“The big city?” asked Benny.
“New Orleans,” said Swampwater. “She used to work at the zoo there, before she came here. It’s where she learned so much about the animals that live in the swamp.”
“New Orleans,” repeated Jessie.
“I wish I could see a white alligator,” said Benny, who wasn’t very interested in Rose’s old job in New Orleans. He was looking at the little stuffed albino alligator that Swampwater had on display.
“Lots of people do,” said Swampwater. “But albinos don’t last very long in the wild. Some people breed them in captivity, but it’s not the same.” He paused. “I’ve heard of some white alligators at the zoo that aren’t albinos, though, now that you mention it. I’ve never seen them, but they’re supposed to be very rare.”
“Can they live in the wild?” asked Jessie.
“I don’t know. Like I said, they’re extremely rare. The zoo has all the ones anybody knows about, I think.”
“But in the wild … there are none in the wild?” Jessie asked again.
“No. I imagine they’d get eaten pretty quick, just like the albinos,” said Swampwater.
“I guess I’m getting kind of hungry for lunch,” said Benny. “Not that I want to eat an alligator.”
Swampwater laughed. “I guess they would taste like chicken, Benny. I don’t know. I don’t eat gator myself. I like my chicken to be a chicken, if you know what I mean. Just like the old alligators do.”
“Alligators like chicken, too?” said Benny.
“Sure. Some fishermen use it for bait when they’re trying to catch them,” said Swampwater. “Course, I guess you could use anything to catch an alligator. They aren’t picky. But chicken seems to work.”
“Maybe it wasn’t Travis who stole the chicken from Billie, then,” said Benny. “Maybe it was the ghost alligator.”
“Maybe it was,” Swampwater said. He laughed and shook his head. “Funny things do happen in the swamp.”
Jessie said, “They sure do, and we have to go. Come on!”
“Why?” asked Benny. “Are you hungry, too?”
“Yes,” said Jessie. “ ’Bye, now.” She hustled Violet, Benny, and Henry out of the museum.
“What’s the big hurry?” asked Henry.
“I want to make a phone call,” said Jessie.
“A phone call? To whom?” asked Violet.
“You’ll see,” said Jessie mysteriously, and no matter how many questions they asked her on the way back to the fishing camp, Jessie wouldn’t tell them anything more.
Billie was down at the dock working on one of the boats when the Aldens got back.
Benny raised his arm to wave, but Jessie stopped him. “No,” she said. “I don’t want her to know we are here.”
She slipped around the side of the building and into the bait shop. Going to the OUT tray behind the counter, she took it down and began to go through the papers.
“Benny,” she said. “Watch out the window and make sure no one is coming.”
“Okay,” said Benny.
Jessie flipped the papers over until she came to one of the phone bills that Billie had been complaining about. She ran her finger down it. “There it is,” she said triumphantly. “The phone number for the mystery call to New Orleans.”
“New Orleans,” said Henry. He wrinkled his forehead, then said, “Where Rose used to work. Do you think Rose made that phone call? Why wouldn’t she call from her own house?”
“I don’t know,” said Jessie. “I don’t even know if she made the call. But I think this phone number is a very important clue.”
She wrote the phone number down, put the phone bill back in the OUT box, and went over to the phone.
Jessie dialed the number. “We’ll have to pay Billie for this phone call,” she said. “Later … Hello? Hi, who is this? It is?” She paused and listened for a moment. Then Jessie asked, “Is this where the white alligators are?”
Violet, Henry, and Benny stared at Jessie.
She didn’t seem to notice. She grabbed a pen and began to scribble notes on the back of an envelope from the wastepaper basket, asking questions and nodding, as if the person at the other end of the phone connection could see her. At last Jessie hung up.
“Jessie, what is going on?” demanded Henry.
“I’m not sure,” said Jessie. “But someone has made phone calls from here to the zoo in New Orleans, directly to the department that takes care of reptiles — including the white alligators. The ones that aren’t albinos. They’re called …” She glanced down at her notes. “Leucistic alligators. Albino alligators have no pigment in their skin and pink or red eyes. These alligators have blue eyes and white skin with some blotches on it. A fisherman found them in a nest and brought them all in.”
