The students, groggy and rumpled, gathered shortly after dawn in the school parking lot. Nick was sitting alone on a curb when Marta walked up.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Just tired is all.” He’d been on the computer since 4 a.m., but no e-mails had arrived from his father in Iraq.
Marta sat down. “Where’s Smoke?”
“Haven’t seen him,” Nick said.
“Good. Maybe he quit school—he’s old enough to drive, he’s gotta be old enough to drop out, right?”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
Marta said, “I’m sorry, but he seriously scares me.”
“Worse than her? No way,” said Nick.
Mrs. Starch had arrived wide-awake and in high spirits. She wore wading boots, stiff canvas pants, a baggy long-sleeved shirt, and a frayed straw hat under an upturned veil of mosquito netting. Mrs. Starch always prepared for the worst.
“Slather up, people!” she barked. “Sunblock, bug juice, lip balm—it’s a jungle out there!”
Nick and Marta got in line for the bus. “Maybe she’ll get bit by a scorpion,” Marta muttered.
“That would be awful,” Nick whispered, “for the scorpion.”
Mrs. Starch whistled sharply. “Did everybody in my classes remember to bring their journals?” She held a black writing notebook above her head. “Keep a list of everything you see—insects, mammals, birds, trees. This will count as a lab grade.”
Graham, who was dressed like a pint-sized version of the Crocodile Hunter, raised his hand. Mrs. Starch ignored him, as always.
“We have three portable first-aid kits,” she went on, “and each teacher will be carrying one. If you get into a situation where you need help, speak up right away. Remember: Stay with your hiking teams, do not wander off, and, most importantly, be respectful toward this very special place that we’re exploring. Turn off your cell phones—if I or any of the other teachers hear one ringing, it will be confiscated.”
Mrs. Starch put down the black notebook and picked up a device that Nick recognized as a portable boat horn. They made loud, gassy honks and were a favorite toy of drunken idiots at Buccaneers football games. Nick’s dad had season tickets.
“This will be our emergency signal,” said Mrs. Starch, demonstrating the boat horn with a short, earsplitting beep. “If you hear that sound, immediately line up behind your teacher and proceed straight back to the bus. Any questions?”
Graham hopped up and down, waving one arm.
Mrs. Starch stared past him. “All right, people,” she said, clapping. “Let’s enjoy our day in the Black Vine Swamp!”
The bus was roomy and clean and air-conditioned, unlike the one they rode to school. Nick and Marta sat together toward the front, their backpacks stowed under their seats.
Marta nudged Nick and pointed out the window. Mrs. Starch was getting into her car, one of those teardrop-shaped hybrid models that ran on both electricity and gasoline. It had a “Save the Manatee” license plate.
“I guess she left her broomstick at home,” Marta said.
Nick thought it was odd that Mrs. Starch wasn’t riding out to the swamp with everybody else. He wondered if, after what happened the day before, she might not want to be on the bus with Smoke.
But, to Nick and Marta’s relief, Smoke was nowhere to be seen. The other science teachers, Mr. Neal and Miss Moffitt, moved up and down the aisle, collecting forms from each of the students. The forms, which were signed by the parents, said that it wasn’t the school’s fault if their kid got hurt on the field trip.
“I almost called in sick. I do not like swamps,” Marta confided to Nick.
He said, “I hope we see a panther.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Seriously—that would be so cool.” Never in the re corded history of Florida had a panther harmed a human being. Now there were fewer than a hundred of the big cats left in the whole state.
“I got a video camera,” Nick said, “just in case.”
Marta said her mother wanted her to bring home a ghost orchid. “I said, ‘Yeah, right, Mom. It’s against the law.’ And she goes, ‘But I’ll take good care of it!’ And I’m like, ‘You want me to go to jail, or what?’ Gimme a break.”
Nick could tell that Marta was in a better mood because Mrs. Starch wasn’t on the bus. The absence of Smoke was a bonus.
“How’s your dad?” Marta asked, which caught Nick off guard.
“He’s okay.”
“When’s he get back?”
“ Twenty-two days.” Nick hadn’t told Marta or any other friends that his father had been sent to Iraq; the Naples newspaper had published the names of those serving in the war zone, and the list had been posted on the bulletin board outside the Truman gym.
“And after that he’s home for good?” Marta asked.
“I sure hope.”
Nick put on his iPod, and Marta put on hers. The ride took almost an hour because a truck full of tomatoes had flipped over on State Road 29, blocking traffic. A fire-engine crew was hosing the ketchup-colored muck off the pavement. Nick spotted a dead buck by the side of the road, and he figured that the tomato truck must have struck it in the early fog. He wondered if the deer had been running from a panther.
Eventually the bus made a slow turn onto a rutted dirt track that was very narrow. Twice the bus had to pull over to let flatbed trucks pass from the opposite direction. Nick noticed that both trucks had red diamond-shaped logos on the doors and looked brand-new. They barely slowed at all, churning dust as they rumbled by the bus.
