Danke schön! Merci beaucoup!”
Dr. Dressler pressed onward. “I came to talk to you about Duane Jr.,” he said. “After everything that’s happened, I’m afraid we have to suspend him from school.”
Duane Scrod Sr. finally turned and stared directly at the headmaster. “I sure don’t wanna be the one to tell his granny.”
“No, sir, that’s my job. Did you see the news?”
“Yeah. Least they left his name out of it.”
“The situation is very serious,” Dr. Dressler said.
Duane Sr. agreed. “It’s a shame, too. Past few days, D.J.’s been hittin’ the books pretty hard. Then all this nonsense had to break loose.” He brushed a piece of cracker off his sleeve and said, “Nadine, you eat like a pig.”
He and the bird returned their attention to the French cooking program. Dr. Dressler stood there, feeling out of place and unsure what to do next. As headmaster of the Truman School, he had a duty in such troubled moments to say something wise and helpful to parents, but never before had he dealt with a character like Duane Scrod Sr.
“Can I say one more thing?” Dr. Dressler asked.
“All right, but only ’cause you brought crackers.”
“The best thing your son can do is turn himself in to the police, as soon as possible.”
Duane Sr. scratched his cap. “You might be right, but what if you’re not? What happens to Junior then?”
“Mr. Scrod, they’ll catch up with him eventually,” Dr. Dressler said, “and when they do, they’ll come down twice as hard. If you see Duane, please tell him.”
“Heck, tell him yourself. Hey, Junior?” Duane Scrod Sr. sat forward and raised his voice. “DJ., come on out here!”
Dr. Dressler heard a door creak, followed by footsteps in the hallway. Duane Scrod Jr. appeared, looking calm but serious. He wore camouflage hunting-style clothes and carried his motorcycle helmet under one arm.
The headmaster, who’d never been in the presence of a fugitive, was more nervous than Duane Jr. “What are you doing here?” he asked the boy.
“My laundry,” Duane Jr. replied matter-of-factly.
“But the police are staked out at both ends of the street!”
“I came in the back way,” the boy explained, “through the neighbors’ yard. They’re at the rodeo in Zolfo Springs.”
Duane Sr. spoke up: “Junior, the man says you’re suspended from school.”
“Duh.”
“He also says you should give yourself up.”
“Yeah, right,” said Duane Jr.
The bird screaked, rose from the chair, and buzzed Dr. Dressler in search of more crackers. The headmaster ducked, to no avail. The macaw landed squarely on his neck and began poking its gnarly beak through his hair.
“Nadine!” barked Duane Scrod Sr.
“Help me,” Dr. Dressler whimpered.
Duane Jr. grabbed the bird and launched it out the front door. His father sighed and sat back to watch the cooking program. Dr. Dressler gingerly probed the collar of his shirt to make sure that Nadine hadn’t left him a nasty little present.
“That bird’s a royal pain,” Duane Jr. muttered, wiping his hands on his trousers.
“Am I bleeding?” Dr. Dressler asked.
“Just a scratch. Wash it out real good when you get home.”
The headmaster weighed his next words carefully. “Duane, you can’t keep running forever.”
“I don’t plan to.”
“If you had a lawyer, he’d advise you to surrender to the police immediately.”
“And I’d tell him the same thing I’m tellin’ you,” Duane Jr. said. “I can’t prove I’m innocent if I’m locked up in jail.”
“Duane, just listen—”
“No, you listen. I didn’t set that fire, and I’m not takin’ the fall.”
Duane Jr. looked angry, and it didn’t seem like an act. Over the years, the headmaster had heard many lame lies and invented stories from students who’d gotten into trouble, and he regarded himself as a hard man to fool. Now, as he looked into Duane Scrod Jr.’s eyes, it occurred to Dr. Dressler that the boy might be telling the truth.
“If you aren’t the arsonist, who is?”
“No idea,” Duane Jr. said.
“How’d your book bag end up in the swamp?”
Duane Jr. glanced over at his father and lowered his voice. “Pop says a tax man came here and stole it, but who knows. Some days, he’s all over the map.”
