Mamba Point

  Also by Kurtis Scaletta

  Mudville

  A Booklist Top 10 Sports Book for Youth

  A Midwest Connections Pick by the Midwest Booksellers Association

  “Mudville will hit a home run with baseball fans of all ages.”

  —Sports Illustrated Kids

  “Scaletta’s debut is a gift from the baseball gods. … Scaletta is steeped not only in baseball lore but in such movie classics as The Natural and Field of Dreams, and that sort of larger-than-life magic realism lends his story the aura of a proper tall tale. Sports nuts, including reluctant readers, will sense they are in good hands with this one.”

  —Booklist

  “[Scaletta] balances perceptive explorations of personal and domestic issues perfectly with fine baseball talk and … absorbing play-by-play. Readers will cheer Roy on as he struggles to get his team in shape, clicks with a girl who is new to the game but turns out to have an unhittable natural screwball, and weathers some rough waters with moody Sturgis on the way to a rousing climax and a fitting resolution.”

  —School Library Journal

  “This humorous and tender ode to baseball is as full of hope and suspense as Casey’s famous turn at bat. … Baseball fans or not, readers will sympathize with Sturgis for his painful past and root for Roy and his team to win the big game.” —The Horn Book Magazine

  “This novel has all the elements of a classic sports tale: mystery, rivalry, betrayal, and the hold that a game like baseball can have on families and communities alike. Told from the perspective of twelve-year-old Roy, the narration at times reads like a memoir, adding to its charm.”

  —Voice of Youth Advocates

  “Scaletta offers a nifty combination of baseball action, tall tale, interesting characters and even a little romance in this hugely entertaining first novel.” —The Buffalo News

  For the good friends I’ve had and lost along the way—

  especially the ones I had in Monrovia, 1982–1984.

  Contents

  Other Books by this Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Week 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Week 2

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Week 3

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Week 4

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Week 7

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Week 8

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Week 12

  Chapter 24

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Linus’s Mamba Point, Monrovia, Liberia, 1982

  Summer 1982

  CHAPTER 1

  My brother changed his name on the plane ride to Africa.

  “From now on, my name is Law,” he said. “Law Tuttle.” He said it to himself a few times, practicing. “Hey, I’m Law. Law Tuttle.” He tossed his bangs back with a casual nod as he said it. He’d only recently begun growing his hair out, so he didn’t have much to toss.

  “I’ve never heard of anyone called Law,” I said, not looking up from my book. I was reading Tarzan of the Apes in comic-book form, which was a going-away present from Joe, my buddy back in Dayton. He wrote on the wrapping paper that it was something to get me ready for the great African experience. If Tarzan was at all accurate, I was in big trouble. According to the comic, Africa was all cannibals and savage apes and hungry lions. I’d read the encyclopedia article, too, though. It said Liberia was founded back in the 1800s by some freed American slaves. They went back to Africa and created their own country. That was why they spoke English in Liberia, and why their flag looked like ours, only with one big star instead of fifty little ones, and why their currency was dollars and cents. There was nothing in the article about ape tribes or cannibals, so those guys must have civilized it by now.

  We were moving to Africa because my dad got a job at the American Embassy in Monrovia, Liberia. I didn’t know exactly what he’d be doing there, just that he’d be working for two years and then we’d probably move somewhere else.

  Dad said it was a big embassy with lots of families and that we’d have plenty of friends. That would be a big change from Dayton, where I had a few pals but not plenty, like they were swarming around me when I left the house. Dad also told us that the embassy compound had a swimming pool and tennis courts and a clubhouse for teenagers and a library with books and videotapes. I wouldn’t be able to go to that teen club until I turned thirteen on December 11, but I was looking forward to swimming and the other stuff.

  “Law is short for Lawrence,” my brother insisted. “It makes more sense than Larry.”

  “Whatever you say, Law.” I made as much noise as I could turning the page. Tarzan was about to do battle with a savage man-eating gorilla, and it was a lot more interesting than Larry making up new names for himself. The gorilla took up most of the next page, its muscles rippling, saliva dripping from its fangs—lots of nice details. I would try and copy it later.

  “You could come up with a name, too,” Law suggested. “You hate your first name.”

  “No I don’t.” I didn’t, either. Kids made fun of it sometimes, but it wasn’t my name’s fault people were jerks.

  “Yes you do,” he insisted. “How about you go by L.T. or, um, Wheels, since you like skating?”

  “No way.”

  “Fine. Go on being Blanket Boy.” His point made, my brother sprawled out and drifted off to sleep, probably dreaming of a better life as Law than he’d had in Ohio as plain old Larry.

  My first name is Linus. Most people hear that name and think of the kid in the cartoons who totes a blanket around and never combs his hair. Usually, within five seconds of meeting me, they ask, “Hey, where’s your blanket?” Like no one ever thought of that before. So Larry had a point about changing my name, but I didn’t think I would.

