“Don’t move.”

“Are you kidding?” Cynthia whispered fearfully. “Why on earth would I move?”

Just another boring trip through the trunk. There we were, hanging on for dear life to a log in the middle of a swamp.

My best friend and I had been on some frightening adventures together since discovering time travel through an old trunk in her attic. But nothing prepared us for a face-to-face encounter with an alligator. No siree. Nothing prepared us for this.

“What do we do?” Cynthia trembled.

I responded quietly and patiently. “Do I look like I know what to do?” Perhaps patience wasn’t my best asset.

“You don't have to yell, Gus” Cynthia bristled. “We got out of another jam like this …if you count the lions on the circus train.”

“One big difference, ” I muttered, thinking back on our narrow escape from Killer, Fang and Brutus, the laziest circus act ever. “The lions were in cages. This swamp monster is a few feet away from deciding whether to eat the tall, skinny morsel, or the short…sorry…plump gator bait.”

“I am not plump!” Cynthia briefly forgot our life and death situation. “I’m just hanging on to my baby fat longer than most people!”

I wished the words back into my mouth as soon as I said them…but it was too late. Cynthia wasn't fat or plump. It’s just that I was so darn skinny that everyone looked a little chunky standing next to me. But I didn’t want perhaps the last words my best friend ever heard, to be hurtful.

“I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. But we have a bigger issue here…and I just might have an idea.” If it worked, maybe I could get back in her good graces.

“It’d better be fast.” Cynthia moaned softly. “I can’t hold onto this log much longer.”

Curiously, the alligator wasn’t moving toward us, but his ever-widening jaws revealed razor-sharp teeth and a…was that a smile on his face? Gus! Get your wits about you. I tried to focus on the danger at hand as this monster swished his tail back and forth…back and forth. This can't be good.

“Do you see that small branch over your left shoulder?” I motioned as inconspicuously as possible.

Slowly turning her head, Cynthia looked back and nodded, then carefully reached for the stick. At the same time, I dug into my pocket and took out a hunk of bologna I’d saved from yesterday’s (was it just yesterday?) shopping trip with my dad to Cliff's Meat Market, shoving it onto the end of the stick that Cynthia gripped tightly. I ignored the incredulous look on her face. “When I count to three, throw the stick toward the alligator and swim for the bank as fast as you can.”

Although she was clearly stunned that I had actually pulled lunchmeat out of my pocket, I knew I had her undivided attention. “Ready?”

She nodded.

“Okay. One…two…swim!”

Cynthia threw the bologna-skewered stick as far as she could, and we took off, flailing and kicking until we finally reached land, climbed the muddy bank, and ran until the swamp was out of sight.

Panting and wheezing until running was no longer an option, Cynthia bent over and gasped, “I…never thought… I’d say this, Gus, but…your weird appetite…came in handy for once. And another thing…one…two…swim? Whatever happened to three?”

“So I got anxious.” I went on the defensive. “And about the bologna… I got tired of you always making fun of my agonizing hunger pains, so I thought I’d pack a snack…and you’d never find out. Guess now I’ll have to find something else to eat,” I muttered grumpily.

Cynthia shook her head and threw her arm over my shoulder. “Yes, Augusta Lee.” She laughed. “I guess you will.”

“Oh, now, was that necessary? You know how much I hate that name.”

Okay, let's get this over with right up front. My given name is Augusta Lee…after my grandfather, Augustus Leeander. Only a handful of people were allowed to call me that. Gabriella, the fortuneteller we met during our circus adventure, was one…and her father, Thomas, head of the Gypsy clan, was another. Cynthia’s great-aunt, Isabelle who made Augusta Lee sound like musical notes, was my favorite. I almost didn’t hate the name when she said it. But, make no mistake…everyone else better call me Gus.

Walking side by side through the bayou, our shoes sqooshing with mud, and Cynthia complaining continuously about the dirt under her, usually, perfectly manicured fingernails, we spotted a weathered, broken down cabin in the middle of a clearing being shaded by the branches of an enormous oak tree.

“What d’ya think?” I asked tentatively.

“What I think is that I need to sit down somewhere, and my choice is either in these snake-filled, bug-infested weeds, or on that poor excuse of a front porch. You can sit in the weeds if you want, but I’m heading for higher ground.”

We moved toward the shack and stepped gingerly onto the front porch…if you could actually call it that. Most of the termite-eaten floorboards had sunk into the ground, and one side of the roof had rotted to the point that it was balancing on what was left of the porch railing.

“Man! This place could use some paint.”

“This place could use a bulldozer,” I muttered.

“What you be saying ‘bout my home, younguns?” a voice cackled through the window…a window with most of the panes missing.

We jumped backward off the porch and turned to run until a hearty laugh stopped us in our tracks.

“Where you goin’ so fast? Mud Bug ain’t seen nobody in weeks. Come back on the porch and rest yo’selves,” croaked an ancient, white-haired old man stepping out the front door.

My mother taught me to be polite to everyone, but I wondered…do good manners extend to fishy-smelling people named Mud Bug? No matter, Cynthia, the perfect, blond-haired, blue-eyed little angel, beat me to the punch.

“We didn’t mean to be rude Mister…er, uh…Bug. We were running from a very hungry-looking, twenty-foot alligator, and needed a place to rest…just for a moment, if you don’t mind. Oh, and…uh, can you tell us what year this is?” she added.

“Well, it be 1914, an’ course I don’t mind if you sit a spell…I invited ya, didn’t I?”

He said his is real name was Mouton Boudreau, “But my mama call me Mud Bug from the day I can r’member,” he drawled, in an accent I’d never heard in all my twelve years. “Now, don’t mind these chairs. They’s a little wobbly, but’ll hold ya good 'nough.” He gestured at two wooden crates that looked like they’d been used to haul angry possums around before they were passed off as chairs.

At least we knew for sure we had traveled back in time to the same year that Great-Granddaddy Beau disappeared.

Cynthia and I stepped onto the rickety porch and sat cautiously on the crates while Mud Bug pulled an old rocking chair out his front screen door, which, by the way, didn’t have any screen.

“So you met up with ol’ Gumbo,” he laughed. “I spec' he'd be right proud bein' sized up at twenty feet since he's 'bout twelve at the outside. And, I can’t imagine he’d want to turn you in to dinner since his taste is a little more finicky, if you knows what I mean?”

I didn’t know what he meant, nor did I want to! So, I changed the subject. “Just where are we?”

Cynthia’s shoulders sagged, probably with relief that my inquiry had no connection to food…’gator or otherwise.

“Well, now.” He stuffed tobacco into an ornately carved pipe. “You in the Bayou…’bout twenty miles south, as da crow flies, from N’awlins.”

“Na…what?”

“New Orleans, Gus.” Cynthia was phonetically perfect, as usual.

Mud Bug paid no attention to our little debate, and kept talking. “Yep. That’s where you is―in Louisiana bayou country…where folks works hard and plays hard. His eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward. “So what is two younguns doin’ in this here swamp? If you got lost, then you mighty lost!” He threw back his head and howled…but we didn’t see the humor.

Then the laughter stopped, and a chill hit the air. “You may think gettin’ lost is bad, but, Honeychiles, getting’ found might be worse.”