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Overview
Seventeen-year-old Chip Clewt is known to most people simply as “the weirdo.” After barely surviving a terrible fire, he’s taken to living like a hermit in the Powhatan Swamp, a National Wildlife Refuge in South Carolina. These days, Chip works for the Refuge and has little contact with anyone besides his boss, Tom. But now his hideaway is at the center of a heated controversy.
As the hunting ban on the Powhatan is about to expire, environmentalists want to protect the wildlife while eager hunters are oiling their guns. And when Tom disappears, Chip suspects that the conflict has turned deadly. While his new friend Samantha inspires Chip to reconnect, the pair must also connect the dots of a puzzling and dangerous mystery before it’s too late.
Includes a reader's guide.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780547546452 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| Publication date: | 01/16/2020 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Lexile: | 770L (what's this?) |
| File size: | 527 KB |
| Age Range: | 12 - 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Samantha Sanders was nine years old the afternoon she found Alvin Howell dead. She'd spotted the bright blue cloth over at the edge of Powhatan Swamp just as she turned into her yard. Odd, because it hadn't been there when she went to school in the morning.
Putting her books down on the front porch, she crossed Chapanoke Road, jumped the ditch, and came upon the cloth quicker than she'd expected. It was half-hidden in the brush. Raising a branch, she saw a man's face, mouth wide open as if he was trying to yell, eyes swollen with fright. On his chest was a splotch of red.
Screaming, Sam stumbled back, falling down into the ditch water. Heart beating in her ears, she crawled out and ran for the house. Her hand shook as she lifted the hidden front-door key off its nail and struggled to get it into the lock.
Inside, she called the school district office, weeping now, trying to make herself understood. She wanted her mother, Dell Sanders. Her papa, a Coast Guard bo'sun, was out on temporary sea duty. Her brother, Steve, was at baseball practice.
Delilah Sanders came on.
"Mama, Mama, Mama...there's a dead man...."
"Where, Samantha?"
"Dead man..."
"Where, Samantha? Calm down. You're not making any sense."
"Dead man out in front of the house..."
"Are you sure?"
"He's there."
All light, listen to me. I'll call the sheriff. You lock the door and stay inside. Get some water, take an aspirin. All right, Samantha..."
"Yes, Mama. Come home, please come home."
"I'll be there just as fast as I can."
Dell arrived home twenty minutes later —- even before thesheriff's car came up the road, roof light flashing — and went about holding Sam and calming her down.
A moment later there was a sharp knock on the door. A deputy in plain clothes, identifying himself as Ed Truesdale, showed his ID card and asked, "Where is he?"
"My daughter said he's right across the road. Look for some blue just over the swamp ditch."
Truesdale, taking a gun out of his coat, hurried off in that direction as Dell and Sam watched silently. Sam clutched her mother. They saw him jump across the ditch, lift a branch, and stand there, looking down. Then he returned to his car to use the radio.
In a few minutes, he was up on the front porch again, asking if he could come in.
Dell said, "Sure. Would you like some coffee?"
Truesdale said, "Yes, thank you. Could you tell me who found him?"
"My daughter, Samantha. This is Samantha."
Looking ill, Sam stood a few feet away.
Truesdale said, "Miss Samantha, why don't you come over here an' sit beside me an' tell me what happened. I got a daughter little bit older'n you." He took a seat on the couch and motioned her over.
Sam went over and sat down.
"Where you go to school?"
"MacFadden, in Currituck."
"Be darned. I put two daughters through there. What grade?"
"Fourth."
"Good grade. Well, I've got a few questions, Samantha. How'd you know he was there?"
"The dead man?"
Truesdale nodded.
Sam told him she saw blue and went over to investigate.
"An' you didn't see the blue there this mornin' when you went off to school?"
"No, sir."
"When you went up the road this mornin' — I'm guessin' you take the bus..."
Sam nodded.
"...you see anybody? Any car pass you, in either direction?"
'No, sir."
"You see anybody on foot?"
"No, sir."
"You ever seen the dead man before?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where?"
"At Dunnegan's." That's what everyone called the nearby convenience store.
"You know his name?"
"No, sir."
"He is, or was, Alvin Howell. Lives, or did live, 'bout seven miles north, off Tucker Road." Truesdale scratched his head. "Uh, you ever see Mr. Howell come down Chapanoke before?"
"No, sir."
"Well, I guess that's 'bout all, Samantha, an' I do appreciate your help. Now, what you have to do is put this unfortunate incident outta your head forever. Hard to do, I know, but try, huh?" He smiled widely at her and stood.
Seven years later, no one had found out who killed Mr. Howell. The incident had deepened Sam's dread of the swamp.
Her papa had once said, "Only the Powhatan an' the one who did it knows." He was probably right.
Three-thirty P.M. The big Buick station wagon with Virginia plates made a rooster tail of ivory dust along the dirt road to the old white two-story farmhouse that sat on the northern edge on the Powhatan, west of the George Washington Canal.
The Sanders farm was on the North Carolina side of the border, the "hick" side, as stuck-up Virginians often said, conveniently forgetting there wasn't much difference between rural Tar Heels and rural hayseed Virginians.
Finally, the green wagon pulled into the front yard. Sam's Uncle Jack merrily tooted several times, causing her father's two penned hunting dogs to break the chill autumn silence. The din sawtoothed across the brown cornfields and over into the swamp.
Sam opened the front door and yelled for old Martin, the bluetick coon hound, and Rick, the black Lab duck dog, to shut their loud mouths. They enjoyed making noise when visitors drove up.
Then she hurried across the creaky porch and approached the new Le Sabre, saying, "Hi, Uncle Jack, Aunt Peaches..." looking in at the occupants.
"Hi, Samantha, you pretty thing."
He always said the same thing on seeing Sam. She knew different. If pretty was gauged by girls in fashion magazines or on the morning soaps, Sam wasn't pretty. In her own hard-eyed opinion she was as plain as freckled biscuit dough. So she always cringed inwardly when Uncle Jack gave his silly compliment.