The Hunt for Fang, page 1
As a dad of four, I can say firsthand, this book and the series to come will be a new family favorite.
BROCK EASTMAN, author of the Quest for Truth series
From the pen of Amanda Cleary Eastep comes Jack vs. the Tornado and The Hunt for Fang, the first two titles in an exciting new middle-grade series. Relevant, readable, and entertaining, the Tree Street Kids will resonate with young readers everywhere who enjoy stories of fun, friendship, faith, adventure, and humor.
GLENYS NELLIST, author of the Love Letters from God and Little Mole series
The Tree Street Kids series is full of adventure and is a flat-out good read! As a young reader, I grabbed a book that encouraged my faith and devoured it. I think the same thing will happen as children read this series. Bravo!
CHRIS FABRY, author and host of Chris Fabry Live on Moody Radio
As a mom of three, I am constantly trying to find good books for my kids that are full of adventure, yet not too scary. It makes me so happy to have found the Tree Street Kids series—my kids (and I) can’t wait to read more!
ISABEL TOM, mom and author of The Value of Wrinkles: A Young Perspective on How Loving the Old Will Change Your Life
The Hunt for Fang is another thrilling adventure from author Amanda Cleary Eastep. Follow the neighborhood kids as they learn team building and survival skills that they unexpectedly have to put to good use. From an adventure in the deep woods to a warm narrative of a boy and his dog, your children will be on the edge of their seats as they turn the pages of this delightful book. A sweet story about friendship and love reaches an unforgettable conclusion that involves a surprise gift and the providence of God. Get this book and this series—I promise, you won’t regret it, and your children will thank you.
RAY RHODES JR., author of Susie: The Life and Legacy of Susannah Spurgeon and Yours, till Heaven: The Untold Love Story of Charles and Susie Spurgeon
The Tree Street Kids will be one of those book series you and your kids want to read again and again. These neighborhood kids are so funny and real and engaging; they seem like they might just live next door. I loved tagging along as they tackled big adventures and grappled with real-life situations. As a Christian parent, I treasure books that tell great stories and point children to God. Yes, both things are possible, and Amanda does it well. Enjoy!
JAMIE JANOSZ, managing editor, Today in the Word; author, When Others Shuddered: Eight Women Who Refused to Give Up
The 1990s kids in the Tree Street Kids series are relatable, and their challenges are things kids in the 2020s face as well. Amanda writes with curiosity, honesty, and warmth, and has created a memorable set of characters that’ll hook even reluctant readers. I’m excited that these books will make their way into a world in need of messages of faith, hope, and friendship.
MICHELLE VAN LOON, author of Becoming Sage: Cultivating Meaning, Purpose, and Spirituality in Midlife
Jack, Midge, and the other Tree Street Kids are the neighbors you wish you had. Each chapter is filled with adventure, fun, and friendship.
MARIANNE HERING, coauthor of the Imagination Station series
© 2021 by AMANDA CLEARY EASTEP
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Although the Tree Street Kids series is set in the 1990s (with occasional references to decades prior), these books use the 2011 NIV translation when quoting Scripture.
All emphasis in Scripture has been added.
Edited by Marianne Hering
Interior Design: Erik M. Peterson and Brandi Davis
Cover and interior illustrations: Aedan Peterson
Cover design: Erik M. Peterson
Cover icon of street sign copyright © 2018 by -VICTOR- / iStock (1030917706). All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Eastep, Amanda Cleary, author.
Title: The hunt for Fang / Amanda Cleary Eastep.
Description: Chicago : Moody Publishers, [2021] | Series: Tree street kids; 2 | Audience: Ages 8-12. | Audience: Grades 4-6. | Summary: Using survival skills learned at a church camp, ten-year-old Jack and his friends go into a massive forest preserve to stop a coyote from threatening pets in their Chicago suburb.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020047259 (print) | LCCN 2020047260 (ebook) | ISBN 9780802421036 (paperback) | ISBN 9780802499134 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Adventure and adventurers--Fiction. | Brothers and sisters--Fiction. | Friendship--Fiction. | Christian life--Fiction. | Pets--Fiction. | Coyote--Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.E258 Hun 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.E258 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020047259
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020047260
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To my husband, Dan, who hung out with the Tree Street gang in New Jersey and who never says, “No girls allowed.” I love you.
To my Grandma Jo, who taught me to pick catnip for tea and dandelions for salad and took me on my first walk in the woods. I miss you.
Friend,
Thank you for choosing to read this Moody Publishers title. It is our hope and prayer that this book will help you to know Jesus Christ more personally and love Him more deeply.
