Forces of Nature Read Online Free PDF Page A

quietly. “He’d love this.”
    Olivia sipped water from a plastic bottle she pulled from her coat. “Maybe we’ll meet the ghost of Nasty Ned out here.”
    Zack made a disapproving noise. “C’mon, let’s circle around through the woods and work our way back to the campsite. Maybe my parents and Taylor are back there by now.”
    â€œLead the way, Nasty Ned,” Olivia said with a salute, then followed Zack as he marched across the small clearing and into the dark woods.
    It would be well over an hour before Zack would realize that he had been leading the way in the wrong direction.

Lost in the Woods
    â€œI think I know how those trees back there became crooked,” Olivia said as she followed Zack through the dim woods.
    â€œLet me guess,” Zack said, “you think it was anger from Nasty Ned’s ghost that made those trees go all twisty.”
    â€œNo, that’s ridiculous,” Olivia said. “But I have a hypothesis.”
    â€œWhat’s a hypothesis?”
    â€œSeriously?”
    Zack looked back over his shoulder and saw the sour face Olivia was making. “Yeah. What’s a hypothesis? Sorry, is that something everyone knows?”
    â€œYou know what a hypothesis is,” Olivia said, stepping over a log. “It’s like an idea for how youthink something works.”
    Zack shook his head. “Nope. Strike two. I don’t know what a hypothesis is.”
    â€œAre you even listening? Remember when we did our experiments for the science fair?”
    â€œOh, please don’t remind me. I’ve been trying to forget that for weeks.”
    Zack stopped and looked up at the small patch of dark clouds he could see between the trees.
    He thought they would have been back to their campsite by now.
    He looked back in the direction they had come, took a deep breath, then began to climb a steep hill in front of them. The hill was covered with fallen trees and tall plants covered with purple flowers. He had the feeling they had already climbed this hill about forty minutes earlier.
    Olivia picked some of the flowers and made a tiny bouquet as she followed Zack. “So anyway,” she said, “remember how you first have to come up with a hypothesis, which is sort of like a guess about how something works? Then you do an experiment to prove or disprove your hypothesis. It’s called the scientific method.”
    â€œYeah, that kinda rings a bell,” Zack said with a shrug.
    â€œOh my gosh, how could you forget that? You live with a science geek from another planet!”
    â€œMaybe that’s why I don’t like to think about this stuff. I might be allergic to science. It makes me itchy.”
    â€œThat’s ridiculous.”
    â€œSorry, I was born this way. Don’t judge.”
    â€œAnyway, my hypothesis goes like this. Those trees once grew straight up to the sky, like every other tree. But a long time ago, there was an earthquake, a landslide, or the soil that they were growing on just shifted downhill, toward the river.”
    â€œYou mean the creek.”
    â€œWhatever. Anyway, the trees moved from their original position. Their orientation in relation to the sun and the sky changed. The trees don’t know any better, so they start growing back toward the sky.”
    â€œTrees can’t move that fast.”
    â€œThese changes would be very slow. They would take decades.”
    â€œThat’s ten years, right? A decade?”

    â€œOh my gosh. Yes! Those trees are probably over two hundred years old, so the ground back there has probably shifted several times, which is why they didn’t grow straight up. That’s my hypothesis on how they got twisted like that.”
    â€œInteresting hypothesis,” Zack said, grunting as he finally reached the top of the hill. “But my hypothesis is that it was the anger that comes from Nasty Ned’s ghost. Though either way, I