Hal nodded. ‘We’ll talk about that in a moment. But first you tell me your story. How did you come to be out here?’
And now at last Amazon and Frazer, with frequent interjections from young Ben, explained everything that had happened. The radio news announcement that made them realize that Hal was looking in the wrong place for Ben, the bike ride, the cougar, the landslide, the mother and baby bear, the wolves, and finally the discovery of the wrecked plane …
‘That’s some story,’ said Hal, shaking his close-cropped, grizzled head. ‘You’re lucky to be alive.’
‘What can we do with the big bear?’ asked Amazon. ‘Frazer thinks it’s a cross between a grizzly and a polar bear. A grolar …’
‘Yep, I reckon he’s right.’
‘We think it might have wanted to join the others, as a … family.’
The mother and baby bear had run away into the forest at the shot and had not yet returned.
Hal shook his head.
‘No, that can’t work. They’re different species and they just don’t belong together.’
‘Well, what’s going to happen to it?’ asked Frazer. He was worried in case his father was going to say that it would have to be put down.
‘What it needs is its own kind. And at the moment that means in a zoo or wildlife park. I know the people at Copenhagen Zoo, where they have a female grolar that was reared there. I’ll pull some strings. It’ll mean getting a freight-carrying helicopter out here, but that’s what TRACKS does. I’ll call one up on the sat phone.’
At the thought of the bear and its lost family, Amazon’s eyes began to fill with tears.
‘Now, Uncle Hal, tell me, this is my parents’ plane, so where are they?’
‘They were obviously here, and not long ago,’ said Hal, surveying the scene. He walked round the site, looking at the discarded rubbish and mess. Then he knelt down in the circle of flattened grass that Amazon had noticed earlier.
‘Talking of helicopters, one has already been here, earlier today, unless I’m mistaken,’ he said thoughtfully.
Amazon gasped.
‘That must be the one we heard this morning!’ exclaimed Frazer. ‘I knew it wasn’t just the thunder.’
‘Hey, I heard the hellycopter before anyone!’ said Ben, who had been listening carefully to everything that was said.
‘Sure it was,’ said Amazon, and then spun back to face Hal Hunt. ‘You mean they were rescued?’ Her mind was buzzing with hope and confusion.
Hal slowly shook his head.
‘I’ve been in radio contact with the authorities. They would have let me know. This was something else. It looks to me like they’ve been taken.’
‘Taken?’ said Frazer. ‘What do you mean … like kidnapped?’
‘Possibly, yes.’
‘Why do you think that, Dad?’
‘I’ll talk you through it. We know that Roger and Ling-Mei had found out something important, something earth-shattering, and they were flying back to tell me about it face to face. Their plane came down, and we heard nothing more. Now look at this crash site: you can see that they’ve made a real effort to hide the wreck. The branches have been cut and folded over so it’s almost invisible from the air.
‘Why would they do that? Wouldn’t you think they’d want to be rescued? That suggests to me that they knew that someone – the bad guys – were after them. And then there’s the evidence of the helicopter landing – a helicopter that the authorities know nothing about. And it’s obvious to anyone that the camp was searched. For what, I don’t know.’
Frazer looked at Amazon. To his astonishment she was grinning.
‘Zonnie,’ he said, disturbed. ‘What are you laughing at? Did you hear what my dad just said? Your parents may have been kidnapped.’
Amazon’s smile became even broader.
‘Don’t you understand, Frazer? If they’ve been kidnapped, it means that THEY ARE ALIVE! ALIVE! ALIVE! I’d given up hope. I thought they were dead and gone forever. If someone’s kidnapped them, it means that they want to keep them alive for some reason. There’s hope. It’s all I needed, a tiny ray of hope. We’ll find them, Uncle Hal, won’t we?’
Hal looked her straight in the eye.
‘Yes, Amazon, we’ll find them. I don’t know how, but yes, we’ll find and free your parents, I swear it.’
They had been standing close to the dead fire. Now Hal Hunt began to kick lightly at the ash and cinders, a thoughtful expression on his face.
‘What is it, Dad?’ Frazer asked.
‘Just a hunch. Roger and I used to play spies a lot when we were kids. Hiding secret messages, stuff like that. There was one trick we learned from some dime-store book on being a secret agent. It was full of junk, but it had some good ideas on where to hide your papers, or where to leave things if you wanted your partner to find them.’
