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"I knew things were getting weird when I saw my best friend's face in the campfire. I didn't realize how weird until the campfire followed me home . . ."
Thirteen-year-old Samantha "Sam" MacReady is nervous about the start of Grade 8, especially science class, which isn't too surprising: last year, her Grade 7 science class mysteriously disappeared on the way to a field trip she missed out on.
But when her best friend, Lorenzo-whom no one has seen since he got on the bus with the rest of that class-suddenly appears in a campfire, she moves from nervous to freaked out. She teams up with Meg LeBlanc, the sole student survivor of what all adults refer to as "The Tragedy," to uncover just what went on that day and why Lorenzo is now showing up in her back yard made entirely of flames.
What the two girls find out is far freakier and scarier than they ever imagined. Sam and Meg must use all their grit and intelligence to save the day and free their friends from magical enslavement . . . or fall victim to the very same fate.
I knew things were getting weird when I saw my best friend's face in the campfire. I didn't realize how weird until the campfire followed me home.
Yeah, I know how that sounds. I can hear your mom whispering right now, "Back away slowly from the crazy girl, and when I give the signal, run for dear life!"
Probably that's what I should have done. Run for dear life. Or at least closed my blinds and hidden under the covers. But instead, when I saw that flicker of flame in the woods behind the barn, I sneaked downstairs, shoved on some shoes, put a poncho over my pyjamas, and went out into the rain to get a closer look.
My name is Samantha Anastasia MacReady: Sam for short. I'm thirteen years old and am in Grade 8 at Engelmann Middle School in the not-so-thriving metropolis of Limberpine, Alberta. And honest, I promise I'm not a crazy girl. Sure, I was a little freaked out the night my friend's face showed up in the fire-but I was freaked out anyway.
See, school was supposed to start in a few days, and that meant I would be taking Dr. Ballard's Grade 8 science class, and that felt seriously weird because I was one of only two survivors of Dr. Ballard's Grade 7 science class.
The grown-ups called it "The Tragedy," complete with capital letters, in a whisper, at least when I was around-they seemed to think if they didn't talk about "The Tragedy" out loud, I might not remember that a bunch of my friends-including my best friend-had vanished into thin air.
It happened last May. While I was spending some quality time in the bathroom puking up everything I'd eaten since Grade 3, courtesy of a bad burrito, the other twenty members of my Grade 7 science class piled into a small school bus and headed up Mount Mollard for an overnight camping-trip-and-astronomy-adventure.
But they never reached the campground. The police found the bus lying on its side ten metres off the road. Dr. Ballard, still buckled into the driver's seat, was out cold. So was Meg Leblanc, who had only started at the school after Christmas and I'd hardly ever said two words to. She turned up at the back of the bus, buried in sleeping bags.
Every other kid had disappeared without a trace. Literally. Not so much as a footprint-weird because the ground was muddy. Even weirder, all their stuff was still in the bus-even their cellphones, and since most of them took their cellphones everywhere, including into the bathroom, that seemed a sure sign of foul play.
A busload of kids vanishing under mysterious circumstances is like catnip to cable news. It had everything! Pathetic parents. Sobbing siblings. Valiant volunteers. Hovering helicopters. For days, Limberpine crawled with camera crews from CBC and Global and CTV and Fox and CNN and ABC and NBC and networks I'd never heard of. I think the Home Shopping Network turned up at one point.
Anchorpersons in heavy make
Thirteen-year-old Samantha "Sam" MacReady is nervous about the start of Grade 8, especially science class, which isn't too surprising: last year, her Grade 7 science class mysteriously disappeared on the way to a field trip she missed out on.
But when her best friend, Lorenzo-whom no one has seen since he got on the bus with the rest of that class-suddenly appears in a campfire, she moves from nervous to freaked out. She teams up with Meg LeBlanc, the sole student survivor of what all adults refer to as "The Tragedy," to uncover just what went on that day and why Lorenzo is now showing up in her back yard made entirely of flames.
What the two girls find out is far freakier and scarier than they ever imagined. Sam and Meg must use all their grit and intelligence to save the day and free their friends from magical enslavement . . . or fall victim to the very same fate.
I knew things were getting weird when I saw my best friend's face in the campfire. I didn't realize how weird until the campfire followed me home.
Yeah, I know how that sounds. I can hear your mom whispering right now, "Back away slowly from the crazy girl, and when I give the signal, run for dear life!"
Probably that's what I should have done. Run for dear life. Or at least closed my blinds and hidden under the covers. But instead, when I saw that flicker of flame in the woods behind the barn, I sneaked downstairs, shoved on some shoes, put a poncho over my pyjamas, and went out into the rain to get a closer look.
My name is Samantha Anastasia MacReady: Sam for short. I'm thirteen years old and am in Grade 8 at Engelmann Middle School in the not-so-thriving metropolis of Limberpine, Alberta. And honest, I promise I'm not a crazy girl. Sure, I was a little freaked out the night my friend's face showed up in the fire-but I was freaked out anyway.
See, school was supposed to start in a few days, and that meant I would be taking Dr. Ballard's Grade 8 science class, and that felt seriously weird because I was one of only two survivors of Dr. Ballard's Grade 7 science class.
The grown-ups called it "The Tragedy," complete with capital letters, in a whisper, at least when I was around-they seemed to think if they didn't talk about "The Tragedy" out loud, I might not remember that a bunch of my friends-including my best friend-had vanished into thin air.
It happened last May. While I was spending some quality time in the bathroom puking up everything I'd eaten since Grade 3, courtesy of a bad burrito, the other twenty members of my Grade 7 science class piled into a small school bus and headed up Mount Mollard for an overnight camping-trip-and-astronomy-adventure.
But they never reached the campground. The police found the bus lying on its side ten metres off the road. Dr. Ballard, still buckled into the driver's seat, was out cold. So was Meg Leblanc, who had only started at the school after Christmas and I'd hardly ever said two words to. She turned up at the back of the bus, buried in sleeping bags.
Every other kid had disappeared without a trace. Literally. Not so much as a footprint-weird because the ground was muddy. Even weirder, all their stuff was still in the bus-even their cellphones, and since most of them took their cellphones everywhere, including into the bathroom, that seemed a sure sign of foul play.
A busload of kids vanishing under mysterious circumstances is like catnip to cable news. It had everything! Pathetic parents. Sobbing siblings. Valiant volunteers. Hovering helicopters. For days, Limberpine crawled with camera crews from CBC and Global and CTV and Fox and CNN and ABC and NBC and networks I'd never heard of. I think the Home Shopping Network turned up at one point.
Anchorpersons in heavy make