“Not yet.”
“So you don’t know what it’s like … down there?”
“Not really. Louis can’t describe it to me. Louis says it’s the kind of place you have to see to believe.”
“Okay.” I was thinking that we might find our mother in this place, and I was also thinking that my sister was officially nuts. “You’d think Grandpa Sawtooth would have mentioned something about all this, though.”
Ossie smoothed a wrinkle in the old map and met my gaze with clear, violet eyes.
“Grandpa? He’s a great wrestler but he’s no Spiritist. I’m sure he thought the Eye was just a pile of rocks. He didn’t have a clue what he was looking at.”
Weekend 3: The Chief is still gone.
Seths: Ninety-eight.
Sisters: Two.
Brothers: Zero.
Tourists: Zero.
Ghosts: One.
Park Hours:?
Mom:???
Gus Waddell came by late Saturday to see how we were doing.
“Most awesome, Uncle Gus,” I said from the kitchen table, not looking up. The mail crashed onto the dark sea of wood around me — I was coloring. Even I knew that I was years too old for this baby activity. Next I’d be playing dolls like some mainland girl. Using my gator noose as a jump rope. Well, somebody stop me, I frowned, snapping a blue crayon.
“Whatcha drawing there, Ava Bigtree? That sure is — huh.”
I had filled in a dozen sheets with single colors, our Bigtree tribal colors: Indian red and heron blue. The whole time I was coloring, I lived a second life in my head. I’d glance up at the kitchen clock every minute or so and think: Now is when our matinee should begin. Now is when the Chief flips on the blue lights. Gold, clap! Orange, clap! Red lights. Now here comes the song — ba-da-dum! Now Hilola Bigtree is climbing the ladder, waving at all the tiny cheering people; now she is running down the diving board; and here, ladies and gentlemen, she hits the water! …
Behind me, Uncle Gus coughed.
“I see you, ah, you like the color blue there.”
“Yup.”
Uncle Gus smelled like eggs and diesel and I wished that he would please go away. We had our food, our mail, we were all set. Uncle Gus seemed to want to pat my back, but perhaps couldn’t figure out how or where to touch a kid for sympathy purposes; his large hand hovered near my right ear, then dropped back to his side.
“You sure you’re all right? You know, I told your old man this already, but you girls are welcome to spend the night at our place, anytime. Mrs. Waddell would love to have you over.”
“Thanks. Maybe next week. We’re going good, Gus. I fed the Seths a few hours ago. Ossie is good, Judy Garland is good. It’s good here. Quiet.”
That morning I’d found a half-dead gator in our Pit. She looked like the drowned gators that wash up after storms, their blond tongues glittering with hundreds of decaying minnows. She was alive but I couldn’t tell what was wrong with her — disease was so infrequent among our alligators that scientists from the University of Florida came out once a year to take samples of their blood. I’d let her rest her leathery head against my shoulder while I touched the saffron plates of her neck. The Chief says it’s a terrible sign when a monster gives you this kind of access.
On Tuesday, it seemed that good news had come at last! Gus brought me another letter. This one came in an envelope with Loomis University’s orange-and-green seal on it.
Dear Ms. Bigtree:
Thank you for your inquiry. I have done some research on your behalf; unfortunately no such Commission or Committee or alligator-wrestling competition has ever existed. You might visit the Miccosukee Indian Reservation to watch a live alligator show.
Regards,
Amalia Curtis
Secretary to the President
University of Loomis
I tore up this letter within seconds of finishing it, put the bits of it into a plastic bag, and shook the bad news out over the Gator Pit. Later I caught some sunfish for the red Seth — she was eleven and three-quarter inches now, and very healthy-seeming, not sluggish or inappeteant or anything, a few more centimeters and maybe it would be safe to share her with Ossie and the Chief. Not tourists, though, I frowned; I really did not want strangers to see her yet, even though I knew that was the ultimate point of our training. I practiced with her for two hours. I had her to where she would walk this perfect debutante circle around my Swamplandia! ball cap. She would bite my finger with a precocious viciousness. We were going to get famous and save the park. My dream kicked painfully inside of me, and I was surprised to find how easy it was to go on working toward it as if I’d never heard from Mrs. Amalia Curtis.
I didn’t try to write the commission again, but I did begin a letter to my brother.
Dear Kiwi,
I tapped the pencil against my lips. How to explain Louis Thanksgiving? Already I had amassed a stack of Bigtree postcards that I planned to send to him in bulk just as soon as he wrote with his new address. Weeks and weeks of postcards, our mother’s face on most of them. I liked the satisfying clack the stack made against the edge of our dresser, like I’d collected Time itself for my brother. Kiwi could just read these, come back to the swamp, and pick up where he left off.
Dear Kiwi,
How are you? Good, I hope. Are you in a college yet? I wanted to tell you something: last night I met Ossie’s boyfriend. His name is Louis, and he is a dredgeman. I don’t know, Kiwi. I think I maybe believe in this one? You know what, as far as ghosts go he is really not so bad. He sure got a raw deal in his first lifetime. Ossie is saying that he’s “the One,” which means that we could have a ghost for a brother-in-law, haha. Poor Ossie. I guess I’ll have to tell you the rest in person … hint hint. We miss you.
Your sister,
Ava Bigtree
Now that the Chief was gone I left the TV news on all the time. I knew about the gas hike in Loomis County and the famine in Uganda, the mayor’s “fiscal indiscretions.” Kiwi’s bulb burned like a lighthouse at the top of our stairs. In the new emptiness I’d made a series of discoveries. For example, if you stared out our bedroom window you could see a forest of dark, inverted trees in the pond beyond the kapok. Pop ash, the kapok, mahoganies, all draped with the irregular lace of Spanish moss — the pond was about fifty feet wide, but it repeated every leaf and branch in a deep layer of endless colors. This second forest had a watery, independent life. Where did the real woods begin? you’d start to wonder after a while.
Two cinnamon lizards blinked at me from behind Ossie’s unmated work boot. Earlier I’d searched the park for her and then given up to read my Bandits of the West comics. Cowboys were still the closest things to alligator wrestlers I had found in kids’ literature — they lassoed the killing horns of steers and smoked like Dad, drank like Grandpa, wore Mom’s secret smile. That night I gave myself fifteen pumps of Mom’s perfume. Then I let the whole bottle drop onto the floor. Glass flew everywhere. Our bedroom became a terrible canopy of artificial roses. The glass shards I left alone until the thought of my sister cutting her feet on one grew unbearable and I swept them into the dustbin. Ossie is going to really lay into me, I thought. But dawn broke and my sister’s bed was still made. She strolled up to the house at noon, smiling cheerfully, with huge bags under her eyes.
“Where were you?” I asked dully. I felt exhausted just looking at her. After hours of pumping up for a big speech my anger turned tail on me, slinking away.
“A secret. But don’t worry, Ava,” she smiled. “Louis takes care of me out there.”