2. Garden Monster

Chapter 2 Garden Monster Bradley flopped down on the ground. "Nearly every berry is bitten in half!" he cried. "There aren't enough good ones left to make jam!" "You could make zucchini jam," Nate suggested. "Funny, Nate," Brian said. Lucy looked at some of the zucchini. "Guys, it's not just the strawberries," she said. "Something is chewing on the vegetables, too. See, the same kind of bites."

"Oh no!" Brian said. "Dad is gonna freak when he finds out!" "You'd better find whatever critter is doing this," Lucy said. "Otherwise, it will eat everything!" Nate looked around nervously. "What if it's a snake?" "Maybe it's birds," Brian said. "They could fly right in!" Lucy picked up one of the bitten strawberries. "No, this doesn't look like a bird bite," she said. "Or a rabbit or a snake." "What kind of bite does it look like?" Bradley asked. Lucy turned the berry over and showed the boys. "It's a big, round bite," she said. "I think I've seen bites like this before." She looked at the boys. "In the desert near where we live, there are lizards called Gila monsters. They eat birds' eggs and small animals, but sometimes they come into people's gardens," she said. "And they're poisonous." "Great, we've got a poisonous monster in our garden!" Brian said.

Lucy laughed. "No, you don't," she said. "Gila monsters only live in hot, dry places. They'd die in Connecticut because it gets too cold here. But we once had one in our garden, and the bite is the same. They make just one chomp, with no chewing or nibbling." "I'm not staying here to weed," Nate cried. "I want to keep all ten toes!" "What about the ice cream?" Brian asked. "I don't need any ice cream!" Nate said. Bradley laughed. "Yes, you do," he said. "I just thought of what we can give Dad for Father's Day," Brian said. "What?" Bradley asked. "Well, since we can't make the jam because something's eating the berries, we can find whatever is doing it," Brian said. "We'll save Dad's garden, and that will be his present!" Bradley kicked a stone. "I still want to make the jam," he muttered. "Did you see Dad's face when he told us about Grandma Pinto's jam that he used to eat?" "We still have to catch whatever is biting all this stuff," Lucy said.

"What if it's a skunk?" Brian asked. He was grinning. "Or a monkey!" Nate said. "It could be a slug," Brian said. "EEEEWWWWW!" Nate yelled. "I'm not touching any slug!" "Guys, get serious," Bradley said. He looked at the fence his father had built around the garden. "Whatever is eating the stuff climbed over that!"

Nate stood next to the fence and held his hand up. "This fence is three feet tall," he said. "No little animal could get over it." "Something might have dug under the fence," Lucy said. "Let's look for holes." The kids checked every inch of the ground under the fence, all around the garden. "Nothing crawled under," Bradley said. The four kids looked at each other. "Well, if it can't get over the fence," Nate said, "and it didn't go under the fence, it must have gone right through the fence!" "It's a ghost!" Brian said. Bradley laughed at his brother. "I don't think ghosts eat strawberries. But Lucy's right. We have to catch whatever it is," he said. "Otherwise Dad won't have a garden, let alone strawberries."