Free Survival by Gordon Korman

carried a small suitcase. He was accompanied by the biggest Doberman pin-scher Luke had ever seen.
    “What’s up with the suitcase?” asked J.J. “Is he moving in?”
    Then Mr. Big opened the luggage. They goggled.
    “Money!” exclaimed Charla in a strangled voice.
    The bag was filled with neat bundles of bills, packed side by side, end to end, and on top of one another. It was a fortune.
    Suddenly, the big dog stiffened. Then it began to bark, a loud raspy baritone that cut through the jungle like a hot knife through butter.
    “It smells us!” rasped Lyssa, terrified.
    “Let’s go,” whispered Luke.
    Charla jumped up. “You don’t have to ask me twice!”
    Luke grabbed her by the shorts and pulled her down again. “Slowly,” he insisted. “And stay low till we’re well into the woods.”
    The castaways crawled back up the slope. They could still hear the barking when they reached the top and ran into the depths of the jungle. There was a panic to their flight, and they scrambled through the vines, tripping and stumbling as the foliage grew thicker.
    “Slow down!” ordered Luke.
    “But what if they come after us?” asked Charla, who was thirty feet ahead of everyone else.
    “They probably think he was barking at a lizard or something,” said Luke. “Come on, somebody’s going to break a leg.”
    “I’m sorry!” Charla was almost hysterical as she stopped to let the others catch up. “It’s just so horrible! Those poor animals!”
    “Hey!Heyl” J.J. cut her off. “We have no proof that any of that stuff is real. Those tusks could be plastic!”
    “So how come you ran too?” she shot back.
    “The dog probably isn’t in on the hoax.” J.J. grinned sheepishly. “Every year hundreds of actors wind up with stitches because stunt animals don’t know it’s just a movie.”
    “That’s no stunt animal.” Luke was angry now. “And this is no stunt!”
    “Every time it seems like we’ve hit bottom, something even more awful happens,” Lyssa agreed miserably. “Will goes crazy, or more smugglers come, or their dog smells us! How could it be worse?”
    She got her answer when they followed lan’s trail back to the inflatable raft. The contents of the survival pack were scattered all around the lifeboat and the surrounding jungle. Precious supplies were opened and strewn every which way.
    “Look!” Charla pointed down. There, amid the dozens of sneaker prints, were animal tracks.
    Ian squatted to examine them. “Boar,” he concluded.
    “Uh-oh.” Lyssa rummaged through their gear. “Whatever it was, it took the mac and cheese.”
    “That’s impossible!” Luke exploded. “It was freeze-dried and vacuum-packed! It didn’t smell any different from the first aid kit. There’s no way a pig could be smart enough to go through all this stuff and decidethat was food!”
    His fellow castaways stared uneasily back at him.
    Their last meal — their safety net — was gone.
    “I don’t know which one of us is the bigger pig,” mumbled Will, crunching uncooked pasta.
    Beside him stood the boar, its snout pumping up and down as the two savaged the freeze-dried macaroni and cheese straight out of the package.
    “You know, Ratface, it’s a lot better when you boil it,” commented Will to his new companion. He picked up a fistful of orange powder and crammed it in after the macaroni. “The cheese is supposed to be hot and gooey. If I ever get out of here, I’ll come back and bring you some.”
    Ratface obviously thought it was just fine the way it was. The animal never missed a swallow as it tore at the plastic bag with one sharp tusk.
    “Hey, stay on your own side!” snapped Will. “After this, it’s back to bananas, you know!”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    Day 6, 5:35 p.m.
    The theft of their last meal changed the castaways’ approach to food. No longer could they depend on eleventh-hour runs for coconuts and bananas to stand between them and malnutrition. They needed protein. They needed