Rain Forest Relay

by Kristin Earhart

  “What is it?” Sage demanded, but Mari had already headed down a narrow path at a steady jog.

  Russell handed the ancam back to Dev. Then he fell in line after Mari and Sage, thinking they were one step ahead of the rest of the teams. But soon the other kids started darting past them. Russell noticed blue jerseys veering from the path to pass other teams. Why was Mari moving so slowly?

  “Can we move faster?” he urged, wanting to be first to the stream. They had already lost the lead he had earned them with his fast finger work on the ancam.

  “Mari?” Sage prompted.

  “Steady,” the other girl replied, her long braid swaying gracefully with her even pace.

  From up ahead came the sound of eager splashes in the water, then the thrust of canoes sliding into the stream. Russell glanced at Dev and rolled his eyes. If Mari knew the answer to the clue, why was she holding them back? Russell was starting to wonder if she knew it after all.

  When the red team came to the muddy bank, the other teams were already thirty feet downstream, laughing and yelling at one another. Russell could see Damien slap his paddle on the murky water.

  Mari sat down on a smooth rock and eased off her running shoes.

  “What are you doing?” Russell demanded.

  “Shhhh. I’m putting on my rubber boots,” said Mari. “Sage is right, there’s nothing worse than soggy feet.”

  “But they’re getting way ahead,” Russell pointed out. Dev did not say anything, but he stood next to Russell, his hands on his hips. Sage busied herself readying a canoe.

  Mari slipped on one boot. “They’re also scaring away all the wildlife. They’ll never get a picture of a capybara if there aren’t any capybaras to be found.” Mari pulled on the other boot, stood up, and grabbed a paddle.

  The capybara! Russell had read about it, but he never would have figured out the clue that quickly.

  “We can go now,” Mari said, “and maybe we should consider heading upstream, away from the other teams. We can approach more quietly.”

  “Yeah,” Dev said, endorsing Mari’s tactic. “Then we have a better shot at getting our … shot.”

  Russell allowed himself a second to smile at Dev’s joke.

  When they moved toward the canoes, they realized Javier, whom they had met the day before, was there, leaning against a paddle. “So we meet again, Team Red. I’ll be your chaperone.”

  Russell was happy to see Javier. In The Wild Life, all the teams had a guide, but the guide was only there for safety—and to reinforce the rules of the game. The contestants could not rely on the guide for hints or directions. Still, it helped to have someone cool tagging along, and Russell definitely thought Javier was cool.

  Then they were off, the bows of the boats gliding through the murky green water. Sage had taken the front end of the canoe that Javier had climbed into. Mari was the middle. That had left the other canoe for Dev and Russell. Russell sat in the back, because he thought he’d be stronger at paddling. Dev was tall, but lanky.

  The team was silent for a long time. Trees and plants grew to the very edges of the banks. Everything was oversized: palm fronds as big as kayaks, lily pads the size of kiddie pools.

  It seemed quiet, but Russell knew that there was life at every level of the trees and in the stream. “Do you think there are piranhas under our boat?” he wondered out loud.

  “Probably,” Sage answered quickly. Then everyone went quiet again.

  “We must be close,” Mari announced. “There are footprints in the mud.” Russell followed her gaze. “They are such unusual rodents. They have webbed feet.” Mari smiled and shook her head.

  When they went around a bend, Dev leaned forward. “Whoa, is that it?” he whispered rather loudly. They all looked to where he pointed. There stood an animal the size of a large pig. Its reddish-brown hair looked like brush bristles, and its nose was dark and wide. “It’s huge.”

  “It is the largest rodent in the world,” Mari said.

  Russell noticed something moving on the ground behind it. A snake! “Quick! Get the shot before that snake scares it into the water!”

  Just as Dev pulled out his ancam, Russell heard a loud splash behind them.

  “Hey, that must be it!” Damien yelled as a Team Green canoe sliced through the water and knocked the side of Dev and Russell’s boat.

  “I got it!” cried Gabe from the green team’s other canoe. He shook his ancam in the air.

