Gator on the Loose!

by Sue Stauffacher

  “So it’s escaped. As in ‘running wild in the neighborhood.’”

  “Well, he might still be in the house.”

  “If it’s true there’s an alligator loose in Alger Heights, you know Moms is not going to let me outside this house. Ever. And it’s almost summer vacation! How are we going to practice?”

  Aaliyah spent the summer days at the house of her granny—whom everyone called Moms—while her parents were working. Even though it wasn’t summer vacation yet, Aaliyah was spending the holiday weekend with Moms so her parents could attend their college reunion. Moms lived right around the corner from the Carters. Aaliyah’s granny did not like dust, trouble or any animal whose stomach touched the ground when it moved. Mostly, that meant snakes, but now that Keisha thought about it, she decided that alligators would also qualify.

  “Keisha, how are we going to win the Grand River Steppers Competition under-twelve category if you can’t keep track of your alligators? And by the way, how can an alligator run around Michigan? It’s way too cold here for alligators.”

  Aaliyah knew more about alligators than the average person because Keisha had asked her to read her alligator report for errors. Aaliyah did not forget the things she read. Aaliyah also thought too far ahead. They had not yet reached summer vacation, a time when Keisha, Aaliyah and their other best friend, Wen, had promised to spend time each day practicing their freestyle double Dutch. Winning the under-ten category last winter was easy, but now they had to compete against eleven-and-a-half-year-olds.

  Keisha looked around her. Baby Paulo had put the yogurt bowl on his head, Zack was twirling Razi like an airplane and Razi was squealing with delight. Zeke was pouring Cheerios from the box into his mouth.

  “Before I can think about alligators, I have to clean up this baby and find something for Razi to do.”

  “Until you catch that alligator, the rest of us can’t go outside to play. I’ll get my binoculars and go up to the third floor. If I see anything long and suspicious, I’ll call you.”

  “Sounds like a plan. And don’t worry, Aaliyah. Mama and Daddy will find the alligator.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell Moms that your mama’s on it. She thinks your mama can do anything.”

  Keisha hung up the phone. First thing done. But what next? Whenever her mind was spinning from all the things that had to be done, Daddy would say to her, “What do you do if you’re lost in the woods?”

  What do you do if you’re lost in the woods?

  Stand still. The birds are not lost. The trees are not lost.

  So Keisha stood still inside all the shouting and the movement and let the gears in her brain turn slowly. After one full minute, she whistled through her teeth the way Grandpa Wally Pops had taught her. Grandpa Wally Pops had been dead since Keisha was five, but Mama said his whistle was part of his memory line, the line that stretches from generation to generation and can never be broken.

  A Grandpa Wally Pops whistle was short and sharp and shrill and it called everyone to attention.

  “Since they already searched the house, I think it would be all right with Mama,” Keisha said, looking at Zeke and Zack, “if you two take Razi upstairs and set up the train track.”

  “The train? Can I have my conductor’s whistle?”

  For obvious reasons, the Carters kept Razi’s conductor’s whistle in a secret place and only brought it out once in a while.

  “Yes.” Keisha told Zeke and Zack the current hiding place. “If you boost Razi up, he can reach the top of the bookcase in Mama and Daddy’s room.”

  “I can climb it myself like a monkey,” Razi offered.

  “The Z-Team is on it,” Zeke said, very serious. He took Razi’s top half.

  Zack grabbed Razi’s bottom half. “Chugga, chugga, chugga,” Zack said.

  “Woo-woo,” Zeke answered back as they disappeared up the stairs. Keisha knew that even though Zack and Zeke were big kids now, they still liked to play with the toy train.

  “Better keep the door closed,” she said to their backs. Keisha thought of something else. “If you see any alligators,” she called to them as they climbed the stairs, “no wrestling. Just tell me.”

  Keisha turned around and surveyed the kitchen. A chair was overturned. There were Cheerios on the floor, and baby Paulo had fallen asleep, his little legs dangling. One foot was missing a sock.

