by Mo O'Hara
Frankie rolled his eyes, shook his head and folded his fins stubbornly.
“Please,” I begged.
Frankie’s eyes glowed green, then he flipped backward and in a flash of orange scales sped away toward the overhanging tree.
Grizzly and Pradeep were hard at work. Grizzly had been impressed to find Pradeep had twelve pairs of socks in his backpack. They were tying some together and stretching them over a large Y-shaped branch to make a slingshot.
The panther was now actually climbing the tree. It was out over the water and creeping closer and closer to Mark. Just then, Frankie jumped up out of the water and splashed the panther with his tail.
“Rawwwwwallll!” the panther growled as Frankie dropped back into the water.
He had got her attention! The big cat leaned over the tree trunk and swiped at Frankie as he leaped out of the water again. She clawed at him as water splashed her face. Frankie was in full zombie fish mode now. His eyes glowed green as he leaped up for his third splash at the big cat. That’s when she caught him off guard.
Her left claw caught his tail fin. She had hooked her fish and was lifting him up to her mouth!
We only had seconds. I grabbed a pinecone from the ground and put it in the slingshot Pradeep and Grizzly had made. Pradeep and I pulled back together and sent it flying at the panther.
It hit her right on the nose before she could take a nibble of zombie fish. She growled at us but didn’t let her catch go. She lifted her paw a second time to drop Frankie into her mouth, but as she did so, for a split second she looked Frankie in the eye. That was all it took.
When she turned back to face Mark again, she was looking at the tree trunk with one eye and up Mark’s left nostril with the other. Frankie was sitting on the panther’s nose staring back at her.
“In all my years in the wild, I’ve never seen a fish take on a panther before. Let alone win!” Grizzly scratched his head.
“Whoaaaa, dude! The cat has the zombie stare. How did he do that?” said Mark. Then he got that evil glint back in his eyes. “Cool. Now the beast is busted I can take the fish back to Sam and ace my evil job. I’ll have the money to build an evil lair in no time!”
In one move Mark grabbed Frankie, covering his eyes, and jumped into the stream. He floated on the current as it raced back toward the clearing and Sam Savage.
“Frankie!” I yelled.
“Mwah ha ha ha glug, ughhh!” drifted back to us over the sound of the rushing water.
“I know the route of this stream,” Grizzly said. “It snakes around a bit, so if we go direct we might get to the clearing before he does.”
The panther was still in the tree, only now it was looking down at my backpack and up Grizzly’s left nostril.
“But what do we do with the Beast of Burdock Woods?” Pradeep asked.
CHAPTER 14
ZOMBIE BEAST ON THE PROWL
“We can’t leave her here,” Grizzly said. He spoke softly as he went up to the panther and gently picked her up and put her around his shoulders. Then the three of us ran through the woods to the clearing.
“Hopefully we’ve got here before Mark,” said Grizzly as we reached the edge of the stream near the clearing. “Quick, hide in those bushes.”
Pradeep and I dived into the bushes on our left. Grizzly laid the panther down on the ground in front of the bushes we were hiding behind. He positioned her so that her face was looking away from the water.
The panther’s eyes gazed both at the bush and up my left nostril.
“How are you boys at growls?” Grizzly said.
Pradeep and I both shot him a look that said, “We have a wide range of animal growls. What sort would you prefer?”
Grizzly smiled. “I’ll leave it up to you,” he said, and jumped behind a bush on the opposite side of the track.
A few seconds later we heard Mark splashing about in the rushing water. “Get back here you slippery little … guurrrrrggggh!” he gurgled.
I peered out. Mark was trying to keep hold of a very slippery Frankie as he kept slurping out of Mark’s clutch, only to be caught again. Eventually Mark floundered onto the bank of the stream and stood up with Frankie trapped in his cupped hands.
Now was our chance.
Pradeep let off his most terrifying imitation-panther growl from behind the bush.
