Bear Bottom (FunJungle) - Softcover

Gibbs, Stuart

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1534479473 ISBN 13: 9781534479470

Verlag: S&S Books for Young Readers, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

In the seventh novel in New York Times bestselling Stuart Gibbs’s FunJungle series, Teddy Fitzroy returns as FunJungle’s resident sleuth to solve the disappearances of endangered bison and an irreplaceable necklace.

Teddy Fitzroy, his family, and some other FunJungle employees have been invited to visit a bison ranch just outside Yellowstone National Park that FunJungle’s owner, J.J. McCracken, is considering purchasing. But as usual, trouble isn’t far behind.

The ranch’s endangered bison have been mysteriously disappearing. Then a massive local grizzly bear named Sasquatch breaks into the house, causing chaos. In the aftermath, Kandace McCracken discovers that her exceptionally expensive sapphire necklace has vanished.

Was it stolen? Or did Sasquatch eat it? (And if so, can it be recovered?) And what’s been happening to the bison?

With over a dozen suspects, it’s up to Teddy to detangle this hairy situation, before his family or friends—or any more expensive objects—become dinner.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Stuart Gibbs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlie Thorne series, FunJungle series, Moon Base Alpha series, Once Upon a Tim series, and Spy School series. He has written screenplays, worked on a whole bunch of animated films, developed TV shows, been a newspaper columnist, and researched capybaras. Stuart lives with his family in Los Angeles. You can learn more about what he’s up to at StuartGibbs.com.

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Chapter 1: The Selfie of Doom

1 THE SELFIE OF DOOM
My family was delayed on our return to the ranch because we were trying to prevent a tourist from getting mauled by an elk.

We were leaving Yellowstone National Park, having spent the day exploring, on our first vacation in two years. My parents had been working overtime at FunJungle Wild Animal Park, the world-famous theme park/zoo, since before it had even opened. Mom was the head primatologist and Dad was the official photographer, and their jobs kept them extremely busy.

I had always thought that FunJungle attracted an unusual number of dumb tourists. But at Yellowstone, I discovered that there were dumb tourists everywhere.

It was the week after the Fourth of July, and thus the height of tourist season; Yellowstone was flooded with visitors from all over the planet. That day we had witnessed dozens of people doing incredibly boneheaded things, often directly in front of signs warning them not to do them: attempting to pet wild animals, climbing over the safety railings at scenic viewpoints, swimming in rivers with life-threatening rapids—and positioning their young children dangerously close to bison for photographs. Two rangers had to arrest a college student who was about to use Monarch Geyser as a hot tub; apparently, he hadn’t realized that the 204-degree water would have boiled him alive.

I had also overheard tourists ask the park rangers startlingly uninformed questions, such as: “What time do you turn off the Old Faithful Geyser every night?” “Why do we have to stay on the hiking paths when the deer don’t?” And “Where can we see the presidents carved into the mountain?” (The answers were: “It’s a geological feature, not a fountain”; “The deer are wild animals”; and “You’re thinking of Mount Rushmore, which is five hundred miles away in South Dakota.”) I also heard one person angrily claim that a raccoon had stolen his bag of Cheetos and demand that the park service refund his money. Tourists did things like this so often that the park rangers had a name for them: tourons.

Despite all of that, it had been a good day. Yellowstone featured some of the most beautiful scenery I had ever encountered, and we had also been lucky enough to spot three bald eagles, a moose, and a pair of wolves. Plus, my girlfriend, Summer, was with us. Summer was fourteen, a little bit less than a year older than me. She was smart and fun and liked seeing wildlife and hiking as much as I did. Her father, J.J. McCracken, was the owner of FunJungle, and he had invited us to join him—along with a few other FunJungle employees—at his friend’s ranch in West Yellowstone for a week. While my parents were big fans of Summer and her mother, Kandace, they were a bit wary of J.J., whose actions often concealed ulterior motives. However, the offer had been too good to pass up: a free place to stay, a flight on J.J.’s private jet, and a visit to one of Dad’s favorite places on Earth. (Mom and I had never been to Yellowstone, and Dad had always wanted to take us there.) We had eagerly accepted the offer.

Our group had arrived the evening before, too late to visit Yellowstone, so my parents and I had been raring to go that morning. J.J. had some business to deal with, while Kandace hadn’t arrived yet; she was flying in from a fashion shoot in New York City that afternoon. So Summer came with my family to see the park. Sidney Krautheimer, the owner of the ranch, happily lent us a car.

We were leaving the park in the late afternoon, on the road to West Yellowstone, when we saw the biggest touron of the day.

The road was a picturesque, winding route along the bank of the Madison River. It was relatively free of traffic, which was unusual in Yellowstone, as the roads in the park were prone to traffic jams. Usually, these were due to wildlife sightings; a bear, a moose, or even a common white-tailed deer could cause backups several miles long. But there were also plenty of car wrecks, often caused by tourons who had rented massive recreational vehicles that they couldn’t control. So a wide-open road through the gorgeous landscape was a pleasant surprise.

The first thing that tipped us off that we were dealing with an unusually dumb tourist—even by Yellowstone standards—was the fact that he had abandoned his car in the middle of the road. Rather than taking a few seconds to pull over onto the shoulder, he had simply stopped, put on his hazard lights, and leaped out. He hadn’t even bothered to shut his door. We nearly plowed right into the car as we came around a bend.

For a moment, we feared we had stumbled upon an emergency situation, but then we saw what had caused the man to abandon his car in such a hurry: a small herd of elk, grazing by the river. The touron was trying to get a photograph of them.

I understood why he wanted the photo; it was a spectacular scene. There were five females, four fawns, and a large bull watching over them. The fawns were adorable, certainly only a few weeks old, while the bull had an impressive ten-point rack of antlers. And amazingly, there were no other tourists around. Still, the man was making a very big mistake—in addition to having left his car in the road.

Instead of keeping a respectful distance, he was trying to get as close as possible to the elk, tramping directly across the meadow toward them. This had put all the elk on the alert. The bull looked particularly agitated, but I knew that a mother elk who felt her young were threatened could be very dangerous as well.

Dad parked our car on the shoulder. “I’m gonna see if I can talk some sense into this guy before he gets himself killed,” he said, and hopped out.

Mom climbed out too, so Summer and I did the same. After all, it was a beautiful spot and there was no point in sitting in the car.

It was only then that we discovered the man’s family was still in his car. His wife was in the passenger seat, while his two teenage children sat in the back. All three were making it obvious that they were irritated with the father. None seemed remotely aware that their car was a serious driving hazard.

“Dad!” the daughter yelled out the window. “We’ve seen, like, ten million elk already today and you’ve taken pictures of every one of them! We don’t need any more!”

“These are better elk!” the father yelled back. “This photo’s gonna be amazing!”

“Yeah right,” the son said sarcastically. He wasn’t even looking at the scenery; instead he was riveted to his phone. “It’s just a stupid deer.”

“Morton!” the wife called. “Enough is enough! I’m hungry!”

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Mom said as pleasantly as possible, “but do you think that maybe you could move your car? It’s blocking the road.”

The woman sighed with annoyance, as though my mother had asked her to do something unreasonable. “I can’t move it. That darn fool took the keys.” She pointed toward her husband.

Her daughter noticed Summer and gaped with astonishment.

Summer was famous—although she didn’t want to be. Since her father was a famous businessman and her mother was a fashion model, she’d never had any choice in the matter. She...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: S&S Books for Young Readers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1534479473
• ISBN 13: 9781534479470
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande