Scat

On the way home from school, Nick and Marta discuss Mrs. Starch and their upcoming field trip to the Black Vine Swamp, which is part of the Big Cypress Preserve. This subtropical wetland ecosystem—part of the federally protected Everglades National Park—is unique in the United States and home to many rare and endangered species. ’

Nick’s mother works for the Department of Corrections and his father, Greg, is serving in Iraq with the Army National Guard. Nick emails his father every day and is worried because he hasn’t heard back from his dad in a few days, which is unusual. When Nick discusses the pencil-eating incident with his mom at dinner, she reveals that Duane Jr. comes from a broken home, and his father, Duane Sr., served time for arson after he burned down the Chevrolet dealership that sold him a faulty transmission. Nick feels sympathy for Duane Jr.:“No wonder the kid turned out the way he did […] his old man’s a whack job” (14). 

Back at school, Mrs. Starch tells the headmaster, Dr. Dressler, about the incident with Duane Jr. and the pencil. Though Mrs. Starch frames the incident as an extraordinary act of insubordination, Dr. Dressler is more concerned about whether ingesting a pencil on school property might lead to medical issues and eventual lawsuits against the school, which he is determined to avoid—especially because Duane Jr.’s grandmother is a large donor to the school. Dr. Dressler heads out to the Scrod residence, where he is greeted by Duane Sr. and Nadine, an aggressive blue-and-gold macaw who speaks three languages. Duane Sr. is a paranoid, somewhat pathetic husk of a man who has never recovered from his wife’s departure several years earlier; he admits that he has no control over Duane Jr. and no idea where his son may be. 

The students gather in the parking lot to board the buses for their field trip to the Everglades. Duane Jr. seems to be missing. The teachers instruct the kids in safety and emergency protocols for traveling in a dangerous swamp. Nick shows Marta his video camera, admitting that he longs to see a critically endangered Florida panther on their trip. At the swamp, the students get a taste of the beautiful, yet threatening wildlife that flourishes in the Everglades, right on the border of modern civilization: trees, birds, insects, and even snakes bring the students face-to-face with what nature, undisturbed by human hands, really looks like. 

Suddenly, at lunch, the students hear a gunshot and an otherworldly scream through the trees. Nick instinctively raises his video camera toward the sound, capturing a “large, tannish blur” in the viewfinder (33). He is convinced this is the elusive Florida panther. Just after the scream, they smell smoke, and the teachers immediately cut the field trip short and evacuate the students from the coming wildfire. In the scramble back to the buses, Libby, one of Nick’s classmates, drops her asthma inhaler. Mrs. Starch volunteers to get it; she will drive back to meet them at school once she has retrieved it. The buses leave while Mrs. Starch is heading back into the advancing wildfire.