When an owl with strawberry frosting on its beak wakes ten-year-old Mattie in the dead of night, she doesn’t know what to think. Alfred, the owl, has seen a truck dumping stinky liquid into the river bed across from Mattie’s aunt’s donut shop, however, and he needs Mattie’s help to get to the bottom of things.

As Mattie learns that two culprits have been dumping the “gloop” more than once under cover of darkness, she worries about the place where she has lived since her mom died. Is the gloop toxic? Will it harm the animals and people living by the Big Sur River?

There’s only so much an owl can do, so Mattie enlists her best friend, Sasha, and Sasha’s little sister, Beanie, in sleepover stakeouts and patrols of the sisters’ family campground to find the gloopers. But they could be anyone! Everyone’s a suspect—the cranky neighbor with the fancy house on the hillside, the campers staying in the park, Hermit Harriet or any of the other customers at the popular donut shop.

When environmental agencies get involved and blame her aunt, Mattie knows she must do everything she can to save the shop and the home she’s come to love. She will have to conquer some deep fears, and quickly, because time is running out.  (New Hampshire Great Stone Face Award, 2021)