Field Trip Mysteries: The Zoo with the Empty Cage

By Steve Brezenoff and Chris Canga

Edward G. Garrison, better known as Egg, is pretty excited about the Science Club's field trip to the zoo. They'll get to see a rare display of Island Foxes, an endangered species. But when the club arrives, they learn that the foxes have been nabbed! Can Egg and his friends find the foxes?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
• Release date: Apr 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781434298751

Steve Brezenoff

Steve Brezenoff is the author of the young adult novels The Absolute Value of -1, which won the IPPY Gold Medal for young adult fiction, and Brooklyn, Burning, which was named a Kirkus Reviews Best Book, was a Best Fiction for Young Adults selection by the American Library Association, and won the ForeWord Book of the Year Gold Medal for young adult fiction. Born on Long Island, Steve now lives in Minneapolis with his wife, Beth, and their son and daughter, Sam and Etta. His main is a Blood Elf monk, but he's been known to run a Night Elf priest from time to time.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

SCIENCE CLUB

My name is Edward G. Garrison, but you can call me Egg.

Yup, Egg. Like the things you scramble for breakfast. Anton Gutman, our class bully, says people call me Egg because my brain is scrambled, but he’s wrong. It’s just my initials: E.G.G.

That’s why my friends call me Egg.

My best friends, Gum, Sam, and Cat, and I are the closest friends in sixth grade. It feels like we’ve been friends forever. But we only met this year in science club, actually.

Cat is the only one of us who really likes science. She’s a big-time animal lover, and science is the only class where we learn about animals.

Cat joined the science club because she wanted to take care of the club’s gerbil, Mr. Herbert.

Sam — whose name is short for Samantha — loves all those police shows on TV. You know, the ones where special cops solve crimes using science. So she joined the science club hoping to learn how to take DNA samples or something. She says that’s called forensic science.

The science club member who really doesn’t fit is Gum. He completely hates science class. In fact, the only reason he joined at all is because Mr. Neff, the science teacher, made him join.

See, Gum was causing trouble on the first day of science class this year. The punishment was to join the science club for at least a month. Once Gum became friends with the rest of us, he decided to stay.

And why did I join? Extra credit! Every member of the science club gets extra credit on our science grades at the end of year.

I’m going to need it. I’m always busy taking pictures during class, so I often miss what Mr. Neff is trying to teach.

Science isn’t my favorite subject. Art is. I love photography.

But science club isn’t just where we all met. It’s also the scene of one of our biggest mysteries