The Sasquatch Escape Read online

  “What about the net that was left in the forest? Do you know anything about that?”

  “No,” Pearl and Ben said.

  “Well, Mrs. Mulberry and Victoria Mulberry got tangled in the net, but they’re okay. No harm done.” Officer Milly pointed to the rolled-up paper in Pearl’s hand. “Whatcha got there?”

  “We got jobs at the worm hospital,” Pearl said. “We’re going to work Monday, Wednesday, and Friday all summer.”

  “What do you do at a worm hospital?” Officer Milly asked.

  “Feed the worms,” Ben said.

  “Take them for walks,” Pearl said.

  “And give them baths,” Ben added. “Stuff like that.”

  “All summer, huh?” Officer Milly chuckled. “Well, it sounds like it will keep you two out of trouble. Come on, I’ll give you both a ride home.”

  Ben and Pearl climbed into the backseat. As they rode to Pine Street, Ben might have been thrilled about riding in the back of a police car. But his brain was flooded with images—the dragon swooping between clouds, the hatchling dangling from Barnaby’s mouth, the sasquatch eating butterscotch pudding. And, of course, the tail poking out from Mr. Tabby’s vest. All those things were way better than any story Ben had ever told.

  “How come you two are so quiet?” Officer Milly asked, glancing at them in the rearview mirror. “You got some secrets?”

  Ben smiled at Pearl. Pearl smiled back.

  Grandpa Abe was still at the senior center when Ben arrived back at his house. Barnaby was lying in wait beneath a bird feeder, swatting at chickadees. Once inside, Ben opened his sock drawer and tucked the Sasquatch Catching certificate way in the back. Monday couldn’t arrive fast enough. What would happen at Dr. Woo’s secret hospital? Perhaps he’d learn why the doctor had been covered in fairy dust? And who or what eats kiwi-flavored jelly beans? Perhaps he’d learn where to find the Imaginary World.

  Or maybe he’d actually go there.

  He scooped Snooze out of the cage and cradled him in his hands. “I think it’s going to be a great summer,” he told his hamster. Snooze stared at Ben with his beady black eyes. Then he curled up into a ball and fell asleep. Ben tucked Snooze back into his nest and closed the cage. Life is simple in a plastic rectangle, where nothing changes.

  But sometimes change is just what life needs. Sometimes change is a very good thing.

  Ben smiled. Then he headed into the kitchen to do the dishes.

  CREATURE CONNECTION

  Wyvern

  Stories about dragons are found all over the world, but the stories that come from Eastern cultures are very different from the stories that come from the West.

  Dragons from the East tend to be friendly and helpful. They often have important lessons to teach humans, and they live peacefully. Killing one of these dragons is considered a tragedy.

  The tradition in the West is to write about dangerous dragons. These fire-breathing creatures often burn villages to the ground, hoard treasure, and eat sheep, cows, and sometimes children. Stories about Western dragons tend to be about a hero who must slay the dragon to save a village or even a damsel in distress. Western dragons guard their treasure and will kill anyone who tries to take it.

  The dragon hatchling that Ben found on his bed was a wyvern. The wyvern is one type of Western dragon. It is different from other Western dragons because it has two legs rather than four. Descriptions of wyverns differ from story to story, but most describe them as ranging from muddy brown to a greenish color. Like other Western dragons, the wyvern has wings and can fly. In some stories it shoots flame, while in others it shoots poison. It is often said to have a barbed tail and a neck and head that are very snakelike. Some say wyverns come from Africa and that their favorite food is the elephant. But this dragon became very popular in the Middle Ages in Britain, especially in a region known as Wales.

  Back in those days, knights would gather for tournaments, fighting one another in contests to see who would become the champion. Because knights wore heavy armor and their faces were covered by helmets, no one could tell who was who. So these knights carried flags and coats of arms to identify themselves and to honor their families—this is called heraldry. Many used the wyvern as a symbol on their flags. To wear the wyvern on your coat of arms meant that you were strong and fierce.

  STORY IDEA

  Imagine that you found a wyvern hatchling on your bed and you decided to keep it. You’ve been feeding it table scraps and hiding it in your closet, but one day you come home and discover…

  ART IDEA

  Pretend you are a knight in shining armor and you are going to compete in a tournament. What will your flag look like? Create your own flag using an image of the wyvern. Remember, it has two feet instead of four.

