For the purpose of this article, I am twelve, and I picked up this book at the school book fair because I wanted to read about the chupacabra. I saw that it was Book 3 of a series called Cryptid Hunters, which made it even better, I thought. If I liked it, I’d go back and get the other volumes. Because cryptids.
I settled in to read it, and after a big chunk of “What Happened in the Last Two Books,” right there on the first page of the Prologue, there it was. “In the darkness of his wooden den the chupacabra sensed everything….”
He’s trapped and there’s a goat he can’t get at, and he’s so hungry. There’s a nasty woman screaming at him, and an even nastier man with a long stick.
The chupacabra is smart. He knows how to hunt. He knows how to scare the man, too, and that’s almost as sweet as the goat’s blood.
Yes! That’s what I’m here for!
And then we’re out of the prologue and it’s a whole different book-universe. We have two whole previous books’ worth of backstory to go over (and over). Everything that happens, we stop for a catch-up and a summary and a reminder about who is who and what was what.
I won’t need to read the other books after all. They’re all here. With every twist and turn and in and out and all the family drama.
There are cryptids. But they’re baby dinosaurs from another book. We see a whole lot of them. Smell them, too. They fart. A lot.
I am twelve. I do not mind fart jokes, even fart jokes that go on and on. And On. Or rhino pee all over one of the mega-annoying kids, either (Go, Team Rhino!). But that’s not why I’m here.
Where’s my chupacabra?
Finally, after a whole lot of running around and screaming, he shows up. He’s being held captive deep inside Evil Grandpa’s wildlife sanctuary/preservation zoo/research facility/secret evil-overlord lair. Evil Female Scientist has wired him for mind control, and Evil Grandpa orders her to use him to track down the kids who have infiltrated the lair.
That’s cool enough, though maybe not worth waiting hundreds of pages to get to. What’s cooler is that he’s part of Evil Grandpa’s latest evil plan to scam the world into thinking he’s a great conservationist hero. Evil Grandpa has a television show in which he presents himself as a wildlife biologist and pretends to protect endangered species (but what he’s really doing to them is absolutely evil).
The chupacabra is called CH-9, or Nine, because he’s the ninth of his kind. He’s a genetically manipulated mutant, created in a lab and gestated by a female jaguar. The previous eight were failed experiments, mostly for being too aggressive and too difficult to control. He has an implant in his brain, which is supposed to solve that problem.
His whole existence is a fraud, just like the rest of the operation. Evil Grandpa and his minions read up on the literature. Researched the legend. Figured out that the so-called physical evidence consists of coyotes with mange. Then created a beast based on the Latin American variety: dark grey, with glowing orange eyes, overly long hindlegs, three-toed forelegs, a ridge of spines along its back, and huge fangs. He hunts by night, and he feeds on blood. He’s especially fond of goats.
He is also extremely intelligent. He’s capable of thinking for himself, when he’s allowed to. He’s a dangerous predator, and Evil Grandpa orders him turned loose in the secret lair.
But this is a kids’ book, and there’s a hard and fast rule in kids’ books. The kids always win. They outsmart the evil adults, trap the hunting beast, and fly off to their own secret island with the help of the good adults, including Super Cool Dad (who happens to be Evil Grandpa’s son-in-law).
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Chupacabra
The last we see of the chupacabra, he’s locked up tight in a cabinet, but doing his best to break out. And so we leave him in this book, but I wonder if he’ll show up again. Versions Ten and Eleven are in the works (maybe in two of the jaguars on exhibit); we may hear from them as well. We’re only halfway through the series, after all. There are still three books to go.
Evil Grandpa has a plan for his custom cryptid. He is going to do what he calls Release and Catch, which is turn his chupacabra loose to rampage through a town in Texas. Then he’ll sweep in with his camera crew, capture the beast, and heroically, on national TV, save the people of the town.
That probably won’t happen now he’s been outed as a fraud. But he’s still at large, and he’s if anything more evil than ever. I’m betting he’s not done with his chupacabras yet, especially now the kids have abducted his baby dinosaurs. He’ll need something to make a big splash with, if he wants to get his own back.
The question is, will the chupacabra be brought back under control and forced to play along? Or will he find a way to escape? And if he escapes… what will he do?
I can venture a few guesses. I’m sure you can, too.