They heard a loud thwap and turned to see Nadine hanging like a giant moth on the screen door. Duane Sr. looked up from the TV and shook a fist. “Don’t you dare let her back in till she says she’s sorry! In all three languages, too!”
Duane Jr. paid no attention. To Dr. Dressler he said: “Now I got a question for you.”
“Certainly.” The headmaster was eager to offer some sensible guidance, but that was not what the young man wanted.
“Be straight up with me,” he said. “After you leave this house, are you gonna run and tell those cops I’m here?”
Dr. Dressler hesitated, yet only for a moment. He was startled to hear himself say, “No, Duane, I won’t breathe a word. That’s a promise.”
“Thanks, dude,” said the boy called Smoke, and disappeared down the hall.
Mrs. Starch came out of the tent cradling her straw hat, with the crown facedown. The hat seemed to be crying.
“Hush now,” said Mrs. Starch. Then, very quietly, to Marta: “There’s a cooler full of milk bottles under the tarp. Would you please get me one?”
Mrs. Starch sat cross-legged at the base of a cypress tree with the hat in her lap. She warmed the bottle in her hands, uncapped it, and attached a rubber nipple. Nick and Marta knelt in front of her. Peeking inside the hat, they saw a squirming ball of honey-colored fur.
It was a kitten unlike any they’d ever seen.
“We call him Squirt,” Mrs. Starch said, “because he pees all day long.”
The little cat lunged for the bottle and began to suck noisily. When Marta reached to pet it, Mrs. Starch stopped her. “Rule number one: No cuddling,” she said.
“He’s so awesome,” Marta whispered, edging as close as Mrs. Starch would allow. “What is it?”
“I bet Nick knows.”
He said, “It’s a baby panther.”
A smaller, living-and-breathing version of the stuffed one that he’d seen in Mrs. Starch’s house.
The teacher smiled. “That’s correct. A Florida panther. Scientific name?”
“Puma concolor coryi.”
“Correct again. Somebody’s actually read the class syllabus!” Mrs. Starch said. “The other acceptable answer would be Felis concolor coryi, although Puma is more poetic. In parts of South America, the word means ‘mighty magic animal.’ ”
To Nick, the kitten was a thing of unreal beauty, exotic yet delicate. Its pelt was dappled with spots that would fade over time, and its long tawny tail bent upward at the end but was ringed, almost like a leopard’s. Oversized and pointy, the ears were woolly and as white as cotton on the inside.
The panther’s muzzle was framed by bands of coal-black fur, now dribbled with milk, that gave the appearance of an outlaw-style mustache. Its eyes, barely open, were a creamy shade of blue. Soon they would turn brown and eventually pale gold, Nick remembered from his reading. The front paws, already larger than a tomcat’s, were clasped around the rim of the nursing bottle.
And what a powerful motor for such a pint-sized critter—more rumble than purr.
“Where’s the momma?” Ma
rta wanted to know.
“Not so loud, dear,” Mrs. Starch said.
“Is the mother cat dead?” Nick asked, fearing the worst. There were so few panthers left in the wild that hardly anybody ever laid eyes on one.
“No, the mother’s alive,” Mrs. Starch said. “At least that’s what Mr. Spree believes, and he fancies himself the expert.”
The kitten abruptly spit out the nipple and emitted a lion-sized burp. Mrs. Starch laughed, an uncommon sight.
To Nick and Marta she said: “You two have lots of questions, and I’ll get to all of them in due time. But right now, little Sir Squirt needs to finish his lunch—don’t you, baby?”
As if on cue, the cat mewed for more formula.
Mrs. Starch gently lifted the bottle to the kitten’s mouth and began humming a lullaby. The tune was surprisingly soothing and pretty. Marta and Nick were stunned; this was a side of their teacher that they’d never observed, or had even imagined to be part of her buzz-saw personality.
So, for a while, they sat peacefully in the swamp, listening to Mrs. Starch hum while the little panther slurped happily and the emerald leaves overhead shimmied and shook in the sunlight.
