Gator on the Loose! (13 page)

Every once in a while, Keisha would question Mama’s rule, testing what it would really mean to have an animal stay instead of go. She knew it wasn’t very practical to have an alligator as a pet, but some people did it. And now that she had experience …

Aaliyah was writing furiously on her tablet.

“But where can we sell the posters?” Zack asked.

“Maybe door to door like with World’s Finest Chocolate?” Zeke suggested. Their 4-H Wild 4-Ever Club had done a fund-raiser like that last year.

Aaliyah kept writing with her left hand and put her finger up with her right. This meant she was about to say something market-savvy.

Zeke sighed. Sometimes it took a while for Aaliyah’s bright ideas to emerge, and everyone was supposed to stay quiet until she finished.

This time, however, it didn’t take long. “Well, since Wen suggested the Reptile Shack, maybe they would sell them there. But I was also thinking … the Hollyhock Parade. We could sell them at the picnic.”

Keisha moved closer to see what Aaliyah was drawing. Every year on the Fourth of July, hundreds of neighbors gathered to celebrate and cheer for the local children on their decorated bicycles.

Aaliyah held up her picture. “We can decorate the Red Rider Wagon like an alligator float.”

“Wait a minute,” Zack said. “How does making your wagon look like an alligator sell posters?”

But Keisha followed Aaliyah’s thinking. Sometimes she could picture things in her mind, and then all she had to do was work backward, step by step, to make them happen. The Hollyhock Parade was perfect. Kids sold all sorts of stuff at the picnic afterward—the toys they didn’t want or the bead jewelry they made, and once Razi even sold rocks he’d found by the side of the road. Razi was a good salesman.

“We can do it at the kids’ bazaar afterward,” Keisha said. “Razi can be our salesperson.”

“Are we going to sell alligators, too?” Razi asked. “The baby ones? Can I have one?”

Keisha, Aaliyah and Wen gave each other the LBL
(Little-Brother Look), which was when you made your eyes very wide and then rolled them. Aaliyah was an only child, but Wen had a baby brother, too, between Paulo’s and Razi’s ages. Keisha kept telling her, “Just wait.”

But right after the LBL, Keisha snuck a look at Mama. Maybe, just maybe, if they rescued another alligator as a baby, Keisha could take care of it until it was so big it needed to go to the alligator sanctuary. That would take a couple of years.

But Mama was all about business. “I saw a pattern for an alligator costume. If I sew a big one, Razi can use it for Halloween.”

“I want alligator swimming goggles.” Razi jumped up and down. “Standard-issue!”

“Let me see that drawing, Aaliyah,” Mama said. “I’ll put it on the refrigerator and give this idea time to grow.”

“Well, it better not grow in alligator time.” Grandma got up from her chair. “We only have a few weeks. Besides, I have to get to my yoga class.”

Grandma liked to learn something new every year. This year, she’d spotted an ad in
On-the-Town
magazine for a class called Yoga You Can Do.

Mama sat down next to Aaliyah.

Keisha took Grandma’s chair and studied the poster.
She put her hand over Mama’s. “You never know. There might be a baby alligator out there right now who needs us to help it find a home before winter.”

How do you keep track of the days during summer vacation? After seventeen visits to the public pool, six visits to the library, twenty games of hip-hopscotch and four bicycle rides to Millennium Park to get rainbow sherbet push-ups, it was Fourth of July and time for Alger Heights’ annual Hollyhock Parade.

It didn’t happen exactly the way Keisha had pictured it in her mind.

No. It was even better.

Mama sewed alligator costumes for Razi and baby Paulo. Paulo sat in the wagon, and Razi ran alongside making alligator vocalizations. He carried a posterboard sign taped on a stick that said
I’M A FIVE-YEAR-OLD ALLIGATOR
.

Daddy ran behind Razi holding his tail so it wouldn’t trip him. When that didn’t work, he gave the sign to Keisha and picked Razi up so he could wave his arms and legs like an alligator. Keisha was embarrassed because she was clearly bigger than a five-year-old alligator, but she held the sign up high so people would get the idea.

Zeke and Zack stayed on either side of the wagon in case Paulo decided to climb out, and Keisha pulled it. People laughed and called Daddy the human float.

Even though he had to put an ice pack on his lower back for the rest of the day, he said it was worth it because Carters’ Urban Rescue got $127 in donations for the alligator sanctuary at the picnic.

But the best part came after Keisha overheard an argument between Razi and his classmate Marco Brown. She was sitting on the swings, sipping the last little bit of her lemon ice, when Marco rushed by with the alligator head of Razi’s costume.

“Give it,” Razi was calling after him. “I’m telling my daddy.”

Mama, who’d just finished a sale of four posters to Ms. Tellerico, the principal at their school, reached out and grabbed Razi by the collar.

Marco stopped running, too, and said, “So? My daddy is bigger than your daddy.”

“Is not. My daddy is bigger than your daddy.” Razi buried his head in Mama’s dress.

Marco was running back to Razi, but then he saw Mama and stopped quick.

