Whoa! Serious smoke! The buses are no longer visible through the trees, it’s that thick. But I don’t need to see the buses, I know my way back to the entrance area where they’re parked. I have a really good sense of direction. My dad used to say I was born with a compass in my head. Not that I need a compass. All I have to do is follow the trails, Cabin Path to Lake Path, and I’ll be there.

What stops me is a flash of heat. Feels like an oven door has opened over my head. I look up and see something astonishing. The cluster of tall white pines blooming orange flower blossoms from the top. No, that’s wrong. Not flowers. Flames. Flames pouring from branch to branch like a gleaming waterfall of fire. Fat flaming drops dripping on the grass below the pines, igniting it instantly.

The pines explode and disintegrate. A wave of flame erupts from the base of the tree trunks, setting up a wall of fire between me and the buses. A wall of fire that wants to kill me.

There’s only one thing to do.

Run the opposite way.

Run for my life.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my old friend Herbert Barrett for his expertise in the Spanish language.

About the Author

Newbery Honor author Rodman Philbrick grew up on the coast of New Hampshire and has been writing novels since the age of sixteen. Eventually he turned to the genre of adult mystery-and-suspense thrillers and published his first novel at the age of twenty-eight.

Freak the Mighty, Philbrick’s first book for young readers, was published by Scholastic. Now considered a classic, it has sold more than five million copies and was made into a movie, The Mighty. Philbrick wrote a sequel, Max the Mighty, because “so many kids wrote to me suggesting ideas for a sequel that I decided I’d better write one myself before someone else did.”

Philbrick’s rip-roaring historical novel about an inveterate teller of tall tales, The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg, was set during the Civil War, and was chosen as a 2010 Newbery Honor Book. The Kennedy Center commissioned a theatrical production, which premiered in 2012. Another novel that examines American history is Zane and the Hurricane: A Katrina Story, about Zane Dupree and his dog, Bandit, who are trapped in New Orleans just as Hurricane Katrina hits the city. This dramatic survival tale is both heroic and poignant, educating readers about an unforgettable catastrophe.

Wildfire, a 2019 Book Fairs selection, is a thrilling story set in the tinder-dry forests of Maine. School Library Journal’s starred review called it “an intense tale of survival and action.”