The wet prairies that usually glistened in the morning had turned brownish and crispy without rainfall. Ahead, Nick could see a rising tree line that marked the edge of the Black Vine Swamp.
He dug into his backpack for a tube of sunblock, and he smeared some on his arms and neck.
“Don’t forget your nose,” Marta said. “Here, let me do it.”
“No, that’s okay—”
“Hush.” She snatched the tube, squirted a dollop of white goo into the palm of one hand, and then carefully coated every square inch of Nick’s face, like she was painting on a mask. He was terrified that the other kids might see what she was doing.
“Now it’s my turn,” Marta announced, tugging off her iPod.
“What?”
She handed him the tube and shut her eyelids tightly. “Careful. That stuff burns if it drips in your eyeballs.”
Nick felt trapped. He hunkered low in his seat.
Marta said, “My uncle gets basal cells all the time—that’s a kind of skin cancer. They cut ’em off at the doctor’s office.”
Nick hastily smeared the sunblock cream on Marta’s cheeks and forehead. “Okay,” he said in a low voice, “you’re good.”
“Ears, too,” she told him.
“Aw, come on.”
“What’s your problem, Nick? I’m sorry, but it runs in our family. Basal cells—you can ask my mom.”
He couldn’t say so, but touching her skin felt weird. Not bad, just weird. Afterward Marta checked herself out in the bus driver’s rearview mirror to make sure that Nick hadn’t missed any exposed places.
“Good job,” she said. “That wasn’t so awful, was it?”
For the rest of the trip, Nick pretended to be fascinated by the view out the window. Finally the bus jounced to a stop and the kids piled out.
Mrs. Starch was waiting. The mosquito veil wasn’t quite long enough to cover her jutting chin, leaving her vivid anvil-shaped scar on display. Beneath the mesh she wore enormous purple sunglasses that made her look like a mutant dragonfly.
“Come on, people, get organized,” she said, clapping again and starting to pace.
Each teacher had a team of fifteen students. The kids milled around anxiously while the names were called out. Nobody wanted to be on Mrs. Starch’s team, because they knew that Mrs. Starch would make them work harder than the other teachers. The whole point of going on a field trip was to goof off.
Marta leaned close to Nick and said, “If she calls on me, I swear to God, I’ll fake a heart attack.”
But, by some small miracle, it was Mr. Neal who called out Marta’s name—and then Nick’s. They had been spared.
Mrs. Starch led the whole group down a winding boardwalk through the scrub and pineland hammock, into thicker woods. There, in the cool shade of ancient bald cypress trees, the boardwalk ended.
The teams split up in separate directions. Above the treetops, the sky shone bright and cloudless. Despite the drought, there was still enough water in the strand to make the hike a soggy challenge. The students had been advised to wear long pants to protect their legs, and to wear old sneakers that they could throw away after the trip. Only Graham had been foolish enough to show up in shorts, and soon his shins looked like they’d been clawed by a tomcat.
Mr. Neal’s specialty was botany, and every so often he’d pause to point out a plant or a shrub of local interest. Mindful of Mrs. Starch’s instructions, Nick and Marta would automatically pull their journals from their backpacks and take notes. By the time they stopped for the first rest break, their species list included pond apple trees, strangler figs, laurel oaks, wax myrtles, sabal palms, wild coffee, and resurrection ferns.
Animal life was more elusive. Mr. Neal spotted a barred owl high on a tree bough, and later a young red-bellied turtle basking on a mossy log. Graham shrieked at the sight of a ribbon snake that he somehow mistook for a poisonous cottonmouth. Marta and two other girls briefly got tangled in a tent-sized spiderweb, while a boy named Mickey Maris captured a green anole lizard that Mr. Neal made him release on the spot.
Nick, who was scouting for signs of panthers, came across fresh pig tracks, but not much else. Occasionally he could hear the other student teams as they moved at a distance throughout the swamp. Once he was certain that he’d picked up Mrs. Starch’s voice yodeling, “We are now in bromeliad heaven!”
At noon Mr. Neal’s group sat down for lunch beneath a crooked cypress that he estimated was five hundred years old. The kids had brought their own sandwiches—Nick’s was turkey and cheese, Marta’s was peanut butter and Nutella. They shared a lime Gatorade that Nick’s mother had packed in a padded cooler bag.
Addressing the team, Mr. Neal said, “Can anyone tell me why we’re not getting bothered by mosquitoes?”
Graham’s hand shot up. He looked flabbergasted when Mr. Neal called his name.
“Because …,” he began. “Because …”
“Yes, Graham?”
“Go on.”
“Of … of …” Graham shrugged in defeat. “I don’t have a clue.”
Mr. Neal pointed to another student. “Rachel?”
“Because the weather’s been too dry for skeeters,” Rachel said.
“A good theory,” the teacher said, “but there’s still plenty of water for the little buggers to lay their eggs in. Nick Waters, what’s your guess?”
Nick wasn’t paying attention; he was thinking about his father. Marta elbowed him and he looked up, flustered, and said, “What? I didn’t hear the question.”