  Russell’s gaze lingered on Dev, who had fallen to the floor of the canoe. Just as Russell glanced back to the side of the stream, the capybara slipped under the water’s surface. He gritted his teeth.

  “Nice!” Dallas called out. The green team was cheering and slapping high fives. “Send it to Bull Gordon. Now.” When he said the last word, Dallas looked Russell in the eye. A second later, the four boys and their guide were off down the stream.

  “Seriously?” Sage said. “They stole our shot.”

  “My picture’s all blurry,” Dev confessed. “I took it right when they slammed into us.” His eyes narrowed.

  Even though Dallas was his friend, Russell thought it was a slimy move. “Let’s just wait here,” he said. “The capybara’s got to come up sooner or later.”

  “They can hold their breath for five minutes,” Mari said.

  They had been waiting for a minute or two when they saw something move on the nearby bank again.

  “It’s just the snake,” Dev said.

  “That’s not just any snake,” Mari noted. “It’s an anaconda. The largest snake in the world. An anconda can eat something up to half its weight. It’d eat a capybara. They aren’t picky.”

  But the anaconda was not headed in the direction of the giant rodent, it was swimming toward the canoes.

  “That guy is big,” he said. “If it can eat something half its weight, it would probably eat …”

  “… us,” Sage finished.

  CREATURE FEATURE

  CAPYBARA

  SCIENTIFIC NAME: Hydrochoerus

  hydrochaeris

  TYPE: mammal

  RANGE: Brazil, Columbia, Uruguay, Venezuela, and parts of Argentina

  FOOD: mostly grass and water plants; occasionally fruit, grains, and bark

  The capybara’s body is made for its semi-aquatic lifestyle. It spends half its time in the water! Its webbed feet are like small flippers, making the rodent a better swimmer. But the capybara also has distinct toes (four on each front foot, three on the back). The toes help it move around well on land, too.

  Because its eyes, ears, and nose are near the top of its head, the capybara can breathe, see, and smell while it is floating, nearly hidden, in the water—just like a hippo!

  Everyone went silent. Russell didn’t even blink. Having his best friends swoop in and steal the red team’s shot was bad enough, but getting squeezed to death by an anaconda would be so much worse.

  Russell looked down. He could see the green-and-black pattern just below the water’s surface. The snake’s body was as thick as his thigh. He tried not to think of the pictures he had seen of an anaconda after a meal—a huge lump in the middle of its body, an entire dinner eaten in a single gulp. Russell’s head felt fuzzy. He held his breath, careful not to move.

  “When an anaconda attacks,” Mari whispered, “it wraps around its prey. Each time the victim exhales, the anaconda tightens its hold.”

  Russell looked at Mari in disbelief. How could she talk about that at a time like this? Russell could feel the boat gently rocking as the scaly snake wriggled by. Its long, winding body sent ripples through the stream.

  “Sounds breathtaking,” Dev said. This time, Russell didn’t smile at his teammate’s joke. Didn’t Dev realize how dangerous an anaconda could be?

  Once the snake was far enough away, Russell released a big sigh.

  “Don’t worry. No one will suffocate on my watch,” Javier said, but Russell had seen Javier’s face when the snake swam under their canoes.

  “He
y, guys,” Sage said in a soft voice. “Over there.”

  When Russell squinted in the morning sun, he could see several sets of eyes, nostrils, and rounded ears poking out of the water.

  “Oh, it’s a whole group of capybaras,” Mari said. “That makes sense. They hardly ever live alone.”

  Dev targeted his ancam immediately. “I’m not going to miss my shot again,” he murmured. As if on cue, a young capybara stumbled onto the bank. The ancam went click, click, click. “Got it!” Dev yelled before the rodent disappeared into the water again.

  “Send it to Bull Gordon,” Sage said at once.

  Dev clicked a few buttons, and the group heard the motor of the tiny camera/walkie-talkie rev. In just a few seconds, Dev read out loud the message he had received. “It’s a clue,” he said.

  Whose heart beats from inside glass?

  He frowned and looked at his teammates.

