Gator on the Loose! (4 page)

“And does that make it a baby?”

“Well, not exactly. But he was crying for his mother.”

Mama looked over her shoulder at Keisha. She never could stand to hear a baby cry. “How do you know that?”

“I’m not positively sure,” Keisha said, unsticking a banana from some peanut butter and popping it into Paulo’s mouth. “But in my report, I learned a little something about how alligators communicate, and that’s what I
think
he was doing. But it’s a lot different reading about it in a book and hearing it in real—”

“It crawled out of the bathtub!” Grandma yelled down from the top of the stairs. “Want me to get some towels?”

Daddy tilted back in his chair and turned to face the doorway. “Just make sure to keep the door closed, Mom.”

Keisha knew from the look on her mother’s face that Mama understood now there really,
really
was an alligator in the bathtub and this wasn’t just one of Razi’s make-believe stories or Daddy trying to pull her leg.

“Sorry?” Grandma yelled back. “I’m getting some feedback in my transmitter.”

Though she hated how OL they looked, Grandma
did have to wear hearing aids. It helped some that they came in designer colors now and not just “flesh.”

“The door, Mom. Make sure the bathroom door stays closed.”

“Why should I answer the door when you-all are so much closer to it?”

Everyone froze, listening to the sound of Grandma clattering back down the hall.

“Jumpin’ Jimmy Choo,” she said. “Where’d it go now? I could swear that door was closed.”

The entire Carter family, except baby Paulo, knew right away what had happened. They knew right away because this was not the first time that Grandma had lost an animal. In fact, over the years since Daddy had brought his mom to live with them at Carters’ Urban Rescue, she’d also lost a sugar glider, a pregnant possum and a rat snake.

Daddy dashed upstairs. Mama took the baby out of Keisha’s lap and set him in his high chair. “Keisha, you keep the baby in here. And
do not
let Razi out of this room.”

“But, Mama, I—”

“Do not ‘But, Mama’ me now, Ada. That alligator could bite off your toe!” And she rushed out after Daddy.

In Nigeria, “Ada” was the word for “first daughter,” and Mama always called Keisha that when she wanted her to act like a grown-up. It would help if Keisha’s family could learn to stay calm during an emergency. If Mama had thought it through, she would realize how unlikely it was for a small, scared alligator to bite off
anyone’s toe. Alligators did not nibble at their prey the way you would an olive on the snack table. They dragged it under the water, drowned it, let it get all mushy and soft and then shook it hard until it broke up into bite-sized pieces. To get your toe bit off, you’d have to practically set it right into the alligator’s jaw.

Keisha glanced over at Razi.

Well, in his case, Mama might have a point.

“Ding-dong,” Mr. Sanders, the postman, said as he knocked on the back door. “Mail’s here. Mmmmmm. What is that delicious smell?” Mr. Sanders always said “ding-dong” even though he knocked on the back door, and he always said “What is that delicious smell?” because there was always something delicious cooking in Mama’s kitchen.

“Soup! Did I get my package?” Razi loved to see Mr. Sanders. He was certain he was going to get a package, though he didn’t know from whom. But the package never came.

“I’m sorry to say there is no package for Mr. Razi Carter. However”—Mr. Sanders rummaged through his bag—“when I opened my cereal box this morning, I found this little item, and it had your name all over it.”

“Where?” Razi asked, looking at the crinkly plastic packet that Mr. Sanders held out to him.

“It’s just a saying,” Keisha told Razi. She took the packet from Mr. Sanders and put it on the counter. “First things first, Razi. Say hello to Mr. Sanders.”

“Hello to Mr. Sanders,” Razi said, stretching his arm over the counter to reach where Keisha had placed the packet. “I want to see my name, Keisha.”

“Your name isn’t on it,” she told her brother. “It’s a way of saying that Mr. Sanders found something you would like.”

Why did Keisha have the feeling that the gift wasn’t something
she
would like? The cereal-box toy looked as if it made noise. While Razi was fond of things that made noise, the rest of the Carters were not.

“What is that long face for?” Mr. Sanders asked Keisha. “I don’t suppose this would cheer you up. It’s for our soup.” Mr. Sanders pulled a fat white vegetable from his pocket and held it out for Keisha to see.

“A potato?” Razi guessed.

“Good guess, but no.”

“Hmmmm …” Keisha took the vegetable in her hand. Last year, when she was having trouble remembering her countries for geography, Mr. Sanders would quiz her by bringing vegetables from around the world. Usually the vegetables ended up in Mama’s soup, but first Keisha would check her big map to see the country they came from. It was much easier to remember something you held in your hand and could taste and feel than names printed on a sheet of paper.

“I’ll give you a hint. Its nickname is yam bean.”

“Then it must be from Nigeria,” Keisha said, “because they love yams in Nigeria.”

“Nope. I didn’t want to tell you its full nickname because that would give it away. But another nickname would take you to a whole different continent.”

Keisha gave the yam bean back to Mr. Sanders. She wasn’t in the mood for a vegetable mystery. Normally, she would like it, but right now what she needed to do was figure out how to find an alligator. She took two small steps backward to be closer to the door to the hall.

“It’s called either a Mexican yam bean or a Chinese turnip. Go figure. But its real name is jicama, and it is a staple in Central America.”

“Hee-ka-ma, hee-ka-ma!” The way Mr. Sanders pronounced the word sent Razi into a bounce. Bouncing also got him closer to the packet on the counter. “Do alligators like hee-ka-ma?”

Mr. Sanders didn’t seem at all surprised by the way Razi changed the subject. Three years of working in the Alger Heights neighborhood had taught him all about Razi. He quickly washed his hands and began peeling
the skin off the jicama, using the knife and cutting board Mama always left next to the soup pot.

