Uncertain Summer Read online

  All Emmett’s pranks piled up in my mind—how he once wrote on my forehead with permanent marker while I slept, the time he dipped my toothbrush in soft soap before putting it back in the cup, and when he poured liquid bubbles into my nearly empty can of soda. Not to mention the name calling. So many of my birthday plans had changed, and now my cake was ruined, too. That was it. Time for frosting comeuppance!

  I smashed my piece into Emmett’s face.

  Frosting wedged up his nose and bits of red cake plopped down on his favorite t-shirt, leaving a spot of grease on the yellow fabric. With wide eyes, my brother wiped his face with a napkin, but then his expression darkened. “You’re an awful sister, and you ruin everything!” He rushed out of the room and slammed his door so loud that it echoed down the hall.

  Mama had to spit her bite of cake in a napkin before she could properly fuss at me. “Everdil Lynn Jackson, you should be ashamed of yourself!”

  Papa joined in the yell-at-Everdil-a-thon, but Gramps stayed out of it. His look of disappointment was worse than my parent’s angry words, though. I swear the gold chain burned around my neck like a ring of shame. “I’m sorry.”

  “You better go tell Emmett you’re sorry instead,” Mama said. “It’s an honest baker’s mistake not to sift the baking soda.”

  Emmett had it coming to him, but I felt worse knowing he might not have ruined the cake on purpose.

  “Your mother’s right, Everdil. You owe your brother an apology,” Papa said, his voice so stern I shriveled in my seat.

  I trudged my way to Emmett’s room wishing for some kind of life rewind button. When I recorded one of Mama’s FoodieLand auditions so she might become a star chef instead of a short order cook at the Uncertain Café, I could hit stop and do another take. There was no easy out for me here—I swallowed my pride and asked for forgiveness.

  As much as I wanted another go at things, Emmett wasn’t hearing any of my requests for forgiveness. “Sorry, Emmett. I didn’t mean to.” Well, technically, I did mean to smash the cake in his face, but I could’ve paid him back in a much less obvious way.

  “Go away, Everdil!”

  A moment later I heard a scraping sound. He must’ve been moving his furniture to keep me out.

  “Be that way,” I said, “but I really am sorry.”

  Emmett still refused to come out of his room. Papa knocked on his door. “C’mon, son, I want you to join us tonight.”

  When Emmett continued to ignore him, Papa searched for his toolkit to unhinge the door, but Mama talked him out of it. “The boy needs some alone time. Don’t you remember what it’s like to be thirteen?” she asked him.

  Papa must’ve, because he let Emmett be.

  I hadn’t gotten grounded so the least I could do was clean up the kitchen to return to my parents’ good graces. I threw out all of the greasy paper plates and the rest of the trash, but I didn’t have the heart to chuck the remaining cake. I put the cake lid back over the dish. The frosting was salvageable, right?

  “Emmett will come around,” Gramps said as he refilled his glass of sweet tea. “Gram and I had our fair share of spats, but as Chuck Norris would say, that’s just part of being a family.”

  Gramps was off—this was no Chuck Norris fact, but I didn’t have the heart to correct him. “I guess.”

  Once all traces of grease disappeared from the kitchen table and I washed my hands, Mama and Papa presented me with a rectangular box wrapped in shiny pink paper. “We should wait to give this to you after the stunt you pulled, but it is your birthday, and this will be useful for all of us,” Mama said. Maybe she’d been paying attention to how Emmett constantly provoked me after all.

  I tore into the cotton candy pink paper. I couldn’t believe it. My parents had bought me a digital camera with fancy recording features.

  “Now you have better equipment to direct auditions with!” Mama said. She’d been blaming our camcorder’s lack of video quality as the reason why she never heard back after submitting her FoodieLand auditions, though the camcorder seemed decent enough to me.

  I hadn’t asked for anything of the sort, not when it must’ve been outrageously expensive, but in that moment, I just knew fate and my birthday wish had collided. As I read up on the camera’s features, thoughts of auditions were far from my mind—I was too busy dreaming of an oversized one million dollar check with my name printed on it.

