The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt

cat and opened the book.
    Sweetums tucked his head under his paws.
    As Chap turned the pages, his grandpa’s scent wrapped itself around him. He felt the familiar heat rise up in his throat. He swallowed it down. Page by page, he gazed at his grandpa’s renditions of the fauna of the swamp. Not only were there birds, but there were minks and muskrats and lizards too, every one of which Audie had seen at least once, probably more. As the years had passed, he had added pages to the book. It was heavy and thick, filled with swamp critters. There they were, in Audie’s funny style, the pencil lines distinct in their thickness. There was no subtlety in Audie’s drawing. It was more like cartoons than art.
    Chap flipped through the pages, looking for the GBH. Where was it? He wished that the book was alphabetical, but instead it was what Audie called “incidental.” As in, “Incidentally, I saw a Canadian goose today,” or “Incidentally, I almost stepped on a green anole,” or “Incidentally, have you seen the baby teals?” After each incident, he got out his pencil and drew the incidental subjects.
    Chap turned the last page. He must have skipped over the heron—not surprising, since some of the pages tended to stick together, a result of the sugar. When you deal with sugar day in and day out, it tends to coat things, including sketchbook pages. Chap turned the pages again, this time from back to front, taking care to gently pull some of the stuck pages apart.
    It was upon such a pulling that he noticed the drawing of the raccoon. Audie had featured the raccoon playing a harmonica. “Raccoons,” he said, “are multi-talented.” It was a funny picture. Chap had looked at it dozens of times. It was one of his favorites. He stared at it for a full minute; so long, in fact, that he could practically hear the notes of the harmonica slipping out of the drawing.
    But then he remembered that it wasn’t the raccoon he was looking for, it was the heron. He turned another page, only to realize that it too was stuck.
    The page felt almost crisp from age and sugar. At last, he managed to pull it apart. There, staring at him, a drawing he had seen dozens of times before but had forgotten: the Sugar Man!
    Chap slammed the book shut and sat up. Sweetums, startled, jumped off the bed and scurried underneath it. Chap’s heart raced. Sonny Boy’s words echoed in his ears. If I see some proof of the Sugar Man, I’ll give you the whole darned swamp.
    â€œProof!” said Chap, right out loud.
    Without apologizing to poor Sweetums, Chap grabbed the book and ran straight for the kitchen.
    â€œMom,” he called. “Look what I found.”
    Chap held the familiar sugarcoated page up to her. His face beamed. But what Chap failed to see, and what hismother had to point out to him, was the date Audie had scratched at the bottom of the picture: 1949.
    â€œHoney,” she said, “even if Grandpa really did see the Sugar Man, this was drawn more than sixty years ago. Nobody else has claimed to see him since even before then.”
    Chap looked at the date. His face fell. He wanted to argue with his mother, but in his heart of hearts, he knew she was right. A drawing from 1949 wouldn’t prove anything.

45
    T HE 1949 D E S OTO SPORTED A “rocket” body, with a beautiful waterfall grille, a grille that seemed to smile.
    It also had a Simplimatic transmission, making for a smooth ride. It was so smooth that in one of their advertisements, a passenger asked the driver, “New road?” To which the driver replied, “No, new DeSoto!”

46
    A DVERTISEMENT ? D ID SOMEONE SAY ADVERTISEMENT ? Coyoteman Jim worked for hours, perfecting his radio commercial for Paradise Pies. As soon as he signed off with his customary, “This is Coyoteman Jim telling you to have a good day and a good idea,” followed by his signature howl, he slipped