The circle of ter roar v.., p.1
The Circle of Ter-ROAR (Volume 7), page 1
Copyright © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc.
Illustrations by Jeffrey Thomas
All rights reserved. Published by Disney Press, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney Press, 1200 Grand Central Avenue, Glendale, California 91201.
First Edition, August 2023
Designed by Megan Youngquist
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022952295
Paperback ISBN 978-1-368-07592-3
eBook ISBN 978-1-3680-7848-1
For more Disney Press fun, visit www.disneybooks.com
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
1: Scaredy-Cat
2: The Circle of Life
3: Aunt Scarlett
4: Life’s Not Fair, Is It?
5: Camp Pride Rock
6: No Worries? All the Worries!
7: Disaster Is in the Air
8: Hakuna Matata
9: The Pride Lands
10: The Elephant Graveyard
11: Quiver With Fear
12: Good Night, Sweet Prince
13: Swallow Your Pride
14: The Lion Creeps Tonight
15: Oh, Goody
16: The Morning Report
17: Every Grunt, Roar, and Snort
18: Can You Feel the Terror Tonight?
19: The Truth Is in the Eye of the Beholder
20: A Roaring Success
21: Sire, the Herd Is on the Move
22: You Can Run, But You Can’t…Hide
23: Can’t Wait to Be King
24: Teeth and Ambitions Bared
25: Carnivores, Oy!
26: Be Prepared!
27: The Circle of Ter-Roar
28: A Monkey’s Brother
29: Rafiki
30: The Coup of the Century
31: The Lion’s Share
32: Change Is Good
33: Zazu
34: The King Undisputed
35: Long Live the King
About the Author
Silas wasn’t sure how his life could get any worse.
It was the first day of summer break. Most kids were thrilled for three months of no school, zero homework, sleeping late, loads of free time, and perpetual sunshine, although that wasn’t unusual in his hometown of Orlando, where it was warm and sunny all year round.
But not Silas…he was miserable.
He cracked his eyes open to bright sunlight and clear blue skies outside his window—typical Florida weather. The vertical blinds flapped lazily in the draft siphoned from the air vents, casting bars of light around his bedroom. It felt more like a prison.
He badly wished the yellow bus would come careening down his cul-de-sac and break him out of his house, taking him to school. But it was summer, and that wasn’t going to happen.
Silas sighed and turned his gaze back to his room. Though it was humid and sweltering outside, his room was chilled down to a perfect seventy-two degrees, thanks to the air-conditioning’s constant blasting.
Despite the beautiful, bright day, his heart still thumped from a horrible nightmare. He tried to remember it. All he knew was that he’d been falling and falling, overwhelmed by that terrible feeling where the floor drops out from under you and your stomach—
And then his memory went black.
Sweat stains soaked his sheets and pillow. Fear gripped him, along with that terrifying falling sensation. It took him a moment to calm his breathing and come back to reality.
I’m okay…it was only a dream…nothing to be afraid of…
Silas tried to focus on his surroundings and wake up fully. Library books weighed down his Buzz Lightyear bedspread, a relic from when he was still in elementary school. He didn’t even watch those kiddie movies anymore, but his parents refused to waste money on replacing things that “worked perfectly well.”
He rubbed his tired eyes and sat up in bed, trying to push the sleep from them. When he cracked them back open, he startled as they fell on—
A ferocious lion snarling at him.
His heart thumped. This was just like his terrifying nightmare the previous night. He didn’t have to wonder what triggered it. The culprits lay right in front of him.
The library books.
One stared back at him with a thick-maned, regal-looking lion on the glossy cover. It was a nonfiction book called The King of the Beasts. As usual, he had stayed up way past his bedtime reading. He never meant to, but books had magical powers—which was the only explanation—that sucked him into their pages and wouldn’t let go, until he nodded off with them cracked open in his lap.
Bits and pieces of his nightmare started to come back to him, almost like scenes from a movie. An evil lion with glowing green eyes had been stalking him. Silas tried to run away from the ferocious beast, but the lion was too fast and chased him off a cliff. He clung to the edge with his feet dangling over the treacherous drop.
The lion crept over, as if to save him…but instead, the lion clawed at his hands. Silas screamed as he lost his grip—
And fell toward the ground, and most likely his death.
That was the last thing he remembered before he woke up. He knew that he should stop reading the books if they gave him nightmares every night, but he couldn’t help it.
Evident from what was scattered across his bedspread, Silas loved two kinds of books the most. The first was real-life nature books filled with colorful images of wild animals—especially the kind with sharp teeth. The more ferocious the animal, the better.
He got goose bumps simply reading about those fearsome creatures, or looking at their pictures, and imagining that somewhere out there, far away from the boring suburb with a quiet cul-de-sac where he lived, those creatures roamed through the wilderness—and might spring out and eat you. His absolute favorite animals were lions—of course—black panthers, and leopards, with an honorable mention to great white sharks and polar bears.