Mark looked over and saw the big cat sitting there. Right on cue he screamed and threw his hands in the air, sending Frankie flying backward. We could see flashes of orange and heard little fishy “umph” noises as Frankie ricocheted off a couple of branches, bounced off Grizzly’s face and then somersaulted neatly into one of Pradeep’s water-filled sick bags that I was holding at the ready.
Grizzly jumped out with a rope he had made out of Pradeep’s socks and looped it around Mark. “Gotcha!” he cried as he pinned Mark’s arms to his sides.
“Sam!” yelled Mark, but before he could get out another word Pradeep shoved a balled-up sock in his open mouth. “Put a sock in it, Mark!” he said triumphantly. Then he added, “It is clean. Just so you know.”
At that moment we heard the helicopter engine start up.
“Sam Savage is making a getaway!” Pradeep shouted over the roar of the helicopter blades.
While Grizzly finished tying up Mark, Pradeep and I ran for the chopper. It was hovering a little way above the ground when we got there.
“It’s too late, he’s getting away,” Pradeep said.
Then I spotted the sock-and-stick slingshot sticking out of Pradeep’s backpack.
I shot Pradeep a look that explained my plan. The upside was that Sam’s chopper had open sides so we had a good chance if we were brave enough to take it. The downside was that if we missed, Frankie might end up in the chopper blades as zombie sushi.
“It’s too risky for Frankie,” Pradeep said.
“You’re right.” I sighed. Sam Savage was going to get away after all.
Frankie splashed me and I looked down at him in his sick bag. His eyes were a wild bright green. He turned toward the helicopter and nodded.
“Are you sure?” I asked him.
Frankie winked, and waved a fin as if to say, “Let’s go!”
I scrunched down the top of the bag to make a zombie fish splat bomb and Pradeep readied the slingshot.
As we pulled back the socks and aimed at Sam’s monocle, we counted, “One, two, three … bombs away!”
CHAPTER 15
SPLAT-BOMB SAVAGE
The splat bomb sailed through the air toward the chopper as if in slow motion. I shut my eyes as the sick bag flew toward its spinning blades.
SPLAT! The bomb had hit its mark, knocking Sam’s monocle clean off, splattering him with water, and delivering a very angry zombie goldfish to do some serious kung fu fish-slapping.
In a flash Grizzly raced past us, pulled himself up using the helicopter skids, and climbed into the copilot seat. He expertly landed the chopper, turned off the engine, and the blades finally started to slow.
Sam fell out of the other side of the helicopter, still fighting with Frankie. “You ridiculous green-eyed goldfish!” he shouted between fishy slaps. “Don’t you know who I am?”
As they rolled on the ground near the edge of the stream, the panther approached. She still had the zombie stare so Frankie must have been controlling her as she stalked toward Sam with an intimidating “Grrrrrr!”
Sam sat up and backed away toward the water. He’d managed to wrestle Frankie off his face now and had trapped him in his hands.
“You would have looked lovely stuffed and mounted on my wall, fish, but if I can’t have you, no one will!” he screamed. And with that he hurled Frankie into the stream.
Pradeep and I ran to the edge of the water. But there was no sign of Frankie’s green eyes or orange scales.
I reached in and dug around with my hands, hoping to grab hold of him. But Grizzly pulled me back. “Not so fast, mate. Around that next bend the current really picks up. There’s a
weir and then the stream goes underground for miles and miles. You don’t want to end up in there.”
I looked over at Pradeep and Grizzly. I didn’t know what a weir was, but it didn’t sound good.
Pradeep caught my look. “It’s like a waterfall,” he explained. “Frankie will probably be OK if he goes over. But if he gets sucked into the underground stream, we might never see him again!”
“We’ve got to save him,” I cried.
Grizzly kept hold of my shoulder and wouldn’t let go. “Ya can’t go in after him,” he said firmly. “I’m sorry.”
Then the panther started moving slowly toward the water. It dabbed its paw into the stream, then shook it out. Then it ran back and jumped in.
“I didn’t know panthers could swim,” Pradeep said.
