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Jungle Up

Nick Pirog
Chapters (63)
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  63. Author’s Note

Copyright © 2021 by Nick Pirog
E-book published in 2021 by Blackstone Publishing
Cover design by Zena Kanes

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced
or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the
publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental
and not intended by the author.

Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-9826-7391-8
Library e-book ISBN 978-1-9826-7390-1
Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense

CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress

Blackstone Publishing
31 Mistletoe Rd.
Ashland, OR 97520

www.BlackstonePublishing.com

“The tropical rainforest is the greatest
expression of life on earth.”—Thomas Lovejoy

“I hate the jungle.”—Thomas Prescott

1

1

nice, france
august 11, 11:24 a.m.

“I was walking down the road and I saw a donkey, Hee Haw!” I read from the popular children’s book The Wonky Donkey. “He only had three legs, one eye, he liked to listen to country music, he was quite tall and slim . . . and he smelt really, really bad.”

Clark had his little arm extended and was moving his finger over the donkey on the page. At sixteen months old, he could say a handful of words, among them: Ma-ma (Lacy), Da-da (Caleb), Un-kee (me), boo-ger (taught by me), and don-key.

“Don-KEY Don-KEY!” Clark exclaimed.

“Yeah, that’s a donkey,” I told him. Currently, he was sitting on my lap on the couch. He was a porker, weighing close to twenty-six pounds. He had my sister’s and my gray-blue eyes, but he had inherited his father’s dark-brown, nearly black hair, which cascaded sideways on his forehead and lipped out over his ears.

I continued reading: “He was a stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.”

Clark’s body bounced with each word, and he emitted a low rumbling cackle that started me laughing as well.

“You think that’s funny?” I asked. “That he’s stinky?”

At the word stinky, he erupted into laughter.

I squeezed his fat little thigh, and his laughter went up another octave. That’s when I “smelt” it.

I scrunched my eyes and leaned back a couple of inches. “Oh, man. It’s not just the donkey.” I let out a few light coughs.

I set the book down on the coffee table and lifted up the still-giggling twenty-six-pound Porta-Potty.

After babysitting Clark nearly every Saturday for over a year—it was the busiest day of the week at the art gallery my sister and her husband owned—I still dreaded changing the little guy’s diaper.