The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Evil Eye (3 page)

But it wasn't the sight of his stuck-in-the-mud houseboat that caused Ralph to quicken his step. It was the flag on his mailbox. It was in the up position, which meant there was mail in the box. And you never knew with mail. It could mean anything. It could mean that one of his big-time swindler friends needed his help on some scheme to sell gold bricks or fake diamonds. Or it could mean nothing.

In this case, it meant nothing. Because the only thing in his mailbox was this month's copy of
Swindler's Magazine.
Ralph didn't even bother to open it. It would just have the same tired ads for loaded dice, marked cards, and sucker lists of widows and orphans. What Ralph needed wasn't loaded dice, marked cards, and sucker lists. What Ralph needed was to regain his confidence! It didn't help that Squawk, his pet parrot, was welcoming him home with an unwelcome greeting.

“Get an honest job!” squawked Squawk. “Get an honest job!”

Ralph had had a long, hard day and wasn't about to take any guff from a parrot. “Why, you little birdbrain,” he snarled, and threw his
Swindler's Magazine
at Squawk. The magazine missed, thwacked against the wall, and fell to the floor. It so happened that it fell to the floor open to an article that caught Ralph's attention.
Lost confidence?
said the article in big bold letters.
Try hypnotism!

“Hypnotism! Of course!” said Ralph. He picked up the magazine and sat in his easy chair. “Who needs shell games and sleeve cards? I'll give them the evil eye! I'll
hypnotize
those suckers out of their money!”

As he began to read, there was a loud
thunk
at the door. He got up and opened it. There was a knife stuck in the door. It pierced a note in a familiar hand. The note said:
There will be a meeting in my office at three o'clock sharp.
It was signed
McGreed.

Ralph had suspected that Weaselworld had survived the earthquake. Now he was sure. He put the magazine in his pocket and headed for the secret entrance to McGreed's underground empire.

The library was a big disappointment. There were lots of books about plants, but there wasn't a single book about plants that like to grow on mountainsides. Mrs. Goodbear, the librarian, tried to help. She even called the Bear County Library in Big Bear City. Its card catalog was computerized. But all that got them was a faster “Sorry, we don't seem to have a thing on that subject.”

“Now what?” asked Sister as they left the library.

“Beats me,” said Brother.

“I'm beginning to see what Actual Factual meant by ‘original' research,” said Fred.

“We could ask Actual Factual,” said Lizzy.

“No,” said Brother. “We're going to earn this badge on our own. What we need is a plant expert—somebody who knows all kinds of stuff about plants.” Brother stopped in his tracks. “And I know just the expert! We all do!”

“We do?” said Sister.

“Who is it?” asked Fred.

“I'll give you a hint,” said Brother. “It's somebody who makes the best chocolate chip cookies in Beartown and is married to a grouchy old guy who carves monkeys out of peach pits.”

“Gran, of course!” shouted the rest of the troop. They headed across the town square with Brother in the lead.

Gran really
was
an expert. There were as many different kinds of plants in Gran's front yard—and her backyard, too—as you'd find in a seed catalog.

As the scouts headed out of town toward Gramps and Gran's, the Great Grizzly Mountains came into view. “Hold it,” said Lizzy. “I hear something.” Lizzy was so tuned in to nature that she could hear a mosquito burp a hundred yards away. “It's a sort of rumbling sound way off in the mountains,” she said.

“Maybe it's one of those landslides the professor is worried about,” said Fred.

“Which means,” said Brother, “that we'd better get moving with our research.” The troop hurried on.

It was a rumbling sound, all right. But it wasn't a landslide. It was Bigpaw doing his favorite thing: singing. Bigpaw was the gigantic throwback to prehistoric cavebears whom Actual Factual and the Bear Scouts had discovered on a fossil hunt. A “living fossil” was what the professor had called him. His rumbling voice was as big as the rest of him, and his singing did sound sort of like a landslide from a distance.

Singing was Bigpaw's favorite thing. He liked nothing better than to sit on his mountain ledge, strum his tree-trunk banjo, and sing. He didn't sing well. But he more than made up in enthusiasm what he lacked in talent. But just when Bigpaw would get going on his favorite thing, his least favorite thing would come and sting him on the nose.

That's why Bigpaw hated mosquitoes. Bigpaw would try to sing through the mosquito attacks by brushing the insects away. But sometimes he got so angry that he bopped himself on the nose. One time he bopped himself so hard he almost knocked himself off the ledge.

There was nobody there to take note of Bigpaw's strange behavior except the mountain goats, of course. But they had problems of their own finding enough food to eat in the harsh mountain environment. That's the way it is with an environment. If it isn't one thing, it's another. If there wasn't enough soil for plant life, there wouldn't be enough food for animal life, and so on and so forth until there
was
no mountain environment, just a cold, dead mountain range.

That's what's so important about soil conservation. Soil may be just dirt to some folks, but to an environmentalist it's the stuff of life.

Wow! thought Sister as she looked at the blaze of flowers in Gran's front yard. “Talk about a green thumb!” said Sister to Gran. “You must have two green thumbs and eight green fingers!”

“No, my dear,” said Gran with a smile. “It's Mother Nature that has the green thumb. I just try to help her along.”

The scouts told Gran about their soil conservation project and how they were looking for plants that would hold their ground in the mountains.

“Hmm,” said Gran. “Let me think on it a bit.” As Gran stood there thinking, the scouts looked around for Gramps. He was nowhere to be seen.

“I may be able to help,” said Gran. “Come on around back. Now, as I understand it, you're looking for plants that can survive in that harsh mountain environment. While my backyard garden isn't a mountainside, it
is
a hillside. I might just have some plants worth trying on your mountainside.”

There was a steep hill leading down into a little valley behind Gramps and Gran's place. It was covered with low-growing plants.

“These plants are mostly different kinds of sedum and ivy,” said Gran. “Let me give you some samples to try on your mountainside.”

“We'll do the work, Gran,” said Brother. “Just show us which plants.”

“No, I'd better do it myself,” said Gran. “Why don't you go in and talk to Gramps and see if you can coax him out of his foul mood.”

“Foul mood?” said Brother.

“What's it about?” asked Sister.