  CREATURE CONNECTION

  Sasquatch

  Some people believe that there’s a big creature living in the woods in the Pacific Northwest. Other people say there’s no such thing.

  Those who claim to have seen this creature say it’s big and hairy, walks on two legs, smells bad, and leaves enormous footprints. They’ve taken pictures of it. But those who don’t believe claim that the pictures are of people in gorilla suits. Does this creature exist?

  This much we know is true—throughout history, humans have created stories about wild men and women who live in the forest. They tend to be bigger than normal men and women, hairier, and a bit scary. If you were a kid in medieval Europe, your parents might tell you about the woodwose, a hairy wild man of the woods. If you grew up in Russia, you might know about the leshy, a tall man who protects the forest. If you lived in the Himalayas, you might go to bed hearing about the yeti, a wild man who lives in the snowy mountains. And if you lived with the Salish people of the Pacific Northwest, you might go to bed hearing about the wild man called the sésquac.

  The native people of the Pacific Northwest had so many stories about wild men that someone decided to collect these stories. His name was J. W. Burns. In the 1920s, he worked as a teacher on the Chehalis Indian Reservation, and after he’d collected the stories, he wrote a newspaper article called “Introducing British Columbia’s Hairy Giants.” Mr. Burns is the person who invented the word sasquatch. There were many different native names for the wild-man creature, and Mr. Burns wanted to simplify things, so he created one name.

  Later, in the 1950s, a bunch of footprints were found in northern California. When a photo of these footprints appeared in the newspaper the Humboldt Times, the writer decided to call the creature bigfoot, and that is how the sasquatch got its nickname.

  Today, there are many websites and even a television show dedicated to finding the sasquatch. In Seattle, a publishing company and a music festival are named after the hairy beast.

  STORY IDEAS

  Pretend you are sitting around a fire a very long time ago and you are the storyteller for your village. You don’t want the little children to go into the woods, because the woods are filled with wolves and bears. So you must tell the children a story that will keep them out of the woods. You tell them about a strange creature that…

  Pretend you are a newspaper reporter and you’ve just heard that someone in your town has found a giant footprint. You grab your notebook, pen, and camera and hurry to the location. But when you get there, you find something else….

  ART IDEA

  Draw different kinds of footprints. A person, a cat, a dog, a bird—whatever you’d like—but be sure to include a sasquatch. Think about how the footprints compare in size and shape.

  SCIENCE CONNECTION

  Dragon’s Milk

  In our story, Mr. Tabby had a recipe for a concoction he called Artificial Dragon’s Milk. It’s a recipe he perfected over the years to give to young dragons when no fresh meat was available. But dragons are supposed to be reptiles, right? And reptiles don’t drink milk, do they? So why did the baby wyvern drink milk?

  Reptiles include snakes, lizards, turtles, tortoises, alligators, crocodiles, and the extin
ct dinosaurs.

  Reptiles are cold-blooded animals. This means that they have to rely on the outside world to heat or cool their bodies. So if a reptile wants to get warm, it lies in the sun. If it wants to cool down, it hides under a rock or floats in the water. Reptile bodies do not maintain a consistent temperature the way mammal bodies do.

  Reptiles have scales (snakes), shields (tortoises), or plates (crocodiles) covering their bodies. And all baby reptiles are hatched from eggs. Most of the time, the eggs are laid, but in a few cases, such as with the garter snake, the egg is kept inside the mother’s body until it hatches, and then the baby snake emerges.

  So why don’t reptiles drink milk?

  Milk comes from mammals. Baby mammals are not able to take care of themselves when they are born. They would die without a mother or father to feed them. So a mother mammal makes milk, which she feeds to her baby.

  But baby reptiles are independent the moment they are born. This means they slither or crawl or swim away from their parents and seek food on their own. A mother or father reptile does not need to provide food. How much easier it is to be a reptile parent—once the kids are hatched, you’re free!

  So back to the question, why did the baby wyvern drink milk? Dragons are reptiles, but they are also magical creatures, so the regular rules don’t apply to them. This is why a baby dragon might drink milk—or else it might eat your neighbor!