  At least it was quiet. Keisha got down on her hands and knees and started to sweep the Cheerios into a pile. She put the cereal from the floor into the animals’ dry-food container.

  Paulo had licked the bowl clean before he put it on his head, so Keisha just got the counter sponge and slicked down his hair. She unlatched the tray, lifted Paulo out of the high chair and put him in his car seat. What was it about sleeping babies that made them three times heavier? Buckling him into his car seat on the counter, Keisha made sure Paulo’s arms and legs were comfy.

  Now that it was quiet, she could finally get down to some serious thinking. Pressing each of Paulo’s toes in turn between her fingers, she whispered, “This little piggy goes to market, this little piggy stays home….”

  Counting baby toes, as everyone knows, is a wonderful way to settle down.

  Keisha needed to settle down to figure out where a scared little alligator would go when he escaped from a bathtub. If he was frightened, he probably wouldn’t go in the direction of the animal enclosures behind the house. Too many noises and strange sounds and smells. While she was stroking the curve of baby Paulo’s foot, a word popped into Keisha’s brain—“moist.” That’s what the alligator would seek. His little osteoderms—those bony lumps under his scales—would want water. Alligators can smell water, too. Hadn’t they found him in the city pool in the first place?

  Just as Keisha was reaching her deepest and most excellent thinking-like-an-alligator thoughts, she was interrupted by the sound of a familiar song. Ugh. Even though she could barely hear it, she knew that song. It was “Possums in Love,” the silly song on the music toy that Mr. Sanders had given Razi.

  If Paulo hadn’t thrown it out the window, Keisha could have pulled on the string until it broke so she’d have a little peace and quiet again.

  Wait a minute.

  Keisha froze, listening for the direction of the music. Baby Paulo had thrown the toy out the window over the sink. But the music was coming from the big window by the table. That was around the corner from where Paulo had thrown it.

  How did the toy get around the corner? And who kept pulling the string?

  Surely not an alligator!

  Chapter Six

  Keisha climbed onto the counter to stick her head out the open window. Looking to her right, Keisha could see Grandma across the alley, talking to Mr. Perkins about his sweet peas. She couldn’t call out to her because at the corner of the house, she saw that the bushes were rustling! She could barely hear it, but wasn’t that possum music in the bushes? And it was getting farther and farther away!

  Keisha pulled her head back inside and sat on the counter. If only she could run outside and investigate, but Mama had said no one was to go outside—no exceptions.

  She put her fingers at the place where her hair met her forehead. Maybe the noise was coming from someone’s car and they were driving away. No, because a car driving would make the music disappear altogether, and Keisha could still hear the song. Hmmm. Maybe someone was playing it on their radio. No again. Because Keisha heard just the music and not the lady’s voice like they had on the radio.

  Keisha started rocking Paulo’s car seat on the counter next to her. Could the alligator have found the music toy and eaten it? That would explain how it moved! Everyone knows that the places things come out are not as big as the places things go in … especially with an alligator. Oh dear. They might have a very sick alligator on their hands. Keisha had to act quickly.

  Every once in a while—not so very often—Keisha broke the rules. Daddy called it the gray area. It might be wrong, but if it was wrong for the right
reasons, especially if it was an emergency, it was okay to break the rules.

  Mama had been clear that Keisha was not to go outside. She was not to let anyone else outside, either. But Keisha could not think of another answer for how that toy moved around the house. There weren’t any kids playing nearby. Razi was upstairs.

  The question to ask was: Does an alligator swallowing a music toy make an emergency?

  It might not if you were a normal person, but Keisha was part of Carters’ Urban Rescue and that meant it was an emergency.

  Keisha looked down at the sleeping baby. His head had fallen to the side, and bubbles of spit were coming out of his mouth. Tearing a piece of paper towel from the roll, Keisha wiped the spit bubbles away. She thought about running over to get Grandma, but Grandma didn’t always help matters.

  If the sound of the music was moving because the alligator ate the music toy, then wherever the music was the alligator was, and if she knew where the alligator was, then she could catch him.

