Alligator

A feeling of unease sat someplace between Nicole's sternum and her lower belly. If she tried to ignore it, it just welled up all the more, and fired off little adrenaline missiles to her heart and brain. The missiles were meant to warn her, she felt, but of what?

Inside the car it felt quiet and safe. Outside, rain pelted down against the windows, and the colors of nearby traffic lights and neon signs ran down the glass in rivulets before her eyes. Adam sat quietly at the wheel, and in the back seat, baby Abigail dozed in her carrier.

"Little Petal" they called her. Or, sometimes, "Blossom." They had noticed early on – early on being barely a few months ago – that her pink little fingers were precisely the color of the petals of apple blossoms. Hence the sobriquets.

As Abigail slept happily, Nicole turned to look back at her fat little cheeks and those apple-blossom fingers.

What was it?

The light turned green, and Adam maneuvered the car into the parking lot on the other side of the intersection. They came to a stop in front of a long, flat, sandy-colored strip mall.

"Here we are!" Announced Adam.

The missiles began firing from Nicole's belly into her chest and arms. Her mouth felt dry. She couldn't have said why. She gave a sigh and turned to her husband.

"Could we… maybe just wait a little longer?"

He looked at her, frowning.

"What for?" He asked.

"I don't know," she said slowly, glancing back at Abigail without even noticing she was doing it. "I just feel like something's not right. There's no rush, right? Maybe we need to learn a little more?"

Adam gave a little laugh. "Learn a little more from 'Doctor Google?'" he said, smiling. "Haven't you already done that?"

Nicole gave a defensive shrug. "I don't know… maybe… I just don't want to be rushed into this."

"Doctor Google" was the term their own doctor had used just over an hour ago, and also earlier in the week when they had been discussing the mysterious rash that had appeared on their infant daughter's tummy a few days previous. Nicole had mentioned that she'd gone online to try to identify the rash and learn what she could about what it might be.

It had been a little overwhelming. There was an abundance of information about all kinds of rashes that might appear on the bellies of infants, and Nicole had isolated the ones where the photos seemed to match what they were seeing on little Abigail's. Yet even with the trove of posts and articles she had found, there were no satisfying answers. The most promising hypothesis, she thought, was that the rash might be a side effect from the cold medicine they had given their daughter about a week earlier. The rash appeared soon after, and several of the posts had said that that cold medicine could sometimes produce this kind of rash.

Doctor Scrotley was not as enthusiastic about the information as Nicole had been.

"Well," he said kindly, "we're always eager to blame the medications that help us! And yes, it's a possibility. But a remote one, I think."

He went on to opine about the other possible causes lurking beneath the tiny raised bumps on their daughter's tummy, and some of them sounded a little frightening.

At one point, Adam interrupted him.

"But hang on," he said. "Isn't 'yaws' only found in the tropics?" Adam had spent some time in Asia when he had been in the military, and he knew about these things.

"Yes," the doctor nodded, "that's true. But in this day and age, with airplanes moving about the globe the way they do, it brings us all closer together than ever before. And we can't be too careful!"

Adam and Nicole had nodded solemnly and both looked over at Baby Abigail, who slept soundly in her carrier, oblivious to the tropical menace threatening her peace.

"However," Dr. Scrotley lifted a finger in the air, "I don't think that is the most likely cause in this case."

The new parents breathed quiet sighs of relief.

"So what do you think is?" Nicole asked tremulously.

"Well," the doctor sat back and spread his arms out wide. "We've been seeing a worrying rise in reports of Sub-Saharan Sand Mites around the country."

Adam and Nicole both looked at him with identical blank expressions.

"There was a paper in JAMA about it just last month," the doctor said, reaching across the counter for a stack of papers. He began to rifle through the papers, looking for the JAMA issue.

Nicole found her voice. "So, these… sand mites? They cause rashes like this one?"

"They can," said the doctor. "Ah!" He exclaimed, "here it is!"

He waved a copy of the latest edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association in the air. Nicole reached for it and he handed it to her.

"And," Adam ventured forth, "are they dangerous?"

"Well, we just don't know," said Dr. Scrotley. "That's a big part of what has me worried. Any time we're dealing with a life form from another part of the globe, well…"

Nicole was frowning.

"It says here," she said, looking down at the journal, "that three Sub-Saharan Sand Mites were found in the luggage of a passenger who landed at JFK last December, and that that passenger had a mysterious rash that later went away…"

"Mmmmm…" said the doctor gravely.

