Flush - Carl Hiaasen [23]
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Shortly before the news was supposed to come on, a hideous scream arose from my sister’s room. Even though I knew she was faking it, Abbey’s yowling still gave me goose bumps. She could make a fortune doing horror movies if she wanted.
While Mom went running to see what was wrong, I slipped out the kitchen door. I grabbed my fishing rod from the garage and dashed to the corner of the house where Dad had mounted the TV satellite dish. It took me only three casts to snag it with the bucktail. I jerked hard, and I kept on pulling until the dish rotated toward me. Then I clamped down on the spool of the spinning reel and backed up until the line snapped.
When I went back inside, there was Abbey sniffling on the couch in the living room. Mom sat beside her, pressing an ice pack to the back of her head.
“She fell off her bed,” Mom reported sympathetically.
“Is that all?” I said. “It sounded like she was being boiled alive.”
“Noah!” Mom scolded, and instantly my sister started bawling again. Abbey can cry at the drop of a hat. I avoided making eye contact because I knew we’d both break up laughing.
At five o’clock Mom reached for the remote control to turn on the news, but there was no picture on the television screen—only ripples and fuzz. Mom switched to another station, and it looked the same.
“What’s wrong with the set?” she muttered, and began clicking through the channels.
When I snuck a peek at Abbey, she gave me a congratulatory wink. The TV wasn’t working because the satellite dish was no longer pointed up at the satellites. It was pointed at the ground.
Eventually I’d have to explain how one of my fishing lures got hooked on the dish, but for the moment I was proud of myself for sparing my mother from seeing my jailbird father on the Channel 10 news.
That good feeling lasted only a few minutes, and then our phone started ringing. Apparently everybody else on the island had watched Dad’s big interview, and many of them wanted to share their reactions with Mom, who was mortified. At least three of her so-called friends had even videotaped the show, and one of them stopped by after dinner to drop off the cassette.
Abbey and I were curious about what my father had said on TV, but neither of us was brave enough to sit up with Mom while she watched the tape. I’d thought about trying to mess up the VCR, but Abbey said it would be a waste of time. She was probably right—Mom was determined to see Dad’s interview, one way or another.
So my sister and I retreated to our rooms. I couldn’t get to sleep, so I sat up playing my Game Boy and reading skateboard magazines. At one in the morning I was surprised to hear the telephone ring, and someone picked up right away. When I peeked down the hall, I saw that the whole house was dark except for a light in my mother’s room, just like the night before.
This time, though, I could hear her voice. She was talking with Grandma Janet up in Canada. I couldn’t make out everything Mom was saying, but I heard enough to know that she wasn’t impressed by Dad’s performance on television.
What I also heard, too clearly, was the d-word.
I’m not scared to be out alone at night. Actually, I enjoy the peace and quiet. Sometimes I sneak away from the house and ride down to Thunder Beach, or Whale Harbor. The main things to watch for are drunk drivers and, of course, police cars. It’s unusual to see a kid on a bicycle after midnight, so the cops automatically figure that you’re either running away from home or out stealing stuff. More than once I’ve had to lay down my bike and duck into some trees when a police cruiser went by.
Mom was still on the phone when I went out the back door. On the way to the marina I didn’t see a single car—a Greyhound bus was the only thing that passed me on the highway.
The Coral Queen was dark and the docks were quiet, but I didn’t take any chances. I left my bicycle in the mangroves and checked out the place on foot. It was a good thing I did, too. The crooked-nosed bald guy who’d grabbed Abbey was sitting in a beat-up old station