Sample chapters of new young adult, un-edited, unpublished work titled "Swamp Song"

Chapter 1

Joseph Browning, fourteen years old, was born with a birth defect. His right leg was shorter than the other. Except for his right leg, he was much a normal, average boy with light brown hair and freckles under his eyes, but only a few freckles. He did, however, have an advantage over the other children. He was stronger. His father personally gave him physical therapy, to strengthen his legs and arms.

His parents moved from the Boston area to South Florida shortly after his birth. His father was a Marine Recruiter. His mother stayed at home and wrote novels. She was a beginning author with only one book published. Both his parents were orphans.

Until he was of school age, like all the children his age who lived in his neighborhood, he went to the playground often with his mother after his father left for work.

He was different, that he knew, but in spite of his limp, he kept up playing with other children. The curious playground stares, here and there, he got used to. But all that changed when he began attending school where being teased was more commonplace and senseless. He became a loner, refusing to make friends for fear they would eventually side with those who teased him.

When in the sixth grade, middle school, a clique of four boys daily teased him to no end. They nicknamed him Hop-a-Long Joe. You know the kind. Every school has them. They’re called bullies.

Because he was being made fun of so often, he hated going to school. It affected his studies. Although he was smarter than most of the other students, he got poorer grades. He was failing his subjects because he did not care anymore.

Imagine if it were you who was picked on because you were handicapped or different; fat, skinny, shy, dress or speak differently, poor, rich, too smart, to mention just some. How would you handle being just like him, always picked on? I bet you would not like it one bit.

During his sixth grade year tragedy struck unexpectedly. He was at home with a babysitter when a deputy sheriff and two social workers knocked on his door. They came to tell him his mother and father died in a horrific car accident driving home from a book signing. Because there were no family members to care for him, the social workers put him in a county orphanage. It was at that orphanage that he was given the name Joey, by other orphans. Even there, he was teased and bullied.

Although not necessary true, he thought he would never be adopted. After all, what couple wanted an older child with a limp when perfectly healthy, younger children were available, he sadly thought.

After spending two years at the orphanage, he decided it was time to leave. So, one night during the month of April after everyone was asleep, he opened the library window and crawled through with thoughts of never returning.

He had chosen the month of April because the cooler temperature season was over by then. Even in Florida, the winter season temperatures get pretty cool at night.
He left taking only the clothes on his back, the baseball cap on his head and a pillowcase stuffed with: Boy Scout’s manual, couple changes of clothes, one blanket, toothpaste and brush, soap, baggie full of book matches and an orphanage issued mosquito net. In his jeans pocket was a Boy Scout knife. He had no money.

* * *

It was early morning, just breaking daylight, as he reached a water canal that followed a highway. On the opposite side was the edge of a swamp. He was hungry and it was beginning to sprinkle rain, a sun shower. The only cover from the rain was in the swamp amongst its thick bushes and trees.

It will be dangerous and difficult entering the swamp, but living in one was what he had planned to do. So now that he found one, he had no intentions of turning back. But first, he had to cross the canal, too wide to leap over.

The highway was behind him. Cars sped by at seventy miles per hour, some faster. The sound of tires rushing over pavement hummed in his ears, and each car’s back draft pushed hard against him, almost knocking him down. Standing there was getting scary-dangerous, he thought.

He quickly studied the area. Nearby was a giant tree with branches that almost reached across the canal. He decided to climb it and leap to the other side. The branches went high up, but he thought it could be done, even for him who had a shorter leg.

He was getting wet. So wasting no time, he went to the tree. Then, from under it, he tossed the stuffed pillowcase across the canal. It landed safely.

The first of the branches hung low to the ground. He easily got up on it, then to the next, until he was on one stretching way out. It was large and looked strong. To check its strength, he stood tall and bounced while holding tightly onto a branch just over his head.

“Yes. I can do it,” he bragged, saddled the branch and began slowly shimmying his way across. At about midway, he looked down. It was a long drop to the mucky water. Floating by at a slow drift was a lot of algae. It smelled sewer-like-awful.

Then he saw it. An alligator was right under him with only its head showing above the water. Its bulging eyes stared up, looking right at him, waiting for him to fall. At first, he had thought it was a log.

He tightened his grip on the branch’s trunk and rested his chest on it. Nervous, he waited for the gator to go away, but it lingered, circling. It made him think of the crocodile in the story of Peter Pan, only this gator did not have a clock in its stomach, of course.

