Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9 "She's holding something…," Lydia whispered. "It's a megaphone!" Daniel gasped, then clapped a hand to his mouth to muffle the sound. "She's the one who was making that awful noise?" Lydia shrugged. "Looks like it. Oh, she's moving! Come on, let's follow her!" They followed Amy as sneakily as possible. Abbi turned off the flashlight, forcing them to rely on Lydia and the night-vision binoculars to keep them on the right track. Lydia motioned for them to stop.

"Why? What's she doing?" Abbi asked. She hated not being able to see what was happening for herself, but they only had one pair of binoculars! "I think she put something in the bushes up there." When they reached the bushes, Daniel fished around and found the megaphone! The three friends shared a fierce look. They had evidence now that Amy was up to something. They kept on her trail. Before long, the suspicious sound engineer met up with the other crew members. "You don't think Arthur knows she's faking those cougar noises, do you?" Daniel asked. He looked as if he didn't want to believe it. Abbi didn't want to believe it, either. There was only one way to find out.

"Did you hear that, everyone?" Arthur said into the handheld camera Steph was aiming at him. "That's the telltale sound of a cougar. Their screams are among the most easily recognizable of all big cats'." "They're also easily faked," Abbi said as she drove into the spotlight they had set up for the shoot. The crew members startled at her sudden appearance. Arthur recovered the most quickly. "Our little nature experts!" he said, as friendly as he'd been all day. But Abbi wasn't sure anymore if she could believe his friendliness. "How did you three get here? It's not safe to be wandering around in the dark."

Lydia pointed at the adults with the binoculars. "Then what was Amy doing a minute ago by herself?" Everyone turned to look at Amy. Her mouth dropped. "M-me?" Abbi crossed her arms. Her friends did the same on either side of her. "We saw you. With the megaphone you stashed in a bush." Abbi nodded to Daniel, who reached into the backpack hanging off her chair handles. "This megaphone," he said, pulling it out.

Steph angrily snapped their camera closed before saying to Amy and Arthur, "You two didn't go ahead with that foolish plan, did you? I told you it was a bad idea." Amy leaned against the nearest tree and sighed. "You did. We should have listened." "We didn't have a choice, okay?" Arthur said to Steph. "The plan will work. It has to work." Abbi looked between her friends. Lydia shrugged, and Daniel seemed as confused as she was. It was as if the crew members had forgotten their presence.

Daniel cleared his throat, drawing their attention again. "What plan?" "You were going to fake the whole thing," Abbi said. It wasn't a question. It was an accusation. The woods around them were so familiar to her. She had spent hours exploring them with her friends. She had spent nearly as many hours watching Wild Whereabouts, too, but suddenly the host of her favorite show didn't seem familiar at all.