Curse of the Ruins (7 page)

That’s the urgent cry thirteen-year-old Nikki Roberts hears over the CB radio the weekend she’s left alone in her family’s hunting lodge. The message also says that the sender is trapped near a bend in the river. Nikki knows it’s dangerous, but she has to try to help. She paddles her canoe downriver, coming closer to the thick black smoke of the forest fire with each stroke. When she reaches the bend, Nikki climbs onshore. There, covered with soot and huddled on a rock ledge, sit two small children.

Nikki struggles to get the children to safety. Flames roar around them. Trees splinter to the ground. But as Nikki tries to escape the fire, she
doesn’t know that two poachers are also hot on her trail. They fear that she and the children have seen too much of their illegal operation—and they’ll do anything to keep the kids from making it back to the lodge alive.

Devil’s Wall
.

Rick Williams and his friends J.D. and Spud—the Rock Jockeys—are attempting to become the first and youngest climbers to ascend the north face of their area’s most treacherous mountain. They’re also out to discover if a B-17 bomber rumored to have crashed into the mountain years ago is really there.

As the Rock Jockeys explore Devil’s Wall, they stumble upon the plane’s battered shell. Inside, they find items that seem to have belonged to the crew, including a diary written by the navigator. Spud later falls into a deep hole and finds something even more frightening: a human skull and bones. To find out where they might have come from, the boys read the navigator’s story in the diary. It reveals a gruesome secret that heightens the dangers the mountain might hold for the Rock Jockeys.

Bobbie Walker loves working on her grandfather’s ranch. She hates the fact that her cousin Alex is coming up from Los Angeles to visit and will probably ruin her summer. Alex can barely ride a horse and doesn’t know the first thing about roping. There is no way Alex can survive a ride into the flats to round up wild cattle. But Bobbie is going to have to let her tag along anyway.

Out in the flats the weather turns bad. Even worse, Bobbie knows that she’ll have to watch out for the Bledsoe boys, two mischievous brothers who are usually up to no good. When the boys rustle the girls’ cattle, Bobbie and Alex team up to teach the Bledsoes a lesson. But with the wild bull Diablo on the loose, the fun and games may soon turn deadly serious.

Daniel Martin doesn’t want to go to Camp Eagle Nest. He wants to spend the summer as he always does: with his uncle Smitty in the Rocky Mountains. Daniel is a slow learner, but most other kids call him retarded. Daniel knows that at camp, things are only going to get worse. His nightmare comes true when he and three bullies must ride the camp van together.

On the trip to camp, Daniel is the butt of the bullies’ jokes. He ignores them and concentrates on the roads outside. He thinks they may be
lost. As the van crosses a wooden bridge, the planks suddenly give way. The van plunges into the raging river below. Daniel struggles to shore, but the driver and the other boys are nowhere to be found. It’s freezing, and night is setting in. Daniel faces a difficult decision. He could save himself … or risk everything to try to rescue the others, too.

Eleven-year-old Warren Trumbull has a strange job. He works for Prince Charming’s Damsel in Distress Rescue Agency, saving people from hideous monsters, evil warlocks, and wicked witches. Then one day Warren gets the most dangerous assignment of all: He must exterminate a Gorgon.

Gorgons are horrible creatures. They have green scales, clawed fingers, and snakes for hair. They also have the power to turn people to stone. Warren doesn’t want to be a stone statue for the rest of his life. He’ll need all his courage and skill—and his secret plan—to become a true Gorgon slayer.

The Gorgon howls as Warren enters the dark basement to do battle. Warren lowers his eyes, raises his sword and shield, and leaps into action. But will his plan work?

Roman Sanchez is trying hard to deal with the death of his dad—a SWAT team member gunned down in the line of duty. But Roman’s nightmare is just beginning.

