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Informationen zum Autor Keith G. Campbell was born in Kenya, but raised and educated in Scotland. He graduated with a master's degree in art history from the University of Edinburgh. After trying on several careers, Keith eventually returned to his early passion of writing and illustrating stories. He is the author-illustrator of several picture books and the winner of two Ezra Jack Keats Awards. A Small Zombie Problem is his first work for older readers. Keith lives in Malibu, California. Learn more at kgcampbell.com and follow him at @artbykgcampbell. Leseprobe Chapter One It had become apparent that the canoe was sinking. The opaque brown water, which had moments before been sloshing around the boy’s shoes, had now reached his ankles. “Claudette!” cried the boy urgently, pointing toward the largest of several spouting holes. “Stop that up with your finger!” The girl named Claudette, however, must surely have been stronger than she realized. For while attempting to plug the gushing water, she promptly forced her entire fist through the vessel’s hull, dramatically worsening the situation, as you might imagine. The boy scrambled across the canoe to stuff the jagged gash with a plaid blanket. But within moments the wool was a saturated lump, the “repair” worthless, and, in the meantime, the other leaks were worsening. Indeed, with every second, there was more and more water, and less and less canoe. As wet coldness reached his knees, the boy finally came to understand that the boat was doomed. Yet even then, he did not fully appreciate the dire nature of his predicament. There was, however, someone who did. One hundred feet above the foundering vessel, an osprey was headed back to its nest and family with a freshly caught bass. The bird observed the splashy drama far below with a detached curiosity, as you or I might observe some feathery misadventure in the sky above. The male human, just visible through a cloud of tasty-looking butterflies, had removed his oddly netted helmet and, for some reason, was using it to toss around water. The female human—who moved like a thing living, but to the bird above smelled like a thing dead—was with cupped hands awkwardly attempting to do the same. Humans, the osprey mused, were an odd bunch. What the frantic pair were trying to achieve he could hardly imagine. But what he spied next, the osprey understood only too well; for every creature of the swamp is hardwired to recognize the most dangerous of predators. Through the watery channel, just beneath the surface, moved the pale shadow of a white beast. So enormous was it, that the osprey dropped its family’s dinner in shock. The thing was wider than the vessel was long, and its powerful, snaking tail created a wake like that of a shrimping boat. And the white, enormous, snaking beast with a powerful wake was rapidly advancing upon the sinking canoe. Chapter Two But before we discover the plight of August and Claudette DuPont (for such were the names of the children in that ill-fated craft), we must return to the previous day, when the events leading to this remarkable situation began in a pretty unremarkable way. August DuPont popped his head around the kitchen door, where his aunt Hydrangea was counting bottles of DuPont’s Peppy Pepper Sauce into a cardboard box. “Eleven, twelve, thirteen,” muttered the wide-eyed lady in the pink tiara. She cast around the kitchen table, then, skirts rustling, turned entirely around, scanning the room. “That can’t be all. It surely can’t be all. I could have sworn . . .” “I’m just heading outside, Aunt,” August announced, “to fertilize the pepper plants.” Hydrangea, distracted, was conducting a recount. “Is it,” she inquired absently, “the right time of year for such a measure, sugar?” August slid a book into the lady’s line of sight. The volume was rather old, of the hard-backed varie...
