“What?” Gus asks.
Crap. “Nothing.”
“You said truth.”
Gus is looking at me like I’m bonkers. “It’s what my friend and I say when there’s zero BS. When we mean exactly what we said.” He’s still staring at me. “The rain forest sucks. Truth.”
Gus finally nods. “Truth.”
Cougar stops and crouches by a dead frog whose underside is bright blue, his slick back neon orange with yellow spots. I’m surprised that whatever killed the amphibian didn’t eat him. “Didn’t he taste good?” I ask my dad.
“Good question. This is a poison dart frog. They come in every imaginable color and pattern. The brighter they are, the more toxic. Indigenous people use the frogs’ secretions on the tips of arrows and blow darts. Keep your eye out for ones that are a bit smaller, golden-colored. They have enough poison to kill ten grown men. All it takes is prolonged contact wherever you have a cut. My guess is that whatever tried to eat this little guy crawled away and died. Let’s move on.”
When I pass the frog, I don’t breathe him in, because he’s poison. Over the next hour, my stomach progresses from little rumbles to full-on growls.
Gus turns and laughs. “I can hear Danny’s empty stomach from here. Time to show us your mad skills, Cougar.”
“Your wish is my command.” Cougar stops below a skinny palm tree. “This is a wasai. You can tell by the thin, smooth trunk.” He swings his machete at its base and bark flies. In a few minutes, the palm topples. Birds cry out in protest when it hits the forest’s floor. Cougar walks up the trunk. Just below the spot where the palm leaves start, he cuts away pieces of light green wood and hands each of us a chunk. “Heart of palm.” He bites into a piece. “Delicious.”
It’s not delicious, but I’m starving. An ant skitters across the back of my hand. It’s over a quarter inch, with a segmented body, legs like a cricket and a curved black beak. I drop the palm and try to shake it off. It bites, drawing a fat dot of blood, sending currents of searing heat through my hand. “Was that a bullet ant?” My voice is way too high.
My dad crouches, pinches the ant’s segmented body between two fingers and holds it up. “Pachycondyla villosa. Looks like a bullet ant, but with golden hairs on a waspish body. Its bite isn’t nearly as painful.” He smiles at me. “If it was a bullet ant, it’d literally feel like you were shot. You gonna survive?”
I rest my hand against the trunk of the closest tree, trying to look like the bite isn’t still hurting. “Yeah. Of course.”
Cougar says, “Danny is teaching us another valuable lesson right now. The way to avoid ants is to keep your eyes open for nests and never lean against a tree trunk.”
He chuckles as I whip my hand away. Heat creeps from my chest to my hairline, no doubt making me look like a sweaty tomato. I understand this is a learning moment for everyone, but I’ve never seen my dad embarrass his star guests. A deep breath and I let it go. He’s just trying to keep us safe.
“Hey, Gus,” Cougar calls, “check this out.”
Gus follows my dad as he points out different plants. Cass, trailing like a puppy, films them. When Gus laughs at a shared joke, Cougar slaps him on the back like they’re old friends. Buddies.
“Earth to Danny.” Jupiter nods toward a bush with purple-and-yellow blooms bordered by emerald green leaves.
It takes me a second to see a lizard perched on a flower. He’s about ten inches long. His body is made of tiny hexagons that exactly match every shade of the bloom, right down to the whirls of red in its center. His eyes are concentric multicolored swirls. I don’t know if the lizard is poisonous, but he’s gorgeous. If I ever get out of here, I’m going to create a large diorama of the Amazon with the lizard front and center. I’ll use acrylics to paint his body, so each vibrant color pops. The lizard senses us and moves, the colors of his skin changing as he climbs across leaves and onto the ground, where his body shifts to coffee colors that perfectly blend.
“Chameleon. They change color to hide, escape predators.”
“Must be nice.” I breathe in the chameleon’s essence, even though he’s not dead. I need as much help as I can get.
Jupiter wags a dreadlock. “Blending in is overrated. Fly your freak flag high, Danny.”
