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When Bunny Starch, the most feared Biology teacher at school, goes missing during a school field trip to Black Vine Swamp, Nick and Marta aren’t sure whether to be elated or concerned. They’re pretty sure Smoke, the class delinquent who recently threatened her, had something to do with it. And they’re also sure that Mrs. Starch did not have a family emergency like the school told them. As they investigate further, Nick and Marta are dragged into a complex ecological mystery involving illegal oil drilling and an endangered panther, where nothing is as it seems but one wrong step could be the difference between life and death.