CHAPTER SIX

Professor Fauna led the class through the dark marsh, where the sky became just a small gray sliver between the pines. “In the old days,” he was saying, “they found iron in the rivers and smelted it at furnaces. But today, they mostly grow cranberries and blueberries. And those Christmas decorations I mentioned! Pinecones, laurel, holly . . .”

Elliot and Uchenna had fallen to the back as they gazed at the gloomy swamp.

A dragonfly buzzed between them.

Somewhere, a branch cracked and fell to the wet earth.

Then, deep in the trees, something growled.

Elliot stopped walking. “Good gracious!” he whispered.

Uchenna cocked her head. “Did you just say ‘Good gracious’?”

Elliot blushed. “Yeah. . . . My grandma won’t let me use words worse than that.”

Suddenly, the growling erupted into an angry snarl.

Elliot’s body went rigid. Uchenna’s eyes grew wide.

“What is it?” Uchenna whispered.

“Bobcat.”

“Are you sure?” Uchenna’s voice was barely a breath.

“No. Could be a bear.”

“A bobcat or a bear?”

“Right. Or a tiger.”

“Tigers live in the Pine Barrens?”

“If someone let one out of its cage, maybe.”

“So you have no idea what it is, Elliot.”

“That is correct.”

The snarling continued. Now, though, it was mixed with whimpering. Uchenna scanned the forest. The sounds seemed to be coming from the deep brush to their right.

The class had gotten very far ahead of them on the path.

“Let’s go check it out,” Uchenna said.

“What?” Elliot hissed. “Are you kidding? I’m fairly confident it’s either a bobcat or a bear. My tiger theory was far-fetched, admittedly, but . . .”

Uchenna wasn’t listening. She checked to make sure Professor Fauna and Miss Vole weren’t looking. They were already around a bend and out of sight.

Uchenna stepped off the path, slid between two dense bushes, and disappeared.

Elliot stared after her, completely dumbfounded. “Of course,” he muttered to himself. “I have one friend at my new school, and it turns out she’s got a death wish.”

He waited.

He began to chew on a fingernail.

He looked down the path to see if someone was coming back to get them. He hoped they were.

They weren’t.

He chewed his fingernail some more.

All of this took about three seconds.

And then a scream shattered the stillness of the woods.