He could not wait any longer, he thought, so he began crawling along the branch while trying his best to avoid any nearby branches that might knock him off, stopping every little bit to peek at the gator.

When he got to where a large branch was in his way, he began climbing over it. He slipped, not realizing it was slimy-slippery, and managed to grab the branch with his arms. He was left dangling with the trunk of the branch across his chest, under his armpits. He peeked over his shoulder at his feet. They were well above the water, dangling. The gator was still there, still circling. He was too scared to move. It began to pour rain.

Realizing he had to get back onto the branch, or else he would fall and end up being the gators next meal, he took a deep breath and pulled himself up until he got his leg, knee first, up over the branch. He sat up and saddled the branch, and he broke a smile when he saw that he would not have to climb over the slippery branch again. Somehow, he ended up on the other side.

He began shimmying until he got to where the limb began to sag from his weight. He looked down. The gator was still there. He looked ahead. The ground was a long leap away and sandy. He decided to give it a try.

He slowly stood, as best he could. There was not much of an opening between branches. He looked down again. The gator was still there, still circling. Only now, it had its jaw wide opened, waiting to catch him. He felt a lump in his throat and his left leg shook. It was a scary moment, for sure.

He took a deep breath in. It was now or never. “One,” he began to count. “Two - three,” he continued and leaned forward. He did not jump. His left leg nervously shook too much. He sat back down. Just then, thunder rumble across the sky, and water began flowing off the brim of his cap. He was soaked wet. He stood. Rain drops were getting in his eyes. “One – two - three,” he counted and leaped.

His shoulder nipped the end of another branch as he went through the opening. He did not think he was going to make it. Already the gator was repositioning itself closer to the edge of the canal. It opened its mouth, again, just as he landed hard. But he landed short, only halfway up the sandy slope. Right away, he began to slide down towards the waiting, hungry gator.

Fortunately for him, a root was protruding out of the slope. He grabbed it and stopped his slide. He glanced over his shoulder. His feet were only a few feet from the water, and the gator was coming fast. Like a dog would do, on all fours, he quickly wobbled his way to the top, kicking up sand and small stones that trickled down into the water, splashing. It was that close.

He lay still for a moment, then stood. His shorter leg’s ankle hurt but not too sore to not be able to continue. But first, he looked onto the water. Its hoped-for-meal, Joey, now safely across the canal, the gator was swimming away.

He cracked a smile, proudly, because he had made the leap safely, barely. Then he picked up his stuffed pillowcase, threw it onto his shoulder and entered the swamp, trying his best to stay on dry ground. Right away, his sneakers got muddy.

To his surprise the growth was denser than he had expected it to be. The going was difficult. Each time he’d looked up, he did not see the sky. Worse, it was still pouring rain and the thunder was louder than it had been.

His journey into a whole new world was just beginning. There will be no one in the swamp, for sure, who will call him names, Hop-a-Long Joey or the likes. Being alone was the way he wanted it to be, him and the elements of nature – some good, some bad.

* * *

The swamp Joey was in was a large Still water Swamp made up of wetlands, trees, shrubs, saturated soil and standing water. Running through parts of it were a few black water creeks. Scattered throughout it were hundreds of small dry land islands that during long rainy spells got saturated with water. The bordering areas surrounding it were densely covered with shrubs and cabbage palms. Deeper in was the dark, dangerous, mucky swamp with mostly cypress trees. On the dryer island areas were more shrubs, swamp dogwood brush and cabbage palms, but also growing amongst them were many taller trees; such as, slash and pond pines, melaleuca trees, and an occasional giant black gum tree. Thick growth of vines and ferns of many types smothered the scrubs and trees. Some of the trees and brush were completely covered to the ground with the vines and ferns.

Along the banks of the black water creeks were banana trees, mango trees, palm trees, palm scrubs, and dense brush. In some spots there were large collections of orchids growing on trees, including many beautiful, white ghost orchids.

Also, many types of animal, insect and bird life lived in the swamp; such as, minks, deer, skunks, frogs, squirrels, panthers, ducks, ibis, hawks, owls, moccasins, black swamp snakes, rattlesnakes, crustaceans, leeches, mosquitoes and lots of alligators, to name some. In large ponds located deep into the swamp were assortments of fish.


Chapter 2

Once he was deeper into the swamp, to a couple patches of higher dry land, he stopped to look for something to build a shelter with, anything.