“My daddy is bigger than a full-sized alligator!” Razi shouted, holding Mama tight.

“Boys! That’s not how we talk,” Ms. Tellerico said in her principal voice. “Use your words in a nice way and save all that alligator knowledge for science lab.” Ms. Tellerico held out her hand for the alligator head, which Marco handed over.

“Now come over here and meet my nephew. Jack, this is Marco and Razi.”

Jack was holding on to a leash that ended somewhere under the sale table. Out rolled a fluffy puppy at the end of the leash.

“A puppy!” Razi said. “Mama, I want a puppy!” Razi bent down, and the puppy jumped up and gave him puppy kisses. Razi was a messy eater. The puppy had a lot to lick.

Marco sat down cross-legged. He knew what he had to do to get a turn with the puppy. Daddy came around from the sale table and sat next to Marco.

Puppies could do that, Keisha thought as she watched Razi go from near tears to giggling as he held the puppy.

“Can I have a turn?” Marco asked.

Jack leaned down and took the wiggling bundle in his hands. “You have to hold it like this,” he said, showing the kids how to support the puppy’s legs. Keisha had already learned that with Alphabet Soup, but she didn’t say so.

“Can we have a puppy, Mama? Please?” Razi begged. “I’ll keep it in my bedroom. You won’t even have to see it!”

“Puppies don’t belong in the bedroom. They need to be watched,” Mama said sternly.

“My sister has a crate in the kitchen,” Ms. Tellerico said. “That’s where Penny sleeps.”

“Yes,” Mama agreed. She put her hand on Daddy’s shoulder, and he looked up at her. “Puppies have to sleep in a crate.”

Oooh, this was something Keisha would have to remember. Mama didn’t say yes, but Mama didn’t say no, either.

And when Mama didn’t say no, that left a tiny little space for a possibility to grow. Maybe not for a baby alligator. That possibility was too big for the space between Mama’s yes and Mama’s no.

But maybe for something furry and fluffy, something small and … puppy?

FROM THE FILES OF CARTERS’ URBAN RESCUE

Alligator Fact File

• Alligators belong to a family of reptiles called crocodilians. Crocodiles and alligators are very similar, and are the last living reptiles dating back to the dinosaurs. The easiest way to tell the difference between the two is that alligators have a wider snout that packs more crushing power for small prey like turtles, while crocodiles have a narrower, longer snout that is better for catching fish and mammals.

• About one foot long at birth, alligators grow a foot or so every year until they reach adulthood at about seven years of age if they are given proper nutrition.

• Female alligators grow to be 6 to 9 feet in length, while male alligators reach 12 to 15 feet when they are full-grown (the longest measured alligator was over 19 feet!). They live to be about 30 years old in the wild and up to 50 years, or longer in rare cases, in captivity.

• Most alligators in captivity are smaller than normal because they don’t live in proper-sized cages and aren’t fed a complete diet.

• Experts estimate that there are several thousand captive alligators living in northern states. The hatchlings are easy to find locally or, if that’s illegal, on the Internet.

• If you Google “Gator on the Loose,” you’ll see plenty of news stories and videos from around the country about escaped pet alligators.

WHATEVER THE DILEMMA, IF IT’S GOT FUR OR FEATHERS (OR SCALES!) THE CARTERS ARE THE ONES TO CALL!

FROM THE DESK OF SUE STAUFFACHER

Dear Readers,

I got the idea for an alligator in the city pool because we really did have a three-foot alligator running around one of our southeast-side neighborhoods on Labor Day weekend in 2007. A courageous young woman coaxed it into a cat carrier with a broom. As you know from reading the story, zoos are not set up to take in orphaned animals but to help out in a pinch. Dan Malone, the animal management supervisor at John Ball Zoo here in Grand Rapids, offered to take the alligator home. During the TV coverage, however, the alligator’s owner called to ask for it back. While he was moving, the alligator had escaped from a box.

My plan all along was for the children in
Gator on the Loose!
to have a bake sale to raise the money to mail the alligator to a sanctuary in the southeastern United States. But when I did my research, I found out that that wasn’t realistic. If rain forest frogs cost several hundred dollars to transport, can you imagine how much a three-foot alligator would cost? That’s a lot of cupcakes and brownies! What could I do?

Then I read about an alligator sanctuary right here in Michigan. It’s true! The Critchlow Alligator Sanctuary is located
in a former farm field in Athens, a town about an hour and a half south of my home. Owners David and Carmen Critchlow used to keep their rescued alligators in their basement. Now forty-five alligators live in the sanctuary, which operates on proceeds from ticket and gift-shop sales, as well as donations. It’s a strange sight to be driving through farm country and see a sign that says, “Live Alligators on Display.”

But that’s why we writers say that truth can be stranger than fiction.

I was so thrilled to discover this sanctuary because now my story could have a realistic happy ending. When we visited, I “adopted” two alligators and so got to name them—Pumpkin and Petunia, of course.

Visit the Critchlow Alligator Sanctuary on the Web at
www.alligatorsanctuary.com
.

Happy reading!
Sue