In a Venezuelan jungle, eleven-year-old Avery McShane and his friends, the Machacas, spend their days exploring from their secret treehouse hideout away from prying eyes. But when a murdered cowboy is found and whispers spread about his missing silver spurs, the boys are pulled into a real-life mystery.
A daring trip into the forbidden banana plantation of the cruel Pablo Malo turns into a narrow escape from vicious guard dogsâand raises even bigger questions. What is Pablo hiding? And could it be tied to the cowboyâs death?
To uncover the truth, the Machacas must summon their courage and face dangers deeper than the jungle itself⊠before time runs out.
In a Venezuelan jungle, eleven-year-old Avery McShane and his friends, the Machacas, spend their days exploring from their secret treehouse hideout away from prying eyes. But when a murdered cowboy is found and whispers spread about his missing silver spurs, the boys are pulled into a real-life mystery.
A daring trip into the forbidden banana plantation of the cruel Pablo Malo turns into a narrow escape from vicious guard dogsâand raises even bigger questions. What is Pablo hiding? And could it be tied to the cowboyâs death?
To uncover the truth, the Machacas must summon their courage and face dangers deeper than the jungle itself⊠before time runs out.
It was a steamy hot day in the middle-of-nowhere Venezuela. The sky was light blue, without a single cloud. I stood in front of the rusty barbed wire fence that circled Campo Mata, the place I called home. There was a gap in the fence in front of me where I had propped a board in between the lowest wires. It was my gateway into El Monte, the green, dark jungle that surrounded our camp. I hunched down and carefully stepped through the opening. Billy had ripped his shirt going through the gap last year and cut a gash in his back. His parents had made him get a tetanus shot. They said heâd end up getting lockjaw and have to eat from a straw for the rest of his life if he didnât. I sure as heck wasnât going to get a shot, or lockjaw. When I got through the gap I stood up to my full height of four feet, six and half inches. I knew my exact height because I marked it on the wall next to the doorway in my bedroom. I had grown almost three inches in the last six months. I was almost a man now.
âCome on, Mati!â I called out. âYou can do it.â
Mati was my dog. My parents had named him Matisse after a famous artist from France. My mother was an artist, so I guess she was the one who came up with it. Mati was born four years to the day after I was, meaning that he was almost eight now, which is closing in on sixty in dog years. He sure didnât act like a sixty-year-old. Mati jumped through the gap without losing any fur on the sharp barbs on the wires. He was an Australian Shepherd with a mostly black and brown fur coat that was covered here and there with splotches of white. It seemed to me that his tongue was always sticking out and he always had a happy smile. We stood there on the other side of the fence looking at the tall wall of green trees in front of us. We were both excited. We had never gone into El Monte without having some sort of adventure.
We started down the short path through the tall dry grass that led into the tropical forest. It was going to take us about ten minutes to get to our hideout. Billy and Carlitos said they would be there waiting, and Todd said heâd try to make it too, but he was in trouble for fighting Alex, so I wasnât sure heâd be there. Mati and I stopped just before we reached the dark shadows of the trees. The huge trunks of the closest ones had long, hard spikes sticking out of them like big rose bush thorns. Getting pricked by one of those thorns really hurt. I couldnât tell you how many times it had happened to me. It would sting like a bee and it would keep stinging until my mom put some medicine and a Band-Aid on it. Mati somehow knew that too, because he never got poked by one of those spikes. I took a deep breath, big enough for the both of us, and then took that first heart-beating-hard step into El Monte.
Most of the heat went away with the sunlight, but it seemed like the humidity went up a notch or two. I always sweated more in El Monte. Everything was wetter under the jungle canopy, even though it hadnât rained for a few days. I guess the trees and plants had to sweat too. You could tell that Mati and I werenât the only ones to use the trail since it was bare dirt and it was packed down from all the animals that moved along it. The rest of the ground around the path was just tons of rotting leaves and moss and mushrooms and ferns everywhere. Everything was damp and you could see dewdrops on the mushroom caps, holding on for dear life. It smelled wet. I tried not to think of the different animals that used the path, but I knew that most of them would love to catch me on it; at least theyâd like it if Mati wasnât with me. Heâd protect me for sure; always had before.