"…it doesn't say what was 'mysterious' about the rash…"

"Well," said the doctor, "they weren't sure what had caused it."

Now Adam was frowning. "So," he said, "they don't know that it was the sand mites?"

The doctor shook his head. "Can't be sure," he said. And then, to Nicole, "but read on!"

Nicole did, and frowned again.

"And in February, some 'suspected' sand mites were found in the lunchbox of a kindergartener in Marin County, California. 'Researchers are confident that the potential sand mites might very possibly be of the Sub-Saharan variety,'" she read.

"That doesn't sound very definitive," said Adam.

"No," admitted the doctor, "but science rarely is! People want certainty, they want black and white answers, absolute yesses and nos, and the best we can give them are the most promising hypotheses!"

"…it says here that the 'mites' had been smashed by an apple, and the researchers weren't even sure that's what they were," said Nicole, looking up from the journal.

The doctor spread his hands wide. "Again, 'promising hypotheses!' I can't give you absolute certainty! You'll have to go to your bishop for that!"

Nicole looked sideways at Adam.

"…or, you know, whatever your particular persuasion might be…"

"How did they even know to look there?" Asked Adam.

"Excuse me?"

"The lunchbox. Why were medical researchers examining a kindergartener's lunchbox?"

"Oh!" Said Dr. Scrotley blankly. "I don't know. Probably a routine check at school. But that's just it, I mean, think of all the lunchboxes that didn't get checked!"

Adam and Nicole thought about those lunchboxes.

"In any case," the doctor continued, "my point in showing you this is simply to drive home the reality that we could be witnessing the early stages of an unprecedented infestation of these insects!"

Nicole frowned again. "There were two instances where they were found. In the whole country." She looked down at the journal again. "Maybe only one."

The doctor nodded solemnly. "Yes," he said.

"How is that an 'infestation'?"

"Well," said the doctor, "in previous years, we hadn't seen any at all!"

"Was anyone looking for them in previous years?"

"That's not the point! The point is that, statistically, the increase is astronomical!"

"But…" Adam began.

"Listen," the pediatrician smiled broadly, "are either of you statisticians? Do you work with statistics?"

They both shook their heads.

"Then let's not get into the weeds here," he said kindly. "What's important is keeping little Abigail safe, isn't that right?"

Both parents nodded.

"So," Dr. Scrotley reached back into the pile of papers again and pulled out some colorful pamphlets. "Here's what I'm going to recommend."

He handed one pamphlet to Nicole and an identical one to Adam. They both sat quietly for a moment, examining the pamphlets.

On the front was a picture of a happy family, sitting on a sofa in their living room: A happy mother and father, two happy young children, and a presumably happy baby sitting on the mother's lap. All had clear, shining faces, and each one looked the perfect picture of health.

At their feet, on the carpet, lay an alligator.

For a moment, the two just sat looking at the image, afraid to open the pamphlet and learn more.

"Curalacertionium!" Dr. Scrotley said brightly. "A clever – and catchy – take on the Latin words for 'lizard' and 'cure.'"

The couple sat clutching their pamphlets as the doctor continued.

"Essentially," he said, "the idea is to use the sand mite's natural predators to eliminate it from the household, and from any hosts…" here he nodded towards Baby Abigail's carrier  "…it may have attached itself to."

"One of these known predators," he continued, "is the Egyptian Plover. You may know it as the 'crocodile bird', the little bird that goes inside the mouths of crocodiles and cleans their teeth?"

Adam and Nicole stared straight ahead at him. Adam nodded very slightly.

"So," the doctor continued, filling the silence that now echoed throughout the small room, "what we do, is, we bring in… um… a crocodile – an African crocodile" he hastened to clarify, "– and we place it in the host's environment. The presence of the crocodile – African crocodile – then draws in any plover that might be in the area, and those plover begin to feast, not only on whatever might be in the crocodile's mouth, but on any nearby insects, and especially any Sub-Saharan Sand Mites that might be in the vicinity!"

Nicole was now frowning deeply.

"But," she said slowly, as if struggling to find simple words to express what she was thinking, "WHAT plover? You said 'any plover that might be in the area,' but… I don't think there are any Egyptian plover in our area!" She looked quickly over at Adam, who looked back at her blankly.

"I mean…" she continued, "They're native to Africa, right? Why would they be here?"

The doctor nodded patiently. "Well," he said, "you'd be surprised…"

He reached again into the tall stack of papers and pulled out a magazine. A perky little bird with a black stripe running across its face and shoulder adorned the cover.

