One thing decides it for me. This could be my only chance to solve the puzzle of the mystery billionaire/gangster/mogul/recluse who built such a fabulous home and chose Hedge Apple as the best place to put it.
I’m starting for the road when the waitress’s voice reaches me. “Hey—don’t you want your dinner?”
She carries a plate, my burger in the center, surrounded by a mountain of french fries.
I gulp. “Can I get that to go?”
Thirty seconds later, I’m jogging along the road, my twelve dollars spent, my dinner in a Styrofoam take-out container in the crook of my arm like a football. As I run, the food smells rise up into my nostrils, torturing me. I don’t dare stop for a few bites, though. The mansion isn’t far from town, but it isn’t exactly close either. If I fill myself up, I slow myself down.
“I’ll eat you later,” I promise the container. Job one is to find out what’s the deal with Snapper.
About halfway out to the mansion, the pavement ends and the road changes to gravel and then dirt. By this time, I’m bathed in sweat and gasping for breath. So much for the “cool day.” There’s no such thing as cool when you’re running cross-country, carrying something you would trade a kidney to be able to stop and eat.
I’m making progress—I’m close enough to spot the Ferrari parked on the circular drive. Good—he’s still there. I also notice a couple of figures hanging around outside. Snapper’s employees—“goons” would be a better word. I can’t let them see me. That’s going to be tricky if I want to get up close. The good news is my timing is perfect. The shadows are lengthening as the sun hits the horizon. Dusk will help me stay out of sight.
The only cover around the house is along the riverbank—not woods, exactly, but an outgrowth of stunted trees and tall reeds. Another weird thing about this place. In California, people pay millions of dollars extra for a water view. Here, Snapper’s got one—the Saline—but he doesn’t even bother clearing the scrub away so he can see it.
I’m about fifty yards from the side of the house. I have to cover most of that distance crawling on my belly through tall grass and weeds. The ground is a little soft, and the front of my BE WHOLE T-shirt is getting smeared with mud. This would be a lot easier if I wasn’t carrying my dinner, but I refuse to let it go after dragging it so far.
Then I’m behind the house, out of the sight line of those two goons. I scramble to my feet and start peering in windows. I’m no interior decorator, but I’m Baranov enough to recognize quality stuff when I see it—fine woods, expensive upholstery, fancy accessories, art pieces on pedestals, and paintings on the walls. Snapper’s taste for luxury extends beyond his house and his car.
Stealthily, I progress from window to window—an elegant parlor, a library, a plush office, a formal dining room. As I move on to the modern kitchen, my feet step from soft ground onto some kind of wooden platform. A deck? I look down in the fading light. If so, it has to be the crummiest deck in the history of deck making. There’s no furniture, no barbecue, no umbrellas or tiki torches, no firepit. Just cheap, unpainted plywood in a patchwork pattern. To top it all off, it has what I can only describe as a swamp view—marshy mud and shallow pools of dirty water leading all the way down to the river. Strangest of all, there’s a wire mesh fence, straight out of a POW-camp movie. It stretches clear out to the Saline, where there’s a padlocked gate.
It’s mind-blowing. Why would anybody build the ultimate mansion, furnish it with the ultimate stuff, and then do the backyard in eighteenth-century outhouse? It even smells bad—not outhouse bad, but there’s definitely something ripe around here.
I reach to the kitchen window just in time to see one of the goons walk into the gleaming tile room. Startled, I jump back from the glass to avoid being noticed only to find that I’ve stepped out over the edge. I wave the to-go container in front me in a desperate attempt to regain my balance. But it’s no use. I tumble off the platform and fall five feet straight down into a muddy pool.
The splashing goes on a lot longer than I expect. Since it’s getting dark, it takes me a moment to figure out that it’s not all me. If I don’t drop dead on the spot, I’m probably going to live forever.
The “deck” isn’t a deck at all. It’s a roof—covering a pit. And that pit is filled with—no joke—alligators. Real ones—a lot of them. Big, small, all sizes.
My heart, already pounding from my spill, starts hammering hard enough to burst out of my chest. I can’t catch my breath, no matter how many gulps of air I suck in.