“I don’t really have one—a freak flag. The only thing that’s interesting about me is my dad.”
“Last night you stayed up whispering to Mack so he wouldn’t feel so alone. Held his hand. That seems pretty special to me.”
I blush. I didn’t know anyone could hear me. “It didn’t save his life.”
“Don’t undervalue kindness. It doesn’t come naturally to a lot of folks. Mind me asking what you said to Mack?”
“Quotes from The Phantom Tollbooth. It’s a kids’ book my dad sent after my eye surgery.”
“‘Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you’re going.’”
I grin. “You’ve read it!”
“It was one of my little sister’s favorites, too.”
Suddenly the monkeys above us go crazy, their screams so sharp my eardrums feel like they’re shredding. Clearly, they don’t like people cutting down their trees. We tip back our heads, watch them swinging from vine to bough. A brown monkey launches over Gus’s head. I ask, “What kind is he?”
Cougar replies, “Howler. Fun fact? They’re considered the loudest land animal. You can hear them from three miles away. We’ll probably see capuchins, marmosets, spider, squirrel and, if we’re lucky, tamarins. They actually have a mane.”
A howler dangles nearby, and then scampers onto a tree branch only a few feet above my head. Please don’t poop on me. “Do they ever attack people?”
“You sure you’re my kid?” Cougar asks.
It’s like getting hit exactly where I already have a bad bruise. What does he see? Someone who doesn’t belong here and could never survive alone. Pinching my leg, I vow to do better.
“Fun fact,” Jupiter says. “I don’t like monkeys.”
Cougar snorts. “You don’t like anything in a jungle environment.”
“Au contraire. Born and raised in the jungle of Manhattan.”
Cougar cracks up. “Let’s go, city slicker.”
Over the next hour my blister pops. I want to stop, cover the oozing sore with a piece of duct tape. But that’d slow the group, draw attention.
“Hey—hey—hey,” Cougar says, staring up at a thick palm tree whose trunk is covered in fat spines. He points at red clusters hanging just below the tree’s leaves. “It’s a pijuayo palm. See those fruits? They’re delicious.”
“You’re going to cut it down?” I ask.
“Way too much work.” Cougar waggles his eyebrows. “Who’s up for a climb?”
I look up. The fruits are at least fifteen feet above my head. This is a chance to prove that I’m no longer terrified of the things that came naturally before the accident. I say, “Me,” over the pounding of my heart.
“I’m taller,” Gus says. “I can do it.”
“Yeah, but Danny’s a great tree climber,” Cougar says. “She used to scamper up them in Yosemite. Right, buddy?”
My lips stick to my teeth as I smile. “Let’s do it.” Cougar makes a sling out of an extra T-shirt and ties the machete around my waist. He squats down so I can climb onto his shoulders.
“You’ve got this.”
My heart drops a beat. “Yes.”
Cass films as I take his hands, use a knee, then hip to climb onto his shoulders. I reach for the palm’s spines. They’re rough, easy to grip if I slide my hands deep. But there are dark pockets between the spines and tree. Bad things hide in the dark.
“Look before you put your hand down each time,” my dad says, reading my mind.
I take one foot off his shoulder, find purchase on a spine, then move my other fo
ot onto the tree and start climbing. A few times I misjudge the distance to hand-and footholds, but adjust and get the hang of it. A vibrant blue butterfly flutters by, lights on my right forearm, then floats away. I disturb a spider whose hourglass-shaped back is bisected by a yellow line. It’s not as big as a tarantula, but it’s still at least two inches across. Sensing me, it springs away, disappearing behind a spine. A shudder runs down my entire body.
Cougar says, “How’s it going, Danny?”
“Great.” My heart is hammering against my sternum so hard it might crack. There are venomous spiders, biting insects and deadly snakes. What could possibly go wrong? I avoid a column of red ants streaming to my left, close the distance to an enormous bunch of fruit. Each individual one is the size of an avocado with skin texture that’s a mix between a strawberry and a grenade.