“But what does that have to do with …” Violet’s eyes widened. “Do you think the ghost alligator is one of the blue-eyed alligators?”
“A leucistic alligator? I don’t know,” said Jessie. “It seems like they’d have just as much trouble staying alive in the swamp as albinos do. But maybe that’s what happened. Maybe there’s one out there and Rose knows about it and is hunting for it. It would be pretty valuable.”
“But why doesn’t she just tell people that’s what it is, instead of pretending a ghost alligator is out there?” asked Henry.
“Because she wants to catch it first!” said Benny.
“It makes sense,” said Violet. “She could be telling everybody it’s a ghost to scare them away. She’d be able to get an alligator tooth from Swampwater’s museum without any problem. Then she could have damaged that pirogue and put the tooth there.”
“She knows her way around the swamp, too,” said Benny. “She’s a guide. She could mix up the signs and not get lost.”
“Are we sure it is Rose?” asked Violet. “What about Travis?”
“He could be part of it, but I don’t think so,” said Jessie. “I think he’s just using the rumors about the ghost alligator to make trouble for Billie.”
“Did she take the binoculars?” asked Benny.
“I don’t know,” admitted Jessie. “But Rose did work in New Orleans at the zoo. She knows about alligators, especially the blue-eyed ones.”
“She also just took some time off. She said she was going to New Orleans, but maybe she didn’t. Maybe she’s right here, hunting for the alligator,” said Henry. “If that’s true, she could have taken the binoculars, maybe to make it hard for Gaston to spot any white alligators.”
“If Rose is behind the ghost alligator of Alligator Swamp, we need to catch her,” said Jessie, “before it ruins Billie’s business and she has to sell it.”
“How?” asked Benny.
“I have an idea,” Violet said softly.
“What?” asked Henry.
“Well …” began Violet, and then she told them.
When she’d finished, Henry laughed. “That’s a good idea, Violet.”
“But we have to do one thing first,” said Jessie.
“What?” asked Benny.
“Henry and I, since we are the tallest and strongest, need to learn how to push a pirogue with a pole. Then we can go fishing to catch a ghost alligator!”
“We saw it! We saw it!” Benny stood and waved his arms. By now Violet knew what to do without even thinking about it. The moment Benny had started to stand up, she’d grabbed the back of his life jacket. She held on to keep him from falling out of the pirogue as Henry steered it up to the dock at Swampwater Nelson’s.
Rose, a hammer in her hand, looked up and brushed a wisp of dark hair from her face. She was back early from her trip. “What?” she demanded. “What are you talking about?”
Swampwater let go of the board he’d been holding in place for Rose to nail into the dock. “What’s all the excitement?” he asked.
“The ghost alligator,” Henry said. “We were out fishing not all that far from Crying Bayou and there it was.”
“It came out of the
shadows. It had big, big teeth,” said Benny. He held his hands wide apart. “Teeth this big. It tried to eat us!”
“No! Oh, no!” exclaimed Eve. She had just come out of the tour office holding two steaming cups. She stopped so abruptly that coffee sloshed over the cups’ edges.
“I doubt that,” said Rose coolly. Reaching up, she took both cups of coffee and handed one to Swampwater.
“You don’t believe us?” Violet asked.
“I believe you saw something. Not an alligator with dinosaur-size teeth,” Rose answered. “Hold the board down, please.”
Swampwater held the board down and Rose finished nailing it in place with swift, sure strokes of the hammer. Behind them, Eve stood as if she, too, had been nailed to the dock.
“Crying Bayou?” she said finally, almost in a whisper. She looked frightened. “You saw the ghost there?”
Jessie and Violet exchanged glances. Each knew what the other was thinking. They felt bad about frightening Eve like that. But what else could they do?
“Not far from where we got lost the other day,” Henry said.