"'Nature' just had an article on this very topic," he said, handing her the magazine. "It turns out that, over the years, these birds have been escaping from zoos, people have been keeping them as pets… there are more of them out there than you'd think!"

Nicole opened the magazine and leafed through the pages until she found the article.

"But," she began, still looking at the magazine, "how do they know to come to where the…"

"That looks like an alligator!" Blurted Adam, who had been frowning at the brochure with the picture of the family on the cover.

Nicole turned to look at him.

"On the pamphlet," he said, showing it to her, and then to Dr. Scrotley. "That's an alligator, not a crocodile!"

"What?!?!?" Said Nicole.

"It's got a wide nose!" Adam, all of his his seventh-grade biology class flooding rapidly back into his head, exclaimed. "That makes it an alligator!"

Nicole gave her husband a look that asked, wordlessly, whether he might not have taken leave of his senses.

Dr. Scrotley nodded, and took the pamphlet from him. "Yes," he said, looking down at the picture. "There were some errors in the first promotional materials. In fact," he chuckled, "early on, a lot of people began calling it the 'Alligator Cure', and I'm afraid that name has stuck!"

"But rest assured," he continued with a gentle laugh. "we're we're not going to ask you to put an alligator in your child's bedroom!"

Nicole and Adam both felt themselves relax just a little.

"No, no," the doctor spoke reassuringly. "This is definitely not an alligator!" He gave another little laugh. "Why, the FDA would never allow that! No. This is a crocodile. An African crocodile!"

"Not an alligator?" Asked Adam, looking again at the pamphlet.

"Not an alligator."

Adam and Nicole looked at each other. Adam breathed a little sigh of relief. Nicole tightened her grip on her pamphlet.

"So…" A million questions vied for attention within Nicole's mind. With effort, she plucked from them the easiest to articulate: "How exactly does this work?"

Dr. Scrotley smiled. He reached for Adam's pamphlet, and opened it up for him. Inside was a cheery welcome message, followed by a list of bullet-pointed items.

"It's all really very simple," he smiled, and looked down at the bullet-pointed items.

"We'll send you home with everything you'll need: a plastic wading pool, which you can fill with water, a sun lamp, and enough crocodile food to last a couple of weeks. After that, you'll be getting regular supplies from one of our vendors. All you need to do," he looked up at them both, "is to pick up the crocodile itself, bring it home, and install it in little Amanda's bedroom!"

"Abigail." Nicole corrected him.

"Abigail! Yes! Sorry!" He chuckled.

Nicole was frowning. "And… how long does it stay there?"

"Typically, the whole process takes about a month," he answered. "What with allowing the plover time to come in and get settled – oh, you'll need to leave a window cracked open – and then for them to eat all of the mites… and their eggs. About a month, I'd say."

Nicole nodded. She looked over at Adam.

"What do you think, honey?"

Adam shrugged. "I think it's worth a try!"

"I don't know," said Nicole. "I'd just like a little time to think about it, maybe look into it a little more, do a little research…"

"Ah!" Dr. Scrotley’s eyes sparkled. "Would that be with 'Doctor Google'?"

Nicole could feel her cheeks turning red.

"Listen," said the doctor, "take some time, think about it, get whatever information you need. I don't want you to feel rushed into this."

Nicole nodded. Adam nodded.

"But remember," he cautioned, "every day that this rash goes untreated is another day that little Am… Abigail is at risk!"

The couple's eyes widened.

"At risk of what?" Asked Adam.

"Well," said Dr. Scrotley "that's just it, we don't know precisely. But these illnesses from that part of the world… well, they can be tricky. And unpredictable. And some rashes can progress quickly, and even become fatal! You've heard of Stevens-Johnson syndrome?"

Both parents shook their heads.

"Well, that's something to ask Dr. Google about," he said ominously. "It's not something to mess around with."

Adam and Nicole looked nervously at each other.

"But take your time," the doctor said reassuringly. "Let's touch base at the end of the week, and see where we are?"

The two nodded.

"Oh, and I should add," he said as if in passing, "if you decide not to go ahead with the treatment, I'm afraid I will no longer be able to see Baby Abigail."

Adam and Nicole both frowned.

"And… why is that?" Adam asked.

The doctor shrugged. "It's just a question of integrity," he explained. "If you can't trust me on this, you're unlikely to trust me about anything else. And that's no kind of healthy doctor-patient relationship. Wouldn't you agree?"

Adam nodded slowly. Nicole's eyes tightened just a little.

