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Plot Summary
This installment in the FunJungle series follows thirteen-year-old Teddy Fitzroy, named after conservation-minded President Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy's mother, Charlene, is the head primatologist at FunJungle Adventure Park, and his father is the park's official photographer. J.J. McCracken, FunJungle's billionaire owner, invites the family to stay at the Oy Vey Corral, a bison ranch near Yellowstone National Park owned by his old friends Sidney and Heidi Krautheimer. Teddy's fourteen-year-old girlfriend, Summer McCracken, J.J.'s daughter, joins them.
The group visits Yellowstone on their first full day. A reckless tourist named Morton approaches elk for a selfie, gets gored, and his abandoned car is struck by a large RV and bursts into flames. Back at the ranch, the Krautheimers describe how European settlers nearly drove bison to extinction, partly to destroy Plains tribes' livelihoods. J.J. reveals he is considering buying the ranch to build a safari lodge. An enormous grizzly the Krautheimers call Sasquatch appears near the river, and the Krautheimers ask Teddy to investigate two bison that have vanished from the herd.
At a barbecue, Jasmine Creek, the ranch's foreperson and a Tukudika Shoshone tribal member, briefs Teddy. The ranch cannot afford microchips and relies on ear tags, the fence is intact, and there is no sign of a predator kill. When J.J.'s wife, Kandace, arrives wearing a large sapphire necklace, J.J. is visibly upset. After dinner, the Krautheimers' sixteen-year-old daughter, Melissa, shows Teddy and Summer a hidden Prohibition-era room beneath the kitchen, accessed through a concealed trapdoor. They overhear J.J. and Kandace arguing about the necklace, and Kandace banishes J.J. to the couch.
At four a.m., Teddy discovers Sasquatch inside the house with the front door wide open. J.J., locked out of the McCrackens' bedroom, shelters with the Fitzroys as the bear breaks down the door and devours leftover dessert. Summer fires a decorative bow at the bear but accidentally hits J.J. Charlene drives Sasquatch out with a makeshift flamethrower fashioned from aerosol hair spray and a match. After the chaos, Kandace discovers her sapphire necklace is gone.
J.J. suspects Sasquatch swallowed the necklace and organizes a bear hunt. Privately, he tells Teddy the necklace is worth $8.2 million and promises to pay him if he can determine whether a person stole it. Teddy notices a key inconsistency: A dozen dirty dessert plates sit in the kitchen, yet the bear bypassed them to break into a locked room for a single plate.
Jasmine takes Teddy, Summer, and ranch hand Arin to the northern fence line, where signs of tampering appear: nail holes suggesting wire was removed and replaced to walk a bison over. Teddy finds a cut blue ear tag marking the animal as a purebred belonging to the National Park Service. J.J.'s helicopter search for the bear then spooks the herd, triggering a stampede that nearly kills Teddy before Summer helps him jump onto her faster horse.
At breakfast, the Krautheimers' thirteen-year-old son, Evan, reports finding Sasquatch's prints near an abandoned gold mine. J.J. enters the mine with ranch hands Zach and Arin, and it caves in, trapping all three. Teddy recruits Evan to investigate the necklace. They search the bunkhouse apartments but find nothing incriminating before Arturo Creek, Jasmine's father, catches them and confiscates the master key. While following Sasquatch's tracks, the group discovers bear bait at the neighboring Spooner Ranch: bulk hamburger wrappers and empty vanilla extract jugs. Jericho, the Spooners' intimidating foreman, confronts them at gunpoint before the ranch's friendly owners, Ike and Taffy Spooner, defuse the situation.
Jasmine drives Teddy and Summer into Yellowstone to meet Ranger Linda Oh, who suspects bison are also being stolen from the park and identifies cattle rancher George Wiley as the area's most vocal opponent of wildlife conservation. On the ride back, Evan discovers bear bait on Krautheimer land and realizes his parents arranged the baiting to lure Sasquatch near the house and impress J.J., dumping the waste at the Spooners' to hide the evidence. As the fire department works to free the trapped men from the mine, Teddy crawls into the narrow passage to relieve Daisy Creek, Jasmine's mother and the ranch's cook, who has been digging with bloodied hands, and chips through the final barrier to confirm the men are alive.
At the West Yellowstone rodeo, Evan confronts his parents about the baiting; they admit it. Near the bull pens, Teddy overhears Ike Spooner telling a man he calls George about something new at the Spooner Ranch, but a bull escapes its chute and ends the conversation. Teddy glimpses someone in a baby blue cowboy hat near the open gate. The bull charges toward Teddy, but Jericho, working as a rodeo clown, tackles him to safety.
