to the surface.
âOuch!â I yelped as the match burned out on my fingertips. Iâd been so engrossed in Frankâs discovery, I hadnât been paying attention to the match. I quickly lit another.
âOnly one more match left,â I told Frank, excited to find out what was in the box.
Frank used his pocketknife to pry off the lid. It opened with a groan.
âIs it treasure?â I asked eagerly.
âNot unless you consider expired cans of tuna and beans treasure,â Frank said, holding open a box full of rusted cans of food. âSomeone must have stashed it here years ago to keep an emergency cache of food somewhere bears couldnât get to.â
âHey, is that tuna fish in oil?â I grabbed one of the cans. âSweetâit is!â
I could see Frankâs face scrunch up in disgust as the match burned out. âIâve seen you eat some gross stuff before, Joe, but if you take a single bite of that tuna, I swear Iâm gonna puke.â
âTrust me, dude,â I told him. He couldnât see me grinning in the dark, but I had a plan.
Going by feel, I used the awl on my Swiss Army knife to punch a hole in the top of the can. Then I cut a couple ofinches of cord from the small roll I keep in my survival kit and jammed it in the hole in the top of the can, making sure to get the makeshift wick nice and wet with the fishy oil.
âHere goes nothing,â I said as I sparked my final match to life and held it against the cord.
The match flickered and fizzed, and for a second I didnât think it was going to work, but the cord not only lit, it stayed lit! Our cave was dark no longer.
âBehold!â I announced. âItâs a tuna torch!â
âI never thought Iâd say this about something that smells like burning rotten fish, but that is awesome,â Frank said. âWith all the oil in the can, that could probably burn for an hour.â
âNow that we have light, letâs try to figure out what the heck is going on,â I said. âI know I came on this trip for adventure, but facing off with bears and hiding from cannibals in caves is too much, even for me.â
âMaybe weâll get lucky and someone will have seen the smoke from our signal fire before it went out,â Frank said. âDo you think the rest of the Geccos are all right?â
âI guess the one good thing about the Mad Hermit coming after us is that it keeps him away from them, for a while at least,â I offered. âI donât know if we could even find our way back to camp if we tried. I think our best bet is to look for the research station and call for help.â
Frank nodded solemnly. âI donât even want to think about what may have happened to Jim and Max.â
It sounded like the rain had begun to let up a little, and another noise started to echo into the cave from somewhere outside. It sounded a lot like snoring.
âUh-oh,â I squeaked as it dawned on me that we might have unwittingly sent an odoriferous invitation to a very unwanted guest.
âThe tuna torch!â Frank gasped.
I quickly blew out the flame, but I had a feeling the damage had been done. Turned out there was one major problem with our DIY candle: it reeked of stinky fish. And judging from the snorting and grunting coming from the mouth of the cave, bears love stinky fish.
The high-pitched scream we heard next definitely didnât come from a bear, though. We ran to the front of the cave to discover that the bear wasnât alone.
Jim was alive!
Our soaking-wet teacher cowered just outside the cave with his tattered rucksack cradled to his chestâand he was standing face-to-face with what looked like the same humongous bear that had ransacked our camp earlier!
Jim shrieked. The bear yelped. And the equally terrified bear and teacher turned to run as fast as they could in opposite directions. Only Jim ran smack-dab into the cave