A family vacation quickly goes awry in this fast-paced and funny mystery novel from Willo Davis Roberts. Winner of the Edgar Award! Twins Lewis and Allison are excited to join their new neighbors for an awesome vacation: they’ll be driving to Yellowstone in a motor home, seeing all the fantastic sights, getting to know the Rupe family…the trip should be a blast. It turns out to be anything but. First they discover that the Rupes have no interest in nutrition, manners, or their children. Even worse, a couple of strange men seem to be following them. Could they have something to do with the one-hundred-dollar bills little Billy Rupe keeps finding in the motor home? Lewis is afraid the answer is yes—and his fear is not unfounded... This novel was originally published as The Absolutely True Story…How I Visited Yellowstone Park With the Terrible Rupes . Willo Davis Roberts wrote many mystery and suspense novels for children during her long and illustrious career, including The Girl with the Silver Eyes , The View from the Cherry Tree , Twisted Summer , Megan’s Island , Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job , Hostage , Scared Stiff , The Kidnappers , and Caught! Three of her children’s books won Edgar Awards, while others received great reviews and other accolades, including the Sunshine State Young Reader’s Award, the California Young Reader’s Medal, and the Georgia Children’s Book Award. Surviving Summer Vacation Chapter 1 My mom thought the Rupes were a nice, normal middle-class family. When they moved into Marysville they came to our church, and Mr. Rupe joined the summer bowling league. Dad said he was a welcome addition because he had an average of 182. Mom was pleased because Mrs. Rupe offered to sing in the choir, which Mom directed. So when our new neighbors asked if I could go with them to Yellowstone National Park to keep their son Harry company, Mom said, “What a wonderful opportunity for Lewis! Of course we’ll let him go!” If she’d known the Rupes a little better, she might not have been so enthusiastic. My twin sister, Alison, figured out pretty early on that Mrs. Rupe let her kids eat anything they wanted, any time they wanted, and that she smoked kind of carelessly, and that she’d let other people look after her kids if they were willing to do it. But before the trip, none of us saw much of Mr. Rupe, so we didn’t know what he was like. He was a bank president, so I guess he was good at that, but if I had known how he drove, I wouldn’t have even looked in his car, let alone gone off with him for nine whole days. The Rupes only moved in next door a week after school was out, but I think already Mom was tired of having kids around the house. My best friend, Buddy, had gone to spend a month with his grandparents on a ranch in Texas, so I didn’t have anybody to do things with. I was bored, too. The day the Rupes came my sister woke me up and said, “Lewis, come look!” “At what?” I asked, reluctant to start another long day with nothing in particular to do. “Someone’s moving in next door,” she said. She had her face pressed against the window looking down on them. “There’s a big yellow moving van, and they’ve got kids. There’s a rocking horse, and a bike.” “Good for them,” I said, not moving. Both Mom and Alison had been fascinated with the new house ever since they started building it six months ago. There used to be a vacant lot there where we’d play ball, so none of the kids wanted another house there instead. But every few days, after the workmen had gone home, Mom and Alison would go over and see what had been done. They liked the floor plan, and the sunken living room—though Dad said he wasn’t about to break his neck going down a pair of steps every time he wanted to go in and sit in his recliner and read the paper—and when it was nearly finished, they loved the colors in the carpeting and the wallpaper. “It’s gorgeous,” Mom had said. “All that tile in the kitchen and the bathrooms—three of them! I wish it were going to be ours.” “I don’t,” Dad said. “The mortgage on that baby has to be twice what ours is.” “But it’s so spacious, and all that pale gold carpeting—” “Not too practical with the peanut-butter-and-jelly crowd that drips around our house,” Dad pointed out. “And as far as space goes, there’ll be plenty of room in this place once the kids move out. That’s only a few years yet.” I get the feeling that the minute Alison and I turn eighteen, we’re out on the street. Sometimes it makes me sort of nervous, though Mom talks about us going to college, so I guess they’re going to support us long enough to do that. Anyway, I didn’t really care who was moving in next door, but Alison kept on looking out the window and giving me a blow-by-blow description of their furniture—all new except for a big leather recliner—and each family member as they appeared. “Oh, Lewis, they’ve got little kids! The boy looks about four, and the little girl about three. Maybe t