Bees love it, so it must be contributing to someone’s honey. I’m not a good gardener, but this lavender is both tough and fragrant, and has made it through a number of Chicago winters. This is Zoomy’s lavender, which, in real life, is growing outside my back door. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction… My dream is that one of the kids who reads The Danger Box really will find this missing treasure one day. When I discovered that a small but hugely valuable object owned by one of the biggest thinkers of all time had been stolen years ago and was still gone, I was so excited. My mind was buzzing with ‘What if’s, and I knew just where that object should be found – in Three Oaks, Michigan, an old-fashioned town so small that it’s barely on the map. I pretend my heart is in the Danger Box, and has already exploded. Thump, whump, thump! My heart feels like a firecracker that’s about to go off. It’s dark in the shed, as speckly-dark as black pepper. It’s a man – I can tell by the weight of his steps. “Poor thing, I’m sorry you’re buried out here,” I whisper.Īs I’m about to slide the box back in its hiding place, I hear footsteps… I feel around, grab the nail on the edge of the toolshed door, and slowly pull the door closed. Yes! I feel the fabric and beneath it, a firm shape. As in her previous novels, Balliett sets the action in a real town, Three Oaks, Mich., and details about the setting add appeal. Now I close my eyes and dig down into the mixture. The tension derived from the danger facing Zoomy is halted by faux newspaper articles that offer biographical information about a 'mysterious soul,' but which read like didactic asides. I don’t need to see them I know the contents by touch. Inside are pieces of blown-up firecrackers and a few old shotgun shells. Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. I open the box, a small cherry crate, and a tangy whiff of gunpowder drifts out. The Danger Box - Ebook written by Blue Balliett. It’s a windy June night, and shadows from the kitchen light are bumping and chasing. I’m pulling the Danger Box out from the back of the toolshed. Explosive ideas surface in a very small, quiet town in Michigan.

The Danger Box by Blue Balliett