Text copyright © Alain M. Bergeron 2020
Illustrations copyright © Sampar 2020
Originally published in French in 2012 by Éditions Michel Quintin under the title Billy Stuart 4 Dans l’oeil du cyclope
Translation copyright © Sophie B. Watson 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cataloguing in Publication information available from Library and Archives Canada
Title: Billy Stuart in the eye of the cyclops / Alain M. Bergeron; illustrated by Sampar; translated by Sophie B. Watson.
Other titles: Billy Stuart dans l’oeil du cyclope. English | In the eye of the cyclops
Names: Bergeron, Alain M., 1957– author. | Sampar, illustrator. | Watson, Sophie B., translator.
Series: Bergeron, Alain M., 1957– Billy Stuart. English; 4.
Description: Series statement: Billy Stuart; book 4 | Translation of: Billy Stuart dans l’oeil du cyclope. | “The Zintrepids.”
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190169532 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190170891 | ISBN 9781459823464 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459823471 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459823488 (EPUB)
Classification: LCC PS8553.E67454 D3612513 2020 | DDC jC843/.54—dc23
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019947361
Simultaneously published in Canada and the United States in 2020
Summary: In this illustrated novel for middle-grade readers, Billy Stuart and his loyal Scout group have inadvertently traveled through time and are lost on a remote island inhabited by creatures from another land.
Orca Book Publishers is committed to reducing the consumption of nonrenewable resources in the making of our books. We make every effort to use materials that support a sustainable future.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the National Translation Program for Book Publishing, an initiative of the Roadmap for Canada’s Official Languages 2013-2018: Education, Immigration, Communities, for our translation activities.
Cover and interior illustrations by Sampar
Translated by Sophie B. Watson
Ebook by Bright Wing Books (brightwing.ca)
orca book publishers
orcabook.com
Printed and bound in China.
23 22 21 20 • 4 3 2 1
Table of Contents
Characters
Dear Reader
Chapter 1: This Is All His Fault!
Chapter 2: Strange Plants
Chapter 3: Venus Zin-TRAP-ids
Chapter 4: Gigantic
Chapter 5: Around the Fire
Chapter 6: The Plot
Chapter 7: From the Back of the Cave
Chapter 8: Between Earth and Sky
Chapter 9: A Giant’s Footprints
Chapter 10: On High Alert
Chapter 11: Getting Dunked
Chapter 12: With Skill
Chapter 13: Touching Farewells
Chapter 14: Unexpected Help
Chapter 15: A Cyclops’s Tear
Search and Find
Solutions
Landmarks
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Body Matter
dear reader,
Billy Stuart wasn’t exactly elected to this particular position. He doesn’t wear a magical ring on his finger like Frodo. He doesn’t have a secret collection of masks or stones hidden in his drawers like Zelda. He hasn’t walked through life accompanied by a daemon like Lyra. Nor does he have a distinctive lightning-shaped scar on his forehead like Harry. Basically, the future of the world does not rest on his thin and bony shoulders.
Billy Stuart is just a young, ordinary raccoon who has experienced some extraordinary adventures.
Here is the fourth adventure he told me about.
One twenty-fourth of September, in the town of Cavendish.
This Is All His Fault!
“FrouFrou, that dirty, rotten dog!”
Yes, I realize my outpouring of love for the MacTerrings’ dog seems a bit over the top as we launch this fourth adventure. But it reflects exactly what I’m feeling.
My friends the Zintrepids and I have gone off into the forest in the company of Captain Loslobos’s crew. His sister, the brave Timoree, walks with us. The crew is searching for provisions and FRESH WATER. As for the Zintrepids, we hope to discover another clue that my grandfather, Virgil, might have left for us somewhere on this island.
“This is all that dirty mutt’s fault!”
Looking worried, Foxy takes in our surroundings. It’s with great difficulty that we are tearing a path through this untouched forest, which is bursting with vines and shrubs and brambles and hawthorns. There are insects bigger than my hand hassling us nonstop, and the heat is stifling.
“We are sooo far from Kanuks Forest and our home in Cavendish,” grumbles Musky the skunk.
The poodle has taken advantage of a moment’s distraction on our part to escape, and Foxy seems to think we shouldn’t worry about our safety. We should instead focus on finding that pip-squeak FrouFrou.
“Shifty, what do you see?”
Perched on a branch a dozen meters from the ground, the chameleon moves along with the speed of a snail. The foliage is so dense we can barely make out our friend, who has taken on the colors of his environment.
Suddenly he stops. He’s spotted something in front of him. With lightning speed his tongue darts out and snags a big dragonfly perched on the branch. The chameleon pulls in his tongue and devours his prey.
“EXQUISITE!” he says, closing his eyes to savor his catch.
Shifty’s going to be chewing for a while, because the dragonfly in question is bigger than my arm. Our companion will need a few extra minutes to swallow the insect in its entirety.