We were about halfway to the hideout when I heard the screeching of that stupid monkey. Heâd seen me from way up in his tree and now he was raising a big fuss about me invading his territory. I didnât understand a thing he was saying, but I was pretty sure he was using all the curses and bad words he could think of. Couldnât be anything else from the nasty way he was yelling at me.
Mati started barking at the stupid monkey and they were raising quite a racket together. Monkey and I had crossed paths lots of times, so I knew what was next. Sure enough, that skinny bag of bugs reached around to his behind and started throwing his poop down at us. I was ready for it and I had already ducked behind one of the spiky-trunked trees, but Mati wasnât so lucky. He caught one of those monkey poops right on his nose. He was trying to scrape that smelly stuff off with his front paws and, while he wasnât looking, he caught a few more chunks on his back before he gave up and started to run down the path to the hideout. I was right behind him.
Billy was already at the hideout when we came running down the path.
âLooks like you guys got caught in another poop storm,â laughed Billy.
I stopped running when I got to where Billy was standing on the outside of the ditch that we had dug around our hideout. I was breathing hard and now I was sweating like crazy.
âI hate that stupid monkey,â I said, gasping for air.
âYeah, well, at least you donât have to go by Pablo Maloâs farm to get here,â said Billy. âThose gnarly dogs of his always come running after me when I walk down that dang road by his banana trees.â He reached behind his back and pulled out his slingshot. âGood thing I keep this in my pocket. Pegged that really mean one, Loca, smack-dab on her snout and she turned and ran.â
Billy Hale was my best friend in the world. Well, maybe Mati was my real best friend, but Billy was my best human friend, for sure. Weâd both grown up in Campo Mata. Both of our fathers worked for oil companies. My dad was an engineer for one of those big companies, and Billyâs dad worked for one of the service companies that drilled the wells for my dadâs company. So my dad was kind of his boss, and I was kind of Billyâs boss. This was mostly because he could never seem to beat me at anything unless I let him, like I had the other day when he challenged me to a wrestling match. I hoped he wouldnât try me right then because I was really tired from the escape from the stupid monkey. He didnât look like he would though.
Billy was shorter and thinner than me, which was saying something because I was pretty skinny. He was born in West Texas, like his parents, and he had a really strong southern accent, like most of the kids in the oil camps. Almost all of them were born in Oklahoma or Louisiana or somewhere where there was lots of oil under the ground. As for me, I was born in California and moved to Campo Mata when I was six weeks old.
Billy had bright red hair which his mom kept cut short. Almost all of the boys in the camp had buzz cuts like his. My hair was a little longer and really blond from being in the sun all the time. Other than me, the only other kid that didnât have short hair was Bjorn Sorensen, but he was from Europe and they seemed to do things differently over there. Billy always wore green jeans and red and white checked shirts with pearly buttons. I mostly wore khaki shorts or Leviâs blue jeans and a white T-shirt, which was never white for long. He wore cowboy boots and I usually wore black canvas sneakers. We both had cowboy hats but we almost never wore them. Weâd stopped wearing our holsters with the six-shooters about a year ago. We were too old for that now. I had greenish eyes, and the moms in the camp always said things like âOh, isnât he sweet and so good-looking, like his dad . . .â or âI could just hug you all dayâ. Billy had eyes as pale blue as a gunfighterâs, ears that stuck out from the side of his head like an elephant, and an Adamâs apple that made him look like heâd gotten a bone stuck in his throat. I never heard the moms gush over him much, except for his own mom, of course. So, other than the fact that we were both skinny as rails, we were pretty much opposites in most ways.
Billy and I looked at each other and then turned our eyes to the huge trunk of the mango tree about twenty yards away. We both started running for it at the same time.
âLast oneâs a rotten egg,â I yelled.
âYou already stink,â yelled Billy.