  But why was the alligator moving at all? In Keisha’s experience, when animals were afraid, they stayed very still. If the alligator was under the bushes, he should be happy because the bushes would make him feel protected.

  Wait. It was also very dry under the bushes. Keisha had been under those bushes to get the basketball, the Frisbee and Razi’s Sunday school shoes. Every time she came out from under the bushes, Mama scolded her for getting her clothes dirty.

  That’s why the alligator was moving!

  Under the bushes was very dry. Getting to wet was bigger than being scared. And Keisha knew if the alligator kept going around the house, he would find the very best spot of all for alligators at Carters’ Urban Rescue: the muddy place by the hose.

  Alligators like muddy places. The low place an alligator makes in the sand by digging and rolling is called a wallow. The rains come and fill the wallow with water and make it a soft and cool place for the alligator to lie when it gets hot.

  If she was right and she had located the alligator, Keisha had a whole new set of questions: How do you catch an alligator if he can sense you coming from every side? What exactly do you catch the alligator with? And if you do manage to catch him, how do you keep him from escaping again before Mama and Daddy come home?

  After four more “this-little-piggy’s” on Paulo’s toes, Keisha had an idea. It looked like this:

  Keisha climbed down off the counter and crept along the wall until she reached the picture window by the table. Yes! The music had turned the corner and was now moving toward her. And it had to pass under the window to get to the hose.

  She ran upstairs, thinking that distracting Razi would be the hardest part of her plan.

  “Oh no! Not another train off the cliff,” Razi was saying as he pushed his engine over the side of the bed.

  “Yes, yes. Here’s the ambulance.” Zeke pushed a red and white wagon toward the pile of crashed engines.

  “Z-Team, I need your belts! And I need you to get the big laundry basket from under the chute in the basement. Put all the dirty laundry on top of the washer. Razi, you go in Mama’s closet and get the flannel sheets. Just lay them out on the floor, okay? We’re going to roll up that alligator like a bug in a rug.”

  “You said it again!” Razi shouted at the top of his lungs. He was already worked up from the train emergencies. “You’re a poet and you didn’t know it!”

  “Yes, I am.” Keisha turned around and ran back downstairs before her little brother could say any more. She had no plan to wrap the alligator in flannel sheets. That would make the little guy drier than he already was. Her plan was to wrap Razi in flannel sheets. Razi loved flannel sheets so much he would not be able to resist wrapping himself inside them, which might give her at least three minutes to capture the musical alligator.

  The Z-Team met Keisha in the kitchen. They were panting from running down the stairs and then up from the basement.

  “Can you help me get this window all the way open?” Keisha asked Zack. “Take a deep breath. We have to be quiet.”

  “You better fill us in,” Zack said, “so we aren’t at cross-purposes.”

  Mr. Sanders often said that when Zeke and Zack performed their chores, they were at cross-purposes. Take raking leaves, for example. If Zeke was raking and Zack was jumping in the pile, then the work wasn’t getting done.

  “We have to push together to get this big window all the way open because it sticks. Together, I think we can do it.”

  “That’s clear enough,” Zeke said, taking a position by the left side of the window. He started right in, tugging on the metal handle at the bottom of the frame.

  “Roger that,” Zack said, grabbing the windowsill.

  With one big heave, the window was unstuck and opened wide. Lucky for Keisha, with all the raccoon cubs arriving last week, Daddy hadn’t had a chance to put in the screen yet.

  “Now take off your belts.”

  “What?” Zeke and Zack didn’t like this part of the plan. They felt very protective of their belts with the Wild 4-Ever buckles they had earned after two years in their 4-H Club.

  “She’s going to beat it into the laundry basket,” Zack said. “I’m horrified.”

  “No, she’s going to buckle it in,” Zeke said. “Does alligator slime come off leather?”

  Keisha glanced out the window. The bushes were still rustling. The alligator was coming closer.

  “Pay attention!” she whispered. “I’m not going to do either one of those things. Before Razi gets tired of those sheets upstairs, we have to get this done. I can’t explain it all now, but if you want to be heroes, you’ll pay attention.”