That night, Kandace tells Teddy the necklace's backstory: J.J. proposed to her at the ranch sixteen years earlier using the sapphire, which he bought from a young man on a reservation for a fraction of its true value. Teddy recalls that Sasquatch had been sniffing toward the bookshelf, not the kitchen. He notices that the adjacent room, where the McCrackens' pilot Karina sleeps, appears smaller than expected. Waking Summer and Kandace, he finds an iron bookend that triggers a concealed door in the bookshelf, revealing a narrow hidden room that smells of vanilla. Outside, Evan confirms a second set of shoe prints leading away from the bedroom window.
Teddy reconstructs the theft: Daisy Creek hid in the secret room before Kandace retired, while Arturo Creek created the impression they had both left for the evening. Daisy waited until the household slept and took the necklace. Sasquatch, drawn by the vanilla scent from Daisy's baiting work, invaded the house and broke into the room. Trapped during the chaos, Daisy escaped through the window.
J.J. drives toward the Creeks' apartment. At an intersection, Teddy spots a large RV he recognizes from the previous morning and demands J.J. block it. The RV rams their vehicle and crashes; the driver, Jericho, flees. Inside, the group finds a live yearling bison and evidence of multiple transports. J.J. commandeers the RV, and during the ride, Summer discovers J.J. had promised Teddy payment for solving the case. She is angry at the deception, and Teddy apologizes.
Before they reach the apartment, the RV catches fire and the yearling escapes into West Yellowstone, causing chaos until a champion roper wrangles it. Arturo confirms Daisy took the sapphire to return it to her nephew Cade, from whom J.J. originally bought it on the reservation for roughly $500, far less than its value. Arturo hands J.J. the necklace's diamonds and the original $500, declaring the sapphire was never rightfully his. Kandace tells Arturo to keep the money and offers to help Cade sell the stone fairly, with proceeds funding reservation health care and school repairs.
In the epilogue, Jericho is revealed to have acted alone, stealing eleven bison and pocketing what the Spooners paid for supposedly legal purchases. He also released the bull at the rodeo, wearing one of Taffy's baby blue hats as part of his clown costume, to distract from Teddy's eavesdropping. The group watches the stolen yearling released into Yellowstone's Hayden Valley, where it joins other young males. J.J. confirms he will buy the ranch and build a safari lodge. As payment for solving the case, he offers to cover Teddy's college tuition. Watching the bison and a bald eagle overhead, Teddy declares he wants to study zoology.
The group visits Yellowstone on their first full day. A reckless tourist named Morton approaches elk for a selfie, gets gored, and his abandoned car is struck by a large RV and bursts into flames. Back at the ranch, the Krautheimers describe how European settlers nearly drove bison to extinction, partly to destroy Plains tribes' livelihoods. J.J. reveals he is considering buying the ranch to build a safari lodge. An enormous grizzly the Krautheimers call Sasquatch appears near the river, and the Krautheimers ask Teddy to investigate two bison that have vanished from the herd.
At a barbecue, Jasmine Creek, the ranch's foreperson and a Tukudika Shoshone tribal member, briefs Teddy. The ranch cannot afford microchips and relies on ear tags, the fence is intact, and there is no sign of a predator kill. When J.J.'s wife, Kandace, arrives wearing a large sapphire necklace, J.J. is visibly upset. After dinner, the Krautheimers' sixteen-year-old daughter, Melissa, shows Teddy and Summer a hidden Prohibition-era room beneath the kitchen, accessed through a concealed trapdoor. They overhear J.J. and Kandace arguing about the necklace, and Kandace banishes J.J. to the couch.
At four a.m., Teddy discovers Sasquatch inside the house with the front door wide open. J.J., locked out of the McCrackens' bedroom, shelters with the Fitzroys as the bear breaks down the door and devours leftover dessert. Summer fires a decorative bow at the bear but accidentally hits J.J. Charlene drives Sasquatch out with a makeshift flamethrower fashioned from aerosol hair spray and a match. After the chaos, Kandace discovers her sapphire necklace is gone.
J.J. suspects Sasquatch swallowed the necklace and organizes a bear hunt. Privately, he tells Teddy the necklace is worth $8.2 million and promises to pay him if he can determine whether a person stole it. Teddy notices a key inconsistency: A dozen dirty dessert plates sit in the kitchen, yet the bear bypassed them to break into a locked room for a single plate.
