Cryptid Hunters by Roland Smith

Definition: cryp•to•zo•ol•o•gy (CRIP-tuh-zoh-AW-luh-jee) noun
The study of animals, such as the Sasquatch, the Yeti, the Loch Ness monster, the Cupacabra, and others, whose existence has not yet been proven scientifically. There are thought to be more than two hundred cryptids in existence today. (intro pages)

“Marty and Grace O’Hara were twins, but you wouldn’t know it if you saw them together. Marty has brown hair, eyes the color of rain clouds, and he is a foot taller than his sister. Grace has black hair, startling blue eyes the color of robin’s eggs, and she is a foot shorter than her brother.” Marty is the athletic, artistic troublemaker while Grace is an excellent swimmer, a bookworm, and very intelligent. “The [13 year old] O’Hara twins were at the Omega Opportunity Preparatory School is Switzerland when they received the worst news of their lives (1).” They’ve just received word that their photojournalist parents were in a helicopter crash in the Amazon that killed the pilot and they are nowhere to be found. Now Marty and Grace are being whisked away from school to live with their eccentric uncle Wolfe, who they never knew existed, on his own private island, called Cryptos, in the Pacific Northwest near Seattle. When they arrive on the island, a colored tag is placed around each one of their necks and they are given a pocket computer called a Gizmo. The Gizmo has eight icons: Locate (which shows the location of all people/animals/things that are wearing an identification tag), Teleconference, Video, E-mail, Keyboard, GPS, Chat, and Cybervault (which holds anything scanned or saved into the Gizmo. The information is stored in a satellite so it will be saved in case the Gizmo is lost). The twins have barely settled into life on the island when Wolfe gets word that he’s needed in the Congo. You see, Wolfe is a cryptozoologist, one who studies cryptids, animals who are rumored to exist but have not yet been scientifically proven. Wolfe has evidence that an animal called the Mokélé-mbembé exists and he must find it before his arch-nemesis Noah Blackwood does. While the twins look forward to the Congo, Wolfe has plans to return them to Omega Prep until his expedition is complete. The flight plan includes dropping supplies into the Congo, before leaving the twins in Switzerland. The supply drop doesn’t go as planned and Marty and Grace find themselves falling from the jet along with the supplies. This is only the start of their adventure which includes finding the Skyhouse, Wolfe’s tree house base, escaping Blackwood’s band of evil henchmen, and finding the one thing everyone is looking for. Join Marty and Grace as they become Cryptid Hunters.