  3

  Emmett refused to come on the boat ride. Getting to stay home alone must’ve been one of those perks of being thirteen.

  It felt like breaking the birthday tradition to go on the ride without my brother, but at least the rest of us could fit in Papa’s truck together without him. I squished up next to Gramps and watched him fiddle his thumbs together on the truck drive to the marina. East Cypress Drive was bumpy as we made our way out of town. The truck rattled and smelled like oil and Papa’s cologne. I kept a tight grip on the new camera case as I held it on my lap.

  Unlike last June when a lot of plants had fried to a brown crisp because of the drought, the weeds sprouted green and tall from the recent rain. They didn’t compare to the trees though, especially not the great cypress with Spanish moss streaming from their soaring branches. The sun had lowered in the sky, giving them an even more grand appearance.

  I took the camera out of the case to shoot a few practice pictures, but they came out blurry. I needed to tinker with the settings and learn all the special features later. I put the camera back in the case for now.

  When we got close to the Polk St. Bridge across from downtown Jefferson, Papa turned down a road running parallel to Big Cypress Bayou and parked. I missed a step getting out of the truck, and Gramps helped steady me.

  The marina was just a small wooden shack with a pair of pontoon boats tied up out back. There wasn’t much inside the building except for a card table with three chairs that functioned as a desk, a game-head of a buck, spare boat parts, and several file cabinets. The Cypress Swamp Marina sign was missing off of the front door, and in its place, a homemade poster read, “Raleigh’s Tours.”

  Mama must’ve noticed it at the same exact moment as me. “What in the name of—”

  “The marina belongs to us now, which is why—”

  Swamp Sam burst out of the office carrying the game head and a bag slung over his shoulder. He’d lost weight since the last time I saw him, but he hadn’t bought a smaller size of clothes yet. His t-shirt and jeans practically melted off of him. Swamp Sam’s face looked like he had acne or the chicken pox.

  “Beware of Bigfoot! You should listen to me and shut the place down to keep the authorities off our backs, but do whatever helps you sleep at night,” he said, tossing Papa a jingly set of keys.

  Beware of Bigfoot and of the authorities? Had he forgotten to take his medication?

  “What’s this all about?” Mama asked as Swamp Sam headed for his brown truck that had to be older than the legend of Bigfoot.

  “Swamp Sam has been a little … all around eccentric lately, and he decided to shut down the marina. I didn’t want to lose my job, so I talked him into letting me buy the place at cost instead.”

  As they argued about Papa’s rash decision, I found out why Gramps had been acting odd. Okay, not like Swamp Sam odd, but unlike himself. He’d loaned Papa the little bit of money he’d set away after retiring, and he’d agreed to help out with tours and administrative stuff.

  “How could you both keep this from me?” Mama pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail and acted like she was about to scream. But she did something worse—she bawled.

  Both Papa and Gramps tried consoling her with comments like “everything will be fine” and “it’s alright, you’ll see.”

  They sure didn’t convince me. I wished Emmett would’ve been there so I didn’t have to go through this alone. He would’ve made a joke or said something to lighten the mood.

  Mama gathered herself together enough to speak. “What about my cooking dreams? What about the kids?
We’re barely making it as it is.” Then she looked in my direction and pursed her lips like she shouldn’t have said those things in front of me. But it wasn’t anything I didn’t already know.

  “Things are going to change soon,” Papa said, trying to sell us on how much money-making potential the marina had.

  The only one who seemed to agree was Gramps. Mama went silent.

  I wanted Papa to be right. We all NEEDED Papa to be right.

  “Can we skip the boat ride and go home?” I asked once things calmed down a bit.

  “Nonsense!” Gramps said. “Everything will be fine, and the tradition shouldn’t stop now because of a few changes. What would Chuck Norris or your Gram do?”

  “Stay, I guess,” I said. Gramps knew what to say to get me to change my mind even if I wanted to be home. Papa had obviously gone to some trouble for my sake and had tied balloons to the roof posts on one of the pontoon boats. Pink, my favorite color from when I was five years old.