  Russell did the same. A heart inside glass? That sounded like some bizarre medical operation, not something you would find in the rain forest.

  “I think I know this one, too,” Mari said, almost too quiet to hear.

  “Really?” Russell asked. Everyone turned and looked at Mari, who was absentmindedly stroking her braid.

  “Yeah,” Mari said. She slowly tilted her head from side to side, like she was tossing ideas around in her brain. “I mean, it’s a tricky clue, but there is the glass frog. It lives in the rain forest.”

  “A glass frog?” Dev questioned.

  Mari shook her head. “Not real glass. It just has nearly clear skin on his stomach, so you can actually see its heart and other organs.”

  “That’s it,” Sage announced. “I’m sure. So where will we find one?”

  “Near a stream or the river,” Mari responded.

  “Okay then, let’s keep an eye out as we go downstream,” Sage declared. “I don’t like that the green team is so far ahead.”

  Russell eyed Sage. Why was she giving out orders? Mari was the one who knew all the answers. Even so, Russell agreed that they had to catch up with the other teams.

  The rhythm of the paddles sloshing into the water fell in time with the chirps and calls that filled the air. The rain forest was full of life, with trees hundreds of years old and more kinds of plants than anywhere else on Earth. The Amazon River was the heart of the jungle. Thousands of waterways joined it along its path across South America. During the rainy season, many streams overflowed, filling the forest floor with over twenty feet of water.

  But it was not the rainy season now. It was drier, which meant the streams were not as full. Large rocks jutted out of the water, and the red team had to work to paddle around them.

  “Hit one of those rocks wrong, and all five of us will have to cram into one canoe,” Javier said. Their guide’s tone was friendly, but Russell knew it was a real warning.

  As they made their way downstream, Russell kept his eyes on the shores.

  “If I remember correctly, there are hundreds of species of glass frogs.” Mari had to raise her voice over the rush of the water. “But almost all of them have pale green backs.”

  “Pale green in a rain forest?” Russell repeated. “How are we supposed to see them?”

  “We aren’t,” Mari responded matter-of-factly. “Scientists think the frogs’ skin might be camouflage.”

  How did Mari know all this stuff?

  “Look out ahead!” Javier called out.

  Russell looked and realized that their stream was about to join another larger, faster stream.

  “There are rapids on the left!” Sage yelled. “Stay to the right!”

  Russell plunged his paddle deep into the water to make the turn. “Other side!” he belted at Dev as their canoe tilted into the crashing water. Dev yanked his paddle out and quickly dipped it back into the water on the other side, but the water was moving too fast. It ripped the paddle from his hands. Now Russell had to steer alone, and there were more rapids up ahead.

  “Sorry,” Dev yelled over the water.

  With Javier at the stern, the other canoe swept smoothly down the stream, avoiding the jagged rocks.

  Dev grasped both sides of the canoe, trying to keep it upright by sheer will. “Wait!” he called out. “Look over there!”

  “I’m not exactly in the position for sightseeing,” Russell reminded his teammate between his quick, short breaths. But a glance over his shoulder was all it took. Behind him, on the far shore, he saw the green team cheering. There was a stream of rapids and rocks between them.

  They all assumed the same thing: The green team had found the answer to clue number three.

  “Let’s get to the other bank,” Sage yelled back to Dev and Russell. “We can backtrack on land.”

  Russell wrenched his paddle from side to side, trying to redirect the canoe. Even though he didn’t have a paddle, Dev shifted his weight to help move the boat in the right direction. They were both out of breath by the time they rammed their canoe into the tall grass.

  “I’ll stay with the canoes,” Javier said. “And keep an eye out.”

  Russell nodded. He didn’t want to say what he was thinking, that it was a good idea. He wouldn’t put it past the green team to push their canoes into the water—and strand the red team on shore.

  They clambered out of the canoes and began to hike upstream. “Start looking now,” Sage said.

  The plant growth was thicker close to the river where more sun snuck through to the forest floor. They pushed through branches and vines, skirting ferns on the ground. Even though his legs were wet with sweat, Russell was glad to have on long cargo pants for protection.

