Fear Stalks Grizzly Hill (5 page)

Sean was so fascinated by what the kinkajou was doing, he almost forgot about his camera. But Brian poked him, and Sean took four photographs in quick succession.

Even though Sean stayed scrunched down in the bushes and tried to be very quiet, the kinkajou heard him. It stopped eating and looked around suspiciously. It hissed angrily at being interrupted before it scrambled up the trunk.

Just before the kinkajou disappeared into its hiding place there was the sound of running footsteps, and the beam from a flashlight shone on the kinkajou.

Someone in a sweatsuit, tennis shoes, and a cloth hat ran up to the tree. The person stopped, looking up at the hollow where the kinkajou was hiding. He pulled out a cloth bag and broke a long, thin branch from the tree. Then he pushed one end of the branch into the hollow, grunting and jabbing, trying to get the kinkajou to climb into the bag. The frightened kinkajou hissed frantically.

It was too dark to recognize the person at the tree, but Sean stood up and snapped two pictures.

Startled by Sean’s movement, the person stepped backward into the dish of fruit and almost lost his balance.

The person spotted Sean and started for him, waving the stick, but Brian leaped up and shouted, “Stop!”

Confused, the person hesitated.

Alan raced into his house, yelling, “Mom, Dad!”

“Help me get him, Sean!” Brian cried out, as the person dashed into the forest.

Sean ran after him, but collided with Brian. They went down in a heap. When they managed to get to their feet the person had gone.

“Where’s Alan?” Sean shouted. Panicked, he ran between the houses, heading for the street. Brian dashed after him. “Alan! Where are you?” Sean yelled.

In less than a minute, Alan came flying through the front door of his house shouting, “Dad’s coming!”

Mr. and Mrs. Nash were right behind him.

Rusty, excited by the commotion, burst through the Everitts’ open door, with Mr. Everitt—dog leash in hand—frantically chasing him.

“What’s happening? What’s the matter?” Miss Crane called. She hurried to join the group. In what seemed like less than a minute Mr. and Mrs. Shaw and Mr. Webber showed up.

Brian groaned. There’d be no way to discover who the person in the yard had been by matching clothing to the person who’d gone after the kinkajou. All of the neighbors, with the exception of Mr. Webber, were wearing tennis shoes and sweatsuits. Miss Crane and Mr. Shaw wore cloth hats. Mr. Webber wore sweatpants, sandals, and a loud Hawaiian shirt.

Rusty bounced around the group, bumping into everyone, until Mr. Shaw quieted him with the words, “Sit, Rusty. Stay.”

Sean nudged Brian. “It had to have been Mr. Shaw who made Rusty sit at the entrance to the cave, shutting us inside. He’s the only one Rusty pays any attention to.”

“Shutting you inside a cave? What’s all this?” Mrs. Nash asked. She looked back and forth from Sean to Mr. Shaw.

Mr. Shaw sighed. “I’m sorry Rusty frightened you. I’d taken him for a walk, and he picked up your scent and followed your trail. I couldn’t keep up with him. By the time I caught up, you were crawling out of the cave. Sitting in front of the cave entrance was Rusty’s own idea. All I wanted to do was make sure you boys were safe. You hadn’t listened to me when I warned you to stay out of the forest.”

“Why did you want to keep us out of the forest?” Brian asked.

Surprised, Mr. Shaw said, “To protect you, of course. I suspected, after seeing that paw print in your plaster casts, that there was a wild animal loose in the area. I couldn’t say anything until I knew more, but I didn’t want you boys to get hurt.”

“There
is
a wild animal loose,” Brian told them. “It’s a kinkajou.”

“What in the world is a kinkajou?” Miss Crane asked.

“You saw it. It hissed at you,” Sean told her.

“It’s not only wild, it’s out of its element. It lives in Central and South America,” Brian explained.

“Then what is it doing here on Grizzly Hill?” Mrs. Nash asked.

“I think it was smuggled here,” Brian answered.

“Smuggled? That’s ridiculous!” Mr. Webber said.

“No, it isn’t,” Brian said. “We’ve been doing some investigating, and we believe that someone in this neighborhood is in the business of smuggling wild animals. This person probably had possession of the kinkajou until it escaped.”

No one said a word. In shock, the neighbors looked at each other.

“You’re just kids. What could you know about investigations and detecting?” Mr. Webber laughed.

“We’re pretty good at solving crimes, Mr. Webber,” Brian said. “And proving them. Sean and I can even prove that you’re the animal smuggler.”

“That’s enough. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mr. Webber snapped.

“Maybe they do,” Miss Crane said. “I want to hear what Brian and Sean have to say.”

Brian cleared his throat, thumbed through his notebook, and began. “When Mr. Webber returned from his so-called errand of taking his cats to the vet for shots, he went into the house alone. His cats weren’t with him.”

“I left them at the vet’s,” Mr. Webber said.

“We can double-check,” Brian told him. “But I don’t think there’s a vet involved. I don’t think you were carrying cats.”

“Of course they were cats! You even heard them yowl.”

“I heard something yowl, but I have a pretty good idea that you were carrying wild cats. Were they tiger cubs or bobcats?”

Mr. Webber’s face turned red. “You can’t prove anything,” he insisted. “And I had nothing to do with that kinkajou. I’m not even wearing the same kind of clothes as the person who went after the kinkajou.”

“If you weren’t there, how do you know what kind of clothes the person was wearing?” Brian asked.

Sean pointed to Mr. Webber’s shirt. “You must have put that on in a big hurry. It’s buttoned up crooked.”

As Mr. Webber grabbed at his shirt, Sean held up his camera. “I took pictures. They ought to prove something.”

Mr. Webber gasped. He turned quickly and bolted toward his house.

R
UN AFTER HIM!” MISS
Crane shrieked. “Don’t let him get away!”

“Wait!” Brian cried. “Do you hear that?” A long wail traveled up the hill, coming closer and closer.

“It’s a siren!” Sean said. “Did somebody call the police?”

Lucy, her hands on her hips, stomped out of the Nashes’ house and up to Brian, Sean, and Alan. “I am tired of your stupid pranks,” she said. “And I am not going to put up with that horrible, hissing animal you put in our tree. I went out to the patio to get my sweater, and he threw something awful and squishy at me. You trained him to throw things at me, didn’t you?”

“It’s a kinkajou,” Sean said. “He’s a wild animal.”

“And we didn’t train him to throw things,” Brian said. “You scared him, and he was trying to defend himself.”

“Yeah,” Alan said. “He took one look at you and probably started yelling, ‘Save me! Save me!’”

“Very funny,” Lucy said. “Well, I got even with you. For all I know your weird animal is rabid, so I called the sheriff.”

“The sheriff! Just what we need!” Sean said.

As Mr. Webber ran from his house out to the van, the sheriff’s car swung up into the circular drive. Pinned in the bright beams from the car’s headlights, Mr. Webber threw his hands up before his eyes.

“I give up!” he yelled.

Lucy’s mouth dropped open. When she was finally able to speak she said, “What’s going on?”

“We’ll tell you all about it later,” Brian said. “In the meantime, thanks for helping the Casebusters wrap up another mystery.”

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1996 by Joan Lowery Nixon

cover design by Omar Olivera & Andrea C. Uva

978-1-4532-8281-6

This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

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