I beat him by a step, but I still had to push him away from the wooden plank steps that we had nailed to the trunk to get to our hideout high in the thick branches of the mango tree. He fell down on his rump and I started to climb.
âYouâre such a jerk, Avery,â he grumbled as he got to his feet, swatting the muddy leaves from his rump. âWho made you the boss?â
I was already halfway up the trunk when I stopped to look down at him. He always tried to make me feel guilty when I beat him at something, and I almost always did feel guilty. I guess itâs how good friends feel when that happens.
âAw, come on Billy,â I replied. âDonât be a sore loser. You should be used to it by now.â
I felt bad as soon as I said it. It just wasnât a nice thing to say, especially to my best friend. I tried to think of something that would make him feel better and keep him from being grumpy the rest of the day.
âIt wasnât fair,â I said. âI was already warmed up running from that stupid monkey and you werenât ready. I think we tied anyway. I mean, I had to push you out of the way, didnât I?â
Billy was no fool. He knew that Iâd out-raced him, but all he needed was something to hang his hat on, and that was good enough for him.
âYeah, I guess so,â he said. âBesides, I think you got the jump on me.â
Billy started up the ladder about the time I made it into the hideout. It was the most special place in the world. No girls had ever been there or would ever be there. They wouldnât dare. It was a tree house made out of pine boards from the pipe yard in the camp. My dad built most of it the summer before last. He and I had carried the long wooden boards down the path past the stupid monkey until we had a big pile of them underneath the mango tree. He brought a handsaw, a hammer and lots of nails. On the first day he finished the steps and the floor. The next day, all by himself, my dad dragged lots of sheets of rusted and used tin roofing through the jungle and made a roof for our tree house. Billy and Carlitos and I, with a little help from Todd (when he wasnât grounded), built up the walls of our hideout. It took a long time and it seemed like years, but it was probably only a week or two. So the floor was really nice and flat, and didnât have any cracks in it. And the roof never leaked when the rains came. The walls that weâd built by ourselves werenât so good, but that didnât matter to us. We painted the whole tree house in army green so that our enemies, especially the girls, couldnât see it from below. It had worked so far.
Billyâs head poked up through the opening in the floor of our hideout and he carefully looked around before climbing all the way in. He did that every time we climbed up to the tree house, ever since last year when we had been close to finishing the walls and he had come face-to-face with the iguana. Billy had beaten me to the steps that day, and he was still laughing and calling me a ârotten eggâ when he poked his head through the opening in the floor and came nose-to-nose with the iguana. From that distance it must have looked more like Godzilla. All I remember was a girly high-pitched scream and a hard thud as Billy landed on the ground next to me. He ended up breaking his arm and got to wear a cast. He still has that cast and it has all of the names of our classmates on it. I drew a picture of Godzilla on it.
Our hideout was roomy. We could stand up straight inside without banging our heads on the tin roof and it was about five or six paces across. We kept all kinds of stuff in there. Our old holsters with the cap-gun pistols were hanging from nails on the far wall. Even though we didnât wear them any more, we kept them there in case some girls showed up and we had to shoot them. All along the walls were our most prized possessions. Our comic book collections were stacked up high on the left wall. Billy was a fan of the Iron Man comics, and Carlitos liked Spiderman, while I liked Thor. We all knew that Thor could use his hammer to pound Iron Manâs metal suit to a pulp (and squish Spiderman like a bug) but I never made a big deal of it. I had about ten of my favorite Louis LâAmour western paperback novels next to my pile of comics, and Billy had his seven or eight Max Brand westerns next to his. Billy and I were big fans of westerns. I was pretty sure that Billy would have been a gunfighter like one of his Max Brand heroes, if heâd been born about a hundred and fifty years ago. As for Carlitos, he was more into anything that had to do with soccer, so he had a stack of local sports magazines with articles about his favorite teams in them. We also had glass jars full of all kinds of weird things that we had found in El Monte that were stacked up along the right wall, just under the only window in our hideout. The most special of those weird things was the worm snake.