Calm down, Jett. It only makes it worse if you panic.
I struggle to take stock. The animals seem to be afraid of me—at first. The feeling is definitely mutual. Alligators! Nimbus never said anything about alligators in the Saline River, at least not this far north!
The largest of the gators, who must be fifteen feet long, is crawling in my direction.
I have a brief giddy vision of how sorry Vlad is going to be that he sent me to this awful place when he hears I’ve been eaten by an alligator. Then it hits me that he’ll probably never find out about that. I’ll just disappear—that’s what happens to someone who goes up against a platoon of gators armed with nothing but a Styrofoam container.
Wait a minute! I open the box and look at the burger and fries. I’m not totally unarmed. I have something to trade for my life!
The big gator opens a mouth straight out of every kid’s prehistoric nightmare. With a flick of the wrist, I dump my dinner into his gaping maw, wheel on a dime, and I am up and over the fence like a championship vaulter. Or maybe I didn’t vault at all. Maybe I flew. Anything is possible.
Squatting on the muddy ground, hyperventilating with effort and relief, I reflect on the situation. Alligators! I’m still having trouble believing it. Of all the weird things about a very weird house, this has to take the trophy! And since there are no alligators around here—at least, not that I’ve seen—does that mean these animals are . . . pets?
On second look, the enclosure is gigantic. It extends all the way to the far side of the mansion and it’s writhing with the creatures. There must be hundreds of them! Keeping a pet alligator is bizarre enough. But hundreds?
It’s almost completely dark now, but that’s when light dawns. No, not pets—livestock! This is an alligator farm.
It makes sense! What kind of person ends up with a nickname like Snapper? A guy whose business is raising and selling alligators.
As I watch, the big gator’s jaws clamp shut, and when they open again, my dinner is gone. I’m not upset, because that could just as easily have been me. It’s the best twelve dollars I’ve ever spent.
The big lunkhead moves out of the way and I spot what looks like an inflatable kiddie pool in a small fenced-off area. Sitting on a cushioning of straw are twenty-five or thirty bright white eggs the size of extra-large chicken eggs. There’s something moving in there, and I stare in amazement as Needles comes marching on top of the shells and stops with his forelegs up against the wall of the kiddie pool.
How did Needles get all the way over here? I’m horrified. The poor little guy won’t last ten seconds with all these hungry alligators!
I’m frozen to the spot. I don’t dare go back in there to rescue him—not if I don’t want to become gator chow. I can’t even call out a warning for fear that Snapper and his goons might hear me.
Then something crazy happens: a second Needles squirms up to perch beside the first. And a few seconds later, a third.
I’m thunderstruck. Which one is the real Needles?
The answer comes pretty quickly—a cascade of answers, really.
1) None of these three is Needles.
2) These are baby alligators.
3) Needles is a baby alligator too.
It all fits! The leathery skin. The needlelike teeth that gave him his name. The limitless appetite for meat. Needles must have hatched here, slipped through the fence, washed downriver, and blundered onto Oasis property!
No wo
nder he wouldn’t eat the vegetarian slop from the dining hall! What self-respecting alligator would touch that stuff? No wonder he used to stand in the paint tray submerged up to his nostrils! He was waiting for prey, like crocodilians have been doing for tens of millions of years. Turn on Animal Planet and sooner or later, you’ll see a gator doing exactly that. Wait till I tell Tyrell and the girls!
Then I remember: we’re not really friends anymore—if we ever were.
My jaw stiffens. All the more reason to tell them now—to rub it in that I figured it out and they didn’t. And they never would have either. At least not until Needles was eight feet long and chewing on their heads.
The thought of the others back at the Oasis reminds me of an urgent matter. I’m where I shouldn’t be, behind enemy lines. Finally, I’ve solved the mystery of why Snapper built his mansion in the middle of nowhere. This is an illegal alligator farm. No one is supposed to find out about it. If Snapper and his goons catch a kid skulking around their secret operation, I’m in big trouble.
