Answers in the Pages by David Levithan

Author:David Levithan [Levithan, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2022-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

Mrs. Lindstrom briefed Melody on McAllister’s whereabouts.

“He has various hideaways around the country, as you know,” Mrs. Lindstrom said. “But our informants tell us that he’s bunked up in the Alligator Kingdom.”

Melody shuddered.

“That place is a fortress,” she observed.

Mrs. Lindstrom nodded. “It makes Fort Knox seem like a neighborhood candy store. Jacques Le Jacques is very powerful and very paranoid—a combination that leads to the highest security level possible.”

“Do we smoke him out?” Melody asked. “Or do you advise that we infiltrate the place?”

Mrs. Lindstrom looked grave. “I’m not sure there’s a way to get him out…so you’re going to have to go in.”

“Got it,” Melody said. There was no point in arguing. An assignment was an assignment.

As soon as she was off the comm with Mrs. Lindstrom, she loaded up the Adventurers’ dossier on Jacques Le Jacques. He was a renowned alligator wrestler who’d found fame and fortune in reality TV, parlaying that fame and fortune into being elected governor of Florida for two years. He only left office after being caught using state money to construct monuments to his favorite alligators, to be placed around his fortress. His emotional press conference admitting his misdeeds caused one of Melody’s favorite newspaper headlines ever: ALLIGATOR TEARS: Embezzler Tearfully Admits to Being Governor of Florida.

Rick and Oliver were in a good mood on returning from their grocery run—a mood entirely related to all the chips, soda, and cheese they’d purchased. The mood slipped, though, when they came into the RV and saw Melody’s expression.

“We’re going to have to drain the swamp,” she informed them, then explained their next mission.

Rick took it in stride, but Oliver looked haunted. He quickly excused himself, saying he’d put the groceries away.

Melody knew there was a story here that she hadn’t yet been told.

“What’s going on?” she asked Rick.

She could see the seconds it took for Rick to remind himself that he trusted her.

“It’s Florida,” he said. “That’s where Oliver’s parents…abandoned him. He was found in a booth in a Denny’s. Nobody saw who left him there. One of the waiters took him home and raised him until he got into the finishing school.”

“That’s awful.”

“It’s even worse. For the first few years of his life, they named him Denny.”

“No.”

“Yeah. Kinda hard to forget what happened that way, you know? Once he learned that wasn’t his actual name, he made them change it.”

“Weird.”

“It actually gets weirder.”

“How?”

Rick sighed. “Okay—but you can’t let him know I told you.”

“Of course,” Melody swore.

“The only reason I’m telling you is—well, you’ll figure it out soon enough. You know how sometimes they sell alligator heads? Like, small ones to use as paperweights, big ones to hang on your wall or something?”

“Is that really a thing people do?”

“In Florida, yes. Just picture it—an alligator head, its jaws intact. Glass eyes. Dried-out skin.”

“Okay, I get the picture.”

“Well, when Oliver was found…whoever left him at Denny’s left him in the mouth of an alligator head.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah. Pretty twisted. But the teeth hadn’t been clamping on him for too long.

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