  STORY IDEAS

  Imagine two mothers, a snake mother and a squirrel mother, are sitting in the garden talking about their babies. How are their lives different?

  Imagine you are a baby dragon, just emerging from the shell. What does it feel like to break through the shell? What does your world look like? What is the first thing you do?

  CREATIVITY CONNECTION

  Make Your Own Homemade Pudding

  Here is a supereasy recipe for homemade chocolate pudding. You make it in the microwave, so you don’t have to worry about using a hot stove. Be sure to have a parent or grown-up help you.

  Here’s what you need:

  ¼ cup cornstarch

  ¼ cup cocoa powder (Don’t use unsweetened cocoa powder. If you want it extra chocolaty, use dark cocoa powder.)

  ½ cup sugar

  2¼ cups whole milk

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  2 tablespoons butter (Don’t use margarine.)

  1. Mix the cornstarch, cocoa, and sugar in a big bowl that is microwave-safe. You want a big bowl because during the last cooking step the pudding will bubble, and you don’t want it to bubble over the sides.

  2. Add the milk. Stir. Don’t worry, it will be lumpy.

  3. Heat in the microwave for two minutes. The bowl will be hot, so use an oven mitt to remove the bowl from the microwave. Stir the pudding with a whisk.

  4. Heat for two more minutes. Remove with an oven mitt. Stir with the whisk. Everything should be melted now, and the pudding should look like hot chocolate.

  5. Heat again for two minutes. The bowl will be extra hot, so be careful. Now your pudding is thick. Stir with the whisk, making sure there are no lumps.

  6. Add the vanilla and butter. Stir again with the whisk. The butter will melt while you stir. The pudding is thicker now.

  7. Ladle or pour the hot pudding into little serving cups. Press plastic wrap onto the top of the pudding to keep a skin from forming. Put the cups in the refrigerator.

  When the pudding has cooled, it’s ready to eat!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Huge thanks to Michael Bourret, Julie Scheina, Pam Garfinkel, Christine Ma, and everyone at Little, Brown for helping me launch this fun new series. For help with the Yiddish, I called upon librarian Janine Rosenbaum and my dear friend Gary Pazoff, who got his uncle Stew on the phone just to make sure. Yiddish dictionaries differ greatly, so I chose the spellings that I felt would be most familiar to readers.

  Big thanks to Dan Santat for capturing my story in his gorgeous illustrations.

  And, as always, big hugs and kisses to Bob, Isabelle, and Walker for all their love, support, and tiptoeing.

  I love hearing from readers, so please visit me at www.suzanneselfors.com.

  For more great reads and free samplers visit

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  Contents

  Welcome

  Dedication

  Map

  CHAPTER 1: Story Bird

  CHAPTER 2: Welcome to Buttonville

  CHAPTER 3: The House on Pine Street

  CHAPTER 4: Dollar Store Girl

  CHAPTER 5: Jelly Bean Man

  CHAPTER 6: Sea Horse Face

  CHAPTER 7: Pearl’s Promise

  CHAPTER 8: The Old Button Factory

  CHAPTER 9: Mr. Tabby

  CHAPTER 10: The Wyvern

  CHAPTER 11: Hairy Escape

  CHAPTER 12: Sasquatch Catching Kit

  CHAPTER 13: The Scurry

  CHAPTER 14: Welcome Wagon

  CHAPTER 15: Sloth Sighting

  CHAPTER 16: Hairy Pudding

  CHAPTER 17: Fog Day

  CHAPTER 18: Bad Berries

  CHAPTER 19: Hairy Return

  CHAPTER 20: Dr. Woo

  CHAPTER 21: Secret Keepers

  CHAPTER 22: The Best Story Ever

  CREATURE CONNECTION: Wyvern

  CREATURE CONNECTION: Sasquatch

  SCIENCE CONNECTION: Dragon’s Milk

  CREATIVITY CONNECTION: Make Your Own Homemade Pudding

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Copyright

  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.

  Copyright © 2013 by Suzanne Selfors

  Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Dan Santat

  Cover art by Dan Santat

  Cover design by Sasha Illingworth

  Cover © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected].

  Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  www.lb-kids.com

  First e-book edition: April 2013

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-316-22568-7