He found plenty of large plants with large elephant-ear-like-leaves. He took his scout knife out of his pocket and went to the one closest and began cutting away, low nearer the ground, leaving their long stems on.

It was slow going. The knife was sharp but small. He snapped off some of the leaves after he cut halfway through their stems. He placed the first few he cut over his stuffed pillowcase, to keep it dry.

After he cut a high pile of leaves, he hunted along the ground for long, dead branches. When there were enough branches, he trimmed them. After that, he cut vines into short pieces, about shoelace long. Then, at about his shoulder height, he stretched one branch across between side by side trees that were about six feet apart. He tied each end to the trees using the vines as string. The remaining branches he placed equally spaced at an angle from the ground to the across-branch. He tied each top end to the across-branch. Then he overlapped the leaves over the top of the branches and used vines to tie them down, forming a roof. Done, it was a lean-to. He got the idea from his Boy Scout Manual.

It was nearing dawn, and mosquitoes began gathering. What he could see of the sky was gray with black clouds. The rain was now just a drizzle. Starving and soaked, through and through, he left his campsite to look for something to eat, anything.

Shortly after, he came upon a stand of wild growing banana trees. The bananas were small. He climbed up one and picked a handful. He was so hungry he ate one before he climbed down.

As he left, he took a long look around. In the immediate area were mango and coconut trees loaded with fruit. He decided he would come back the next morning for some. It was getting too dark to hang around. Already, he was beginning to hear a lot of strange noises, the beginning of the swamp’s night sounds, some very frightening sounding, to say the least.

At his campsite, he uncovered the stuffed pillowcase, took out a change of clothes, tucked the pillowcase into a corner of the lean-to and took the blanket and scout book out, all the while waving away mosquitoes. Then, he fluffed the stuffed pillowcase as he did to his pillow every night before going to sleep. After he changed clothing, he hung up his wet clothes and cap, from the roof of the lean-to.

He wanted to light a fire, but the deadwood was too wet. He ate another banana, and then he hung his mosquito net from the ceiling, crawled under it and tossed the blanket over himself, up over his shoulder, all the way to his chin. He rested his head on the stuffed pillowcase.

It was very dark and noisy, scary noisy. Even later, when it started to pour rain, the noises seemed to get louder. The crickets and frogs were the worse, deafening louder than anything else. That was until loud thunder rumbled overhead, like a marching column of base drums. Its warning lightning flashes were like a zillion camera flashbulbs going off all at once, brightening the surrounding area. It was really, REALLY, scary. It was an awesome kind of scary, though.

After the storm calmed to just a light drizzle and quicker flashes of lightning barely lit the area, thunder a distant faint, he began to see images with each flash – strange and wild things.

With more than one occasional flash of light, he thought he saw long snakes hanging, curled up, from nearby tree branches. Their staring-at-him-eyes appeared to sparkle with each burst of light, as their slivering tongues hung out, and a quiet hissing sound whispered in his ears. Then, from out of nowhere, a loud screaming, “ARK – ARK,” sound filled the air.

He sat up at the first blast from the strange bird, or just maybe it was a creature of sorts or a ghost. It screamed again and again and again, for what seemed like forever bellowing. He was imagining all worst things.

Then, suddenly, he saw something very odd, and the strange sounds had stopped. It was high over the ground, not very far away. Whatever it was, it glowed brightly. He stared, blinking, but he couldn't make out what it was, except he thought he saw large white wings protruding from it, but there was too much brightness surrounding whatever it was, to be sure what it was. A ghost, he suddenly thought, as it flashed close past him at a fast speed, a blur. And as quick as it had appeared, it was gone, and the strange, scary sounds began again.

It took a long while, but he got used to the sounds and images, including the buzzing coming from the mosquitoes around his netting. He had to get use to the sounds. There was nowhere else to go.

He lay down, curved-up and covered his head with his blanket. But no way was he going to get much sleep, not on this first night alone in a swamp. What with: alligators, crickets, frogs, snakes, night birds, winds whistling through trees, creaking sounds, and total darkness blanketing the area, would anyone have.

From under his blanket, the noises outside sounded different. He cleared his mind of all other thoughts, including the strange bright flying object he saw. Then, oddly enough, the sounds outside began to have a rhythmic beat – a swamp song.
Yes, as long as he thought of it that way, it wasn’t as though he was surrounded by anything that might hurt him, or ghosts.

Imagining his mother was singing to him a lullaby, he finally fell asleep.