A few months ago, when we were digging the moat around the trunk of our mango tree, Billy let out one of his scaredy, girly screams, dropped his shovel and ran away really fast. Not knowing why he skittered away so suddenly I ran after him, and away from whatever it was.
âWhat the heckâs going on?â I yelled when I caught up to him.
âI dug up a snake!â Billy screamed back. His eyes were wide with terror as he looked back over his shoulder at the half dug ditch. They were pretty much the same eyes he had when heâd met up with Godzilla.
âA snake buried in the dirt?â I replied. We had stopped running. âSnakes donât dig holes in the ground. Come on, letâs see what it is.â
âIt looked like a snake to me,â insisted Billy.
We worked our way back to the ditch, hiding behind tree trunks like soldiers sneaking up on an enemy camp. When we reached the big mound of dirt that we had piled up on the outside of the moat, we stopped and looked over it. There it was, halfway out of a hole in the side of the ditch, right next to the shovel that Billy had dropped. The part that stuck out was a couple feet long and thick as a garden hose. It was a sickly whitish color and it was wriggling around slowly.
âThatâs not a snake,â I said. âThatâs a worm.â
âIs not,â replied Billy. âNo such thing as a worm a yard long.â
I walked around the pile of dirt and into the freshly dug out ditch. I picked up Billyâs shovel and prodded the wriggling worm snake thing. When I did that it started to move into its tunnel, so I dropped the shovel and grabbed it by its tail or head or whatever that end of it was. Billy almost had a heart attack.
âLet go of it,â he cried. âItâs gonna come out and bite you, and youâll have to go to the clinic to get all those anti-venom shots like Eric.â
âNah . . . itâs a worm all right,â I replied, pulling on it. âI need some help.â
Billy wasnât having any of it and he stayed put behind the protection of the dirt pile as if he thought the critter might blow up like a grenade or something.
I was starting to win the tug of war with the worm. Little by little it started to come out of the worm hole. I was careful to not pull too hard. I didnât want to snap it in two and have worm guts and juice flying all over the place. I was just starting to wonder how long the thing was when the rest of it finally popped out and I almost fell over on my butt. I dropped it on the ground and it thrashed around in the way that normal earthworms do when you dig them up to put on a fish hook; only this one would need a hook the size of an anchor to use as bait.
âSee?â I said triumphantly. âNo eyes, no mouth, no fangs â not even any rattles or scales. Itâs a worm, thatâs all.â
We put that worm in the biggest glass jar we had, filled it up with dirt, and then poked some holes in the cap so it could breathe. That was the coolest thing in our jar collection of bugs and fish. We also had jars with piranhas that weâd caught in the river (with smaller worms) and monster rhinoceros beetles.
We even had a jar full of machacas, which is what we called the huge ants with big pincers that lived everywhere around Campo Mata. Those machacas could cut the leaves off a whole tree in one day and march away along the ant highways that theyâd made on the ground to their volcano mounds. Those ant highways were all over the place and they always led to one of the huge mounds of dirt that theyâd built up. Rumor had it that they could clean the meat off the bones of a sleeping person faster than a pack of piranhas. Folks didnât mess with machacas, and thatâs why we named our club after them. Billy, Todd, Carlitos and me - the Machacas.
We also had shoeboxes full of other bugs; neat ones like centipedes, millipedes, machaca queen ants (with their wings still on them) and tons of butterflies and moths. All of them were much bigger and brighter than the kinds you find back in the States. What we didnât have were snakes. Weâd collected some snakeskins, but Billy and I didnât get anywhere near live snakes. They scared the heck out of both of us.
We were standing at the window of our tree house when Carlitos came crashing through the bamboo thicket behind our hideout, down the same path that Billy always took. We had heard him coming for quite a while, mostly because he had been yelling our names the whole time.
