Action & Adventure
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Whale Done (FunJungle)
In the eighth novel in New York Times bestselling Stuart Gibbs's FunJungle series, Teddy Fitzroy returns as FunJungle's resident sleuth to find the culprits behind a blown-up whale and a string of beach sand thefts.
After an escaped kangaroo starts a fire that burns down his house, Teddy Fitzroy accepts an invitation to go to Malibu with his girlfriend, Summer, and her mother, Kandace. He's hoping to spend some time relaxing on the beach, but wherever Teddy goes, trouble isn't far behind.
First, a massive dead whale has washed up on the beach-and before anyone can determine what killed it, it explodes. Doc, the head vet from FunJungle, suspects something fishy is going on and ropes Teddy and Summer into helping him investigate.
Then, Teddy stumbles upon yet another mystery involving tons of stolen sand. And the paparazzi start spreading rumors about Summer dating a celebrity, leading Teddy to question their relationship.
Without Summer as his trusted partner, can Teddy navigate the rough waters of this glitzy world and uncover what's going on?
After an escaped kangaroo starts a fire that burns down his house, Teddy Fitzroy accepts an invitation to go to Malibu with his girlfriend, Summer, and her mother, Kandace. He's hoping to spend some time relaxing on the beach, but wherever Teddy goes, trouble isn't far behind.
First, a massive dead whale has washed up on the beach-and before anyone can determine what killed it, it explodes. Doc, the head vet from FunJungle, suspects something fishy is going on and ropes Teddy and Summer into helping him investigate.
Then, Teddy stumbles upon yet another mystery involving tons of stolen sand. And the paparazzi start spreading rumors about Summer dating a celebrity, leading Teddy to question their relationship.
Without Summer as his trusted partner, can Teddy navigate the rough waters of this glitzy world and uncover what's going on?
Readers Top Reviews
H J McCDonna
To be honest, I was expecting much better. I waited 6 months for it to come out and it was good for books in general, but the worst FunJungle book. It didn’t even have a classic ‘FunJungle Chaos’ moment that was funny. The fire wasn’t very funny because people could’ve DIED in it and I didn’t really find anything to laugh at during the movie premiere. In all the other books I’ve laughed at least once but this one wasn’t funny. Also it was fast paced and I think being the head vet, doc should be a vegetarian. So three stars because it’s good for a BOOK but not a FunJungle book.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1: The Escape 1 THE ESCAPE
I would never have seen the whale explode if a kangaroo hadn't burned down my house.
The kangaroo was a four-year-old male named Hopalong Cassidy, and the fire wasn't entirely his fault. It's not like kangaroos go around plotting arson. All that Hopalong was truly guilty of was trying to escape.
I know this because I witnessed the entire event.
My name is Teddy Fitzroy. I'm fourteen years old, and I live at FunJungle Wild Animal Park.
FunJungle is the most popular tourist attraction in all of Texas, an enormous theme park and zoo featuring many of the finest animal exhibits ever built. Both my parents work there-my mother is the head primatologist, while my father is the official photographer-and because their jobs require them to be at FunJungle at all hours, we have employee housing.
But while FunJungle had spared no expense to create incredible habitats for the animals, with state-of-the-art facilities and innovative designs, the park had really skimped when it came to providing lodging for humans. The public relations department had named the staff housing area Lakeside Estates, but it was merely a group of mobile homes haphazardly arranged in the woods behind the employee parking lot. They were supposed to be deluxe models, but my father suspected they were actually defective merchandise that the dealer hadn't been able to sell. (J.J. McCracken, the billionaire owner of FunJungle, also owned the mobile home company.) Our home was slightly lopsided, with bargain-basement appliances and walls so thin you could hear what neighbors were watching on television. Even worse, the utilities were barely functional. The septic system often smelled worse than the elephant house, and the electricity conked out on a regular basis.
Which was why I wasn't home during the fire. The mobile home park had suffered a power failure-on the hottest day of the year, no less.
Central Texas is known for being hot and humid, but that mid-August day was brutal. The state was suffering through its worst heat wave in a decade, and that afternoon it had been 116 degrees in the shade. Even animals that lived in deserts, like the camels and fennec foxes, seemed to think this was too much and refused to go outside. Despite this, the park was still busy; it was the height of tourist season, and parents who had built up the trip for weeks didn't have the heart to tell their children they weren't going. (In addition, many guests had prepaid for nonrefundable park admission packages.) But everyone who had dared to venture outdoors looked miserable. They slouched about in the heat, gulping down overpriced sodas to stay hydrated and griping that none of the animals were doing anything but napping. The Polar Pavilion, which was refrigerated to arctic temperatures for the polar bears and penguins, had a two-hour line to get inside.
I had spent most of the day with my best friend, Xavier, and my girlfriend, Summer, trying to find ways to stay cool. Xavier was a junior volunteer at FunJungle, and though his shift at the giraffe feeding station had been canceled due to the heat, he still came to work because he was a wannabe field biologist, and FunJungle was his favorite place on earth. Meanwhile, Summer was the daughter of J.J. McCracken. All three of us had befriended many FunJungle employees over the past year, so we were able to finagle our way into the VIP lane for the Raging Rapids ride, which we went on so many times in a row that I lost count.
