Gator on the Loose! (12 page)

David waited while people dug in their bags.

“Claudius. Come!”

Unlike Spot, Claudius did not need a repeat invitation. Water streamed away from his snout as he lifted himself out of the water and his legs paddled him forward. There were a few alligators between Claudius and the food in David’s hand. Claudius churned over them, stepping on heads and backs. The alligators near David scuttled away. Claudius was the king. He was the size of a movie alligator! Keisha thought he must be at least twelve feet long. When he opened his mouth, David dropped two pellets in. With one swallow, they were gone.

Claudius liked his food! The cameras clicked away.

Keisha heard her name being called. She turned to see Carmen hurrying toward them with a squirming bundle in her arms.

“I thought before you left, you would like to hold our little guy, Alphabet Soup.”

The other children crowded around Carmen and Keisha.

“Let me see! Can I hold him, too?”

The alligator lay still in Carmen’s hands, his little legs dangling, as if being carried by a human being was almost too much for him to handle. He was not even
half the size of Pumpkin-Petunia and had a band around his mouth.

“Why isn’t he with the other ones?” the girl in the playsuit wanted to know.

“Because he’s too small yet,” Carmen told her. “They might eat him. Or a blue heron or a sandhill crane might make him into dinner.”

“Lady, can I hold that, too?” asked the boy in the baseball cap.

“I’m going to show Keisha how to hold him first. You have to hold him in a special way to keep control,” Carmen said.

She took Keisha’s right hand and placed her palm just beneath the alligator’s front legs. “Now curl your index finger up around its neck and close your left hand around its back legs.” As soon as Carmen had transferred Alphabet Soup to Keisha, the little alligator started twisting all over the place.

“Just hold on,” Carmen said. “He’s doing the death roll.”

Keisha was too polite to tell Carmen that she knew what the death roll was. She tried not to fight the alligator but to hold on and let him wriggle.

“Keisha.” Daddy had come up behind her. He was letting her know that he was there if she needed him.
“This is what the alligator was doing with Dan, remember?”

“The death roll?” Keisha asked, taking some deep breaths.

Just as suddenly as it had begun twisting and turning, the alligator stopped. It lay limp in Keisha’s hands, its little legs dangling again, eyes closed. Keisha held him up so that she could see his second eyelid, the scales behind his ear holes, his needle-like teeth. She didn’t care what anybody said about alligators. She thought they were adorable.

“You can see why kids would want one,” Carmen said to the crowd around them. “What I tell children when they ask their parents to buy them an alligator is: What would happen if I put
you
in a little tank? You’d still grow big, wouldn’t you?”

“Sweetie …” Daddy took Keisha’s hand. “We better collect Grandma and say good-bye.”

Keisha asked Daddy if she could sit on his shoulders. She wanted to see the alligator sanctuary from a bird’s-eye view. Daddy understood. He bent down and Keisha got on. She looked at the alligators rolling in the grass. She watched them lying in their wallows and floating on the edge of the pond as if suspended. Every rescued alligator deserved a place like this.

Keisha leaned over to whisper in Daddy’s ear, “Can we visit Pumpkin-Petunia now?”

Daddy looked over at David, who was talking to a new group of visitors. He pointed to the back enclosure, the one behind the big fence. David gave him a thumbs-up. Daddy started off at a trot that joggled Keisha so much she had to grab his head.

“My eyes! I’m blind.” He turned around in a circle.

“Daddy!” Keisha giggled. “People are looking.”

“Oh, in that case.” Daddy went down on one knee so Keisha could climb off. “We don’t want anyone following us.” They walked around the corner of the enclosure. Several big pens had been set up, with high walls around the sides and back and the same wire fencing at the front. There were much larger alligators in the first and second pens. The third seemed to be empty, except for a little rustling grass near the back of the pen, where the uncut grass grew tall. That was where Keisha thought Pumpkin-Petunia might be hiding. She looked around the big pen and noticed it had its very own wallow.

“Can I take a picture of Pumpkin-Petunia and her wallow?” she asked. “To show Razi?”

“Sure.” Daddy handed Keisha his cell phone.

Keisha stood quietly, waiting for a glimpse of Pumpkin-Petunia, but her scaly friend didn’t want to be around humans at the moment. Keisha thought maybe she’d had enough of humans for a while. Though it was hard to say good-bye, Keisha felt so much better about her little alligator’s life now. Pumpkin-Petunia could be around other alligators—when she grew big enough, so they wouldn’t eat her. She would be in a large pen with grass and muddy places just like her native home.

It wasn’t a perfect happy-movie ending for Pumpkin-Petunia because she could never go back to the wild. But when Razi told the story, Pumpkin-Petunia would “and then” herself to a pretty good “the end” here at the Critchlow Alligator Sanctuary. And Keisha would even be able to visit her!

She settled for taking pictures of the big alligators and the wallows. As she was reviewing the pictures of the big muddy holes, she said, “Maybe I won’t show these to Razi. Maybe we’ll just keep these for reference.”

“Good point,” Daddy said. “Why give Razi more ideas than he already has?”

Back home, Keisha watched Razi splashing in the bathtub and thought about what Carmen had said about alligators and how they didn’t stop growing big.

“Razi, did you know that a baby alligator will grow about a foot a year? Boy alligators grow up to fifteen feet, and girl alligators are around nine.”

“That’s past my eyebrows,” Razi said, sticking a clump of bubble-bath foam on his chin. “I want to get out now. Close your eyes, Keisha.”

