Chapter 5 – Predator
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaa. Rrrrrrrrrrrrr.”
We huddled. We cuddled. We trembled.
The bushes were shaking and something was definitely moving closer.
We all started screaming and then the bushes started screaming, too.
And then Natalie broke through some dense pine boughs, still screaming.
Okay, back to the hysteria thing. Should we laugh or cry? What a relief it was that the noise we had heard, that “aaaaaaaa”, was just Natalie making her usual grumbling expressions. After you’re around her for a while you start to understand her grunts and growls. She can talk, of course, and her last book report in class was like the best one ever, but her family likes to engage in what I would call “Caveman language”. Her dad can actually tell a joke without using any English.
So, it was Natalie.
Austin was the first to speak real words, “Natalie, awesome, we thought you couldn’t make the fair or we would have waited for you.”
Natalie gave one of her typical half-smiles, a teeny little smirk, a slight upturn of the left side of her mouth, a semi-sneer. Gee, maybe I learned a lot from Mrs. Buckley in fourth grade after all.
Natalie dropped the mini-smile and said, “We got back from Evan’s thing in time.” Evan is her older brother. He’s high school cool. “I’ve been following you guys since you got to the fence. I saw you climb over and I was yelling, but I guess you couldn’t hear me.” She gave a little “hhmmff” sound that we all knew meant she really believed that we hadn’t heard her and weren’t trying to ditch her and she was cool with trying to catch up with us. Yeah, really, one little sound from her says that much.
“There’s a big animal-monster-bigfoot thing in the woods,” Sydney informed her, “and he’s got diarrhea.” She waved her fingers in front of her stained shirt and shorts. Natalie’s lip curled up toward her nose.
“Sydney tripped in it. And I’ve got blood on my legs from when I tripped,” I said and looked down to check if the bleeding was still stopped. It was.
“Did you see the footprint?” Callie asked.
Natalie just shook her head no.
“Two-toes this big.” Syd held her hand out, fingers spread wide.
Natalie’s eyes widened. I guess she used all her words up when she first spoke.
Austin, I just noticed, was still bobbing his head all around, checking the branches above and looking around and behind us. That got me nervous. Maybe he was still hearing things.
Maybe the creature was tracking Natalie. You know, a victim alone. One small girl. Cute. Helpless. Making little noises that would attract a predator. Predator was a spelling word we had last month. Cool that I get to use it in a sentence.
“I think we should go,” Austin said. “Natalie, do you know the way back?”
“Hhkkm.”
I guess not.
We looked at Callie. She shrugged her shoulders. Her internal compass was still broken.
“Let’s vote,” Sydney grinned. “Everybody close your eyes and point in the direction you think we should go. Then we’ll open our eyes and see which direction most of us are pointing. Okay?”
We all nodded.
“Close your eyes and point. Now one, two, three, open your eyes.”
In the couple of seconds our eyes were closed I was sure that, even though there are four basic directions, when I opened my eyes I’d find out that five hands would be pointing in five different directions.
I think everybody had the same thought, but you’ll never guess what I saw when I opened my eyes.
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Want to find out what happens next in all of these stories? Go to the author’s Smashwords page https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/DebraChapoton or the website https://www.bigpinelodgebooks.com to read summaries, watch video trailers and find out more about how to purchase these kids’ adventure books.
Thank you for taking the time to check out these fine books. Below is a list of all books by Debra Chapoton.
Chapter Books:
THE SECRET IN THE HIDDEN CAVE
MYSTERY’S GRAVE
BULLIES AND BEARS
A TICK IN TIME
BIGFOOT DAY, NINJA NIGHT
NICK BAZEBAHL and THE FORBIDDEN TUNNELS
NICK BAZEBAHL and THE RED TUNNELS
NICK BAZEBAHL and THE WORMHOLE TUNNELS
NICK BAZEBAHL and THE MINING TUNNELS
NICK BAZEBAHL and THE CARTOON TUNNELS
Young Adult:
EDGE OF ESCAPE
DRAGONFOOT
Non-fiction
CROSSING THE SCRIPTURES
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