After repeated drenching, our clothes were so waterlogged, we thought we might be able to stay cool enough to ride out the rest of the afternoon in my trailer, even with its anemic air-conditioning. Lakeside Estates was located only a short walk from the theme park rides at FunJungle. But as we approached my house, the power blew.
We could tell by the sound. Everyone who was home had their air conditioners going full blast. One second, the machines were all humming so loud, it sounded like we were inside an enormous wasps' nest-and then, suddenly, everything went silent. Two seconds after that, the profanity began. We could hear everyone through their paper-thin walls as they cursed the lousy power system, the cheap air conditioners, and Summer's father, who had skimped on building the place.
We happened to be directly outside the trailer of Drew Filus, the chief ornithologist, when he unleashed an extremely long stream of insults about J.J. McCracken, and then made a few shocking suggestions about what J.J. could do with the crummy air conditioners he had bought. It went on for a good three minutes.
"Sorry you had to hear that," I said to Summer, once it had f...
I would never have seen the whale explode if a kangaroo hadn't burned down my house.
The kangaroo was a four-year-old male named Hopalong Cassidy, and the fire wasn't entirely his fault. It's not like kangaroos go around plotting arson. All that Hopalong was truly guilty of was trying to escape.
I know this because I witnessed the entire event.
My name is Teddy Fitzroy. I'm fourteen years old, and I live at FunJungle Wild Animal Park.
FunJungle is the most popular tourist attraction in all of Texas, an enormous theme park and zoo featuring many of the finest animal exhibits ever built. Both my parents work there-my mother is the head primatologist, while my father is the official photographer-and because their jobs require them to be at FunJungle at all hours, we have employee housing.
But while FunJungle had spared no expense to create incredible habitats for the animals, with state-of-the-art facilities and innovative designs, the park had really skimped when it came to providing lodging for humans. The public relations department had named the staff housing area Lakeside Estates, but it was merely a group of mobile homes haphazardly arranged in the woods behind the employee parking lot. They were supposed to be deluxe models, but my father suspected they were actually defective merchandise that the dealer hadn't been able to sell. (J.J. McCracken, the billionaire owner of FunJungle, also owned the mobile home company.) Our home was slightly lopsided, with bargain-basement appliances and walls so thin you could hear what neighbors were watching on television. Even worse, the utilities were barely functional. The septic system often smelled worse than the elephant house, and the electricity conked out on a regular basis.
Which was why I wasn't home during the fire. The mobile home park had suffered a power failure-on the hottest day of the year, no less.
Central Texas is known for being hot and humid, but that mid-August day was brutal. The state was suffering through its worst heat wave in a decade, and that afternoon it had been 116 degrees in the shade. Even animals that lived in deserts, like the camels and fennec foxes, seemed to think this was too much and refused to go outside. Despite this, the park was still busy; it was the height of tourist season, and parents who had built up the trip for weeks didn't have the heart to tell their children they weren't going. (In addition, many guests had prepaid for nonrefundable park admission packages.) But everyone who had dared to venture outdoors looked miserable. They slouched about in the heat, gulping down overpriced sodas to stay hydrated and griping that none of the animals were doing anything but napping. The Polar Pavilion, which was refrigerated to arctic temperatures for the polar bears and penguins, had a two-hour line to get inside.
I had spent most of the day with my best friend, Xavier, and my girlfriend, Summer, trying to find ways to stay cool. Xavier was a junior volunteer at FunJungle, and though his shift at the giraffe feeding station had been canceled due to the heat, he still came to work because he was a wannabe field biologist, and FunJungle was his favorite place on earth. Meanwhile, Summer was the daughter of J.J. McCracken. All three of us had befriended many FunJungle employees over the past year, so we were able to finagle our way into the VIP lane for the Raging Rapids ride, which we went on so many times in a row that I lost count.
After repeated drenching, our clothes were so waterlogged, we thought we might be able to stay cool enough to ride out the rest of the afternoon in my trailer, even with its anemic air-conditioning. Lakeside Estates was located only a short walk from the theme park rides at FunJungle. But as we approached my house, the power blew.
We could tell by the sound. Everyone who was home had their air conditioners going full blast. One second, the machines were all humming so loud, it sounded like we were inside an enormous wasps' nest-and then, suddenly, everything went silent. Two seconds after that, the profanity began. We could hear everyone through their paper-thin walls as they cursed the lousy power system, the cheap air conditioners, and Summer's father, who had skimped on building the place.
We happened to be directly outside the trailer of Drew Filus, the chief ornithologist, when he unleashed an extremely long stream of insults about J.J. McCracken, and then made a few shocking suggestions about what J.J. could do with the crummy air conditioners he had bought. It went on for a good three minutes.
"Sorry you had to hear that," I said to Summer, once it had f...