  “I think I found one,” Dev called. “Let me see if it has a clear belly.” The others turned to look just as he reached toward a tiny frog with a vivid green-and-black pattern.

  “No!” Mari screeched. “It’s poisonous!”

  Dev jerked his hand back, still staring at the little frog sitting innocently on a log.

  “It’s a poison dart frog,” Mari declared. “That pattern is supposed to be a warning. You could get really sick touching that.”

  “It’s green,” Dev said, stunned.

  “They come in blue, yellow, red, and green. And they’re all toxic. Some can kill you. The frog we want won’t have bold markings,” Mari said, and they all headed off again. Dev held his hand in a nervous fist.

  It wasn’t long before they reached a small clearing. Several trees grew along the river’s edge. “Where should we look?” Sage asked, her question directed at Mari.

  “Probably under a clump of leaves,” Mari said, “where they can stay wet.”

  Russell had to wonder what they would do without Mari. She seemed to be a wildlife genius.

  “Found one!” Mari announced almost immediately. She plucked a pale green frog off a skinny branch and held it in the air. All four kids looked up and gazed right through the clear skin at the inner workings of the frog.

  “Is that its heart beating?” Russell asked.

  “Yep,” affirmed Mari, as Dev took a shot with his ancam. “Cool, huh?”

  “If you say so,” Russell said. “But my first thought was gross.”

  “Did you send the photo in?” Sage asked Dev.

  Dev didn’t need to answer. He held up the ancam so everyone could read the message from Bull Gordon:

  Nice work! Next move:

  Head to the high ropes.

  CREATURE FEATURE

  POISON DART FROG, ALSO CALLED POISON ARROW FROG

  SCIENTIFIC NAME: multiple species, family Dendrobatidae

  TYPE: amphibian

  RANGE: Central and South America

  FOOD: insects

  These frogs are toxic. The rain forest’s native people use their poison on darts and arrows for hunting.

  There are hundreds of species, coming in a range of colors. All are bright or have striking markings that tell other animals, “Steer clear! I’ve got venom on my skin!” Most live on the forest floor, but some ma
ke their home in trees. They live close to water to keep their skin moist.

  It wasn’t long before Russell looked up from the canoe to see a dock where several large motorboats were tied. Javier helped pull the canoes ashore and quickly introduced himself to one of the boat captains, who’d take the team to the high-ropes course.

  “Hello.” The captain tipped his old baseball cap at the teammates. When he grinned, deep wrinkles etched their way across his cocoa-colored skin.

  Russell nodded to the captain, and sat down next to Dev. Mari held on to the edge of the boat, easing her way in.

  Sage stood behind her. She faced Javier, the captain, and her teammates. “Let’s remember, this isn’t a sightseeing tour,” Sage announced. “It’s a race. Speed is a good thing.” Then she sat down on the front plank by herself.

  Russell wasn’t sure what Sage was getting at. Anyone who had actually read the Wild Life packet knew that it paid to be observant. Sometimes there were extra challenges at the end of the race course, and paying attention could really help a team. Winning this race wasn’t always about being first.

  Soon, the captain began to steer the boat toward a wooden jetty that reached into the river.

  “Thanks,” Javier told the captain before turning to the kids. “You guys go ahead. I’ll meet you here after you get the next clue.”

  The teammates murmured their good-byes and rushed off the boat and down the jetty. There were lots of signs that read: THE COURSE IN THE CANOPY.

  Even without Mari’s help, Russell knew what that meant. He’d read about it in school. The canopy was the name for one of the levels of the rain forest.

  The top one was the emergent level. It was at the very tips of the trees, where harpy eagles could survey the forest—the treetops looking like fluffy green clouds. The canopy level was just below that, where the thick, leafy branches provided homes and food for all kinds of animals. The next level down was the understory, which was mostly tree trunks and vines. A few animals lived in the understory, but it was much darker and there wasn’t as much food. The bottom level was the forest floor, which was always covered in shadows by the trees above. Prime predators, like the jaguar and ocelot, lived here. For most animals, it was safer taking cover higher up in the trees.