  I expected Mama to put up some kind of fight, but she hadn’t shifted out of silent mode. After we put on our safety vests, Mama took a seat on the bench near the railing.

  Bugs floated near the edges of the water, and I swatted some away when we boarded the boat. Just as I was about to sit on the opposite side, Papa announced, “You ready to be my co-captain, Everdil?” Emmett had surely given him that idea.

  “That doesn’t seem safe,” Mama said, breaking her silence.

  “Emmett did just fine, and I know Everdil will do great too.”

  I sure hoped he was telling the truth. Mama held my camera for me as I took my place at the wheel. My hands grew damp as Papa revved the engine and flipped on the boat light. I paid close attention when he showed me how to work the throttle and steer the boat.

  Papa sat near me and popped up to help correct the wheel when I steered to the right instead of the left. “Turn it that way. A little more. There you go. Imagine you’re pushing a grocery cart at the store.”

  Truth be told, I once accidentally knocked over a pork-and-beans display with a grocery cart. The cans crashed down and rolled as far as the produce section.

  It was hard to pay attention to Papa’s advice when Mama and Gramps discussed finances and the future in the back of the boat. The wheel slipped out of control. Focus, I told myself and used Papa’s tips to help me maneuver the pontoon boat to the center of the waterway.

  As I sped up, the motion created a light breeze. The moon was visible in the sky even though the sun hadn’t quite set. It would’ve made a great picture had the camera been handy.

  The scenery seemed to calm everyone down somewhat, and Papa used this time to train Gramps using his official Captain Raleigh spiel.

  “My fair guests,” Papa said, “Caddo Lake was named for the Caddo Indians who settled this area. People have lived around here for hundreds of years. Tens of thousands even.”

  Gramps repeated him word for word, and added. “Chuck Norris was alive then. Death just hasn’t had the courage to collect him yet.”

  Mama barged in, saying, “You’re both distracting Everdil. She should slow down.”

  “Everdil is doing great.” Papa continued, “After the Civil War, folks flocked here in pursuit of peace, but their good fortune was forever changed in 1873. This place used to be the only river port in Texas, but when a log jam was removed up north called the Great Red River Raft, the water levels here dropped immediately, making it impossible for steamboats to pass through. The population dropped off too, especially if Chuck Norris was involved,” he added for Gramps’ sake, “though it is still home to a few people and many creatures. Why, look yonder!”

  I followed the direction of Papa’s flashlight which revealed a triangular-shaped head skimming above the water, eyes practically glowing. A huge gator! That thing was so large it could take a person out. What a rare sight for Big Cypress Bayou!

  The gator glided near us, checking to see if we were a threat. Good thing my gourmet dinner party didn’t work out or else we’d reek of fried gator. When we floated by, the gator dunked under to swim away, causing the water to ripple in its leave.

  “Straighten out. Even more,” Papa said, and as I maneuvered the boat back to the center, he babbled on about how the bayou served a purpose in the Confederate War efforts.

  Gramps repeated after Papa less and less. I tuned him out as I searched the coastline. That’s when I saw someone climbing over the knobby cypress roots along the banks. The light was dim, but it was a tall man. I thought he might’ve been wearing a dark coat, but it was too difficult to see.

  Papa is over six feet tall, and this person seemed a foot or so taller. The man glided through the edge of the swamp with as much ease as our pontoon boat cut through the water. Who would be walking this far out here and why? The wetlands were dangerous and difficult to climb through.

  “Everdil, listen to your father, and watch where you’re going!” Mama yelled.

  Right as the man disappeared behind some cypress trees, a realization avalanched on me. This was no human being.

  “BIGFOOT!”

  4

  Papa flew to the side of the boat like he was trying to get a good look at Bigfoot. I glanced over at Mama to see if the camera was within reach. The pontoon boat swerved.

  “Everdil, careful!” Gramps fussed.

  The boat stopped handling like a shopping cart and was now more like a hockey puck sliding on ice, but I refused to slow down. Not when Bigfoot lurked this close and a million dollars was at stake!

