Laura Krantz - The Search for Sasquatch (A Wild Thing Book)

Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-4197-5818-8
eISBN 978-1-6470-0501-6

Text 2022 Laura Krantz

Illustrations 2022 Abrams Books for Young Readers

Edited by Howard W. Reeves

Illustrations and book design by Rafael Nobre

Published in 2022 by Abrams Books for Young Readers, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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To Grover

And to my parents, Chip and Louise Krantz,
who told me to go outside and play

Skreek... Skreeeeek... Skreeeeeeeeeeeek

Whiplike, bendy branches scraped down the sides of our giant black pickup truck, like a witchs fingernails. I tried not to lose my lunch as we bounced along a bumpy gravel logging road in the hinterlands of Washingtons Olympic Peninsula. Just as I rolled down the window to get some fresh air, Shane Corson, my bearded, mountain man guide, pulled to a stop in front of a padlocked steel gate. I looked around, not sure if this was the right place. We were in the middle of nowhere! But Shane killed the engine, hopped out of the truck, and fished a key from his pocket. The giant lock popped open, and Shane loosened the chain so he could swing the gate wide. This was it! I suddenly got so excited that I forgot how barfy Id just felt. We were about to go deep into a patch of tangled woods and towering spruce trees to see something that was off-limits to, well, just about everyone.

Shane hopped back into the drivers seat sporting an ear-to-ear grin. Its not much further up the road, he said, clearly feeling as excited as I was about what he planned to show me. We inched forward through the thickening underbrush, and a few bumpy minutes later, we had gone as far as the truck could take us. We had to hoof it from there.

Id met Shane about a year ago, on a camping trip in Oregon. But I didnt really get to know him until a few months later because that first time, he wasnt too excited about talking to me. Why? Well, let me introduce myself. My name is Laura, and Im a journalist. My job is asking lots of questions and writing about what I learn for others to read. Sometimes that can make the people I talk to pretty nervous, especially if they think someone is going to make fun of them and their ideas and beliefs. And Shane? I think he felt particularly worried because of one very specific interest: Bigfoot.

Thats right. I said Bigfoot. Sasquatch himself.

Now, if youve never heard of Bigfoot before, picture an enormous, apelike creature thats ten feet tall and might weigh as much as one thousand pounds. Its covered in hair, walks on two feet (like us), and leaves giant footprints behindor, at least, thats what we think it looks like. There are lots of fascinating and terrifying stories about Bigfoot from people who claim to have seen or heard it, although no one has ever been able to show any real, scientifically acceptable proof. But Shane swore that what was hidden out there in the woods could help make the case for Bigfoot.

I jumped down from the truck, perfumed myself with big spritzes of bug spray, and tightened the laces on my hiking boots. Then I straightened up and followed Shane into the wall of shrubs and blooming rhododendron bushes. As we plunged through the underbrush, Shane kept a brisk pace. He clearly knew where he was going, while I seriously struggled to keep up. Behind me, the truck disappeared.

Jeez, I thought to myself. I hope I dont have to find my own way back.

Huckleberry brambles caught on my clothes and left red, raised scratches down my arm. It all looked so beautiful and wild, but I didnt have any time to take in the scenery.

Then Shane disappeared down a steep slope, and I lost sight of him for a second. I stopped stilland it was dead quiet. I couldnt even hear him moving anymore. Just as I started to worry, I pushed through another thick wall of shrubs and found him standing quietly at the base of some trees. He looked at me and then looked down.

Here we are. This is it, he drawled, ho-hum, like it was no big deal. He moved a little bit farther and gestured at the ground. I looked to where he was pointing, and my jaw dropped. If I had been trying to play the part of the calm and unflappable reporter, Id just failed.

Whoa! I exclaimed, not at all professionally.

This wasnt what I had expectedbut it was definitely what Id hoped for.

This is... this is CRAZY.

We stood in front of a pile of intertwined sticks and branches, woven together so carefully that they looked like theyd been made into a giant nest. It was at least eight feet acrossso big that I could have comfortably lain down in it. I could even have stretched out. In fact, Shane had already done this himself, when he came out here before.

It felt like a mattress, he said with a grin. I felt small. Very small.

It truly looked like a birds nest. It could have been a birds nest. But, of course, as far as I knew, no bird on the planet made nests that size.

And that wasnt the only nest, either. Shane pointed out six others nearby, hidden between clumps of trees, with a few small ones tucked into low branches. He said there were others, too, but farther away and a little harder to get to.

You would have been amazed when we first came down here, he said, obviously pleased with my reaction. Three years ago, when we first saw these, they looked even better then. These werent just slapped together. The we he referred to was the Olympic Projecta Bigfoot research group Shane belongs to. A few years ago, the man who owns this land found the nests when he was out inspecting the trees on his property. They confused him, so he asked the Olympic Project to come take a look at themtwenty-one in allto see if they could puzzle out what had made them. Shane, who had spent his life hunting and fishing and camping, knew that these nest things were really unusual.