“We didn’t get lost this time,” said Benny proudly. “We made our own trail markers with chalk on the tree trunks, just in case. But we didn’t need them.”
“Near Crying Bayou?” asked Rose. “Really? Hmmm.” She seemed surprised.
Benny nodded. “That’s right!” he said.
With one final bang of the hammer, Rose finished her work.
“Well,” said Swampwater. “Now I won’t be tripping over that board anymore. Thanks, Rose.”
“Glad to help,” Rose said. She glanced at her watch. “Anything else?”
“Well, there is one more board that needs a nail,” said Swampwater.
After glancing at her watch and then at the sky, Rose nodded. She followed Swampwater down the dock. “After that, I have to go,” she said.
“It’ll only take a minute,” said Swampwater.
Eve said, “May I get a ride home with you, Rose? I don’t want to walk!”
“Okay,” said Rose.
“I’ll get my stuff and put it in your pirogue,” Eve said. “So I’ll be ready.” She turned, then seemed to remember the Aldens. She turned back. “ ’Bye!” she said and ran into the tour guide shop.
“We have to go, too,” said Henry. “We have to get back to Billie’s camp. It’s almost time for dinner.”
“Wait until we tell Billie what we saw!” said Jessie.
Henry turned the pirogue and they puttered back down the bayou toward the Bait ’n Bite.
As soon as they were out of sight of Swampwater’s museum, though, Henry cranked the motor up to make the pirogue go as fast as it could.
“Shhh!” whispered Jessie. “Did you hear anything?”
“Nothing yet,” Henry said.
They were quiet again.
The pirogue was hidden in a narrow channel off the main one leading to Crying Bayou. The children had pulled branches and brush across it so they couldn’t be seen.
Suddenly, Jessie hissed, “There! Did you hear that?”
“A motor,” said Benny.
“Get down,” Henry ordered.
They all crouched low in the pirogue, peering through the branches.
Out in the bayou, a pirogue came into view. It sped past and up the bayou.
Quickly the Aldens pushed their own pirogue out into the channel. But they didn’t start the motor. Instead, Jessie and Henry both picked up poles and began to push the pirogue along as fast and as quietly as they could.
They reached the end of the bayou and stopped, drifting into the deep afternoon shadows.
Voices came through the trees loud and clear.
“We should set some bait here,” said Rose’s voice.
“I have some more chicken pieces,” someone answered.
“Eve!” breathed Violet in surprise.
“I can’t believe Marshmallow got out again,” Rose said. She sounded cross. “I was so sure that pen was escape-proof. I just hope we find her before she gets a bad case of sunburn.”
“I wonder how she got all the way over to Crying Bayou,” Eve said. The Aldens could see them now. Eve had a bucket by her on the pirogue seat. She was holding binoculars to her eyes, scanning the far edge of the bayou.
“See anything?” Rose asked.
“Nothing,” Eve answered, lowering the binoculars.
The Aldens didn’t have to say anything. They all recognized those binoculars — Gaston’s!
“We’ve got to find her. It’s one thing to tell people there’s a ghost alligator in the swamp to keep them away from her. It’s another for them to actually see her,” said Rose. “Anyway, after we set out bait and traps, we’ll go and work on the pen some more.”
“And we can check our traps on the way back and let any other alligators we’ve caught go,” Eve suggested.
“Good idea,” said Rose.
As the two talked, Henry and Jessie had been pushing their pirogue closer and closer, slipping in and out among the tree roots of the bayou. Now, with one final push on the pole, Henry shot the pirogue out into the main channel and in front of the pirogue in which Rose and Eve sat.
“Oh!” cried Eve, jumping back and dropping a piece of chicken into the bayou.
“What are you doing here?” Rose demanded.
“Catching a ghost alligator,” said Benny. “And you’re it!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Rose.
“Yes, you do,” said Jessie. “We’re talking about Marshmallow. That’s the name of your alligator, isn’t it? We heard you talking about her and we know she’s no ghost. She’s a white alligator with blue eyes — like the ones in the zoo in New Orleans.”