  First of all, even if I had the coolest first name in the world—like Indiana in Raiders of the Lost Ark—my last name would still be Tuttle, which sounds like “Turtle,” and kids would skip on to the turtle jokes. “Where’s your blanket?” would become “Where’s your shell?”

  Second of all, it’s not necessarily about the name. I knew this kid back in Dayton named Percy Schaefer. Percy is the sort of first name that they ought to not allow by law. The thing was, Percy Schaefer was cool about it. When he said his name was Percy, he said it like it was a great joke and he was in on it. Percy had long hair and wore a denim vest year-round with a bunch of weird patches on it and carried a deck of cards in the vest pocket. If he had five minutes to spare, he’d challenge you to a game of knock rummy—he’d play you penny-a-point and win, but then he’d take the whole pocket of change down to the arcade and treat you to video games. Percy was one of the coolest kids in Dayton, and after a while you felt like you could have been cool, too, if only your name was Percy instead of Larry or Linus or Joe. So maybe the name wasn’t really the problem. Maybe it was me.

  Larry was right about one thing—Africa was full of people who didn’t know anything about us, so we could be entirely different people if we wanted to be. I wasn’t going to change my name or get a denim vest and a deck of cards, but I could be a whole new Linus.

  They didn’t have those giant tubes that connect the airplanes to th
e airport, so we had to take stairs down to the tarmac and walk over to the building about fifty yards away. It was even smaller than the airport in Dayton, and mostly concrete instead of having big panes of glass so you can watch the airplanes.

  We all had jet lag, but Larry—Law—had it the worst. Because of him, we were the last ones off the airplane and trailing everyone else by about a hundred paces. He was barely moving, and my dad was trying to nudge him along.

  “Look human,” he said. “We don’t have clearance to bring in a pet sloth.”

  “What’s going on?” Law asked, pointing at something in the distance. I looked where he was pointing, and saw an African guy running at us with a machete. My mother took a step back and shielded us with her arm. My father grabbed the handles of his carry-on bag and let the strap drop from his shoulder, getting ready to give it a swing. It wasn’t a very good weapon, since all that was in it was a couple of paperback novels and a box of Dramamine. Law stepped in front of me and held up a hand like a traffic cop, signaling for the man to stop.

  I froze with fear. I just watched the man running toward us in what seemed like slow motion, wondering whose head he would lop off first and thinking, I knew it. I’d known it since Dad said we were moving to Africa. I didn’t know that we would get attacked by a maniac the second we got off the plane, but I did have a hunch that something terrible would happen. I had bad feelings a lot, and usually they didn’t come true, but this would make up for all of them.

  The man finally reached us and took a big swing with the blade, right by my mother, making a big oof noise. But he swung at the ground, and that was when I looked and saw the snake that had been slithering around at our feet. It was really long, but skinny, and a dull gray color that made it hard to see against the concrete. Now its head was six inches from its body. The man swung again and again. Pretty soon the snake was in about eight pieces. I felt a sickening lurch in my stomach.

  “How awful!” Mom kicked some of the snake out of the way as she and Dad moved on to the airport. She grew up in New Mexico and was used to snakes. I was still feeling queasy and shaky, looking at the bloody chunks of hacked-up serpent on the tarmac.

  “What did you do that for?” Law asked the African guy. “It’s just a rat snake.”

  “I say, oh, that’s a black mamba. He’s bad bad.” The man picked up the snake’s severed head and squeezed the cheeks to make its mouth open. The snake wasn’t black, but the inside of its mouth sure was—a deep, purplish black, like the animal had been guzzling ink. Its fangs were bigger and sharper than any rat snake’s, and dripping with venom. I felt a tightness in my chest and needed to take a deep breath but couldn’t.

  “Come on, I don’t think the snake’s going to bite you now,” my dad said, nudging me on to the building.

  It was too late, though. I was having a panic attack.

  I’d had them twice before. The first one came in class a few days after I told everyone about moving to Africa. I wasn’t even talking about Africa at the time. I was about to give an oral report on the book Sounder when the air got sucked out of me and I wobbled a bit. The teacher sent me to the nurse, who said there was nothing wrong with me and sent me to the school counselor, who told my parents to take me to a shrink.

  The second time was a few days before we left. I was wrapping a model of the Millennium Falcon in bubble wrap and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I put the model down so I wouldn’t drop it and sat down on the floor. I waited the panic attack out, and didn’t tell Mom and Dad because they’d made such a big deal about the first one.

  “Are you all right?” Dad asked me now.

  I felt air slowly creeping back into my lungs, and I was able to nod and mutter that I was fine and move on toward the airport.

  It occurred to me that seeing a snake would have been a great way to kick off being the new Linus. The main thing I wanted to change about myself was to be totally calm instead of panicky when scary stuff happened. I imagined dropping to one knee and scooping the snake up by the neck, flinging it across the tarmac like a floppy javelin.

  Why’d you do that? my brother would have asked naively. It was just a rat snake.

  No, Larry, I would have said as we watched the snake scurry away, that was a black mamba. Did you notice the telltale black mouth and tongue?

