Carl Hiaasen - Flush

Praise for FLUSH:

Hiaasen scores again. Fans of spy stories, action, environmental intrigue, and, well, Hiaasen, will cheer for this one.

The Bulletin

Enough twists and turns to satisfy even the most serious adventure junkies.

The Horn Book Magazine

Features a wacky father, an astute set of siblings and a polluting casino boat.

Chicago Tribune

Hiaasen is able to portray the world as flawed, weird, yet sometimes wonderful.

USA Today

Its classic Hiaasenlaugh-out-loud satire in a Florida setting.

Life

One of the most enjoyable books around.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Good guys, bad guys, dumb bullies, and lots of action with just the right touch of humor.

The Oakland Press

Another keeper from an author whose tales know no limits.

The Oregonian

A comic eco-thriller with an undercurrent of outrage. The far-fetched plot and nonstop one-liners belie a dead-serious exploration of the messy politics of conservation.

The Washington Post

Biting humor, wacko characters, and a take-no-prisoners attitude toward rapacious developers.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Flush contains Carl Hiaasens irrepressible mix of wacky eccentrics, ecological barbarians and heroic underdogs in an entertaining adventure set in steamy Florida.

Financial Times

Readers will be hooked.

School Library Journal

Outrageous but utterly believable.

St. Petersburg Times

Hiaasen has written another winner.

The Charlotte Observer

Droll dialogue, quirky characters extremely amusing.

Voice of Youth Advocates

Also by Carl Hiaasen:

Hoot
Winner of a Newbery Honor Award

For the mighty Quinn

The deputy told me to empty my pockets: two quarters, a penny, a stick of bubble gum, and a roll of grip tape for my skateboard. It was pitiful.

Go on inside. Hes waiting for you, the deputy said.

My dad was sitting alone at a bare metal table. He looked pretty good, all things considered. He wasnt even handcuffed.

Happy Fathers Day, I said.

He stood up and gave me a hug. Thanks, Noah, he said.

In the room there was another deputya broad, jowly bear standing next to the door that led to the jail cells. I guess his job was to make sure I wasnt smuggling a hacksaw to my father so that he could break out.

Its good they let you keep your own clothes, I said to Dad. I figured theyd make you put on one of those dorky uniforms.

Im sure they will, sooner or later. He shrugged. You doing okay?

How come you wont let Mom bail you out? I asked.

Because its important for me to be here right now.

Important how? She says youll lose your job if you stay locked up.

Shes probably right, my dad admitted.

Hed been driving a taxi for the past year and a half. Before that he was a fishing guidea good one, too, until the Coast Guard took away his captains license.

He said, Noah, its not like I robbed a bank or something.

I know, Dad.

Did you go see what I did?

Not yet, I said.

He gave me a wink. Its impressive.

Yeah, I bet.

He was in a surprisingly good mood. Id never been to a jail before, though honestly it wasnt much of a jail. Two holding cells, my dad told me. The main county lockup was miles away in Key West.

Mom wants to know if she should call the lawyer, I said.

I suppose.

The same one from last time? She wasnt sure.

Yeah, hes all right, my father said.

His clothes were rumpled and he looked tired, but he said the food was decent and the police were treating him fine.

Dad, what if you just said youre sorry and offered to pay for what you did?

But Im not sorry for what I did, Noah. The only thing Im sorry about is that youve got to see me locked up like an ax murderer.

The other times my dad had gotten in trouble, they wouldnt let me come to the jail because I was too young.

Im not a common criminal. Dad reached across and put a hand on my arm. I know right from wrong. Good from bad. Sometimes I just get carried away.

Nobody thinks youre a criminal.

Dusty Muleman sure does.

Thats because you sunk his boat, I pointed out. If you just paid to get it fixed, maybe then

Thats a seventy-three-footer, my dad cut in. Youve got to know what youre doing to sink one of those pigs. You ought to go have a look.

Maybe later, I said.

The deputy standing by the door made a grunting noise and held up five chubby fingers, which was the number of minutes left before he took my father back to the cell.

Is your mom still ticked off at me? Dad asked.

What do you think?

I tried to explain it to her, but she wouldnt listen.

Then maybe you can explain it to me, I said. Im old enough to understand.

Dad smiled. I believe you are, Noah.

My father was born and raised here in Florida, so he grew up on the water. His dadmy Grandpa Bobbyran a charter boat out of Haulover Marina on Miami Beach. Grandpa Bobby passed away when I was little, so I honestly didnt remember him. Wed heard different stories about what happenedone was that his appendix burst; another was that he got hurt real bad in a bar fight. All we knew for sure is that he took his fishing boat down to South America on some sort of job, and he never came back.

One day a man from the U.S. State Department showed up at our house and told my parents that Grandpa Bobby was dead and buried near some little village in Colombia. For some weird reason they couldnt bring his body home for a funeralI knew this because Id seen the paperwork. My dad kept a file, and at least four or five times a year he would write to Washington, D.C., asking someone to please help get his fathers coffin back to Florida. This is, like, ten years later. Mom worked with my dad on the lettersshes a legal secretary, and she gets straight to the point.

My mom and dad first met while they were standing in line to pay speeding tickets at the Dade County Courthouse, and they got married six weeks later. I know this for a fact because Mom put the speeding tickets in a scrapbook, along with their wedding pictures and stuff like that. The ticket my mother got was for driving 44 miles an hour in a 35-mile-per-hour zone. My fathers ticket was much worsehe was doing 93 on the turnpike. In the album Dads ticket looks sort of lumpy and wrinkled because hed crumpled it into a ball when the state trooper handed it to him. My mother said she used a laundry iron to flatten it out before pasting it next to hers in the scrapbook.

About a year after they got married, my parents moved down to the Keys. Im sure this was Dads idea, because hed been coming here ever since he was a kid and he hated the big city. I was actually born in a 1989 Chevrolet Caprice on U.S. Highway One, my dad racing up the eighteen-mile stretch from Key Largo to the mainland. He was trying to get my mother to the hospital in Homestead. She was lying in the backseat of the car, and thats where I was born. Mom did it all by herselfshe didnt tell my dad to pull over and stop because she didnt want him interfering. They still argue about this. (She says hes got a tendency to get overexcited, which is the understatement of the century.) He didnt even realize I was born until they got to Florida City and I started bawling.