Jasmine takes Teddy, Summer, and ranch hand Arin to the northern fence line, where signs of tampering appear: nail holes suggesting wire was removed and replaced to walk a bison over. Teddy finds a cut blue ear tag marking the animal as a purebred belonging to the National Park Service. J.J.'s helicopter search for the bear then spooks the herd, triggering a stampede that nearly kills Teddy before Summer helps him jump onto her faster horse.
At breakfast, the Krautheimers' thirteen-year-old son, Evan, reports finding Sasquatch's prints near an abandoned gold mine. J.J. enters the mine with ranch hands Zach and Arin, and it caves in, trapping all three. Teddy recruits Evan to investigate the necklace. They search the bunkhouse apartments but find nothing incriminating before Arturo Creek, Jasmine's father, catches them and confiscates the master key. While following Sasquatch's tracks, the group discovers bear bait at the neighboring Spooner Ranch: bulk hamburger wrappers and empty vanilla extract jugs. Jericho, the Spooners' intimidating foreman, confronts them at gunpoint before the ranch's friendly owners, Ike and Taffy Spooner, defuse the situation.
Jasmine drives Teddy and Summer into Yellowstone to meet Ranger Linda Oh, who suspects bison are also being stolen from the park and identifies cattle rancher George Wiley as the area's most vocal opponent of wildlife conservation. On the ride back, Evan discovers bear bait on Krautheimer land and realizes his parents arranged the baiting to lure Sasquatch near the house and impress J.J., dumping the waste at the Spooners' to hide the evidence. As the fire department works to free the trapped men from the mine, Teddy crawls into the narrow passage to relieve Daisy Creek, Jasmine's mother and the ranch's cook, who has been digging with bloodied hands, and chips through the final barrier to confirm the men are alive.
At the West Yellowstone rodeo, Evan confronts his parents about the baiting; they admit it. Near the bull pens, Teddy overhears Ike Spooner telling a man he calls George about something new at the Spooner Ranch, but a bull escapes its chute and ends the conversation. Teddy glimpses someone in a baby blue cowboy hat near the open gate. The bull charges toward Teddy, but Jericho, working as a rodeo clown, tackles him to safety.
That night, Kandace tells Teddy the necklace's backstory: J.J. proposed to her at the ranch sixteen years earlier using the sapphire, which he bought from a young man on a reservation for a fraction of its true value. Teddy recalls that Sasquatch had been sniffing toward the bookshelf, not the kitchen. He notices that the adjacent room, where the McCrackens' pilot Karina sleeps, appears smaller than expected. Waking Summer and Kandace, he finds an iron bookend that triggers a concealed door in the bookshelf, revealing a narrow hidden room that smells of vanilla. Outside, Evan confirms a second set of shoe prints leading away from the bedroom window.
Teddy reconstructs the theft: Daisy Creek hid in the secret room before Kandace retired, while Arturo Creek created the impression they had both left for the evening. Daisy waited until the household slept and took the necklace. Sasquatch, drawn by the vanilla scent from Daisy's baiting work, invaded the house and broke into the room. Trapped during the chaos, Daisy escaped through the window.
J.J. drives toward the Creeks' apartment. At an intersection, Teddy spots a large RV he recognizes from the previous morning and demands J.J. block it. The RV rams their vehicle and crashes; the driver, Jericho, flees. Inside, the group finds a live yearling bison and evidence of multiple transports. J.J. commandeers the RV, and during the ride, Summer discovers J.J. had promised Teddy payment for solving the case. She is angry at the deception, and Teddy apologizes.
Before they reach the apartment, the RV catches fire and the yearling escapes into West Yellowstone, causing chaos until a champion roper wrangles it. Arturo confirms Daisy took the sapphire to return it to her nephew Cade, from whom J.J. originally bought it on the reservation for roughly $500, far less than its value. Arturo hands J.J. the necklace's diamonds and the original $500, declaring the sapphire was never rightfully his. Kandace tells Arturo to keep the money and offers to help Cade sell the stone fairly, with proceeds funding reservation health care and school repairs.
In the epilogue, Jericho is revealed to have acted alone, stealing eleven bison and pocketing what the Spooners paid for supposedly legal purchases. He also released the bull at the rodeo, wearing one of Taffy's baby blue hats as part of his clown costume, to distract from Teddy's eavesdropping. The group watches the stolen yearling released into Yellowstone's Hayden Valley, where it joins other young males. J.J. confirms he will buy the ranch and build a safari lodge. As payment for solving the case, he offers to cover Teddy's college tuition. Watching the bison and a bald eagle overhead, Teddy declares he wants to study zoology.
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By Stuart Gibbs