“There are lots of big cats that love the water,” said Grizzly, “but I’ve never heard of one diving in to save a fish before!”
Pradeep and I ran along the bank of the stream while Grizzly tied up Sam with even more of Pradeep’s spare socks. We could see the panther up ahead. She was doggy-paddling (which in future I’m going to call “panther-paddling”) through the churning water. The top of the weir was just yards away!
Then we saw a flash of green and the flick of an orange fin right in the middle of the stream by some rocks.
“He’s over there,” I shouted.
Frankie looked tired. He kept flinging himself up out of the water, but the current always pushed him back. Grizzly had caught up with us and looked on.
The panther swam over and clung to the rocks with her front paws as the crashing white water drummed against her. She couldn’t let go of the rock to swipe Frankie up though, or they might both end up over the weir and be sucked underground.
With one last effort, Frankie leaped up out of the water and toward the panther’s open mouth.
CHAPTER 16
FRANKIE SNACK
The panther caught Frankie in her mouth in one scoop.
“She ate Frankie!” Pradeep cried.
“I think she’s just holding him in her mouth, like mother crocodiles do with their young,” said Grizzly.
The panther pushed herself up and out of the foaming water so she was standing on the rocks. Then she leaped across from stone to stone, heading upstream. When she reached calmer waters she swam to the shore.
We were there to meet her when she climbed out of the water.
Grizzly got out his canteen and held it to the panther’s mouth. Frankie slid down her tongue and plopped into the water.
“Wow, that goldfish is one serious survivor,” Grizzly exclaimed, wiping his brow.
“We’d better get back to check on Mark and Sam Savage,” I said.
“Did you use a triple hornbench smuggler’s knot on them both?” Pradeep asked Grizzly.
Grizzly smiled. “The old knots are the best.”
When we got back to the clearing, Mark started shouting “Met mit maway mom meee!” at the panther through his sock gag.
Sam was muttering to himself too. “A fish? I was defeated by a couple of kids and a fish!” He got more and more worked up until he was shouting, “I’ll ruin you, Grizzly! If you report this and turn me in, then no one will ever come on one of your survival camps ever again!”
Suddenly Frankie leaped out of the canteen and onto Sam’s face. He stared into his one eye and one monocle. In a second Sam was mumbling “Swishy little fishy,” and staring up my left nostril and at the side of the helicopter. Frankie jumped back into the canteen.
“What did the fish do to him?” Grizzly asked, pulling the sock out of Mark’s mouth.
“Man, he zombified my boss,” Mark grumbled.
“Is that what he did to the panther too?” Grizzly turned to Pradeep and me.
We nodded.
“Wow,” said Grizzly, looking impressed.
“It’s kinda natural behavior for a zombie goldfish,” Pradeep added. “Well, at least for Frankie anyway. It’s not like we know any other zombie fish.”
We all looked over at the panther. “What’s going to happen to her?” I asked.
“We can’t leave her out here, that’s for sure,” Grizzly replied.
“I’ve got an idea. Maybe Sam can do something for her after all.” I looked at Pradeep.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “With Frankie’s help.”
I whispered our plan to Frankie and in a minute he was back balancing on Sam’s nose, looking into his eyes again.
Then Sam started talking in regular words that didn’t include “swishy fish” but also didn’t involve anything evil. Quickly Pradeep and I untied his sock ropes.
“Oh, what a lovely big cat!” Sam said, stroking the panther. “I feel an overwhelming urge to start an animal sanctuary with all my money, and retire from television.”
“Man, I totally just lost my summer job,” Mark whined.
“Right, everyone in the helicopter now. We’re heading back to camp in style,” Grizzly said.
Sam and Mark sat in the back with the panther lying between them.
Sam was now muttering, “Pretty little kitty,” over and over, and scratching the panther behind the ears. Mark was looking like … well, like he was trapped in the back of a helicopter with a zombified panther, really. It’s a pretty specific look.
“And you two can sit up front and see what it’s like to fly one of these,” Grizzly added.
Frankie peered up out of the canteen.