Keisha closed her eyes. She was wondering how she could teach people that those cute little alligator hatchlings could grow big. She grabbed the bath towel and held it out to Razi, closing her eyes until she heard the water slosh.

“Razi, don’t forget to shake off before you step—”

Too late. Razi was climbing over the side of the tub. Keisha pressed her eyes closed again. Water flew everywhere. Razi must be dancing from foot to foot.

“Just put something on so I can see again!”

“It’s time to measure me. You can open your eyes.”
Dressed in his pajama bottoms, Razi had pulled the towel around him like a superhero cape.

Keisha rub-a-dubbed Razi with the towel until Mama appeared in the bathroom doorway.

“Do you think you grow like a reed, Mr. Razi Carter? I just measured you a few days ago.”

“I grow like an alligator!” Razi said. “A foot a year.”

There was a place behind the bathroom door where the Carters kept a pencil record of the children as they grew. Mama had put a small mark in red for every foot so the children could see their progress. Razi stood there, his damp head making a spot on the wall.

The image of Razi waiting to be measured inspired Keisha. “Razi, that’s a great idea!”

Keisha handed Mama Razi’s towel and ran to find the phone. When Aaliyah picked up, Keisha could barely contain her excitement: “I think I know how we can make some money for the alligator sanctuary
and
educate people about not buying alligator babies
and
get some free advertising for Carters’ Urban Rescue,” she said, all in one breath. “I just don’t know how we’re going to market it.”

“Let me get my lemonade,” Aaliyah said, “and a piece of paper.”

*   *   *

The next morning, Daddy took Razi and the baby to the park because Keisha needed kids who colored inside the lines. Zeke and Zack and Aaliyah and Wen all volunteered. Grandma Alice found a copyright-free drawing of an alligator on the Internet, and Mama projected it on the wall. The children copied it onto a piece of butcher paper, which they then spread out on the kitchen table to make the Alligator Growth Chart, brought to you by Carters’ Urban Rescue.

Everyone began to color in the alligator. Grandma had to raid her own colored-pencil box to get enough greens.

From her research on the Internet, Aaliyah thought the poster should be three feet long and would hang between three and six feet from the floor. It’s at those heights that most kids want to know how fast they’re growing. This meant that the children only had room to picture the alligator from tummy to snout, but Mama said that was okay because children could imagine the rest.

“Perfect,” Mama said. “When they grow close to the top, they will be teenagers, and yet this is the size of a six-year-old alligator.”

“How are we going to copy this?” Aaliyah asked. “Do we have a budget? Color copies cost a lot of money.”

“Mr. Malone told Daddy he would help us out using the zoo’s big printer in the education office.”

Zeke stood back, examining their efforts. “Hmmm … it still needs something. How about if we say here: ‘You’re as high as an alligator eye’?”

“Good idea, but you have to print neat.”

“Let Wen do it. She’s got the best handwriting.”

They worked all morning, with only one
chin-chin
and pomegranate juice break.

It looked so real. Wen had even drawn in the scales.
Admiring their artwork, Keisha said, “Now maybe people will think about it. Alligators get big just like little boys do.”

“And girls,” Aaliyah reminded Keisha.

“I’m so proud of all of you,” Mama said, brushing away the eraser crumbs. “Little by little, the bird builds its nest. Now maybe we have helped the poor alligators by showing others what a big job caring for a baby alligator can become.”

“It’s almost finished …” Keisha wasn’t sure what, but there was still something missing. She knew it was true that these big alligators were once so small, but it was hard to imagine that even Pumpkin-Petunia could have fit between the ends of a ruler as a baby.

“This alligator looks big, like the alligators you see in the zoo. But how would you know the cute little baby gator you’re thinking about buying is going to grow big like this?”

Daddy and Razi and the baby arrived home from the park, just as they were putting the finishing touches on the poster.

As soon as Razi saw them in the kitchen, he said, “Look what I got, everybody.” He was holding up one of the little airplanes they sold by the lemonade stands for a quarter. Razi launched his plane and it landed—
ping!
—on
the kitchen table. Everyone looked up at once, shifting the drawing.

“Razi!” the children cried out in unison. Razi stuck out his lip.

“I miss Pumpkin-Petunia,” he said. “I want an alligator to play with.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Razi.” Grandma had been trying to draw an alligator toenail. When the paper moved, her pencil slipped. “We don’t have enough bathtubs!”

“Just a baby, then. I’ll keep him in the sink.”

Keisha looked at the plane lying near the bottom of the poster. “You’ve done it again, Razi! That’s what this poster needs—a drawing of a little alligator at the bottom so people can see the difference. Most people have seen a grown-up alligator at the zoo or on TV, but not a baby one. And maybe, maybe—”

“We could put a couple other ideas of things they could buy from the Reptile Shack that wouldn’t get big,” Wen said. She must have been excited because Wen never interrupted.

“Yes, that’s perfect!” Keisha said. It helped to give positive choices. “A little gecko or a salamander would be a better pet.”

“I want a gecko or a salamander!” Razi said. “Please, Mama!”

“You know we don’t own pets, little one. We have animals out back right now. Go visit them.”

“But I want one that stays.”

This conversation had been going on for so long that everyone knew what Mama would say (“Then you better find us another profession”) and then what Razi would say (“I would keep it in my bedroom and you wouldn’t even see it”) and then what Grandma would say (“That’s a serving of wind pudding with a topping of air sauce”).