“We’re losing time! Do you see anything, Shifty?” Foxy repeats. “Is FrouFrou nearby?”
Loslobos moves deeper into the FOREST with his crew. They quickly disappear from my line of sight. I look up to ask Shifty if he sees anything, but a cry of distress comes out of the forest.
Strange Plants
“It’s coming from over there,” says Foxy.
She points toward a wall of giant plants with smooth trunks, not very big but big enough to form a natural barrier three to four meters tall.
ARF! ARF! ARF!
The dog’s cries are coming from beyond the strange plant border.
“Bring it on! No, really, bring it on!” says Yeti the weasel, getting wound up.
He has no idea who he is even challenging to “bring it on,” but Yeti isn’t one to consider the size of an adversary. Over the last few weeks he didn’t hesitate for a second to defy a beastly Minotaur and a Titanic-sized octopus.
The fox throws herself forward through the plants like her life depends on it. I follow in her footsteps, and the other Zintrepids fall in behind me. The space between trunks is getting tighter. With great difficulty we make our way through.
Eventually we come upon a clearing
not much bigger than a schoolyard. I look up and notice that the heads of these plants are made of enormous bulbs that are facing the sun. The giant flowers sway lightly in the wind.
A bark helps us find the dog.
WOOF!
“My poor darling,” Foxy says.
She moves forward to rescue the dog.
Once he sees Foxy and me, the poodle barks frantically and stands on his hind legs.
“Serves you right!” I tell him. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson. You don’t leave the group, you NAUGHTY DOG!”
If I didn’t happen to mention his tail, which usually oscillates at ten beats per second, it’s for a good reason.
I can’t see it!
The dog’s tail is trapped in the jaws of a carnivorous plant!
Foxy has some faults, one of which is being so attached to that dirty FrouFrou, but she also knows a lot of things. For example, this carnivorous plant has a name.
“That’s a Dionaea, Billy Stuart,” she explains to me.
Yeti arrives at this moment and sees the dog’s predicament. He does a one, two and Bing! He punches the plant. It opens its jaws and frees its prey.
Happy now, the poodle dances joyously around the reunited Zintrepids, then returns to the Dionaea, lifts his leg and marks his territory.
UGH! Poor plant!
“What is it?” Musky asks.
Foxy explains that Dionaea muscipula is a captivating plant also known as a Venus flytrap.
We look around and notice there are several Venus flytraps the size of TULIPS in the clearing. They’re growing everywhere. The fox leans down to one of them.
I…I…What’s happening here? This is not a dream. This is a nightmare!
Kabillions of crusty-clawed crawfish in that Bulstrode River!
The giant plants that bordered the clearing are huge Venus flytraps. But their heads are no longer turned up toward the sun. They are facing down toward us!
Venus Zin-TRAP-ids
Maybe Foxy wouldn’t agree, but this is the truth—all of this mess is that dirty FrouFrou’s fault. If he hadn’t run off, we wouldn’t find ourselves in this terrifying situation.
“Foxy, your Venus flytraps are about to become honest to goodness Venus Zintrepid-Traps,” says Musky.
“What do we do, Billy Stuart?” whispers Shifty, as if he is afraid of being heard by the monstrous plants.
“You can speak LOUDER,” the fox says. “Those plants don’t have ears.”
“Hey, Musky! You could always SPRAY them!” My suggestion falls flat.
“That wouldn’t work. Venus flytraps don’t have noses.”
The skunk’s perfume would be ineffective against these plants.
Yeti drums on his chest like a gorilla that wants to intimidate his opponent.
“Too bad I’m not a vegetarian! Bring it on! No, really, bring it on!”
Musky grabs him by the collar before Yeti throws himself in the jaws of a GIGANTIC Venus flytrap. The plant would have gobbled up our friend in a single mouthful.
Everywhere we look, carnivorous plants surround us. There is no way to escape! Right now we are a little bit out of their reach. That small distance between us and them is our only guarantee of safety.
And then a plant attacks me! It latches on to my tail.
“That’s what happens when you leave your tail hanging out, Billy Stuart!” Foxy is happy to quote me.
I have a feeling something WORSE is about to happen. FrouFrou approaches the Venus flytrap and starts to bark. The plant drops my tail and turns to the dog. The poodle takes off, and that’s when the unthinkable happens. The Venus flytrap starts chasing him!
“This is absurd! It’s actually walking!” says Foxy, who can’t believe her eyes.
Maybe this explains why the fox and I were caught earlier. These CARNIVOROUS PLANTS can move. Thankfully, not very quickly.
It seems easy enough to avoid their bites and push them back with a kick.
Two little flytraps trot toward Shifty, one on either side of him. The chameleon knows what to do. He jumps out of the way at the last second, and the two plants crash into each other. It seems the bigger of the plants is frustrated to have missed his dinner—he eats the smaller one. What a voracious appetite!