It wasn’t that hard to get here. But now I have to find my way back to Hedge Apple, pick up the boat, and pilot downriver to the Oasis—all in the dark.
As soon as I stop shaking from what almost happened to me, I scamper to the edge of the house, drop to my belly, and begin my crawl through the underbrush. At least the darkness makes it easier to stay hidden, but I can’t get careless. This is a dangerous place.
My heart freezes as a sudden glare illuminates the tall grass and brush around me. I swivel toward the house, half expecting to see flashlights pointed my way and goons running to capture me. It’s the halogen headlights of the Ferrari in the circular drive. One of the men holds the driver’s door open for the elusive Snapper. As the big boss slips in behind the wheel, I catch a quick glimpse of facial features passing through the glow of the dome light.
For a moment, I forget how to breathe. The truth flattens me like a meteor strike.
It’s the last person I expect to be the owner of a Ferrari, a mansion, and a secret alligator farm. And that’s not all. Snapper isn’t even a he; he’s a she.
Ivory.
How can a meditation teacher from a wellness center afford a setup like this and a team of tall, burly employees to run it for her? The thought is barely fully formed in my brain before I have the answer. It comes to me with the memory of a zipper pouch filled with donation checks. Of course! I always knew Friends of the Oasis wasn’t a real charity, but in my wildest nightmares, I couldn’t have imagined a scheme like this. Brainwashed Oasis guests are donating the money to run Ivory’s alligator farm. And in turn, the profits from the farm are supplying “Snapper” with fancy dresses, pricey steaks, sports cars, and a high-end house that would impress even Vlad.
I have a vision—a lone bicycle stashed in the woods just north of the Oasis. Sure, Ivory pedaled out on a bike. But pretty soon she swapped that for a much sweeter ride.
For a fleeting instant, I have to fight down the urge to leap to my feet, get right in Ivory’s face, and holler, “You’re busted, you big crook! You might be able to put this over on everybody else, but you can’t fool me!”
That would be the old me, though—the one who flew drones over San Francisco Airport and ordered a Dance Dance Revolution machine to the backwoods of Arkansas. And as much as I tell myself I do crazy, impulsive things because I have courage and attitude and rebellion up the wazoo, the real reason is I know Vlad will always come to my rescue.
I stay down with my face in the dirt. Maybe I’ve changed in my time at the Oasis—or maybe it’s just obvious that if Ivory catches me here, it’s not going to be the kind of trouble my father can get me out of.
So I eat dirt until the car is gone and the goons have rumbled their way back into the mansion. Only then do I abandon my cover and run for Hedge Apple. This time, I feel no breathlessness, no exhaustion as I sprint along the dirt road. I’m powered by pure adrenaline. I could run to California if I had to.
I’m moving so fast that it’s almost a shock how quickly I’m back in town. When I pass the barbecue place, it hits me that I’m starving. I never got any dinner. Then I remember what happened to my dinner and keep on running. I don’t stop until I’m in the boat, putt-putting downriver, peering out past the cone of light from the launch’s single headlamp.
22
Brooklynne Feldman
My secret is out.
I’ve been keeping it for so long that it’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that everything is different. I’m not just me anymore; I’m Magnus’s daughter.
I’ll never forget my first summer at the Oasis. I was six years old. It was right after the divorce. I hadn’t seen my father in four months—the longest time we’d ever been separated. I missed him so much it was almost a physical ache. And yet I wasn’t sure I wanted to be left in the middle of this Arkansas wilderness without Mom.
Not that I had any choice. Mom kissed me goodbye, and suddenly, I was living with a father I barely recognized. He didn’t even have the same name. He wasn’t Marvin Feldman. He was Magnus Fellini. And he didn’t put on suits and take the commuter train to work. His work was here. Back then, the Oasis was just a cluster of cabins down by the river. It was a pretty big culture shock for a girl from Long Island.
For the first few days, I enjoyed being Magnus’s daughter. People treated him like he was half genius, half saint. They adored him and, by extension, me. Hey, I was six. I was cute.
