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Overview
Fourteen-year-old Clay Lancaster has been dreaming for years of the adventure he calls The Big Wander -- a summer in the Southwest with his older brother, Mike, searching for their uncle Clay. When Mike decides to return home to Seattle and the girlfriend he left behind, Clay chooses to stay on and continue the search on his own.
Following a tip about his uncle, he heads out into the most remote canyons of the Navajo reservation, with only a burro and a dog named Curly for company. Clay loses his heart to the vast, rugged land -- and to an adventurous girl with a long, dark braid -- but finds his uncle in big trouble. Can Clay pull off a risky plan to save his uncle -- and the wild horses Uncle Clay has put his own life in jeopardy to protect?
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781439136751 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Atheneum Books for Young Readers |
| Publication date: | 09/08/2008 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| Lexile: | 800L (what's this?) |
| File size: | 2 MB |
| Age Range: | 10 - 14 Years |
About the Author
To learn more about the author and his books, visit Will's Web site at www.WillHobbsAuthor.com.
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Clay Lancaster rolled the window down and drank in the wind and the rolling red desert, the clouds impossibly tall in Arizona's turquoise sky. He read the billboards aloud to his brother Mike at the wheel of the pickup.
PRAIRIE DOG VILLAGE!
GENUINE INDIAN MOCCASINS!
LIVE TWO-HEADED CALF!
Clay had never seen so many billboards in his life as lined Route 66. Dozens, even hundreds, advertised the same few roadside attractions. You started seeing the signs hundreds of miles away and you came to think of them as companions on this thin strip through the big emptiness.
Ahead, a long-promised trading post appeared on the red horizon, with a dozen tepees circling a cluster of gift shops disguised as a fort.
"Chief Yellowhorse Village coming up, Mike. Hey, that last sign said something about rattlers. Slow down."
"Slow down -- that's a good one, his brother Mike said with a smile, coming a bit out of the daze he'd been in ever since they left Seattle. "Clay, we could've -raced a tortoise into Arizona and lost."
"C'mon, Mike, your Studebaker has character." To Clay everything about their trip was perfect, even the way the truck backfired going down the hills. They were on the loose at last and four days into the Big Wander.
"These places are all phony as wooden nickels," Mike scoffed. "The Indians in the desert didn't live in tepees."
"There it is again -- BABY RATTLERS -- hey, Mike, let'stake a look at 'em! I bet it's time to check the oil again anyway."
It was always time to check the oil. They'd left a plume of blue smoke behind them all the way down through Washington State and Oregon and practically the whole length of California. The truck was new, bought especially for this summer out of Mike's savings for seventy-five dollars. Well, not exactly new, Clay thought, but new for them. Its original red showed in places, but mostly you'd have to say it looked rusty, which came close to matching the color of the desert and seemed a lucky thing at the moment. Another lucky thing about the truck was its age, Clay thought, it being a '48 model, same as me, and that makes us both fourteen.
They walked onto the wooden porch of the trading post and Clay's eyes looked past the cigar store Indian to the footlocker with BABY RATTLERS spelled out large. As Clay knelt and cautiously began to lift the lid, a pair of little boys came streaming out of a station wagon and bounded onto the porch, their parents trying in vain to call them back. Twins, Clay figured. They froze big-eyed as Clay peered through the opening into the box. "These rattlers are a little different from the ones back home," he reported to Mike. "Maybe they're desert rattlers."
A little smile came to Clay's face as he looked from his brother to the buzz-headed twins, crowding as close as they dared, deliciously terrified and hair-triggered to run. Their older sister was stepping onto the porch, curious to find out what was going on.
Careful, Mike warned.
Clay's right hand started into the box. The blond girl and her little brothers gasped.
"Clay!" Mike shouted.
"I think I can get one behind the head," Clay said calmly, and his arm disappeared inside the box. The twins took two steps back and eyed their escape routes. Even Mike backed up a little.
Clay reached inside, carefully, carefully. Suddenly it wasn't so easy for anyone to tell what had happened, with all the rattling and commotion and Clay's elbow flying back. But the sudden look of terror on his face said it all -- he'd been bitten!
Now, Clay thought, crying out in pain and throwing the lid open, springing in one motion on the twins with two of the rattlers in his right hand. The boys screamed and fell back against their sister and their parents who were backpedaling nearly as fast, until they all spied the baby rattles in Clay's hand -- a pink one and a blue one.
"Hey," one of the twins exclaimed, "those are rattles, not rattlers!"
By now everyone was laughing with relief. The twins took the rattles from Clay's hand, wanting to hold the "snakes" too and shake them menacingly. Clay was much more aware of their sister, who looked to be about his age. She was watching him, and she was smiling. Her glistening hair, curling into a flip at her shoulders, shone about as bright as the sun.
"Are you fellas on your own?" their father inquired. Clay had never met a Texan before, but he recognized the accent from the movies.
"We sure are," he answered proudly. "My name's Clay and this is my big brother Mike and we're on the loose."
Both parents looked a little confused. "You're on the loose, the mother repeated, sounding a little concerned.
Mike was standing back and seemed to be enjoying this. Clay thought he'd better explain. "We've been talking about a big trip for a long time, just the two of us, for the summer after Mike graduated. He's starting college in the fall -- at the California Institute of Technology,"
The man whistled and raised his eyebrows. "Good school."
"Where're y'all from?" the girl he liked asked cheerfully. Her hair was blonder than blond. To his amazement, she was speaking to him.
"Seattle, " Clay answered, enchanted with her accent and hair and everything about her. She was shining that warm, sweet smile on him.
She must be wearing perfume, he thought, and as they started to talk he could feel its delicate scent wafting through his nostrils and overcoming his brain, making him dizzy. Tropical flowers, that's what it is. Like they have in Hawaii.
The Big Wander. Copyright © by Will Hobbs. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.