Flush - Carl Hiaasen [42]
“Follow me,” I told my sister.
Shelly was shaking the sand off her towel when we walked up. She was wearing a neon-yellow swimsuit and round mirrored sunglasses. Her face was smeared with so much zinc oxide that it looked like she’d fallen nose-first into a frosted cake.
“Well, if it isn’t the amazing young Underwoods,” she said.
“What did that guy in the red boat say to you?” Abbey asked with her usual bluntness.
“He asked me for a date, sort of,” said Shelly. “But he needs to work on his manners.”
“You sure nailed him good,” I remarked.
“Trust me, he deserved it.” She winked at Abbey. “Now if he was Brad Pitt and not some loser gym monkey from Lauderdale, it’s a whole different story. I’d be sitting beside him right now, speeding off to Bimini.”
I told Shelly that Dad was back in jail.
“That really bites,” she said. “You guys want somethin’ to drink?”
Abbey took a Coke, but I said no thanks. I noticed the beer can that Shelly had used to clobber the speedboat driver floating about twenty yards off the beach.
She frowned. “Man, I hate litterbugs.”
“Me too,” I said, and started wading out.
“Hey, stud, where do you think you’re going?”
“To get the beer can. It’s no big deal,” I said.
“It is too a big deal,” said Shelly. “Check out the water, Noah.”
I glanced down and felt my stomach pitch. The shallows had a darkish yellow tint. Strands and clots of foul, muddy-looking matter floated here and there, around my legs.
“What is it?” Abbey asked.
“Something seriously gross,” I said. Now I could smell it, too.
“Then get out!” Abbey shouted.
“That’d be my advice, too,” said Shelly. “And pronto.”
As disgusting as it was to be wading through the Coral Queen’s toilet crud, I couldn’t leave that beer can out there to float away.
Whenever my father takes us out on the boat, he always stops to scoop up trash that other people have tossed overboard—Styrofoam cups, bottles, chum boxes, plastic bags, whatever. Dad says it’s our duty to clean up after the brainless morons. He says the smart humans owe it to every other living creature not to let the dumb humans wreck the whole planet.
So what we Underwoods do is pick up litter wherever we see it.
Even when it’s drifting in sewage.
When I came sloshing with the beer can out of the shallows, Abbey stepped back and said, “Noah, that is so nasty!”
“I guess it’s true,” Shelly said, “that the nutcase doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means you’re just like your old man. Here, gimme that thing.” With two fingers Shelly plucked the can from my hand and held it at arm’s length, like it was radioactive.
“Notice the dent,” she observed with a chuckle. “Gym Monkey must’ve had a hard noggin.”
She dropped the can into a tall trash barrel. Then she turned back to me. “I told you Dusty was dumping again, didn’t I?”
It wasn’t like I’d forgotten. From where Abbey and I had been sitting earlier on the beach, the water had looked normal and safe. Once you stepped in, though, it was a different story.
Shelly said, “Okay, Nature Boy, now you run straight home and scrub yourself down in a hot shower.”
“Don’t worry.” I was already busy scraping at my legs with a sea-grape leaf.
Abbey stood at the water’s edge, gazing out in heavy silence. Shelly put an arm around her tense little shoulders and said, “Let’s hit the road, kiddo. Before your flaky brother gets any more bright ideas.”
Abbey turned to me. “The fish are gone. Those little green minnows we always see here.”
“They’ll be back,” I said, “when the water clears up.”
Suddenly a loggerhead stuck up its knobby brown head. It might have been the same one that I’d seen that day with Thom and Rado, but I couldn’t be sure. One turtle head looks a lot like another.
“No!” my sister cried out. “Noah, do something!”
The loggerhead obviously didn’t know it was swimming in filth. I began jumping and clapping my hands together, trying to spook it away from the beach, but that didn’t work. The turtle floated lazily