Jurassic Park: A Novel Read Free Page B

howler and white-faced monkeys, three-toed sloths, and coatimundis.’ You think we’ll see a three-toed sloth, Dad?”
    “I bet we do.”
    “Really?”
    “Just look in the mirror.”
    “Very funny, Dad.”
    The road sloped downward through the jungle, toward the ocean.
    Mike Bowman felt like a hero when they finally reached the beach: a two-mile crescent of white sand, utterly deserted. He parked the Land Rover in the shade of the palm trees that fringed the beach, and got out the box lunches. Ellen changed into her bathing suit, saying, “Honestly, I don’t know
how
I’m going to get this weight off.”
    “You look great, hon.” Actually, he felt that she was too thin, but he had learned not to mention that.
    Tina was already running down the beach.
    “Don’t forget you need your sunscreen,” Ellen called.
    “Later,” Tina shouted, over her shoulder. “I’m going to see if there’s a sloth.”
    Ellen Bowman looked around at the beach, and the trees. “You think she’s all right?”
    “Honey, there’s nobody here for miles,” Mike said.
    “What about snakes?”
    “Oh, for God’s sake,” Mike Bowman said. “There’s no snakes on a beach.”
    “Well, there might be.…”
    “Honey,” he said firmly. “Snakes are cold-blooded. They’re reptiles. They can’t control their body temperature. It’s ninety degrees on that sand. If a snake came out, it’d be cooked. Believe me. There’s no snakes on the beach.” He watched his daughter scampering down the beach, a dark spot on the white sand. “Let her go. Let her have a good time.”
    He put his arm around his wife’s waist.
    Tina ran until she was exhausted, and then she threw herself down on the sand and gleefully rolled to the water’s edge. The ocean was warm, and there was hardly any surf at all. She sat for a while, catching her breath, and then she looked back toward her parents and the car, to see how far she had come.
    Her mother waved, beckoning her to return. Tina waved back cheerfully, pretending she didn’t understand. Tina didn’t want to put sunscreen on. And she didn’t want to go back and hear her mother talk about losing weight. She wanted to stay right here, and maybe see a sloth.
    Tina had seen a sloth two days earlier at the zoo in San José. It looked like a Muppets character, and it seemed harmless. In any case, it couldn’t move fast; she could easily outrun it.
    Now her mother was calling to her, and Tina decided to move out of the sun, back from the water, to the shade of the palm trees. In this part of the beach, the palm trees overhung a gnarled tangle of mangrove roots, which blocked any attempt to penetrate inland. Tina sat in the sand and kicked the dried mangrove leaves. She noticed many bird tracks in the sand. Costa Rica was famous for itsbirds. The guidebooks said there were three times as many birds in Costa Rica as in all of America and Canada.
    In the sand, some of the three-toed bird tracks were small, and so faint they could hardly be seen. Other tracks were large, and cut deeper in the sand. Tina was looking idly at the tracks when she heard a chirping, followed by a rustling in the mangrove thicket.
    Did sloths make a chirping sound? Tina didn’t think so, but she wasn’t sure. The chirping was probably some ocean bird. She waited quietly, not moving, hearing the rustling again, and finally she saw the source of the sounds. A few yards away, a lizard emerged from the mangrove roots and peered at her.
    Tina held her breath. A new animal for her list! The lizard stood up on its hind legs, balancing on its thick tail, and stared at her. Standing like that, it was almost a foot tall, dark green with brown stripes along its back. Its tiny front legs ended in little lizard fingers that wiggled in the air. The lizard cocked its head as it looked at her.
    Tina thought it was cute. Sort of like a big salamander. She raised her hand and wiggled her fingers back.
    The lizard wasn’t frightened. It came