Hook 'Em Snotty (6 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.

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 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 father—a SWAT team member gunned down in the line of duty. But Roman’s nightmare is just beginning.

One day during school masked gunmen storm into his classroom. Roman and three other boys are taken hostage. There’s Jeff, captain of the football team; Mitch, president of the student council; and Woody “the Worm,” class brainiac. Each boy has his own ideas about how to escape, but when they can’t agree, their first chance is lost.

The boys 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. Worst of all, it seems that the ransom the kidnappers have demanded is not going to be paid—making their deadly threats even more real.

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

When Jim Stanton’s family moves to a small town in New Mexico, everyone but Jim is happy. His father has a great new job as a research scientist at Folsum Laboratories. His mother has a beautiful new house. Folsum Labs even buys a bunch of brand-new toys for his little sister.

But there’s something strange about the town. The people all dress and act alike. Everyone’s
too
polite. And they’re all eerily obedient to the bosses at Folsum Labs.

Though he has been warned not to leave town, Jim wanders into the nearby mountains looking for excitement. There he meets Maria, a mountain girl with a shocking secret that involves Folsum Laboratories, a dangerous mind-control experiment, and—most frightening of all—Jim’s family.

Jesse Rodriguez has a pretty exciting job for a thirteen-year-old, working for his friend Buck at a small flight and skydiving school near Seattle. But he still can’t wait to turn sixteen and finally be old enough to make his first jump. Buck has been like a father to him ever since Jesse’s dad died, and has made sure Jesse picks up all he needs to know about skydiving while he does odd jobs around the airport.

But Jesse and his friend Robin Waterford have also learned something very disturbing. Someone’s been using the airport for an illegal transportation operation, and Jesse’s worried that Buck’s involved. Jesse and Robin are soon in the middle of a dangerous international situation, forced to make their first jumps sooner than they ever expected!

Each day at exactly three
P.M
., Chris Masters faces two great challenges. First he races home, trying to avoid the school bullies who have made a career of beating him up. Then, once he’s safely back in his bedroom, he takes on another opponent—a computer game called The Seventh Crystal.

The high-tech game arrived mysteriously in the mail one day, without a return address or a letter from the sender. Chris doesn’t even know who created it, but he does know The Seventh Crystal is the most challenging computer game he has ever faced. Chris becomes obsessed with mastering the game. So obsessed that the game seems
real
—and then Chris has something much bigger than bullies to worry about.