Botheration , livre ebook

Archway Publishing - Vito DiBarone

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

168 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Matty is back, this time exploring a famed dinosaur excavation site, but nothing comes easy when adventure abounds and trouble follows this heroic teen everywhere.
When seventeen-year-old Matty Weber agrees to escort Freddie Carter to Dinosaur National Monument in eastern Utah on a school trip, he encounters more than a quiet intellectual visit. They were supposed to be there to see one of the country’s best dinosaur excavation sites, but instead, Matty immediately finds himself saving a young paleontology major from New Zealand.
Amidst the chaos, Matty nearly misses his chance to score points with his dream girl Samantha Carter. Along the way he fights the raging waters of the Green River and intellectually duels with a general a Santa Claus look-alike. After almost losing Freddie, Matty temporarily loses himself in underground tunnels before reuniting with Samantha and friends and eventually wanders through waves of dinosaurs.
Picking up where Matty and his friends left off in the Botheration series, Matty gets into all sorts of trouble on what was supposed to be just another ordinary day. Most importantly, though, he continues his quest to discover more about trust, develop new interpersonal skills, and be more social.

Sujets

Fiction

Informations

Publié par	Archway Publishing
Date de parution	21 décembre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781665732925
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

BOTHERATION
PART TWO: WAVES OF DINOSAURS
Vito Di Barone

Copyright © 2023 Vito Di Barone.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3293-2 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3294-9 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3292-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022921508

.