  Both Daddy and Mr. Sanders told the children that in times of crisis, heroes calmed down and worked together.

  “I thought heroes calmed down and assessed the situation,” Zeke said, taking off his belt.

  “Well, yes, but I’ve already done that. In just a minute, I’m going to run outside and stand behind that horse chestnut tree. Turn the basket upside down and put your belts through the holes in the basket. The buckles will keep them from sliding all the way through. When I give you the sign, I want you to lower the basket onto the bushes. If it works, you’ll trap the alligator.”

  “Holy smokes,” Zack said, leaning out the window. “This feels like something on Animal Planet.”

  Keisha tugged on Zack’s shirt. “Well, it won’t if you keep hollering. Just stay quiet, okay? And listen for the music.”

  “The alligator sings?”

  “Guys!” Keisha pointed at her eyes with her fingers in a V. Then she pointed at Zeke’s, then at Zack’s. It was what their fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Norman, did when she wanted kids to listen up. “Try to stay focused and wait for my sign.”

  “What kind of sign will it be?” Zeke was sticking the end of his belt through a slot in the laundry basket. “A secret sign?” He liked spy signs.

  “Nope. I’m just going to wave my hand. But I’d better hurry.”

  Keisha dashed out of the house and around the edges of the yard until she ended up behind the tree. She was just about to wave to Zeke and Zack to let them know she was there, but then she realized they might think she was saying Go!

  She could see Zack working his belt through the basket, but from her place on the ground, she could no longer see the bushes wiggling. They didn’t seem to be moving now, but she could hear that music.

  Zack poked his head out the window and turned so his ear was closer to the ground. Keisha could tell by the look on his face that he could hear it, too.

  Zeke pushed the top of the basket out the window. It looked like he might drop it—or even drop out himself if he leaned any farther.

  Keisha waved to get their attention. Then she gave the thumbs-up sign. She wanted to yell Now! but she was afraid she’d scare the alligator.

  “Keisha girl!” Grandma called from across the alley. “What are you doing out in the sun without protection? I want grandchildren, not raisins!”
<
br />   “Oh hush, Grandma,” Keisha said under her breath. “C’mon, c’mon.”

  The laundry basket popped all the way out the window. The boys were lowering it, just like in Mousetrap!

  As with all big moments that later turn into exciting stories, everything seemed to occur at the same time. Keisha was sure she saw a flash of tail, Grandma crossed the alley without looking both ways and Mama and Daddy came around the side of the house. At the same time, Razi started screaming like crazy that he was stuck in the flannel sheets, and Keisha ran over to the basket and pressed it to the ground, pinning down a yew branch and something underneath it that she very much hoped was an alligator. She knew it was something alive because it made a sad little howl that sounded like Yawk!

  A tail was sticking out from under the edge of the basket. Keisha lifted the edge just a bit so she could push the tail back under. Then she jumped on top of the basket and sat cross-legged just to make sure this crafty alligator couldn’t escape again.

  Yawk! He sounded very sad. Keisha bet that he wanted his mother. Poor thing. It reminded her of the way the rescued puppies at the pet-food store whimpered and howled, hoping someone would take them home. Just like the Razi sounds that were coming from the bedroom.

  “Sweet.” Zack and Zeke were hanging over the window ledge, watching. “Can we come down now and see him?”

  “I told you it was right here,” Grandma said, out of breath. “Why doesn’t anybody ever listen to me?”

  Chapter Seven

  Mama called out to Keisha.

  Keisha looked at Zeke, who was better at remembering directions. “First, take Paulo upstairs and put him in his crib. Then unroll Razi and put the sheets in the dirty laundry, and then …” She was going to tell them to put their belts back on, but the buckles were stuck inside the basket, so that would have to wait.

  Normally, two ten-year-old boys might not listen to directions when there was an alligator sighting, but Zeke and Zack heard Mama’s voice, too. They ran upstairs.

  “Mama, Daddy, over here!” Keisha waved her arms. “I think I got it.”