There were kids there, even back then. They formed friendships, played together, had fun. And none of that included me. I’m still not sure why. Maybe I was too special, almost the princess of the place. Or maybe I seemed like the ultimate spy, an “inside man” among the kids, perfectly positioned to tattle to the boss about every broken rule. Whatever the reason, I was on the outside looking in.
So the next summer, when I was seven, I had only one demand of my father: I was nobody. Just one of the kids. After a couple of seasons, the last of the guests who knew my identity stopped coming. It was all new people, and I was new people too. My plan worked perfectly.
Until now. Thanks a lot, Jett.
Of course, I don’t know for sure who Jett told about me so far. I haven’t left the cottage all day, except for mealtimes. And even then, I’ve made sure to go at off-hours, so I wouldn’t run into a lot of people. Look, I’m not six anymore. This isn’t what I wanted, but it’s not the end of the world either. So what if he spills the beans that Magnus is my father?
The one thing I feel bad about is that Grace and Tyrell are going to think I was keeping secrets from them. Okay, I was, but it’s nothing personal. I’ve been keeping that secret from everybody for a long time. I hope they understand, because Jett sure didn’t. He pretty much blew his stack over it, which I totally don’t get. If he figured out who I am and came looking for me, why was he so blown away to find me here?
A thought occurs to me that I never considered before. It’s so startling that I blurt it out loud: “He didn’t know!”
Jett had no idea whose daughter I was when he walked in our front door this morning! That’s why he was so surprised to see me here.
But if he wasn’t looking to expose me, why did he sneak into our cottage?
The answer is pretty simple. Who’s been the most anti-Oasis person at the center all summer? Who’s broken every rule and even ordered thousands of dollars of junk to be delivered to the center, just to make my father look foolish? If Jett came here, he was planning something against Dad.
I can’t let him get away with it. Sure, I’m not perfect. I broke rules too. I helped hide Needles, and I was the one who handed over the key to the launch. I don’t agree with everything about the way my father runs this place, but he’s still my father. And I’m on his side.
Job one is to stop concealing who I am. I’m Magnus Fellini’s daughter, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of, no matter what Jett thinks. Maybe there’s still time to tell Grace and Tyrell before Jett beats me to it.
>
Tonight is campfire night, which is perfect. It’s exactly the kind of thing Grace and Tyrell would attend and Jett would skip. You’re probably thinking of hot dogs and s’mores, but obviously meat and sugary desserts are a no-no. So all the families sit around the fire and roast chunks of sweet potato slathered in agave extract, which is sort of like honey, only healthier. It’s pretty good if you do it right—although not as good as s’mores, which I sometimes have with Mom in the non-summer months.
Dad’s an expert at keeping the sweet potato attached to your stick. “It’s all in the wrist,” he says. It sounds a lot less philosophical than most of the stuff he comes out with, but it’s actually true.
I smell the aroma of burning beech as soon as I step out of the cottage—Dad uses only the kinds of wood that are cleanest and produce the least smoke and carbon. There’s a lot of scorched yam on the breeze, which means this group is not so great at the wrist action. So what? It’s still kind of fun.
The bonfire isn’t quite as impressive as in past years. Ivory is usually our fire starter, but she’s off tonight. I spot Grace and Tyrell with the Karrigans. And—a quick survey of the crowd confirms it—no Jett. Just as I suspected, he isn’t much of an agave extract fan. To be honest, I used to make agave jokes myself when I wanted to give Dad a hard time. But that doesn’t mean I have to accept it from the likes of Jett.
Grace and Tyrell look happy to see me, which is a huge relief. It means Jett hasn’t spilled the beans about me yet. Tyrell is agave from head to toe. Mixed with his usual covering of anti-itch cream, it gives him the appearance of a glazed doughnut. I can’t help smiling for the first time since Jett interrupted my breakfast this morning.
“I have to talk to you guys,” I say urgently.
“What’s up?” Grace asks, savoring her sweet potato.
“Not here.” It’s too sensitive a subject to bring up around so many people. Sarah Karrigan is close by, lighting twigs on fire and scowling.
I lead the two of them a short distance away. “What’s up with your sister?” I ask Tyrell.
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