Musky jumps into the air and does a somersault. Her bushy tail fans out into a SPECTACULAR SHIELD that holds the menacing plants at bay.
How much time will this buy? A terrible thought crosses my mind.
“Foxy, if the little ones are able to move…”
“What’s stopping the big ones from copying them?” Foxy finishes my sentence in a TREMBLING VOICE.
On hearing this, Yeti multiplies his attacks on the little plants. He suffers a few bites in the fights, but nothing too serious.
“I’m not a fly, but I’ll make you guys fly!” he giggles.
“Come back, Yeti!”
Musky’s warning comes too late.
Yeti gets too close to a giant Venus flytrap, and it seizes him by the collar and lifts him off the ground.
The weasel struggles to defend himself, but there is nothing he can do. He swings through the air, three meters off the ground, as the Venus flytrap shakes him like a rag doll. Yeti’s cap falls off.
This is terrible, and I feel totally helpless! How can we help him?
A STONE! I need to find a STONE…or a dog. Yes! I could throw FrouFrou at him. That would distract the carnivorous plant.
Too late!
The Venus flytrap tosses him higher into the air, and the weasel falls back down into the plant’s mouth, which promptly closes—a fatal trap. I shriek in despair.
“NOOOOOOOOOO!”
The plant starts to convulse. It jerks in every direction, then leans to one side and, to our surprise, crashes to the ground. The Zintrepids hurry to get Yeti out of his VEGETABLE PRISON.
We clutch at the Venus flytrap’s jaws.
“Pull! We can do it!”
Working together, we succeed in opening the carnivorous plant’s jaws.
“You sure took your time!” the weasel complains.
“The PLEASURE was all ours!” says Timoree sarcastically as she places Yeti’s cap back on his head.
Where did she come from?
Gigantic
With their swords, Timoree and some of the crew cut a path through the giant Venus flytraps.
Once we are safe again in the FOREST, we stop for a bit to catch our breath and recover.
Our plans did not include being dissolved by acids and enzymes in the jaws of carnivorous plants. We are sure glad Timoree and the men came to help!
Timoree had convinced her brother, Captain Loslobos, that someone needed to go back and get us safely through this unknown land. Because Loslobos was worried about the DANGERS of the forest, he commanded six sailors to accompany her. The group found us by following the noise coming from our fight with the Venus flytraps.
Timoree had intervened just in time to foil the plant’s PLANS to make a tasty snack of Yeti.
“I would have managed without you,” he grumbles, not seeming very thankful for the help.
He lowers his cap over his eyes as we rejoin Loslobos’s group. Foxy tells our saviors everything she knows about Venus Zintrepid-traps.
Starting with the giant bird that haunts the area and guided us to this very spot. This winged MONSTER is not our enemy, however. He saved us when we first arrived by using his massive claws to rid the beach of thousands of crabs, out of gratitude to Foxy, who saved him in the SEA when the bird found himself in the clutches of an octopus.
It was an exchange of friendly services between Foxy and the roc.
“Hey! Watch this!” Yeti exclaims.
He picks up a Venus flytrap. I take a step back, but Yeti assures me the plant is not alive. He grabs
its JAWS and forces them open by pressing on them. Then the weasel puts his face behind the flytrap’s head and says LOUDLY:
“Hey, troop! My name is Viola Venus. Bring it on! No, really, bring it on! I’m not scared of him…Oh no, he’s coming! He’s coming!”
Yeti flails the corpse around, making the plant look as if it is fleeing an enemy.
“HELP! MOMMMMMY!”
While the weasel performs his ventriloquist act, the men and Loslobos chat.
“It would be safer to return to the boat, Captain,” one of them says.
Ugobos, the guard of the slaves, says:
“Captain, we don’t know the PERILS that lie in wait for us on this island. These beasts”—he points at us—“have brought a curse upon us.”
Ugobos detests us. He blames us for the slightest little problem that happens.
But Loslobos turns a DEAF EAR to his arguments.
“We will get back to sea once we’ve explored this land. I remind you that our provisions have run out.
“And for your information, Ugobos, I am indebted to our friends. In the labyrinth they saved my sister from the MINOTAUR.”
As for us, we are searching for the way my grandfather took next, so that we can follow him.
Yeti is still PLAYING with the dead Venus flytrap.
“Look, the plant talks and I’m not even moving my lips. ‘I will eat Billy Stuart’s dog!’ ‘Hey! He’s not my dog…’ ”
AAAAAAAAAAARK!
“That wasn’t me,” Yeti says. “Or her.”
It is the roc’s cry! What is it doing over here?
Suddenly we are blinded by lightning, followed by the rumble of thunder. The sky darkens quickly, and a VIOLENT STORM falls upon us.
“Quickly, take shelter!” orders the captain.
The rain is already coming down in full force.
Billy Stuart in the Eye of the Cyclops Page 1
