“First-timers, right?” Perch asked, but he already knew the answer. “I can always tell by a passenger’s reaction to the scenery. The Oke is never what people expect when they first see it. They think swamp, and split pea soup comes to mind. Then folks get here and the water is so reflective, like a mirror. It catches them by surprise. Don’t get me wrong—the Oke has stagnant areas too; but for the most part, it’s open water or flooded forest or prairie.”
“Like Little House on the Prairie?” asked Creeper.
“Sort of, but not quite.” Perch chuckled. “It’ll be easier for me to just show you when we get there.”
Piper, who was sitting on one of the middle benches next to Tad, nudged him in the ribs, spurring him to speak up. They were there for a reason. Minnie’s Island was the last location Dr. Cole had visited before he disappeared. The last marker would be there, as would any evidence to explain what had happened to him next.
Tad said, “Actually, we were hoping we could start with a visit to Minnie’s Island.”
“Minnie’s Island?” Perch sat up straight, as though a balloon had popped in his face. “Nobody ever asks to go there.”
“We did a little research before coming,” said Piper. “In fact, we have a few specific sights we’d like to check out today, if that’d be all right.”
Macey looked at Perch and rolled her eyes as if to say, Here we go—bossy tourists. The crusty woman hadn’t said another word since she’d put Tad in his place, nor did she have to. Macey spoke volumes with her lined, expressive face. It was clear she wasn’t thrilled to be toting three kids around the swamp all day.
Perch studied Tad and Piper suspiciously. “You folks didn’t come to the Oke to start trouble, did you? You’re not alligator poachers?”
“Wha—? I…no!” Tad slipped all over the question. “Of course we’re not—”
“Relax, I’m just joshing you.” Perch laughed, his eyes atwinkle. “You don’t look like hunters to me. ’Cept for maybe that little one over there. I can tell he’s bad news. Little fella’s got a real tough-guy look about him. Right off the bat, I had him pegged for an alligator hunter, or maybe the leader of a motorcycle gang.”
This tickled Creeper. “I’m not an alligator hunter! Besides, if they’re all as tough as Oscar, I couldn’t kill one if I wanted to.”
“You’re all right with me, then.” Perch gave a sharp nod of approval. “Here in the Okefenokee, we’re all about protecting the wildlife. This swamp is just a young one. So we have to look out for it.”
“What do you mean, ‘a young one’?” Piper asked.
Perch explained. “The Oke started life as a large lagoon before sandbars built up and cut it off from the Atlantic, turning it into an inland sea. Over time it curdled, and now it’s a swamp, some thirty-eight miles by twenty-five miles in size. In the grand geological scheme of things, it’s just a baby, seven thousand years young. But it’s our baby, so we appreciate people who treat it right.”
Our baby. The words hit Piper like a tack hammer. She needed to stay focused on Grace. Perch was a real charmer, and easy on the eyes, but she would have to lead him around by the collar if they were going to have any chance of finding the silver flower by the end of the day.
“I’d like to go to Minnie’s Island straightaway,” she insisted.
Perch shrugged one shoulder. “Sure, why not. You’re paid in full. I’ll take you in that direction. Can I ask what it is you’re after?”
“What we’re after?” Piper frowned. Had she been so obvious? Did Perch sense they had a hidden agenda?
He clarified. “I mean, are you folks birders? Adventure seekers? History buffs? Lots of great history in the Oke. You know, there have been swampers here for thousands of years…the Swift Creek, the Weeden Island tribes. The Seminoles were the last to inhabit the swamp before the whites drove them all out. Of course, then you’ve got the swampers like me, just regular folk making a living on the water.”
“That’s all very interesting,” said Tad. “But we’re here for the flowers.”
Macey grumbled in the back. “No surprise there.”
Perch, to his credit, didn’t seem to think this was strange at all. He stroked his chin. “Flowers, eh? You came to the right guide, my friend. We’ve got over six hundred species of plants in the Oke, and I know all the pretty ones. And the rare ones too.”
Piper perked up. “We’d like to see the rarest.”