---

That night, Nicole sat up late with "Doctor Google." She knew enough to look beyond the first few pages of results. But she was surprised when, 18 pages in, she still hadn't found anything that raised any kind of serious concern about the "Alligator Cure."

The first couple of pages were full of references to a very large post-licensure study that had just been completed the past summer. The study had looked at thousands of families who had tried Curalacertionium. It had found that, while the treatment was not always completely successful – seventeen percent of families had only partial success, while five percent had no success at all – there had been no significant adverse outcomes at all.

"See?" Adam had smiled and squeezed her shoulder. "It's perfectly safe!"

Nicole frowned. "I'm just going to do a little more looking…"

By two in the morning, she still had not found anything that worried her. There were some reports of wading pools breaking and causing water damage in a few of the homes; and there were several instances of plover pecking at the sand mites and causing further irritation to the existing rashes. But neither of these outcomes caused her any great concern. If the worst risk to her baby was a little worsening of her rash for a short while, she was willing to take that risk.

Still, something gnawed at her. Everything she was learning about this treatment told her that it was perfectly safe, there was nothing to worry about. But something just didn't seem right. What could it be? She lay in bed tormenting herself with this question until it was time to get up and feed Baby Abigail again.

The next day she resumed her online search, with the same kinds of results. She also emailed a few friends who worked in healthcare and asked whether they knew anything about the treatment. None of them had had any direct experience with it, and they all said that the best thing was usually to listen to your doctor. After all, they're the experts, and that's what you're paying them for, right? One of her friends forwarded a link to the relevant page on the CDC website.

On Friday, they met again with Dr. Scrotley.

"So," he asked, smiling before them, opening his hands wide out to the sides, "how are we feeling about Curalacertionium?" The name rolled off of his tongue like candy.

"Well," said Nicole, "I did some looking…"

"And what did Doctor Google have to say about the 'Alligator Cure'?" He asked, still smiling.

Nicole shrugged. "It was all positive," she said. "I mean, there were a few things, like irritation from the plover pecking at the bugs, but… other than that…"

Dr. Scrotley was nodding. "Good," he said sympathetically, "good. So, are we ready to get started?"

Adam and Nicole had said that yes, they were.

And now, here they were, sitting in the pouring rain in the parking lot of "Cavern of Reptiles," discussing it all again.

"I don't know," said Nicole. "Something still just doesn't feel right." She looked Adam in the eye. "Doesn't something not feel right to you?"

"I mean," he shrugged, "sure, it's unusual. But you've done your due diligence. You've looked into it. I don't know what more information you could hope to find."

Nicole nodded, still frowning.

"And," Adam continued, "he is the professional. I mean, that's what we're paying him for, right?"

Nicole sighed. "You're right," she said. shaking her head. "You're right. I guess it's just that it's something new, and… well, kind of strange…"

Adam nodded. "I know what you mean," he said. "The unknown is always a little scary."

She nodded. "Yeah."

"But it's for Little Abigail," he said, with a nod to the back seat. "We've got to do it for her, right?"

"Right," said Nicole, taking his hand. "Right."

---

By the time they'd gotten the plastic wading pool set up in Baby Abigail's bedroom, and carried the crocodile inside – it had required the help of Ben, their next-door neighbor's teenaged son – it was already past dinner time.

The instructions had specified that it was very important to make sure that the crocodile always had food available in the wading pool. So the first thing they did was to empty out a day's worth of dry Croc-Chow biscuits into a ceramic bowl that they then placed in the pool with the creature. They watched as it snapped happily at the biscuits, and then they refilled the bowl so that it wouldn't get empty again before morning.

It was dark outside when Nicole put a sleeping Baby Abigail down in her crib. She looked over at the open window and frowned. The rain had stopped, and the spring breeze was light and cool. But it blew directly into the crib. So she stepped over to the dresser – being careful to avoid stepping in the plastic wading pool – and pulled a blanket out of the bottom drawer. She walked carefully back to the crib and draped the blanket over the side of her daughter's crib, to block the breeze that had been brushing across her soft, plump cheek. Then she quietly turned on the baby monitor and walked carefully over to the door.

She stood there for a moment, listening to her baby daughter's breathing, and watching the wind gently push the curtains from side to side. Spots of light from outside glistened on the surface of the water in the pool, and misshapen bumps rose from beneath that water. Other than Abigail’s breathing, and faint sounds of traffic in the distance, all was silent.

"Goodnight little Petal," she said quietly, and then she closed the door.