  The shadowy twilight made it challenging to see along the banks, but the tall figure lurked less than the length of a football field away. I strained to get a better visual.

  The manlike beast stepped out from behind a tree. His eyes flashed. And then they locked right on mine. His lips pulled back into a snarl, revealing fangs so sharp they could gnaw into me like I was a bacon wrapped scallop.

  “Over there!” I pointed again and jerked the wheel. “Pass me the camera, quick!” The boat veered in the wrong direction.

  My shaky hands tried fixing the wheel out but sent the boat even more in the wrong direction. It now headed toward the banks and those menacing fangs.

  Mama cussed, and Gramps one-upped her. Papa reached to take control of the wheel, but it was too late.

  The four of us screamed as the boat slammed into a thick stretch of mud. A loud grinding noise flooded my ears as we hit the roots of a cypress tree. The crash tossed us forward, balloons bopping in the air. I admit to saying a few bad words myself, but luckily it went unnoticed.

  Once I regained my balance, I threw the throttle into reverse and accelerated.

  Papa moved me out of the way to turn the engine off. “Stop! You’ll overheat the engine and churn mud into it.”

  “I’m sorry.” I hunkered down on the red bench near Mama. She was okay and held onto the camera case so tight her fingers had turned as white as those awful fangs had been.

  Leave it to Gramps to chuckle at a time like this. “Well, you won’t find training like that in any manual. Nope, that’s what you call on the job training, Chuck Norris style.”

  I didn’t find his comment funny. Not then. Probably never. I could’ve seriously hurt the people who meant the most to me.

  Papa spotlighted the banks. The glow from the flashlight revealed his concern. “We’re stuck until the engine settles down.”

  “Maybe Bigfoot will rescue us like he supposedly rescued Tim’s dad,” Gramps said, chuckling all over again.

  Mama checked his head over to make sure he hadn’t hit it. “I’m fine, Macy,” he said. “Just haven’t had this much excitement in a while.”

  In the distance, a twig snapped. I shivered even though it had to be at least eighty degrees outside. After seeing those teeth, Bigfoot seemed more inclined to kill than help. Emmett was home alone, and he’d never know the real story of what happened to the rest of his family.

  My brother was right. I ruined everything. Tears burned my eyes.<
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  Mama checked me all over for injuries, too. “What in the world were you thinking, Everdil?”

  “I guess I wasn’t after I spotted Bigfoot.”

  Mama continued to give me a thorough inspection before hugging me. “I bet it was some poacher in the area. You remember that hiker who got shot?”

  “No poacher is that tall and huge!” Here we were in the great wide open, but my lungs gasped for air like a fish plucked out of the water. If only I’d been able to grab the camera in time. I unzipped the camera case to check on it. Fortunately, Mama’s tight grip had saved the camera from breaking or flying off the boat when we hit land.

  “It’s dark enough that you could’ve spotted a balloon out of the corner of your eye or imagined something after that television show and Gramps’ tale. Not to mention your father’s nonsense,” Mama said.

  “Doubtful,” Gramps said which set Mama off. While she ranted about the mess we were in, I wondered if my brain had somehow tricked me into seeing things. Could those fangs have just been a figment of my imagination? Was I losing my mind like Swamp Sam?

  No way.

  Papa scouted the area with a flashlight while I surveyed the area in case Bigfoot tried to stealthily approach us. The engine still felt like it was on because I vibrated from nerves.

  I about fell off the bench when a booming sound filled the air—like a boulder smacking against a dense tree trunk. “What was that?” I whispered. I snapped a picture, hoping whatever lurked out there would be afraid of the flash.

  “Everdil, put the camera away before you scare me to death.” Papa jumped off the boat and onto the muddy banks.

  “What are you doing, Raleigh?” Mama asked. “There could be other gators around.”

  “I have to get the boat back into the water somehow.” Papa dug his feet into the mud and pushed the grounded boat. It barely budged. There was no way he’d be able to move the boat alone. Gramps joined him, and I had to do everything I could to help since I’d caused this trouble.