The Revenge of Bigfoot

On a scouting trip to the woods near Trickle Lake, Jay Smouse and Buddy Norman wander off to gather firewood, bickering as usual. Jay announces that he has moved on from comic books to "the arts," having spent his entire savings on an expensive professional camera. He hopes to impress Zoe Grand, a school-newspaper journalist who needs a photographer, though Buddy quickly figures out that Jay has no idea how to actually work the camera. Their argument stops short when Buddy spots an enormous nest in a hollow. He excitedly declares that it belongs to a grassman, a subspecies of Bigfoot, and admits that he and his dad research Bigfoot together as a hobby. Jay finds this hilarious and teases Buddy mercilessly about it.

That evening around the campfire, after Troop Master Eugene Meltsner lectures on the history of the marshmallow, Jay keeps up the mockery, needling Buddy's father, Mr. Norman, about his "monster encounters." Mr. Norman takes it graciously, explaining that Bigfoot research gives him and Buddy great father-son hikes, and mentions a paper by a primatology professor named Otto Harding that offered compelling evidence for Bigfoot. Eugene, who considers Sasquatch an entertaining but entirely fictional myth, notes that a colleague of the professor published a paper refuting his claims. Jay crows in triumph while Buddy fumes.

In the tent that night, Buddy dangles temptation in front of Jay: a photograph of a real Bigfoot nest could be worth a lot of money, not to mention press coverage and interviews. Jay drifts into a happy daydream of reporters clamoring around the world's most famous photographer, then drags Buddy out of bed to capture his million-dollar picture. Back at the nest, which somehow looks much bigger in the dark, Buddy nervously suggests it may belong to a midnight whistler, the most aggressive species of Bigfoot, known to attack when its territory is invaded. Strange whistling sounds echo through the trees, and suddenly a huge, hairy shape looms out of the darkness. Jay's flash accidentally goes off, and the boys flee for their lives, ending up huddled in a bush as the creature snuffles past.

Once the beast moves on, the truth spills out in the middle of their argument: Jay dropped the camera while running, and Buddy blurts that the nest is fake. He built it himself to scare Jay as payback for making fun of his dad, planning to pretend to be lost, frighten Jay silly, and slip back into the tent before anyone noticed. But that leaves a terrifying question, because something very large and very real is still out there chasing them. After Buddy snaps out of a wild daydream in which a talking Bigfoot demands the photograph to protect his species' plan to conquer the world, the boys race back to recover the camera.

They find it just as Eugene and Mr. Norman, who have been searching frantically for them, catch up. Before anyone can march the boys back to bed, the creature crashes into view, leaving Eugene "uncharacteristically at a loss for words." Jay goes on the offensive with a volley of rocks until the monster throws up its hands and surrenders. It is no Bigfoot at all, but Professor Otto Harding himself in a monkey suit. Stinging from antiseptic and wounded pride, Harding rages at Eugene, who turns out to be the very colleague whose paper refuted his research. Buddy confesses his whole scheme to his father, apologizes, and both boys earn breakfast-dish duty for the entire troop, while Harding storms off vowing that justice will be served.

Justice is served, though not the way Harding hoped. A news report soon announces that the professor has been accused of misusing grant money to stage an elaborate Bigfoot hoax in front of a scouting troop. Over ice cream, Eugene explains that Harding came to Odyssey to forge evidence and stab at Eugene's credibility, all out of spite over the refuted paper. "You'd be surprised how all-consuming revenge can become," Eugene observes, warning that it can eclipse common sense, morality, even faith. Mr. Norman gently points out that Buddy has caught a glimpse of that himself. Buddy agrees, apologizes again, and decides to take a break from Bigfoot research to spend more time reading his Bible. Jay, naturally, draws the opposite lesson: now a firm believer in Bigfoot, he starts recruiting partners to help him land his million-dollar picture and pay for his broken camera, and finds no takers at the table.