“You won’t find them on Minnie’s Island, that’s for sure,” said Perch. “You certain you want to go there first?”
“Yes, we want to go there first,” Piper answered.
“You heard the lovely lady, Macey!” Perch smacked his knee. “Head us on over to pretty Minnie.”
Macey leaned into the tiller and twisted it toward her body; the boat lurched forward and picked up speed. It skimmed southwest across the surface of the water, following in the two-hundred-year-old wake of Dr. Cole’s canoe.
Perch told them it would take an hour to get to Minnie’s Island by following the Red Trail. (He explained that the six public trails were named after colors, and the red would take them to Minnie.) As they wound through the waterway, which was no more than five to ten feet wide at most points, they had time to drink in the surrounding scenery. Piper was feeling as reflective as the surface of the water. While reading Cole’s journal she’d learned a lot about the swamp. He’d written that the Oke was a world of duality, and she understood that now. It was simultaneously bright yet haunting, open yet confining. It was water, but it was land too. It was natural yet otherworldly. It was a cusp. A threshold. A brink. A place forever on the verge of transition. The one thing it was not was “swampy.” In fact, there was a gentle southward current, a trait of meandering rivers, not bogs.
“The water is pretty fresh in most of the preserve,” Perch said. “Cleaner than city water, that’s for sure. Technically, the Okefenokee is one great big peat bog. There are definitely some slimy parts to it, but most of it is like what you see here. It’s one of the most pristine blackwater swamps in the world.”
Creeper peered over the side of the boat. “Blackwater? It looks brown to me.” He was right; the water was not black at all. Instead, it had a bronze tint, the color of weak tea.
“Good eye…What did you say your name is?” asked Perch.
“Creeper. It’s a nickname. My dad gave it to me because I can climb anything, like a creeper vine.”
Perch gave him a thumbs-up. “As nicknames go, it’s a good one.” He addressed Creeper’s point. “Blackwater is just a term for any darkly stained waters. The swamp here gets its color from tannin that dissolves in it when trees decay. Tannin is the same dye people used to tan leather with. It’s mildly acidic, which is great, because bacteria and mosquitoes don’t fare well in acidic water. Helps keep the pests away.”
“Except for tourists,” said Macey.
Perch chuckled. “Well, don’t be shy, Mace! Tell us how you really feel!”
Macey glared at Tad and Piper. “I’ve never been a fan of insects. I’ll be happy when summer’s over and the shutterbugs go home.”
“I have to apologize on behalf of my partner,” said Perch, although he seemed more amused than embarrassed. “She usually waits at least an hour into a trip before insulting our passengers. This may be a new record. I think ol’ Macey ate too much alligator meat as a kid, and it turned her cold-blooded. Sometimes she forgets we’re in the hospitality business. While I personally get a kick out of her surly attitude, I am, at heart, a humble businessman. I love tourists, especially the ones who bring lots of cash and leave the chain saws and duck guns at home.” His gaze drifted. “Speaking of waterfowl…”
Two large shorebirds flew across the bow. They were grayish, with white cheeks and a cap of glinting ruby-red feathers covering their foreheads. They glided low to the water, staying aloft with an occasional flap of their wings until they disappeared as chevron specks in the distance.
“Tho
se are sandhill cranes,” Perch said. “They’re incredibly romantic birds. That pair we saw is bonded for life.” He flashed a pearly grin at Piper.
It looked to Tad as if there were some tourists in particular that Perch Gentner “loved” more than others. The last thing Tad expected or wanted on this trip was competition for her attention. He hated the way their guide was staring at her like a hungry alligator.
Piper noticed it too and blushed. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
Perch leaned into the space between them to study her face. “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? Maybe on TV or in a magazine? Ain’t you a model or an actress or something? Were you on the Disney Channel? You’ve got that wholesome look they like.”
“No,” she replied. “I’ve won some pageants, though. Mostly in my home county, not far from here. Maybe you saw me on the local news.”
“So you’re a princess!” Perch proclaimed. “I confess I haven’t been to a heck of a lot of beauty contests, and I sure don’t watch the news. Two much war, not enough love. But no, I don’t think that’s it. You just have one of those faces.”