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The Moody Publishers Team
CONTENTS
1. A Howl in the Night
2. The Gray Ghost
3. Water Buffalo Pancakes
4. The Frog Hunt
5. Save Donatello!
6. The Dog Prayer
7. No-Name
8. Tyrannocanis Rex
9. Top Secret Surprise
10. Beans and Fangs
11. Super Steward Survival Camp
12. The Radical Rangers
13. How to Build a Shelter
14. P Is for Plan and—
15. The Wasted Bone
16. How Coyote Brought Fire
17. The Fire Race
18. God’s Territory
19. Capt. Beans Is Missing
20. The Emergency Meeting
21. The Hunt Begins
22. Arrow in Peril
23. Over the Edge
24. Heave-Ho Crossbow
25. Cheesy Cracker Clues
26. S.T.O.P.P.
27. First Rule of Survival
28. The Hot Dog Trap
29. “I’m a Giant Breakfast Sausage”
30. Fetch!
31. No Capt. Beans
32. The Survival Badge
33. Doomsday
34. Cute-us Kittenus
35. Furry Gifts
Acknowledgments
Notes
1
A HOWL IN THE NIGHT
T he howl woke me up.
Actually, it was more of a screeching eeeooh-eeeooh-EEEEEE-ooh!
I sat bolt upright and banged my head into the low slanted ceiling over the right side of my bed. “Ow!” So much for my nice dream about hitting the tie-breaking home run.
I’d hit my head about a hundred times since we moved from the farmhouse to King’s Grove in the suburbs at the beginning of summer.
I glanced sideways at my purple Nickelodeon Time Blaster clock. For now, it sat on a folding chair on the unslanty-ceiling side of my bed. The goo-green numbers glowed 4:00 a.m. At 6:30 sharp on school days, it would sing out: “Nick-nick-nick-nick-nick-nick-nick-nick-nick-uh-lo-dee-uhnnn!” The first day at my new school, August 29, 1995, was only a couple weeks away.
I flopped back onto my pillow, just as something white with black spots and the size of my little sister hurtled through the gray dark. She landed—all pointy knees and elbows—right onto my belly.
“Oof ! ” The wind rushed out of me.
The howl must have woken up Midge, too, who was dressed in her favorite 101 Dalmatian pajamas.
Apparent ly, the Foolproof Anti-Sister Room Alarm I’d rigged up wasn’t so foolproof. Sheesh. Little sisters are no respecters of territorial boundaries.
“Did you hear that, Jack?” she whisper-screamed into my face.
I could smell her morning breath. And chocolate. How Midge always manages to smell like a Tootsie Roll, I have no idea.
“It came from the cem-e-terrryyy!”
Adams Cemetery is on the corner, and our new house is the first house on the block and right next door to the old graveyard, the most ancient tombstones jutting out of the grass like jagged bottom teeth.
Even though both of our bedrooms are in the attic, Midge’s room was technically about ten feet closer to whatever was out there. I know there’s no such things as ghosts. And there definitely aren’t wolves in the suburbs of Chicago.
I shoved her off. Kicking and flailing, I untangled myself from the sheet and scrambled into the dormer window—what my dad calls a doghouse. The window juts out of the slanted ceiling right beside my bed. There’s plenty of room for a guy to sit and do important man thinking.
“Yes, the doghouse!” Midge squished in beside me.
So much for plenty of room.
My second-story window looks out over Cherry Avenue. From here, I mostly see bushy treetops. But I can also see the streetlamp standing kitty-corner to my right where Cherry makes a T with Oak Street—my friend Ellison’s street. The sidewalk below—heading right—eventually dead ends at the forest preserve. And—heading left—it leads to the cemetery next door.
I slid the top window sash down.
We pressed our faces against the screen. The air smelled like musty metal and wet grass.
Another sound echoed from farther away. A racket of yeee-ooowwwls scratched like fingernails over the dark.
“Ghosts.” Midge’s voice vibrated the screen.
All my life (I was already ten as of June 2), we’d lived with my grandparents on their farm in Goodnow. I was used to the sound of stray dogs howling at night. Sometimes packs of them roamed the fields. Sometimes they snatched chickens. Before I’d go to bed, I would always make sure my pet chicken, Henrietta, was locked up safe in the coop.
These howls were different. They sounded almost … human.
Midge tugged my arm. “Can we catch a ghost, puhleeezzz? After all, Mom said you can’t have a dog. She didn’t say anything about ghosts.”
I tried to imagine playing fetch with a ghost. But I was still working on convincing my mom how much I needed a dog.
Maybe a stray dog was outside, searching for a nice kid like me—smart (no matter what fourth grade math said). Good throwing arm. Nice to animals.
I imagined he’d have sticky-outy fur around his snout and ears and over his eyes. He’d be white with splotches of brown and black. Or black with splotches of white and brown. He’d sit next to me in the window seat—right where Midge was still yanking on my arm and begging to go investigate. When I’d say “Good, um, Snickers? … Rex? … Spot?” he’d nuzzle my hand with his wet nose. And he’d be one of those dogs that looks like they’re smiling at you when they pant.