‘And one of them,’ said Frazer, getting excited, ‘was underneath a fire!’
Hal didn’t answer, but reached down into the cold ash. He pushed aside the soil beneath it and pulled something out.
It was a little leather-bound notebook. The cover was scorched black, but it had not been consumed by the fire, and had partially protected the paper within.
Hal Hunt grunted, and Amazon and Frazer gathered closer. Hal opened the book and began to read. Then he closed it again and handed it to Amazon.
‘You should be the first,’ he said.
‘What is it, Dad?’ asked Frazer.
But it was Amazon who answered.
‘It … it’s a diary,’ she said. ‘The diary of … Roger Hunt.’
TOP 10 FACTS:
SPIRT (KERMODE) BEARS
KERMODE ‘SPIRT’ BEARS are a sub-species of the black bear race but about 1/10 have white coats.
SPIRT BEARS only live on the Pacific coast of British Columbia in Canada.
Scientists estimate there are less than four hundred SPIRIT BEARS in that area.
KERMODE BEARS are sacred to the local Native American culture because of their unique colouring.
According to Native American Legend, SPIRIT BEARS are a reminder of times past, specifically the white colour of ice and snow. The master of the universe created one white bear for every ten black bears as a reminder of the hardships during the Ice Age.
KERMODE BEARS may have evolved over the last 10,000 years from black bears that become isolated on the coast more than 300,000 years ago.
Living in Lush forests, KERMODE BEARS are lucky to have lots of food – they eat fruits, bulbs, insects, rodents and nuts in addition to salmon.
Because of their Light fur, SPIRIT BEARS are less visible to fish than black bears, making them 30 per cent more efficient at capturing salmon.
They can run up to 50 Km per hour.
KERMODE BEARS were named after Francis Kermode, former director of the Royal British Columbia Museum.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to the whole brilliant Puffin team, especially Anthea Townsend and Samantha Mackintosh. Also to Corinne Turner for keeping the Willard Price flame burning. But most of all my gratitude and admiration goes to Nelson Evergreen for his wonderful illustrations, which bring my words into such spectacular life.
Bright and shiny and sizzling with fun stuff …
puffin.co.uk
WEB FUN
UNIQUE and exclusive digital content!
Podcasts, photos, Q&A, Day in the Life of, interviews and much more, from Eoin Colfer, Cathy Cassidy, Allan Ahlberg and Meg Rosoff to Lynley Dodd!
WEB NEWS
The Puffin Blog is packed with posts and photos from Puffin HQ and special guest bloggers. You can also sign up to our monthly newsletter Puffin Beak Speak.
WEB CHAT
Discover something new EVERY month – books, competitions and treats galore.
WEBBED FEET
(Puffins have funny little feet and brightly coloured beaks.)
Point your mouse our way today!
It all started with a Sca
recrow.
Puffin is over seventy years old. Sounds ancient, doesn’t it? But Puffin has never been so lively. We’re always on the lookout for the next big idea, which is how it began all those years ago.
Penguin Books was a big idea from the mind of a man called Allen Lane, who in 1935 invented the quality paperback and changed the world. And from great Penguins, great Puffins grew, changing the face of children’s books forever.
The first four Puffin Picture Books were hatched in 1940 and the first Puffin story book featured a man with broomstick arms called Worzel Gummidge. In 1967 Kaye Webb, Puffin Editor, started the Puffin Club, promising to ‘make children into readers’. She kept that promise and over 200,000 children became devoted Puffineers through their quarterly instalments of Puffin Post.
Many years from now, we hope you’ll look back and remember Puffin with a smile. No matter what your age or what you’re into, there’s a Puffin for everyone. The possibilities are endless, but one thing is for sure: whether it’s a picture book or a paperback, a sticker book or a hardback, if it’s got that little Puffin on it – it’s bound to be good.
www.puffin.co.uk
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Block D, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North, Gauteng 2193, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
puffinbooks.com
First published 2013
Text and illustrations copyright © Willard Price Literary Management Ltd, 2013
Map copyright © Puffin Books, 2013
Illustrations by Nelson Evergreen
Cover Illustration by Eamon O’Donoghue
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes
ISBN: 978-0-141-33952-8
Bear Adventure Page 13