“And what kind of face would that be?” Piper bristled.
“The kind of pretty that’d give any flower in this swamp a run for its money.”
Tad rolled his eyes. He hoped Piper was clever enough to see through Perch’s cheesy act. He needn’t have worried.
“You’re making me uncomfortable,” she told Perch.
“Am I? Then please accept my apology.” Perch leaned back on the bench, tapped his shades down over his eyes, and smiled, unfazed.
At about ten A.M., the Mud Cat motored into a lake dotted with purple water flowers. The blossoms rose above the surface on stalks. Perch told Macey to cut the motor. They slowed to a drift.
“Why are we stopping?” Piper asked impatiently. She’d just peeled the wrapper off a granola bar. “We’re not at Minnie’s Island yet.”
“This is our first destination on the Oke Dokey Flower Extravaganza Tour!” said Perch. “If you like unusual flowers, you’re in for a treat. This here purple one is about as unusual as they come.”
“How so?” asked Creeper.
“It’s called the bladderwort,” said Perch. “You came at the right time of the year. These flowers only bloom in July and August. For the rest of the year, the plant stays hidden underwater.”
“They’re pretty,” Piper said, so as not to be rude. Inside she was indifferent. The purple flowers wouldn’t help Grace. Stopping for them was a waste of precious time.
“Like several plants in the park, bladderworts are carnivorous,” said Perch. “They eat meat.”
“No way!” said Creeper. “Plants that eat meat? You mean if I fell overboard, they’d rip me to shreds like piranhas? That’d be so cool!”
“That’s disgusting, Creepo,” Piper said. “You are kidding, right? Plants can’t eat meat.”
“Some can,” said Tad. “Haven’t you ever seen a Venus flytrap kill a bug? It traps them inside its leaves and slowly digests them.”
Piper groaned. “There goes my appetite.” She started to rewrap the granola bar, but Creeper held his hand out hopefully and she gave it to him. “Fine. Eat it. It’s spoiled for me, anyway.”
“So these bladderworts eat meat? What’s the deal?” Creeper asked. “Do their flowers have teeth or something?”
Perch gave a hearty laugh. “Now, that would be creepy! Here, I’ll show you how they work.”
He reached over the gunwale and plunged his hand into the water directly under a cluster of bladderwort flowers. He fished around for a bit, then lifted a whole specimen into the air. First he broke off the purple flower and presented it to Piper. “For the lady.”
“Um…No thanks.” She recoiled from his gift. “I prefer my flowers to be vegetarians.”
“Suit yourself.” Perch tossed the flower overboard. He stretched the stemmed portion out on the bench between Tad and Piper. “See, the bladderwort doesn’t have roots. It just spreads across the bottom and lies there.”
“I thought all plants have roots,” said Piper. “That’s how they get nutrients from the soil, right?”
“Not the bladderwort,” said Perch. “The soil in the Oke isn’t very fertile. It’s especially poor in nitrogen, an important food for plants. The bladderwort had to come up with another way to get the nourishment it needs, so it evolved to trap insects and extract the nutrients from their little corpses, just like the Venus flytrap Tad mentioned. Only the bladderwort goes about it a little differently.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.” Piper gagged and pressed two fingers to her lips.
“Over the side, please,” Perch insisted. “If you’re gonna puke, you can at least feed the fish. Don’t waste it.”
Piper shot him a murderous look, but for once he wasn’t paying any attention to her.
“Look here.” Perch used his fingers to fan out the long, thin branching stem of the plant. The branch had hundreds of leaf shoots, and between the shoots were hundreds of tiny balloonlike structures, each the size of an apple seed. “These are called bladders. They’re what give the plant its name.” Perch tore off one of the biggest bladders and held it out to show them. “Each bladder is actually a tiny trap with a tiny trapdoor. There are trigger hairs around the door. When a little critter like a mosquito larva or a water flea brushes up against the hairs—snap!—the trapdoor opens and water rushes in and sucks the poor critter up like a vacuum cleaner into the bladder. There’s no escape. Eventually it dies and turns to goo. That goo is what the plant draws its nutrients from.”