“Oh yes, I haven’t forgotten about you.” Grizzly pulled out a clear plastic bottle and poured the canteen water and Frankie into it. Then he wedged it between the windshield of the helicopter and the dashboard controls. “There you go. Best bird’s-eye view that a fish has ever had, I bet.”
CHAPTER 17
THE FLYING ZOMBIE
Frankie loved flying. Pradeep and I loved it too, even though Pradeep was glad he’d brought his sick bags. But the best bit was watching the whole camp gather to see Grizzly land the chopper and then watch us get out with the panther on a lead made from a rope of Pradeep’s socks.
Grizzly put the panther in a pen and Frankie unzombified her. She stayed really calm though. And we gave her a couple of peanut-butter pinecones to lick on. Later that afternoon some people from Sam Savage’s new wildlife sanctuary came to pick up Sam and the panther.
There was a lady with a clipboard with them. She held out a picture of a panther cub as she spoke to Grizzly. “There was an old, rich recluse who lived on the other side of these woods. He used to collect all kinds of exotic animals, including this little panther cub. Unfortunately the man died last year. She must have escaped and been roaming wild in the woods ever since.”
Grizzly smiled. “She sure looked like a survivor to me.”
“It’s good that you were able to trap her. It’s not a very safe place for a young panther,” she replied.
“Well, I didn’t really do the tracking on this one. And neither did Sam Savage. It was all down to these two young fellows here, Tom and Pradeep,” Grizzly said.
Pradeep and I stood a whole head taller when he said that. The other campers looked impressed as Grizzly continued: “They sure have a knack for wilderness survival and for looking after animals. Not to mention saving our skins as well while you were at it,” he added with a wink.
The lady took a couple of pictures of Pradeep and me with Grizzly.
After Grizzly made Mark apologize to the other campers and leaders, he handed him a letter. The front read: “Summer Apprenticeship with Sam Savage.”
“Can’t cut out on a job half done, can ya, mate?” Grizzly said to Mark. “That wouldn’t be the Grizzly Woodland Explorer way.” Pradeep and I peeked around Mark’s shoulder to read it. The letter was from Sam’s new wildlife sanctuary, thanking Mark for volunteering to clean out the big-cat enclosures every weekend over the summer.
“The best way to learn the difference between being a fake wild animal and respecting a real one is cleaning up after them.” Griz
zly grinned. “You won’t make that mistake again.”
“Man, this is like the worst failed evil plan ever!” Mark moaned.
* * *
That evening was epic! We sat around the campfire and Grizzly, Pradeep and I told the other campers about how we tracked the panther and saved Mark and Sam Savage. The lady with the clipboard took notes about our adventure and the photographer took some more pictures around the fire.
The campers “Ooohed” and “Ahhhed” as we held up the slingshot made out of Pradeep’s socks. We left out the bits about Frankie being a zombie goldfish and Sam and Mark being Evil Scientists and stuff. Now that Sam was going to help the panther and other animals, there didn’t seem much point blowing his cover.
“So what would you say was your secret to tracking the big cat?” the lady with the clipboard said, writing everything down. “This could be good press for the sanctuary.”
“Ummm, peanut butter,” Pradeep replied. “Oh yeah, and clean socks. You can never have too many pairs of clean socks.”
She looked at us both with a slightly strange expression, but kept writing.
“Oh, and a fish!” I added. The plastic water bottle that Frankie was in sloshed from side to side and Frankie peeked his head out the top. “We couldn’t have done it without one very brave fish.”
REVENGE OF THE PARANORMAL PETS
CHAPTER 1
THE MISSING-PETS MYSTERY
Frankie, my pet zombie goldfish, jumped out of the jar of green watercolor paint and flopped onto the paper that Sami, Pradeep’s little sister, was holding. He made a slimy green semicircle and then leaped back into the pot.
Sami wiped her hands on her sparkly mermaid outfit that was already coated in green paint. “Yaaay! Fishy do shell!” She clapped. “Now fishy do feet?”