Cougar says, “Daylight’s burning, kiddo.”
Carefully, I withdraw my right hand, then fumble for the machete. My palm is so sweaty I’m afraid it’ll slip away. Holding the handle tightly, I take short whacks at the stem holding the fruit. On my eighth thwack, there’s a splitting sound and the fruit drops.
“Great job, buddy. Now climb down.”
An ear to ear grin splits my face. Great job! Buddy! I look down.
Vertigo is a steamroller that flattens me. My legs begin to shake like sewing machine needles. Sweat drips into my eyes.
“Danny?” Jupiter says. “You good?”
Nope. Not good.
“Come on, Danny,” Cougar calls. “Quit the Elvis impersonation. We need to get moving. Set up the next camp and get a fire going.”
My hands grip the spines so tightly that my forearm muscles cramp. Pretty soon they’ll burn out, like a rock climber’s do when he freezes, midclimb, from terror. That means I won’t be able to hold on. That means I’ll fall.
Jupiter says, “Danny, move your right foot down just a few inches.”
Somehow I do it.
“Good, now move your right hand—”
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can,” Jupiter says like he’s absolutely positive.
I do it. The climb down, with Jupiter guiding me, seems to take a year. Throughout the ordeal, I know exactly what my dad is recalling: my terror at the entomology exhibit, crashing my bike and giving up, the way I panicked in the ocean and made a scene. Defective. Inferior. Embarrassment. When I’m halfway down, hands reach up on both sides, pulling me off the trunk, depositing me on the ground. I’m too ashamed to look up, but I see Jupiter’s hiking boots on one side of me, Sean’s on the other. Gus.
Jupiter gives me a side hug. “Thanks for getting us fruit, D. Way to go.”
My dad’s boots walk over but I still can’t tear my gaze off the dirt.
“Danny, look at me.”
I do. Cass stands slightly behind Cougar, the red light on her camera blinking. I want to rip it from her hands. I don’t need a record of my cowardice. I’ll never forget it, nor will my dad.
Cougar’s blue eyes are somber. “In survival situations, it’s not brave to offer to do something you’re not equipped to handle. It puts you in danger as well as the rest of the group. At home a broken arm or leg is an inconvenience. Out here it can mean life or death. And we’ll have to take care of you if you’re hurt. That’ll slow us down. We can’t save ourselves if we’re busy saving you.”
My body contracts like I’m origami, attempting to transform into something better. I’m certain that I’ve never been more humiliated than at this moment. A military saying Commander Sam once shared surfaces: Publicly praise. Privately reprimand. She was talking about a doctor at the hospital who screamed at a nurse in front of a patient. Why is my dad being so cruel?
Jupiter bites into the soft yellow flesh of a piece of fruit from the pile at his feet. “This fruit is amazing.”
“Zip it, Jupiter. This is important. She could’ve fallen. Broken her neck.”
Jupiter takes another bite of fruit, the juices dripping off his chin. “I think she gets that.”
Cougar glowers at him. “Danielle, see that palm over there?”
Danielle. I nod because I don’t trust my voice. He’s pointing at a short palm that’s lying sideways on the ground. It looks dead.
“Scoop up all the dried fruit at its base and put it in your sack.”
Gus asks, “What is it?”
“It was an aguaje palm,” Cougar says. “The fruit can be eaten after it’s soaked in water. But it’s even better when it goes rotten.”
I’m not sure how that’s possible, but I trudge over to the fallen tree and gather as many nasty-smelling pieces of decaying fruit I can find. When I hand my dad back his machete, he meets my eyes. “I won’t do it again,” I manage.
“Good. I know I’m being tough on you. But I don’t know what I’d do if you got really hurt out here.” His eyes are netted by worry lines, making him look older, tired. He was mean because I scared him. He cares.
Cougar swings the machete to clear our way. “Let’s go.”
