Chomp: Chapters 1–6

The backyard was literally a zoo—gators, snakes, parrots, mynah birds, rats, mice, monkeys, raccoons, tortoises and even a bald eagle, which Mickey had raised from a fledgling after its mother was killed.

The sound of her crunching on the thawed bird obscured the voices coming from the house—Wahoo’s mother and father “discussing” the China trip.

Watching the cab speed off, Wahoo’s father looked forlorn. “It’s like she’s leaving us twice,” he remarked.

He used a tangerine to lure the surly primate back to his cage, but Jocko still managed to sink a dirty fang into one of Wahoo’s hands.

Although months had passed since the accident, he was still paranoid about getting clobbered with another falling lizard.

Every week, Derek would parachute into some gnarly wilderness teeming with fierce animals, venomous snakes and disease-carrying insects.

Every week, Derek would parachute into some gnarly wilderness teeming with fierce animals, venomous snakes and disease-carrying insects.

“They say he’s a humongous pain in the butt, this guy.”

Wahoo noticed that he scrawled his name crookedly below the line where it was supposed to go, which meant his eyesight was still jumbled.

“Sure,” said Wahoo. “It’s on Thursday nights.”
“And rerun every Sunday morning,” she said. “So you already know that we’re all about verisimilitude.”

Derek’s punctured lips swelled up so badly from the bite that he looked like he was sucking on a football. A medical helicopter rushed him to Manila for rabies shots.

“Indeed we will. What about a python? I told you I wanted a python.”
“The gentleman has offered us a very large Burmese, though it’s not tame.”
“Even better!” chortled Derek.

She was accustomed to working around Derek’s enormous ego, but there were times when she felt like reminding him that he was basically a tap dancer, not a grizzled woodsman.

Pythons are equipped with rows of long, curved teeth that cannot be easily pried from their prey.

The fastest way to make them let go is to pour something hot or obnoxious into their mouths.

“Springtime is when they get active and really start chowing down. I’ve only told you about a hundred times.” With a groan, Mickey sprawled on the couch.

The man’s eyelids were puffy, his pale cheeks were blotched and his hair—more orange than blond—was matted and oily.

There was a lush pool ten feet deep, complete with pickerelweed and water lilies, for staging underwater scenes.

The star of Expedition Survival! was clad only in tartan boxer shorts and a pair of black knee-high socks.

Wahoo was busy tending the crippled bobcat, trying to coax it to eat.

The poor thing was limping in circles around the new pen, still frazzled by the long truck ride from Highlands County.

The well-fed gator was resting at the bottom of the brackish lagoon.

The snapper had a long, flexible neck and was lightning quick on the strike.
“Doesn’t this one have a name?” Derek asked snidely. “How about Timmy the Terrible Turtle?”

Breathlessly he began reciting the lines he had memorized from his script:
“These snapping turtles are one of the most ferocious predators in the Everglades! They’re camouflaged to look exactly like a mossy rock, and their sharp, powerful jaws unlock to reveal a juicy, worm-like tongue, which they deviously wiggle as bait—”

He broke a thin branch off a pine tree, stripped away the sprigs and handed it to the TV star.

Raven Stark angrily cornered Wahoo and his father. “You two think this is funny? Derek could have been maimed!”

Wahoo nodded ruefully, displaying the fleshy bump where his right thumb once had been.

The script called for Derek to creep up and seize Beulah behind her head, instigating a fake life-or-death struggle.

“Ha! Never show you’re afraid, because animals can sense it,” said Derek. “Do you even know what true primal fear smells like?”

“Cut!” the director called.
“What’s wrong?” snapped Derek. “That bit was totally brilliant.”
“The word is ‘leviathan,’ not ‘levithanian.’”

“Now all those cute little snakes have grown into voracious monsters, some of them twenty feet long! They can swallow a whole deer, a panther and, yes, even a human being...."

His father looked somber. “Let’s move Beulah back to her tank.”

“That’s the worst excuse for a python I ever saw!” It was Derek, lurching to his feet. “You call that a snake? Ha! I call it an overstuffed earthworm.”

Mickey didn’t even crack a smile; his thoughts were a million miles away.
Wahoo was troubled to see his father acting so listless and distracted.

He said goodbye to Alice and went to check on the injured young bobcat, which was still acting skittish.

No matter how remote the jungle setting, his contract required sumptuous five-star menus: steak, lamb, lobster, sockeye salmon, homemade pasta, pheasant or venison, accompanied by fresh garden vegetables and of course an array of rich, artery-clogging desserts.

No matter how remote the jungle setting, his contract required sumptuous five-star menus: steak, lamb, lobster, sockeye salmon, homemade pasta, pheasant or venison, accompanied by fresh garden vegetables and of course an array of rich, artery-clogging desserts.

“Candy and Anabelle are on a job in Argentina,” Raven Stark said, knowing her boss would be miffed. “We’re using Leticia Oxford’s outfit.”

His mother and father were amazed when he met a bright and seemingly normal young woman who didn’t mind his motley collection of animals, and they were even more amazed when she agreed to marry him.

Mickey had found her when he was a teenager and she was practically a hatchling, so she was as close to being tame as any ravenous, pea-brained dinosaur could be.