Rose scowled fiercely at the children without answering.
Eve’s mouth dropped open. “H-how did you know?” she stammered.
“Why don’t we go back to Billie’s,” said Henry. “We can talk about it there. And you can tell Billie what’s been going on.”
Chapter 10
An Alligator Birthday
“I don’t believe it!” Billie cried. “A white alligator? A real one?” She shook her head in amazement.
The Aldens, Billie, Rose, and Eve were sitting on the restaurant porch. Billie had put a sign on the restaurant door saying, DINNER DELAYED. COME BACK LATER.
“But albino alligators can’t live in the wild. They get eaten almost as soon as they’re born,” said Billie.
“Marshmallow’s not an albino,” Eve explained. “She’s a … a leucistic alligator, like the ones in the zoo in New Orleans. They have blue eyes. But they can still die of sunburn. And get eaten because they aren’t camouflaged like regular alligator babies.”
“I found Marshmallow when she was just hatched,” Rose explained. “Right by a nest. She was the only one. I don’t know if the others got eaten or if she was the only white alligator. She was very small. I scooped her up in my fishing net and I fixed a shady, safe pen for her where nothing could catch and eat her, and then I raised her. She’s over four years old now and big for her age, because I’ve fed her well.”
“It’s hard to keep a secret that long,” Grandfather observed.
“I figured it out,” Eve said. “I wondered what Rose was doing with all the fish she caught. I followed her one day when she went fishing and saw her take the fish to Marshmallow’s pen and feed her.”
“And then Marshmallow got away — we caught her again, but not before someone saw her. That’s when Eve and I started telling stories about the ghost alligator,” Rose said. “We wanted to keep people away from that part of the swamp.”
“You took Gaston’s binoculars,” Benny said to Eve.
Eve nodded, then looked down. “I’m sorry I did that,” she said. “I hope Uncle Gaston won’t be too angry. But it was an emergency. Marshmallow had gotten out again and those two fishermen had seen her. We had to find her in a hurry, before someone else caught her.”
&n
bsp; “Or she died of sunburn,” added Rose.
“It may have been Marshmallow that took a bite out of your pirogue,” Eve said. “I’m sorry about that, Billie. That was another reason we wanted to catch her as soon as we could.”
“The chicken — you used it as bait to set the trap,” said Violet.
“The chicken from my restaurant?” Billie sat up in her chair on the restaurant porch.
“Just a couple of times,” Eve said.
“The phone calls to New Orleans. Why did you call the zoo?” asked Jessie.
“How did you know?” asked Eve, startled.
“I couldn’t figure out where those calls on my bills at the phone here came from,” Billie said. She nodded at the Aldens. “That took real detective work.”
“Thank you,” said Jessie modestly. “But really, it just took a phone call. We called the number and it was the zoo.”
“I called,” confessed Eve. “The first time to ask about white alligators — that was right after I’d found out about Marshmallow but hadn’t told Rose I knew yet. The second time was right after she got away. To find out the best way to catch her.”
“Then we finally caught Marshmallow again. I thought we were safe,” said Rose. She glanced over at the Aldens. “Until you guys came up this afternoon saying you’d seen the ghost alligator.”
Henry nodded. “It was a trick. We couldn’t let Billie’s place lose any more business.”
“Didn’t you think about that?” Jessie asked. “Didn’t you care?”
Rose blushed a little. “I know. I’m sorry. I just wanted to take care of Marshmallow.”
“By feeding her and every alligator in the swamp my good chicken,” said Billie, smiling a little. She didn’t seem very upset. “A ghost alligator that’s real. Named Marshmallow. Who would have thought it? And detectives to solve the mystery, on top of that.” Billie’s smile turned into a grin. “I couldn’t ask for a better birthday present.”
“Really? You’re not mad?” asked Eve.
“How could I be? Nope, the only thing that’ll make me mad is if you don’t have fun at my birthday party this Saturday.” Billie chuckled. “Catching the ghost alligator — now, that’s a birthday gift of a story!”