âAvery . . . Billy,â he yelled between big gulps of air. âThere is a dead body on the slab behind the clĂnica! Vamos a verlo!â
Carlitos PĂ©rez was my best Venezuelan friend. His parents had worked in Campo Mata for as long as Iâd been around. Their house was in Cantaura, a town just down the road, where most of the locals that worked in Campo Mata lived. His mom was our Spanish teacher at the school, and his dad worked at the pipe yard for the same company that Billy and Toddâs dads worked for. It seemed like Carlitosâ and Toddâs families were always doing something together, so the two kids were pretty much best buds. Carlitos was about my size and weight, but his skin was a little darker than mine. He had long wavy, jet-black hair that almost reached his shoulders, and he had the biggest and brightest smile you ever saw. Seemed to me that he was always smiling. But it was his eyes that really stood out the most. They were like big puppy dog eyes with super long eye lashes, but I always got the feeling that his smile and his eyes were sometimes saying different things at the same time. Whatever they were saying, the girls in camp sure seemed to like it. Of us Machacas, Carlitos was the only one with a real girlfriend, thoâ I guess you could say that Denise was my sorta girlfriend. As usual, Carlitos was wearing khaki shorts, huarache sandals and a white tank top.
Billy and I got on our hands and knees and looked down through the opening of our hideout at Carlitos. He looked up and waved at us to come down.
âI heard it from Todd who heard it from his brother,â he said, still trying to catch his breath. âThereâs a cuerpo lying on the concrete slab at the back of the clĂnica. He said that thereâs blood and guts and that itâs really gross. We must go and see it.â
I had seen one other dead body on that concrete slab before. He had been driving one of the big eighteen-wheelers hauling drill pipe to one of the rigs in the oil field when he lost control and crashed. The pipe had come smashing through the cab of the truck and went right through him too. That one was definitely gross. I doubted that this one would be as gross, but I knew that we just had to go and find out.
âYou sure?â I asked. âI donât want to go all the way home to get my bike and pedal all the way across the camp and find out that Toddâs big brother was just pulling your leg all along.â
âNo, itâs real all right,â replied Carlitos excitedly. âVamosâŠletâs go.â
Avery McShane never fails to lead his gang of oil camp buddies bravely through the jungles of Venezuela. When their current mission uncovers a clue connected to the recent murder of a local gaucho, Avery and the rest of The Machacas must tell the police. Telling the truth could get them into trouble with their parents, especially since theyâve been warned to stay away from the dangerous Pablo Malo. But when the threat shows up at Averyâs home turf, the boys must go to war to save their territory and bring justice to Campo Mata.
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This high-stakes adventure quickly introduces the rambunctious cast of characters and takes readers on a wild ride as they learn the ropes of their everyday routines. From planning missions to dodging monkey poop missiles, Avery and his friends live life to the fullest as they explore the jungle, earn some money, and collect cool items to add to their secret clubhouse. The Machacas thrive on risks and avoiding trouble with their parents, all while teasing girls and outsmarting the local bullies. They canât help getting swept up in solving the mystery of who killed the cowboy, even when things become increasingly dangerous. Thereâs plenty of suspense as these adolescent boys must face their fears and brave threats from both criminals and the unpredictable environment.
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While the boys each have their flaws and insecurities, the challenges they face test their inner fortitude and help bring about growth. Readers will enjoy watching the bragging boys release girl-screams in some instances, pulling mischievous pranks in others, and ultimately revealing their mettle when the situation calls for it. The author executed a brilliant use of setting, character traits, and foreshadowing to craft an entertaining story that remains fast-paced and suspenseful throughout. The conclusion wraps up loose ends in a slightly gruesome, but satisfying way as key elements of the story fall into place.
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Well-suited for upper middle-grade boys, Avery McShane and the Silver Spurs is only the beginning. Two more adventures await readers after finishing this exciting first installment. Parents who enjoyed the antics of The Goonies, the camaraderie displayed in The Sandlot, and the mystery elements found in The Hardy Boys will love sharing this series with their kids. Young readers will love exploring the jungles of Venezuela with Avery McShane and his best friends. The author brings authenticity to the narrative through his childhood experiences and travels, making this an adventure your family wonât want to miss!