Gus, who has been talking quietly with Cass, comes over and gives me a hug. When I pull away, our eyes meet for a few seconds. It’s crazy, but I get the feeling he might actually like me in a we’ve been in a plane crash, we’re going through traumatic stuff, so for this brief time I’m drawn to you kind of way.
Cass turns off the camera, stows it in the black case slung over her shoulder and follows Cougar. She calls, “Good job, Danny.”
I’m not sure whether she’s complimenting me for getting the fruit or for freaking out. The latter makes for better TV. I catch up to her. “Cass, are you and my dad a couple?”
“We dated a lifetime ago.”
She’s only twenty-nine. Cass seems to be having trouble walking straight. My skin prickles. I’m not here to play pretend nurse.
Cougar says over his shoulder, “A few more hours, then we’ll set up camp for the night, make a quick shelter, get a fire going and grill some grubs.”
Grubs?
18
We set up camp after a full day of hiking with no river in sight. The frustrating thing is we could’ve been paralleling one but never known because the rain forest is so dense it’s impossible to see ten feet in front of you. This spot looks the same as the last one. For all I know, we’re just going in circles. I’m not sure if the rest of the group is disappointed, but I was really, really hoping we wouldn’t have to spend another night in this place. We’ve run out of water, except for lianas and the muddy sludge we collected from the puddle that probably has a zillion parasites swimming in it. The mosquitos and biting flies have backed off but my clothes are soggy with sweat and I’m probably starting to grow some kind of tropical fungus.
“We can’t assume it will be dry tonight,” Cougar says, cutting down bamboo to make a shelter. “Gus and Danny, collect palm fronds for the roof. Jupiter, get as much dry wood as you can. Cass, you’re filming.”
Cougar spends the next thirty minutes building the shelter’s frame. When Gus and I have a big pile of palm fronds, I carefully braid a leaf, making sure there aren’t any holes to let the rain through because the rivulets and drips of water last night were maddening. I’ve never braided palms before, just watched it on my dad’s show, but quickly get the hang of it. Maybe this is my new sport.
“Nice,” Gus says. “I stink at this.”
He was watching me. I show him how to tighten the weave. He leans forward, his hair brushing my cheek. Our fingers get tangled. We both laugh and my cheeks get warm. It’s like I’m just a girl and he’s just a guy.
Cougar comes over and crouches beside us. “FYI, weaving the fronds to make a waterproof roof is great if you’re setting up camp for days. We’re moving on tomorrow. In the future, just collect palms and pile them. Anything else is obviously a waste of time. Got it?”
Obviously. My skin get
s hot, tight. I should’ve known. “Got it.”
“Good. I’ll finish the roof. See that plant?” Cougar points to a low bush with dark almond-shaped leaves. “It’s allspice. Pick a handful of leaves. They’ll make the suri taste great.”
“Suri?” I ask.
“Beetle grubs. They’re a great source of energy and fat. We may be out here a few more days, so we all need them. Gus, you can help Danny split the rotten fruits she collected.” Cougar hands Gus the machete. “Pull out the suri inside, wrap each in a piece of leaf, then tie it closed with vines. We’ll grill them once we have a fire going.”
“What if it’s too wet for a fire?” Gus asks.
Cougar flashes a cocky smile. “Doubtful. But worst-case scenario, we’ll eat them raw.”
Raw grubs? “I could maybe collect kindling?”
Cougar shakes his head. “Jupiter will do that while we finish the shelter.”
When I dump out the rotten fruit, I try not to think that I’ve been carrying grubs on my back for hours. The compulsion to unbraid my hair and comb fingers through it in case one of the grubs escaped is an urge I fight. Gus sits down across from me. He raises the machete, bracing the fruit with his left hand.
“Wait!”
“Why?”
“Episode fifty-one?”
Gus raises one eyebrow.
“The rapper, TZ?”
Gus shakes his head.
“He was chopping bamboo in Malaysia and sliced his hand. The cut was super deep. My dad used army ants to close it.”
Both of Gus’s brows shoot up. “Excuse me?”
The Speed of Falling Objects Page 10