Scat (novel)
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| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Genre | Mystery |
| Publisher | Knopf |
Publication date | 13 Jan 2009 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, paperback) |
| Pages | 384 |
| ISBN | 0-375-83486-9 |
| OCLC | 53393228 |
| Preceded by | Flush |
| Followed by | Chomp |
Scat is a teenage novel by Carl Hiaasen, published in 2009. Scat tells the mystery of a missing teacher named Mrs. Bunny Starch, and how two of her students, Nick and Marta, do everything to find her. The book is held in over 1,000 libraries, according to WorldCat.[citation needed] Other books for young readers by Carl Hiaasen are Hoot and Flush.
Plot summary
Nick Waters the main character, is in Bunny Starch's biology class, and she is the most feared teacher in his school. At the beginning, Duane Scrod Jr. casually chomps on Mrs. Starch's pencil, which she finds amusing. However, she later reports the incident with a poor view on the boy's behavior. Therefore most students believe it was Duane who started the forest fire on a field trip to the Black Vine Swamp.(Later in the book, it turns out that the Red Diamond Energy Corporation set a controlled fire to prevent the students and teachers from discovering an illegal pirate well on the State of Florida's land.) Mrs. Starch goes back into the swamp to retrieve an asthma inhaler for Libby, a student of Mrs.Starch, while the bus returns the rest of the kids to school. Everyone expects that she will return in her car, but she doesn't come back. While Mrs. Starch is missing, her class gets a strange substitute teacher named, Wendell Waxmo, who teaches specific pages on specific days. Dr. Dressler, the school's headmaster, hired him in the hope that when Mrs. Starch hears about who is teaching her classes, she will come back. Dr. Dressler decides to go to Mrs. Starch's house to see if she is there; she is not. In Mrs. Starch's mailbox, Dr. Dressler finds a letter saying that she has been called to a "family emergency." Dr. Dressler checks Mrs. Starch's file and finds no reference to any known family members that are alive. Nick and Marta just don't buy this "family emergency" excuse, so they decide to go to Mrs. Starch's house—located well off the beaten path—to investigate. They find the house filled with stuffed animals. Soon they are discovered by a mysterious man in his early thirties named Twilly Spree (from Hiaasen's Sick Puppy). He takes them away from the house and leaves them to meet their parents. Meanwhile, Duane Scrod Jr., known by his nickname "Smoke", is also missing from class. The oil company, having found out that arson investigators believed Duane to be responsible for the fire, have stolen Duane's backpack and placed a lighter in it. When Duane returns, he is mistakenly accused of setting the fire in Black Vine Swamp. This is stressful to the headmaster of Truman school, Dr. Dressler, who has to face the board of directors and worry about the school's public image. When Detective Marshall comes to arrest the supposed arsonist, Duane dodges out of the office and ran away, causing even more worries for Dr. Dressler.
While Detective Marshall is waiting outside Duane's house for him to return, the detective grows bored and decides to do some research about the torch. He finds that only two stores sell that model, and since one of them is too far away, only one store is left to investigate. Detective Marshall goes to the store and takes the video recording of the torch purchase to the arson investigator, who immediately realizes that Duane was framed by the Oil Company. All charges against Duane are dropped, except for that of evading arrest.
Nick and Marta can't stop worrying about their biology teacher and Smoke's trouble. They think that Twilly may know something about it. They find the car Twilly was driving and jump into the back seat waiting for the man to return. Twilly takes them to see Mrs. Starch. They discover that she has been caring for a baby panther whose mother was scared off by the oil company with a gunshot. Duane was also in on the secret and Twilly was tracking the mother panther. He knew she was close because fresh scat was always on the ground. In the end, the mother panther and baby panther are reunited and Mrs. Starch comes back to teaching with a great respect for Duane, who spends two weeks in jail for running away from the Detective (who also thinks two weeks is too harsh.) They all find out that Bunny Starch was just rescuing a baby panther and that she is a good person after all. After Nick helps the panther get back to its mother, everything goes back to normal. At school, everyone is amazed.
Carl Hiaasen is the author of other notable children's fiction novels including Flush, in over 2,500 libraries[1], and Hoot, in over 3,200 libraries.[2]