“I haven’t asked my alligator friends about jicama,” Mr. Sanders said, slicing off a piece and holding it out to Keisha. “But next time they come by for a game of cards, I’ll be sure to try it on them.”

“We could ask ours, but we lost him,” Razi informed Mr. Sanders. “He was taking a bath and then Grandma said ‘Jumpin’ Jimmy Choo’ and then she said ‘I could swear that door was closed’ and then Mama and Daddy made us promise to stay in the kitchen and then—”

“Can baby Paulo try some jicama?” Keisha broke in, trying to redirect the conversation. She didn’t think they should tell Mr. Sanders about the alligator. He liked to chat with all the neighbors, and it wouldn’t look very good for Carters’ Urban Rescue if people knew they’d caught the alligator in the city pool only to lose it in their house.

“Well, sure. I think he’d like jicama. It’s sort of a cross between a water chestnut and an apple. But about this alligator—”

Razi had finally reached the packet on the counter. He grabbed it by the corner and held it out to Mr. Sanders. “Please open this for me. Please? I’ll give you a marble. I’ll give you a bottle cap.”

“I’ll help you, Razi.” Keisha took it and tore it open. She didn’t want him to trade away the baby. Last week, he’d offered baby Paulo to the grocery clerk for a Snickers bar. Besides, she wanted to get a good look at this whatever-it-was.

It was a plastic case, no bigger than a deck of playing cards, with a sticker on it that made it look like a music player. She could tell right away that if you pulled the ring on the string dangling from the case, it would play a song. This was a song she was about to become very familiar with. Keisha wondered if she’d like it.

Mr. Sanders put down his knife. “What I think you do, buddy, is pull on this string here…. Wait a minute … it’s tangled….”

While Mr. Sanders was messing with the toy, Keisha broke off a small piece of her jicama and put it in baby Paulo’s mouth. She’d found this to be the very best way to test whether something was going to taste yucky. If babies didn’t like something, they made a horrible face and spit it out. It was a fine thing to do if you were a baby, but it didn’t go over very well when you were ten.

There was a great deal of clattering in the hall outside the kitchen, and Grandma was explaining to Daddy, “Of course the back door is latched. It was latched when I went out to water the primroses, and …
well, I latched it for sure the first time, but I had to go back out to scare the Zingermans’ cat away from the bird feeder. That time, I can’t be sure.”

Baby Paulo, whose mouth had just been full of Cheerios a moment before, made an unhappy face, but he didn’t spit out the jicama. This meant it might not be too bad. Keisha threw another handful of Cheerios on his tray and popped the rest of the jicama in her mouth.

“It tastes crunchy,” she said, speaking loud enough to cover up the Grandma noises in the hall. “Mmmmm. You should try it, Razi.”

But Razi was on the kitchen floor, full of concentration, trying to figure out how to untangle the string on the music player.

“I’ll get the dog crate from the truck,” Daddy was telling Mama. “Tell Mom to wait for me outside.”

Keisha wished they wouldn’t talk so loud.

Mr. Sanders resumed chopping his jicama and then stopped to look at Keisha. “This wouldn’t have something to do with the alligator Mr. Ramsey found at the city pool this morning, would it?”

“Uhhhh …” Keisha was not nearly as good as Razi at making up stories. She looked at Mr. Sanders, wide-eyed, until baby Paulo started banging on his tray.

Ordinarily, Paulo was a mellow baby. Just watching
life unfold at Carters’ Urban Rescue was interesting enough that he didn’t need much more than to be fed and held and to have his diaper changed. But after Cheerios came yogurt, and every once in a while, the Carters got so busy that they forgot the yogurt part. So Paulo had to bang. If that didn’t work, he had to fling anything that was within reach: his Winnie-the-Pooh bowl with the suction grip, his blue sippy cup, even his bib. Daddy said Paulo was going to be a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, he had such a strong arm.

“Oops,” Keisha said as Cheerios bounced off the baby’s tray and onto the floor. “I forgot the yogurt.”

She ran to the fridge, nearly tripping over Razi.

“Got it!” Razi said, and pulled the string. The room filled with the tinny sound of a tune you could hear on the radio up and down the block every day. It was from
Possum and Blossom
, a cartoon movie that Daddy had taken Keisha and Razi to last Saturday when it was raining.

The movie was about two possums and their life in the city. Very unrealistic if you knew the least little bit about possums.

“It’s ‘Possums in Love’!” Razi began to sing in a loud voice.

Keisha wondered how long the toy would last before it had an unfortunate accident. Or maybe she could convince her friend Aaliyah to trade Razi something for it. Aaliyah was very good at persuading.

“Mom, before you go out, can you see if we have any rats in the freezer downstairs?”

“Why do I always have to get the rats? It’s hard to do those steps in high heels. Let Keisha do it.”

“She’s in the kitchen watching Razi and the baby!”

Keisha heard Grandma stomping down the basement stairs. A moment later, she heard the front door slam.

Mama rushed in from the hallway. She, too, almost tripped over Razi.

“Again!” Razi said, and yanked on the cord.

“Mr. Sanders … welcome.” Mama stopped, took a deep breath and tugged on the hem of her shirt. “I see you smelled my soup.”

“Yes, and I’m adding to it,” Mr. Sanders said. He’d cut the jicama into matchstick-sized pieces and was dumping them into the pot. “So much going on here this morning …”

“Yes … yes.” Keisha could tell that Mama’s mind was also on alligators, not on chatting with Mr. Sanders. “So nice of you to stop by. Please eat as much soup as you like and take some home for Mrs. Sanders.”