“Why aren’t we getting chewed up by mosquitoes?” Mr. Neal asked with a touch of impatience.
Marta decided to return Nick’s favor from the day before in Mrs. Starch’s class. She cut herself into the discussion and said, “Because mosquito fish are eating up all the baby mosquitoes?”
“Excellent!” Mr. Neal looked relieved that somebody got it right.
“Now I’ve got a question,” Marta said. “Why do they call it the Black Vine Swamp when all the vines we’ve seen are green?”
Graham raised his hand to try again, and the other students groaned. Mr. Neal said, “I’m not sure I know the answer to that one—anybody got a theory?”
At that moment they heard a piercing cry rise from among the towering cypresses. It didn’t sound like any noise that a person could make.
Mr. Neal was as startled as the hikers, although he tried not to show it. He raised a finger to his lips as a signal for everyone to stay quiet. A woodpecker hammering on a dead stump stopped abruptly and flitted away.
Some of the kids got spooked, but Nick was excited. He thought he knew what kind of animal they’d heard. He grabbed the video camera from his backpack and, after groping to locate the Record button, aimed the lens toward the part of the woods from where the wild cry had come.
It was hard to make out details through the viewfinder because of the forest shadows, and because Nick’s hands were shaking slightly. Marta had edged closer, peeking over his shoulder.
“You see that? See it?” She pointed at the screen of the viewfinder.
Something was running among the tree trunks—a large, tannish blur.
“Where’d it go?” Marta whispered. “What was it?”
“Just wait,” Nick said, but there was no other movement.
Moments later, the students heard splashes, and then a heavy rustling that faded into silence.
Nobody made a peep until Mr. Neal spoke. “Probably just a fox or a wild hog—nothing to worry about,” he said, not sounding too sure of himself.
Nick switched off the camera. “That was too big for a fox. I bet it was a panther.”
Not all of the other kids shared his curiosity about the big cats, and some of them expressed dismay at the possibility of crossing one’s path. Mickey Maris stood up and declared that they should all march back to the bus at once.
Mr. Neal said, “I doubt seriously if that was a panther.”
“What about a bear?” Graham squeaked. “They got black bears out here—Mrs. Starch said so!”
While Mr. Neal tried to calm the students, Nick fiddled with the control menu on the video camera. He wanted to replay the tape at slow speed so that he might get a better look at the creature.
Marta tweaked his arm. “Hey, do you smell something?”
Nick looked up from the camera and took a sniff. “That’s smoke,” he said.
“Definitely.”
Just then they heard two long blasts from Mrs. Starch’s boat horn. Everybody began murmuring and clustered around Mr. Neal, who told them to follow him back toward the boardwalk as quickly as possible—but no running, he said, and no talking.
The students didn’t have to be told twice. Hurriedly they zipped up their book bags and lined up behind the teacher, who led them briskly along the same wet, peatfilled slough that they had come in on. The smoky odor grew heavier, and in some places a gray haze was visible through the trees.
After assembling at the boardwalk, the three teams merged to form a long single line. At the very end of it was Mrs. Starch, who burped the air horn to make the students turn around and pay attention.
“Listen up, people!” she said. “A small wildfire has sprung up on the far edge of the swamp—pretty common for this time of the year. It’ll probably burn out when it reaches the cypress muck, but there’s no sense taking any chances. That’s why we’re cutting short our field trip and heading back to school. Straight back to school.”
Marta groaned and leaned against Nick. “What if she makes us go to her class? I’m gonna be sick again, all over the place.”
“Pray for a flat tire on the way home,” Nick said.
He was disappointed because he’d hoped for another opportunity to see the panther, or whatever it was that had darted into the cypress shadows. However, a wildfire was nothing to fool with. If a strong wind kicked up, the blaze would race across the land faster than any human could possibly run.
“Please stay in line behind Mr. Neal and Miss Moffitt,” Mrs. Starch said. “I’ll be coming along in a minute—Libby dropped her medicine, so I’m going back to find it.” She clapped so loudly that it sounded like a paper bag popping. “Now get your fannies in gear! Move!”
At the time, nobody questioned Mrs. Starch’s decision to go back. Libby Marshall had frequent asthma attacks, and she always carried an inhaler. The haze from the fire would make it harder for her to breathe.
“Quickly and quietly,” urged Miss Moffitt as the kids began streaming toward the bus.
Nick was walking behind Marta, who was behind Graham, who was behind Mickey Maris, who was behind Rachel, who was behind Hector, the star of the soccer team. The students were in such a rush that they were stepping on each other’s heels. Nick lost one of his sneakers when he was overrun by the boy next in line, an algebra ace named Gene, who stepped around him and kept going.
When Nick knelt to retrieve his shoe, he glanced back down the curving boardwalk just in time to see Mrs. Starch, in her straw hat and dragonfly glasses, marching alone into the smoky swamp.
He had no idea that she wouldn’t be coming out.