Perch held the bladder up to the sun like a jeweler inspecting a diamond. “Whoa! There’s a prize in this one!”
The kids huddled around him to have a look. Through the bladder’s thin membrane they could see a tadpole squirming inside.
“Tadpoles are a little ambitious for a bladderwort,” said Perch. “They’re kinda like Thanksgiving dinner—too much of a good thing.” Perch retrieved a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and carefully popped the bladder. He lowered it close to the water and squeezed it gently from one end, like a tube of toothpaste. The tadpole came out of the knife slit, but instead of making its escape, it turned and wriggled up Perch’s finger. Its tiny mouth was opening and closing against the skin on his knuckle. Perch shook his hand over the water, and the tadpole fell off. It plopped into the water and swam away under the boat, no worse for wear.
“Well, that was weird!” Perch inspected his finger. “Felt almost like the dang critter was trying to bite me, which is odd because tadpoles are vegetarians! Well, that was a fine way to say thank you!”
“Maybe he’s just a born hand kisser, like you.” Tad snorted.
Perch laughed. He didn’t seem to get that the joke was at his expense. “Maybe so.”
“There’s not a lot of meat on a tadpole,” Creeper noted. “How come the bladderworts don’t starve?”
“Don’t forget,” said Perch, “every plant has hundreds of bladders, so it can eat hundreds of critters at the same time. There are millions of bladderwort plants in the Oke. Scientists figure that together, the plants eat close to five hundred tons of meat every year. If I’m doin’ the math right—and I’m great at math—that’s the same as gobbling up fifteen thousand Creepers.”
Creeper gulped.
Perch added, “After the gators, the bladderworts are the second most successful predator in the swamp. They’re perfectly evolved killers.”
“We should go,” said Piper, feeling queasier by the second.
“Sorry if I ruined your breakfast,” said Perch.
“You can make it up to me by getting us to Minnie with no more delays.” She forced a fake smile, the kind she’d learned for pageants.
“I’ll do my best,” he promised. He returned the smile, only his was honest.
Around eleven thirty, the sun was on its stretch toward the top of the sky; it was already fiercely humid. The yellow flies began their s
trafing runs, but Tad’s arsenal of insect repellents kept them from biting. There was no shade on the open water. Perch had a collection of soft, floppy bucket hats in the stowage compartment beneath his bench. Everyone took one except for Tad, who didn’t want to owe Perch a favor. Piper’s contribution to their comfort was a bottle of sunblock. They passed it around the boat until it was burping air.
Despite Perch’s promise of a straight ferry to Minnie’s Island, he kept stopping the Mud Cat to point out every plant or bug or crumbly bird nest he spied. He even brought the boat to a halt to fish litter out of the water. Fed up, Piper whispered in Tad’s ear, “If you don’t light a fire under this guy, we’ll never get to Minnie’s Island, which means we’re never going to find Dr. Cole’s last marker. Tell him to quit messing around.”
“Fine,” he hissed.
“Everything okay over there?” Perch asked.
“Not really,” Tad said, trying to sound tough. “Listen, Perch, we paid you good money to get us to Minnie’s Island, so if you don’t mind, we’d like to take the express lane. No more stops.”
Perch raised one eyebrow. “I see. I wasn’t aware that this was a simple ferry job. I thought you wanted to see flowers.”
“We do,” said Tad. “The ones on Minnie’s Island.”
Perch was uncharacteristically quiet. He just sat on the bench across from Tad and Piper, glowering at them over the top of his sunglasses.
Macey, sensing the discord, throttled down the engine, and the boat slowed to a putter. “You want me to toss ’em overboard, Cap’n?” Piper couldn’t tell if she was kidding.
Perch shook his head slowly. “That won’t be necessary, Mace. They want to go to Minnie, then let’s get ’em to Minnie. Take us to the Red Trail Spur through Floyd’s Prairie,” Perch instructed. “It’s a shortcut.”
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