The cool breeze felt good. Nick reached for Marta’s hand.
TWENTY
On his search for the missing panther, Twilly Spree had crisscrossed hundreds of acres in the Black Vine Swamp. The quest was slow and often tedious, and on this day it led him toward an impressive cypress stand that he’d not yet explored.
Neck bent, eyes bolted to the ground, he moved ahead with measured, deliberate steps. In thick cover, panther poop wasn’t always easy to see.
A flash of pink caught his attention, and at first it looked like the petal of a morning glory. Yet when Twilly picked it up, he found himself holding a small flag attached to a wire stem. Then he spotted another flag, and then another and still more, planted in a perfectly straight line.
Twilly’s stride quickened. He followed the markers to the edge of the cypress, where he came upon a mucky area that appeared to have been flattened by all-terrain vehicles turning around, backing up, braking, spinning their fat wheels ….
He moved along, uprooting each plastic flag he saw. The trail took him under the lush canopy and into a wide clearing so sheltered by trees that it was virtually capped off from the sun and the sky.
The centerpiece was a man-made rectangular pit. Nearby loomed a stack of black iron pipes twice as tall as Twilly Spree and of the same eight-inch diameter as those he’d confiscated on the oil company’s property and donated to Haiti. There were also four pallets of two-by-fours, a circular water tank (empty), and a fuel tank (full). On the opposite side of the clearing sat several crates bearing shipping labels from equipment companies in Texas and Oklahoma. The labels were all addressed to “J. L. Bayliss d/b/a Red Diamond.” Twilly pried the lid off one bulky container, revealing a new diesel engine that he assumed would be used to power the drill.
He walked to the rim of the mud pit, which had partially filled with groundwater. To clear and dig out such a site in secrecy would have required careful timing and a small work crew. The project was ambitious, expensive—and highly illegal. From the research gathered by his private investigators, Twilly knew that Red Diamond didn’t own or lease this particular section of land; it was part of a wildlife preserve that belonged to the state of Florida.
In the cool dome of shade, Twilly Spree sat down on a crate to ponder what he should do next. He stroked the brittle old buzzard beaks that dangled from his neck in case they might hold a trace of native magic.
Or any magic at all.
* * *
As soon as the cat-in-the-hat fell asleep, Mrs. Starch took it back to the tent. When she emerged, she said, “Now, where’s that delicious cold pizza?”
Nick brought her the boxes. Mrs. Starch wolfed down four slices without pausing.
Marta said, “How old is the kitten?”
“Only a few weeks, according to Mr. Spree. Pardon my manners—we’re short of napkins.” Mrs. Starch wiped her sleeve across her lips. “Squirt needs momma’s milk. For now, we’re feeding him a special formula prepared by a friend of Mr. Spree who works at the Metrozoo. The bottles are delivered every Tuesday and Friday by private helicopter, which gives you an idea of Mr. Spree’s resources.”
“You mean he’s, like, rich?” Marta said. “He so doesn’t look it.”
Mrs. Starch said, “The cub is too young. Without his mother, he’s not going to make it. Even if I spend the next year of my life out here in the boonies taking care of him, I can’t teach him how to hunt.”
“What about giving him to the zoo?” Marta asked.
“Mr. Spree says no. He says the subject is closed.”
Nick asked Mrs. Starch to start at the beginning. “On the field trip,” he said, “when the fire broke out.”
“Yes indeed.”
“And you went back into the woods for Libby’s medicine.”
Marta said, “Yeah, that was very … uh …”
Mrs. Starch arched an eyebrow. “Very what?”
“Brave.” Marta flinched with guilt.
Nick knew she felt bad because of all the mean things she’d said about Mrs. Starch.
The teacher said, “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not a witch.”
Marta’s face reddened. “How did you know I called you that?”
“I wear a hearing aid in class. I don’t really need one, but I do enjoy eavesdropping when you kids start to whisper.” Mrs. Starch smiled slyly. “It’s no bigger than a button. You probably never noticed.”
Marta looked mortified.