Archway Publishing rev. date: 12/01/2022
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 Too Close for Comfort
Chapter 2 From Auckland with Love
Chapter 3 These Times, They Are A-changing
Chapter 4 Touchdown
Chapter 5 It Is Only Rock and Roll
Chapter 6 Like a Rolling Stone
Chapter 7 Let’s Do It Again
Chapter 8 Holy Bones
Chapter 9 Who Do You Trust?
Chapter 10 Back to Basics
Chapter 11 Field Trip to the Field Museum
Chapter 12 As the Footprints Become Deeper
Chapter 13 Said the Spider to the Fly
Chapter 14 Good Day, Mr. Bond
Chapter 15 Dad?
Chapter 16 Which Way?
Chapter 17 Such Good Fun
Chapter 18 Was I Really Here Before?
Chapter 19 ALH84001
Chapter 20 On Again and Off Again
Chapter 21 Home Again, Home Again
Chapter 22 What Are We Waiting For?
Chapter 23 We Are All Here
Chapter 24 Tortoise Soup
Chapter 25 Deeper and Deeper
Chapter 26 Life Begins at Seventeen
Chapter 27 More of the Same
Chapter 28 Read between the Lines
Chapter 29 Rebecca and Willy to the Rescue
Chapter 30 Why?
Chapter 31 Why Not?
Chapter 32 Because
Chapter 33 Or Is It like This?
Chapter 34 Just Another Brick in the Wall
Chapter 35 Never Say Never Again
Chapter 36 OK, OK
Chapter 37 Hello Again
Chapter 38 Afterburners on Full
Chapter 39 Does Gold Really Glitter?
Chapter 40 You Take the High Road
Chapter 41 I’ll Take the Low Road
Chapter 42 And I’ll Be in Scotsbourgh before You
Chapter 43 Whatever Remains
Chapter 44 Earth to Moon Lander
Chapter 45 If It’s Jelly …
Chapter 46 There’s Doughnuts for Everyone
Chapter 47 Gabriel?
Chapter 48 Destiny
Chapter 49 Mirror, Mirror
Chapter 50 All Is Not Real
Chapter 51 Aren’t I Real?
Chapter 52 Picking Up the Pieces
Chapter 53 Pickup Sticks
Chapter 54 Lab of Life
Chapter 55 Imprisoned?
Chapter 56 Who Do You Like the Best?
Chapter 57 Work to Do
Chapter 58 A Flower by Any Other Name
Chapter 59 SIASE?
Chapter 60 SIASE, SIASE, SIASE, SIASE
Chapter 61 Ready or Not
ONE
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT
“Y ikes! A lady is dangling in the air! And she’s upside down,” Freddie said. “Funny,” he added as his forehead furled. “Why isn’t she screaming?”
I looked in the direction Freddie was staring. A woman with curly blonde hair was hanging with her body facing away from the wall. “Her hair is probably in her mouth,” I quipped as the image in front of me slowly sank in. I figured she must have fallen while examining the collection of 150-million-year-old vertebrae on the Dinosaur Wall of Bones in the multifloor Quarry Exhibit Hall. This was the last thing I had expected to see at the Dinosaur Natural Monument in Utah. As I examined the situation, it looked as if she had fallen near the end of the two-hundred-foot-long exhibit. She was hanging upside down, as Freddie had said. He had a quick mind.
“Matty, help her!” Freddie said. “After all, you’re seventeen, you’re bigger than me, and I hear you took many gym classes last year.”
I looked around for someone to help us, but nobody was in sight. Freddie and I plotted a path to a spot directly beneath her and ran. My mind raced as I worked on a plan to help her. I figured I needed to unhook her from her harness and then cushion her fall to the ground. “What a time to be without our cell phones!” I said.
As we neared her, I saw her eyes were closed, and she looked unconscious.
“Freddie, go to the front desk to get help. Tell them what happened and where to find us. OK?”
Freddie nodded, turned, and ran off.
With her hanging only inches above me, I saw no signs of blood. I reached up and touched her head. Her blonde hair was soft and wavy, with scents of vanilla that sent me into an altered state. I began acting on impulse. I felt around on her scalp, noticing a bump. It must have resulted from her head hitting the rock and dirt wall. I stroked the swelling to help circulate blood flow, but she didn’t react.
Even though I enjoyed massaging her head, I realized I needed to release her from her predicament. I could not detect whether or not her breathing had changed from the massage. Stepping back a few feet, I examined how she was supported. Her harness was suspended from a point ten feet above. Luckily, she had a quick-release harness latch on her waist. But if I pushed it, she would fall headfirst to the ground and possibly injure me. I didn’t want that to happen. She looked older than I was, but she was thinner and probably weighed less.
At five foot five and 120 pounds, I wasn’t tall or strong enough to support her alone, so I had to find a way to wake her up and get her facing upward before she landed on the ground. Hopefully, by then, she would be fully conscious and could help herself.
“What am I missing?” I clenched my jaw and looked closely at my surroundings again.
Then I saw it: a coiled, clay-covered hose connected to a faucet was on the ground not ten feet away. It was probably used to clean dirt and dust from the fossilized bones. I rushed to the valve and turned it on. Water softly oozed out of the opening. “Darn it!”
I turned the faucet hard clockwise. Nothing.
“What gives?” I said softly.
Then the faucet coughed and exploded as water gushed out of the hose. Grabbing the end with both hands, I directed it toward the girl. My intention was only to wake her, not drown her.
But the water had a mind of its own, and it rushed out faster than I could control it. I did my best to direct it, but the stream was alive! It hit her in her torso, pushing her body against the wall.
“Crap, I don’t know what I’m doing!” I exclaimed.
I used all my concentration and strength to hold the hose, allowing the water to bounce off the wall before hitting her head. That lessened the power of the water hitting her and moved her away from the wall.
Was she OK? I hoped it wasn’t too late.
“Hey!” a feminine voice yelled. “Stop it. I already showered today.”
I yanked the hose downward away from her. “Are you all right?” I asked as the water ricocheting off the wall soaked me.
“I will be when I get down and right side up.” She managed a weak smile. “My hero!”
“Is everyone all right?” A male voice interrupted as a man turned the faucet off. He was tall and gaunt, peering down at me through horned-rimmed spectacles. He almost looked as if he had stepped out of the Wall of Bones. He was temporarily winded, probably from running from the office. Apparently, Freddie had completed his task, but where was he?
The skeletal man agilely inserted himself between the soaked girl and me. He placed a wooden ladder against the wall and climbed up to help her. “Hey, kid, hold the ladder while I unhook Wilhelmina from her harness,” Dusty said.
“Thanks, Dusty,” she said.
I braced myself against the ladder while I watched Dusty easily lift her up into his arms and uncouple her harness. The ladder squealed. Watching them so close together caused a stirring in my stomach.
“Hurry up!” I yelled. “I don’t think this ladder can take the added weight for long.”
“Don’t worry, kid. One more minute, and we’ll be down.” Dusty laughed.
The ladder squealed loudly. As if the ladder knew what he had said, it caved inward toward the wall. Dusty fell straight down onto his back, leaving Wilhelmina momentarily suspended in midair. I stiffened my posture and held out both arms to catch her as if we had practiced this act.
She landed in my outstretched arms, albeit like a ton of bricks. I fell back onto the wet floor, and she landed on top of me.
“My hero.” She grinned. “Again!” Still pinning me, she smiled through her mop of blonde curls. “I’m Willy Fredrickson, and that guy over there is Dusty Miller.”
I felt momentarily out of breath but said, “Hi. I’m Matty, and—”
At that moment, Freddie appeared, also winded from running. “Hi. I’m Freddie. I’m ten years old. Did you say your name is Will? That’s a boy’s name.”
“No, my name is Willy, but if that is a problem,” she said, “you can call me Mina.”
“Freddie, reach down and give Mina a hand up,” I said.
“Mean-a. Are you mean?” Freddie said as he took hold of her arms and yanked her straight up.
“Be careful, Freddie. She might be injured. Maybe a concussion,” I said.
“Mean?” she said with a devilish look. “I’ll give you mean, Mr. Freddie.”
With that, she let go of Freddie’s grip, and he fell into the muddy water at our feet. Splash!
“See? I t