When masked gunmen storm into his classroom, Roman and three other boys are taken hostage. They are thrown into the back of a truck and hauled to a run-down mountain cabin, miles from anywhere. They are bound with rope and given no food. With each passing hour the kidnappers’ deadly threats become even more real.

Roman knows time is running out. Now he must somehow put his dad’s death behind him so that he and the others can launch a last desperate fight for freedom.

Tag Jones and his friend Cowboy spend their days diving in the azure water surrounding Bermuda. It’s not just for fun—Tag knows that somewhere in the coral reef there’s a sunken ship full of treasure. His father died in a diving accident looking for the ship, and Tag won’t give up until he finds it.

Then the ship’s manifest of the Spanish galleon
El Patrón
turns up, and Tag can barely contain his excitement.
El Patrón
sank in 1614, carrying “unknown cargo.” Tag knows that
this
is the ship his father was looking for. And he’s
not the least bit scared off by the rumors that
El Patrón
is cursed. But when two tourists want Tag to retrieve some mysterious sunken parcels for them, Tag and Cowboy may be in dangerous water, way over their heads!

Jesse Rodriguez has a pretty exciting job for a thirteen-year-old, working at a small flight and skydiving school near Seattle. Buck Sellman, the owner of the school, lets Jesse help out around the airport and is teaching him all about skydiving. Jesse can’t wait until he’s sixteen and old enough to make his first jump.

Then Robin Waterford walks in with her father one day to sign up for lessons, and strange things start to happen. Photographs that Robin takes of the airfield mysteriously disappear from her locker. And Robin and Jesse discover that someone at the airfield is involved in an illegal transportation operation. Jesse and Robin soon find themselves in the middle of real danger and are forced to make their first skydives very unexpectedly—using only one parachute!

Chosen One
,

The ancient palace lies in the Valley of Zon. It is imperative that you come immediately. You
are my last hope. Look for the secret path. The stars will lead the way. Take care. The eyes of Mogg are everywhere
.

As if school bullies weren’t enough of a problem, now Chris Masters has a computer game pushing him around! Ever since The Seventh Crystal arrived anonymously in the mail one day, Chris has been obsessed with it—it’s the most challenging game he’s ever played. But when the game starts to take over, Chris is forced to face a lean, mean,
medieval
bully.

Thirteen-year-old Ryan Swanner and his mom just moved to the mountain resort of Black Water Lake. The locals say that beneath the lake’s seemingly calm surface, a giant, ancient creature lives. But Ryan’s new friend Rita tells him that’s just hogwash. She’s not afraid to go fishing out on the lake, even though, oddly, the lake seems to be nearly empty of fish. One day Ryan sees a small animal fall from a tree into the lake—and never surface again. Something
is
in the lake. And it’s alive.…

Superbrain Zack Griffin and hoops fanatic Jeff Brown wouldn’t normally hang together. But
when both boys win trips to a famous science laboratory, they find out they have one thing in common: a serious case of curiosity. And when they sneak into the lab to check out the time-bending machine again, they end up in Egypt—in 1350
B.C
.!

Justin swallowed and pointed the light at the soft dirt. The tracks were plain: two large pads with five long scissorlike claws on each.

A grizzly
.

A grizzly bear is terrorizing the sheep ranch that belongs to Justin McCallister’s aunt and uncle. First the grizzly takes a swipe at the ranch’s guard dog, Old Molly. Then he kills several sheep and injures Justin’s collie, Radar. When the grizzly kills Blue, Justin’s pet lamb, Justin decides to take matters into his own hands. He sets out to track down the bear himself. But what will Justin do when he comes face to face with the grizzly?

Jeremy Parsons and his twin brother, Jason, have been left on their own to run the family business, Thunder Valley Ski Lodge. But ever since Grandpa broke his hip and Grandma went
with him to the hospital, strange things have been happening. Things even stranger than the fire in the snowmobile garage … Jason and Jeremy had bettter find out who’s responsible, because Thunder Valley is going downhill fast.