That settled it. “Fine,” I said, shaking my arm free. I crawled out of the window seat and over my bed. “Let’s go catch … whatever is out there.”
Midge whisper-howled in agreement.
2
THE GRAY GHOST
We crept around the end of the tall wooden fence that divided our side yard from the cemetery. We stood there in our pajamas, like weirdos, in the cool, dewy grass at the corner of the graveyard.
The fifteen or so rows of tombstones glowed in the hazy light of the streetlamp where the sidewalk ended at the corner of Cherry and Main. I strained my eyes, searching for—I didn’t know what.
Some of the tombstones stood tall and shiny with clear words and dates carved into them. Others jutted out of the ground like nubby, chipped teeth.
Midge shivered behind me. Her death grip on the back of my superhero pajama shirt felt way less annoying than it would have in the daylight. Not that Midge wouldn’t come through in a pinch. She was “scrappy” (Grandma’s words). But also prone to a left hook “not befitting a Christian young lady” (Dad’s words).
I crept ahead, and Midge stuck to my back like a wet leaf. My bare toes caught in the long wet grass, and I lurched ahead. Luckily, there were lots of grave markers to break a guy’s fall. I grabbed the edge of an arched tombstone worn smooth on the edges, like the other ones that were so old you couldn’t read the names.
I wished I had my camping lantern, but it was in the fort I shared with my friends, the Tree Street Kids. The lantern light might have spooked the gray shadow slinking behind the last row of tombstones at the back of the cemetery.
“Jack, what’s that?” Midge pointed at it.
A dark, dog-shaped shadow peeked around the edge of the tombstone. The yellow eyes stared right back at me. And it definitely wasn’t smiling at us.
I had never seen one in real life, but I knew what it was: a coyote. I figured it had come from Crooked Creek Woods, the massive forest preserve north of our neighborhood. It’d probably been letting its family know where it was.
Which was more than I could say for me and Midge. If I let Midge get eaten, I’d be grounded for life. I needed to figure something out. And fast—
Midge jumped out from behind me. “BOO!” she shouted at the animal. She waved her spaghetti-noodle arms over her head. “I’m the ghost of Christmas presents!”
I yanked her back behind me just as the yellow eyes blinked out. The shadow spun around. The coyote was blocked by the fence, and Midge and I were standing smack between him and his path back to the woods.
Panicked, he sprinted toward us … then, whoosh, in a flash of gray fur, he darted past us and around the end of the tall fence.
We spun around, tripping and scrambling our way back to the sidewalk.
The coyote was already a blur, disappearing down Cherry toward the woods.
“Were you trying to get eaten?” I grabbed Midge by the hand. We needed to get back into the house before Mom and Dad woke up. “And it’s the Ghost of Christmas Present, not presents.”
Midge skipped to keep up as I hauled her down the sidewalk, past the end of our driveway, and across our side yard.
“You’re supposed to make yourself look big and scary when you see a coyote.”
Midge tosses out science-y facts like I do empty candy wrappers.
“Maybe you just looked like a bigger snack,” I said. “Besides, coyotes should stay in the woods where they belong.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to move to the suburps, either,” she said. “Just like you.”
“It’s suburbs, not burps,” I said, instead of admitting she might be right.
We hurried across the dewy grass, the bottoms of my pajama pants plastered to my ankles.
The sunrise was smearing pink across the sky. Mom and Dad would be awake any second. We scrambled up the back porch steps and halted at the back door.
“Shhh! Don’t make a peep.” I slowly pulled open the squeaky screen door. I turned the doorknob and carefully pushed open the back door.
The smell of coffee whacked me in the face.
“Uh-oh!” Midge said. “Smells like trouble.”
We tiptoed up into the kitchen.
Yep. Even bigger trouble than Dad being awake.
Mom stood at the counter, about to take a sip of coffee. Calmly, she turned and glared at us through the steam rising from her cup.
The light of the fluorescent bulb over the coffeepot twitched across her face.
After just being in the cemetery, I imagined the whole scenario might have looked like a spooky Goosebumps episode. Except this was real-life scary. You get grounded in real life.
She took a long sip and closed her eyes. Without even opening them she said: “Okay. In ten words or less, please.”
Before I could build a short, punishment-proof, mom-acceptable answer—
“Catching coyotes!” Midge blurted.
Mom’s eyes got crazy wide.
How do moms do that? I don’t ever want to see the eyes in the back of their heads.
Dad shuffled into the kitchen and straight to the coffeepot. “Moor-in,” he mumbled, behind Mom. He poured coffee into the “Daddy Saurus-rex” mug Midge had given him for his birthday three years ago. Then he turned and squinted over Mom’s shoulder. “Why are you two up”—he took a slurp of coffee—“and covered in grass?”