“Oh, you aren’t the first student to call me a witch,” Mrs. Starch said, “or to use a cruder word that rhymes.”
All Marta could say was, “I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, you did. But that’s all right.” Mrs. Starch didn’t sound angry or resentful. “Look, my job is to fill young minds with knowledge, and certain fields of knowledge can be boring at times. Really boring. Which means I have to be tough in order to keep my students focused. I don’t expect to win any popularity contests, but at least you’ll be able to write five hundred intelligent words about the Calvin cycle when you finish my course.”
She opened a different cooler and took out three bottles of cold water, keeping one for herself and handing the others to Nick and Marta.
“Getting back to the fire,” she said, “it took me a while to locate the spot where Libby dropped her asthma inhaler. The smoke was heavy and I started to cough. My lungs burned, my eyes stung, and before long I lost my way back to the boardwalk. Simply could not find it. In fact, I could hardly see the nose in front of my face—and it’s not a nose that’s easy to miss, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed.”
“What did you do?” Nick asked.
“Freaked out, of course,” Mrs. Starch said.
Marta stifled a giggle.
“I babbled, blubbered, yelled for help,” the teacher went on. “I honestly thought I might burn to death in the middle of this swamp. Then, out of nowhere, somebody runs up from behind.”
“Twilly?” Marta guessed.
“Correct. He grabs my hand and practically drags me all the way to this camp. Doesn’t ask who I am, or even if I’m hurt. All he says is: ‘I need your help.’ ”
Nick was trying to visualize the scene. Twilly could make a strong first impression. “Weren’t you scared of him?”
“I was more scared of the fire,” Mrs. Starch said. “Mr. Spree washed out my eyes with distilled water and gave me a warm beer to drink, which I declined. Then he showed me that exquisite, glorious little feline ….”
Her voice trailed off as she looked sadly toward the tent.
“Did you know what it was?” Marta asked.
“Of course. I know every endangered species in Florida—and you should, too.”
“Right. I’m working on it,” said Marta.
“Mr. Spree told me that the mother panther had
been scared off by some jerk with a gun. He’d found the kitten crying in the woods—it was so tiny, its eyes weren’t even open. Next thing I know, he places it in my arms and gives me a baby bottle and says, ‘If you don’t feed it, it’s going to die. And it might die anyway, if we can’t find its momma soon.’ So here I am.”
“A substitute,” Nick said. This was the “family emergency” that was keeping Mrs. Starch out of school.
“Nursemaid. Surrogate. Cat-sitter. I had no choice but to step up,” she said. “Mr. Spree couldn’t take care of Squirt if he was gone all day trying to track down the mother. So I arranged to take my first and only leave of absence from the Truman School in eighteen years. My one regret is that you students were subjected to Dr. Waxmo, who, frankly, belongs in a different profession—the circus, perhaps.”
Marta let out a groan. “That man’s a total nightmare.”
“Oh, I know,” Mrs. Starch said ruefully. “Duane gave me a full report on Wendell. I sent Mr. Spree to chat with him, and he took ill shortly thereafter. Anyway, the new substitute, Mrs. Robertson, is a very able teacher—”
“Wait a minute. How does Duane fit into this whole picture?” Nick asked.
“I’m getting to that part. Be patient.”
“The police are after him! They think he set the fire to get back at you for what happened in school, but he told me he didn’t do it. Somebody stole his book bag and planted it out here to get him in trouble.”
Mrs. Starch took a long, leisurely drink from the water bottle. She said, “According to the newspaper, a butane torch was also found. That looks mighty suspicious.”
Nick heard his voice rise. “But I know Duane’s telling the truth about his backpack getting ripped off because he came over to borrow my biology book—”
“Yeah, to study for an imaginary test,” Marta cut in skeptically.
Mrs. Starch raised a hand. “It wasn’t imaginary—I wrote up a test especially for Duane. I’ve been privately tutoring him in several subjects, academic and otherwise. You might have noticed a change in his punctuality and neatness at school. Even his acne has improved, thanks to good old-fashioned soap and water.”