Go Big or Go Home

by Will Hobbs Narrated by Charles Carroll

Overview

Brady Steele watches in awe as a fireball comes crashing through the roof of his house. Brady immediately calls up his cousin, Quinn. They both love all things extreme, and this is the most extreme thing ever! Fred, as Brady names his space rock, turns out to be one of the rarest meteorites ever found. Professor Rip Ripley from the museum in Hill City wants to study a sliver of it in search of extraterrestrial bacteria. He's hoping to discover the first proof of life beyond Earth, a momentous breakthrough for the new science of astrobiology. During a week of extreme bicycling, fishing, and caving, Brady and Quinn battle their rivals, the notorious Carver boys, for possession of the meteorite. With each new day, Brady is discovering he's able to do strange and wonderful feats that shouldn't be possible. At the same time, he's developing some frightening symptoms. Could he be infected with long-dormant microbes from space? Is Fred a prize or a menace?

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

Extreme sports and extraterrestrial bacteria that thrive in extreme environments are the ingredients for Hobbs's latest adventure. A meteorite plunging through 14-year-old Brady's bed begins an exciting summer in South Dakota for Brady and his visiting cousin Quinn. Bike riding up and down the mountains, exploring an unknown cave, fishing for lake trout from a flimsy rubber boat and watching a full-size catapult hurl a discarded toilet bowl are all part of the action. The long-dormant extremophile bacteria from the meteorite revive to infect Brady. The first symptoms are positive-he can bike faster and longer than ever before. But soon he has disturbing episodes of total paralysis. On top of that, his long-time enemies, the Carver boys next door, get possession of the stone. The Black Hills setting is well drawn, including interesting details about the Crazy Horse Memorial, where Brady's father is a construction worker. With convincing, first-person narration, a fast pace and plenty of suspense, this is a welcome addition to Hobbs's extremely reader-pleasing work. (Fiction. 10-15)

From the Publisher

This fast-moving tale by an author known for exciting survival stories...is full of sports action...intriguing.” — KLIATT

“Hobbs is in great form here...mysterious and compelling-the pace moves along swiftly...powerful.” — Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

“Offering something to tantalize nearly every boyish taste, this title is a great choice for reluctant readers.” — School Library Journal

“With convincing, first-person narration, a fast pace and plenty of suspense, this is a welcome addition to Hobbs’s extremely reader-pleasing work.” — Kirkus Reviews

Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

Hobbs is in great form here...mysterious and compelling-the pace moves along swiftly...powerful.

KLIATT

This fast-moving tale by an author known for exciting survival stories...is full of sports action...intriguing.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169865943
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	03/01/2012
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

Go Big or Go Home

Chapter One

The Intruder

There might be more unlikely ways to die, but I can't think of any.

It was late in the evening at the end of the first week of August. I was home alone and sitting on the edge of my bed, only seconds from crashing. I let out a huge yawn.

In a way, I owe my life to my watch. As I reached to take it off, I had the vague feeling that I was supposed to do something at a certain time.

Do what, Brady?

Then I remembered. I'd been checking out the Perseid meteor shower off and on since the middle of July, and this was the night it was going to peak. I threw open my window, swiveled outside onto the flat roof of our garage, and pulled up the lawn chair I keep out there.

The sky was inky black and blazing with stars, which is nothing unusual for the Black Hills of South Dakota. Most nights are cloud-free, and our dry mountain air makes for excellent stargazing. Living out of town helps, too—no lights.

I'd barely found where to look—in front of the Perseus constellation—when the first shooting star fell, then another, and another.

What a show. I could read my watch by starlight alone, and I started timing them. Five to seven a minute!

Mars was hovering just above the treetops, brighter than any star and twinkling bloody red. Mars hadn't passed this close to Earth in a couple hundred years.

Too bad Quinn is missing the show, I thought. My cousin lived forty miles north in the town of Lead, which rhymes with speed. On Quinn's block the streetlights make for lousy stargazing.

I'd been outsideawhile, long enough to feel the chill, and was about to crawl back inside and hit the sack. My dad might be getting home soon, but he wasn't expecting me to wait up.

All was quiet except the burbling of Spring Creek and a slight breeze in the pines. Nothing unusual was happening. Then, in a split second, something totally unusual was happening: the sky was changing from black to blue.

Horizon to horizon, the night sky was glowing a brilliant blue. My jaw was on the ground. Strange, beautiful, bizarre, eerie, weird, awesome . . . words can't begin to describe that light.

Then, suddenly, Boom! Boom! Two tremendous explosions rocked the sky, so powerful they rattled my bedroom window. What in the world?

I didn't know what to make of the blue light, but I wondered if the booms had come from the Crazy Horse Memorial five miles south, where they're carving a mountain into the biggest statue in the world. Lately my dad and his crew had been widening the gap between Crazy Horse's pointing arm and the mane of his warhorse. Saturday evenings in the summer, like this one, they do a night blast for the tourists. It's totally spectacular. From home we sometimes hear a muffled rumble, but nothing like this.

I didn't have time for another thought. All at once, a roar and a blinding fireball were coming down on me like a freight train strapped to a runaway skyrocket. I hit the deck, and as I did, Wham! Something crashed right into the house. From the earsplitting sound of it, I'd nearly got hit.

Blinking and stupefied, I got to my feet, amazed to discover I was among the living. The sky was black again and lit with stars. Except for the burbling creek, everything was dead quiet.

Meteorite? I wondered. Could that be possible?

I climbed back through the window into my bedroom. When I switched on the light, more strangeness awaited. My bed was littered with debris—bits of wood, chunks of plasterboard, shreds of asphalt shingle. My eyes went to the ceiling over my bed and found a ragged hole there, big as a softball.

I glanced back to my bed. The sheet was ripped open and scorched, right where I would have been lying. I stuck my fist into the hole and pushed it all the way through my foam mattress. Whatever had done this had punched a hole between two of the slats spanning my bed frame. I couldn't reach any farther, so I dropped to my knees and looked under the bed. And there it was, among splinters on the floor, unbelievably real. A meteorite!

Heart hammering, I sat on the edge of my bed with my prize in one palm and then the other. The space rock looked like a baked potato, all burned shiny, but with rougher edges, pits, and sparkles. It was heavy, and almost too hot to handle, as well it might be after blazing a fiery hole through the atmosphere. We'd been hit by an intruder from outer space! I couldn't think of anything cooler that had happened in my entire life.

I grabbed my cell and punched in Quinn's number.

Go Big or Go Home. Copyright © by Will Hobbs. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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