As it turned out, Roy was too quiet. He walked into a clearing and found himself facing a large grizzly bear with two cubs. It was impossible to say who was more startled.
Roy had always wanted to see a grizzly in the wild, but his buddies at school told him to dream on. Maybe in Yellowstone Park, they said, but not up here. Most grownups spent their whole lives out West without ever laying eyes on one.
Yet there was Roy, and a hundred feet across the glade were three serious bears-snorting, huffing, rising on their hind legs to scope him out.
Roy remembered that his mother had packed a canister of pepper spray in his backpack, but he also remembered what he'd read about bear encounters. The animals had poor eyesight, and the best thing for a human to do was remain perfectly still and silent.
So that's what Roy did.
The sow bear squinted and growled and sniffed for his scent on the wind. Then she made a sharp coughing noise, and her cubs obediently dashed off into the woods.
Roy swallowed hard, but he didn't move.
The mother bear rose to her full height, bared her yellow teeth, and faked a lunge toward him.
Inside, Roy was quaking with terror but on the outside he remained calm and motionless. The bear studied him closely. Her changing expression suggested to Roy that she'd figured out he was too meek and puny to pose a threat. After a few tense moments, she dropped to all fours and, with a final defiant snort, lumbered off to collect her cubs.
Still, Roy didn't move a muscle.
He didn't know how far the bears had gone, or whether they might come back to stalk him. For two hours and twenty-two minutes Roy remained as stationary as a plaster statue on that mountainside, until one of his teachers found him and led him safely back to the group.
So Roy was extremely good at not moving, especially when he was scared. He was plenty scared now, with nine venomous snakes crawling around his feet.
"Take a deep breath," advised the voice behind him.
"I'm trying," Roy said.
"Okay, now step backwards real slow on the count of three."
"Oh, I don't think so," said Roy.
"One…"
"Now wait a second."
"Two…"
"Please!" Roy begged.
"Three."
"I can't!"
"Three," the voice said again.
Roy's legs felt like rubber as he teetered backward. A hand seized his shirt and yanked him into the thicket of pepper trees. As Roy's butt landed in the dirt, a hood came down over his face and his arms were jerked behind his back. Before he could react, a rope was looped twice around his wrists and secured to the trunk of a tree. Roy could feel the smooth sticky bark when he wiggled his fingers.
"What's going on!" he demanded.
"You tell me." The voice had moved in front of him. "Who are you? Why're you here?"
"My name is Roy Eberhardt. I saw you run by the school bus the other day."
"I don't know what you're talkin' about."
"On two different days, actually," Roy said. "I saw you running and I got curious. You looked kind of… I don't know, wired."
"Wasn't me."
"Yeah, it was." The snake wrangler was using a false husky tone-the voice of a boy trying to sound like a grownup.
Roy said, "Honest, I didn't come out here to hassle you. Take off this hood so we can see each other, okay?"
He could hear the boy's breathing. Then: "You're gonna have to get outta here. Like right now."
"But what about the snakes?"
"They're mine."
"Yeah, but-"
"They won't go far. I'll catch 'em again later."
Roy said, "That's not what I meant."
The boy laughed. "Don't worry, I'll take you out the back way. Just do as I say and you won't get bit."
"What a guy," muttered Roy.
The boy untied him from the Brazilian pepper and boosted him to his feet. "I gotta admit, you did pretty good," the boy said. "Most kids woulda peed their pants."
"Are those cottonmouths?" Roy asked.
"Yep." The boy sounded pleased that Roy knew what kind of snakes they were.
"Where I used to live, we had lots of rattlers," Roy volunteered. He thought that if he could start a friendly conversation, the kid might change his mind and take the hood off Roy's face. "I never heard of a cottonmouth with sparkles on its tail."
"They're goin' to a party. Now start walkin'." The boy grabbed Roy from behind and guided him forward. He had a strong grip. "I'll tell you when to duck for branches," he said.
The hood was either black or dark blue, and Roy couldn't see a speck of light through the heavy fabric. Blindly he stumbled and swayed through the thicket, but the barefoot boy kept him from falling. Roy knew they were out of the trees when the air got warmer and the ground beneath his feet got flat. He could smell the fertilized sod of the golf course.
Soon they stopped marching, and the kid began to loosen the knots on Roy's wrists. "Don't turn around," he said.
"What's your name?" Roy asked.
"I don't have a name no more."
"Sure you do. Everybody's got a name."
The kid grunted. "I been called Mullet Fingers. And I been called worse."
"You don't really live out here, do you?"
"None a your business. What'f I do?"
"All by yourself? What about your family?" Roy asked.
The boy rapped him lightly on the back of the head. "You ask too many nosy questions."
"Sorry." Roy noticed his hands were free, but he continued to hold them behind his back.
"Don't turn around until you count to fifty," the kid instructed him. "Otherwise, you're gonna wake up one morning with one of those big ole cottonmouths in your bed. Got it?"
Roy nodded.
"Good. Now start countin'."
"One, two, three, four…," Roy said aloud. When he reached fifty, he whipped the hood off his head and wheeled around. He was alone in the middle of the driving range, surrounded by acres of golf balls.
The barefoot boy was gone, again.
Roy ran all the way back to his bicycle and rode home as fast as he could. He wasn't frightened and he wasn't discouraged. He was more excited than ever.
SIX
At breakfast the next morning, Roy asked if it was against the law for a kid his age not to go to school.
His mother said, "Well, I'm not sure if it's an actual law but-"
"Oh yes, it is," his father cut in. "Truancy is what it's called."
"Can they put you in jail?" Roy asked.
"Usually they just put you back in school," Mr. Eberhardt said. Half-jokingly he added, "You weren't thinking of dropping out, were you?"
Roy said no, school was all right.
"I bet I know what this is about," Mrs. Eberhardt said. "You're worried about bumping into that Matherson boy again. See, didn't I tell you the apology letter was too assertive?"
"The letter was just fine," Roy's father said, spreading open the newspaper.
"If it was 'just fine,' then why is Roy so scared? Why's he talking about dropping out of school?"
"I'm not scared," Roy said, "and I don't want to drop out of Trace Middle. It's just…"
His mother eyed him. "What?"
"Nothing, Mom."
Roy decided not to tell his parents about his encounter with Mullet Fingers, the running boy. Being in law enforcement, Roy's father probably was required to report all crimes, even truancy. Roy didn't want to get the kid in trouble.
"Listen to this," Mr. Eberhardt said, and began reading aloud from the newspaper: "'A Coconut Cove police cruiser was vandalized early Monday morning while parked at a construction site on East Oriole Avenue. The officer had fallen asleep inside the car at the time, according to a police spokesperson.' Can you believe that?"
Roy's mother clucked. "Sleeping on duty? That's disgraceful. They should fire that fellow."