  I’d blown it this time, but next time I resolved to be more like that.

  The customs agents were wearing jackets and ties, even though it was warm and humid and there was no air-conditioning. There was a long line, too, but we got to go to a special customs guy with a different badge because we had diplomatic passports. He scanned our passports and nodded, without much small talk or any questions. I felt important.

  Once we were through customs, a heavyset black guy came over and shook hands with my dad in a chummy way. He was wearing a colorful African shirt with embroidery all around the neck and sleeves. I thought he was probably an official Liberian greeter, or something, but he turned out to be American.

  “This is Darryl Miller,” Dad said. “We were in Vietnam together. I haven’t seen him in—gosh, it must be nearly ten years!”

  “That’s about right,” Darryl agreed. “I’ve been here for most of it.”

  Dad never talked about Vietnam. I mean never. It was weird to meet someone from that part of his life.

  “Darryl’s the one who recruited me into the foreign service,” Dad added. “He sent me the info.”

  “It’s a good life,” Darryl said. “I’m glad you finally signed on for it.” He turned to me. “You must be Linus? My son is your age. You’ll meet him at dinner.”

  “All right.” It would be cool to make a friend right away, especially if he could introduce me to everyone else.

  “Where’s our stuff?” I looked around for one of those baggage claims with the revolving treadmill, but they didn’t have one. I was mainly worried about my notebook, with the few good drawings I’d ever done folded up and tucked inside. Why hadn’t I just stuck it in my carry-on?

  “The redcaps are bringing your bags around the side,” Darryl explained. “We’ll collect them out in front.”

  I realized it was an old Linus thing to worry about missing luggage.

  “Just wonderin’,” I added, hoping I sounded like I didn’t care if I ever saw our bags again.

  We went out of the airport to the curb, where there was a long line of banged-up, dusty yellow cars of all makes and models.

  “The taxis go pretty much anywhere in Monrovia for a quarter,” Darryl told us. “Sometimes fifty cents, if it’s all the way across town.”

  I filed that away for future reference.

  “It’s not that hot,” Law said in surprise. “I thought it would be really hot here.”

  “Well, the summers are a bit cooler,” Darryl explained. “It’s the rainy season.”

  “How come it’s not raining now?” I asked him.

  “It doesn’t rain all day, every day,” he said with a laugh. “That’s not even possible. It’ll rain good and hard at least once a day for about six more weeks, though.”

  “Great,” said Law. “So it should end right when school starts?”

  “Um, yeah. I guess so,” he admitted.

  Two African guys came wheeling a rickety cart with all our bags on it. Neither of them was actually wearing a red cap. My mom tried to give one of the capless redcaps a couple of dollars. Darryl stopped her, and gave each man a quarter instead.

  “Force of habit,” she said with a shrug.

  There was a white van waiting for us with the U.S. Department of State seal on the side, which was the basic eagle in a circle with arrows and a branch. The African guys heaved all our bags on, and Darryl thanked them both, giving them a handshake and snapping their fingers at the same time.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Oh, that’s the Liberian handshake.” He showed it to us when we got in the van, grabbing our middle fingers with his own thumb and middle finger and dragging as h
e released our hands, with a nice pop at the end. I practiced it with Law the whole time we drove to our new home. Neither of us could make the loud, satisfying snap that Darryl made when he did it.

  The streets of Monrovia had a lot of what I expected, like palm trees and monkeys and women wrapped in colorful fabric with big bowls of fruit on their heads. There were more smells than in American cities, too—mostly garbage and BO, but sometimes a nicer smell wafted into the window: like coconuts, or pineapple, or ocean air. There were people everywhere, but not hustling around like they do in American cities. Most of them were just hanging out.

  “Is this downtown Monrovia?” Law asked, looking at the crowds of people and rows of buildings.

  “Well, you might call it downtown Mamba Point,” Darryl said. “Most people don’t have cars here, so every neighborhood has its own business district. This is our neighborhood. We’re almost to the embassy.”

  “Mamba Point?” I wondered, “Are there lots of mambas here?”

  “I don’t think it’s named for the snake,” Darryl said.

  “There aren’t any snakes,” Mom said firmly.

  “I’ve lived here seven years and haven’t seen one yet,” Darryl admitted. “West Africa is a snake paradise, though. We have horned vipers and carpet vipers and rock pythons and spitting cobras.”

  “Spitting cobras?” Law asked in surprise.

  “They don’t really spit; they spray venom,” Darryl explained.

  “Much better.” I imagined a snake spraying venom like a garden hose. “What do they do, spit it in your mouth?”

  “They aim for the eyes,” said Darryl, “although they probably get some—”

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Mom interrupted.

  “—in your mouth, by accident.” Darryl made an apologetic shrug and went on. “Still, those mambas are probably the worst, because they’re big and poisonous and fast and mean. I hear they can go like the dickens, maybe twenty miles an hour. Or maybe it was ten. Faster than you can run, anyway.”