The second type of book he loved was filled with action, telling stories about brave explorers embarking on dangerous adventures to discover new lands. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs remained his all-time favorite. Silas owned a paperback copy of that one, thanks to his dad and a dusty sale bin at a used bookstore. He had read it so many times that the pages were dog-eared and crumbling. He preferred the old book to the many movie versions, though his friends thought he was unbelievable for liking words more than something you could watch on TV.
Basically, he read to escape from his regular life, and those types of books were the furthest thing from his daily, boring existence. He also read to pretend he wasn’t a timid little kid afraid of…well…
Everything.
When Silas read his books, he felt brave and strong—like he could defeat any enemy or triumph over any challenge. But as soon as he closed the pages, he turned back into a…
Scaredy-cat.
The nasty nickname flashed through his head.
However, he didn’t like to think about that.
Silas shifted around, knocking some books onto the floor. They landed with a sharp thwack. The jolt woke up the digital clock on his bedside table. It was already past nine a.m. He’d slept in for once. His alarm remained dormant, unset and unnecessary.
Silas sat up, trying to get himself up after his reading-induced insomnia, and surveyed his bedroom. It looked like a normal kid’s room with a narrow twin bed and a wobbly bookshelf overfilled with tomes, some spilling out onto the floor. There was also a giant pile of dirty laundry that he’d been putting off washing. He was twelve, old enough to do chores and help out—at least according to his parents—though all evidence pointed to the contrary.
The laundry heap had grown perilously high and threatened to topple over and create an avalanche across his whole room, burying everything in sight, including him. Sooner or later it would get him into big trouble when his parents bothered to notice, but for now it kept growing taller.
Silas let out a deep sigh. “Ugh, summer.”
He missed school for three big reasons. One, he got to see his best friends, Jose and Tamara, first thing every morning at the bus stop. They lived on the same street and had been friends since the first day of kindergarten. They had sat together on the bus, and the rest was history. Every day with them by his side qualified as a great day.
And two, he loved reading, and his sixth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Hamlet, always picked out the best books from the library for him. She chose the adventure kind filled with thrilling expeditions to faraway places, and heroes who were never afraid of…well…anything. They were fierce and courageous—basically, the total opposite of him, although he tried to hide his fears and anxieties so nobody found out and teased him about it.
But the truth was far different. Even the sight of his own shadow spooked him sometimes. He often jumped coming around corners, then tried to brush it off so as not to draw notice. Not to mention creepy spiders (eight legs and eight eyes, plus venom…why did anyone like Spider-Man?). Traffic (Dad said Florida drivers were special). Clowns (they smiled too much). Dark basements (not that there were any in Florida, but he’d seen enough spooky movies to know they existed for no good reason other than to get you killed). And broccoli (it wa
He was even afraid of being afraid…this unknown sinking feeling about the future.
And the worst one of all—that somebody would find out about his cowardice, like that incident in first grade, and everyone would taunt him.
Scaredy-cat.
He shuddered at the memory. Even his friends Jose and Tamara had laughed at him for being scared of that stuffed spider in the toy bin. But Silas couldn’t help how his heart hammered, his breathing got short and spastic, and fear flooded through his whole body, making it feel rigid.
He’d backed away from the chest while the other kids yelled, “Scaredy-cat! Scaredy-cat!”
“He’s afraid of a stuffed animal!”
“Go back to kindergarten!”
Ever since then, he’d avoided toy bins and vowed to keep his fear in check so it would never happen again. And it had worked. No more fear attacks. No more taunts of “scaredy-cat.” School had been great since then. But always in the back of his mind, he could hear the kids teasing him—
Loud shrieks exploded from his parents’ bedroom across the hall.
They cut through the house.
“Wahhhhhhhhhhhh.”
That was the third reason Silas missed school. It got him out of the house. And away from—
His baby brother.
The cries grew shriller and louder. Silas winced and tried to plug his ears, but it did no good. Police sirens were quieter than baby George.
If he hadn’t been fully awake yet, Silas sure was now. The shrieking continued and showed zero signs of letting up. Mom called it colic.
But Silas suspected it was George’s way of demanding all his mother’s attention so there was none left over for him. And George didn’t just cry during the day, but off and on all night long, waking up everyone in the house whenever he pleased.
Wishing he had thick headphones—the heavy-duty noise-canceling kind worn by construction workers—Silas got himself up and sifted through the dirty laundry pile for something clean enough to wear. The mound threatened to collapse. Pulling out clothes was like playing Jenga.
He settled on a T. rex shirt with a chocolate stain smudged across the sleeve from where he’d wiped his mouth. However, chocolate didn’t count as a stain, he decided, since it was the single best thing in the world. Silas thought that it was more like…a badge of honor.
He pulled on his board shorts—good for playing and swimming—and glanced in the mirror, trying to flatten his dark hair. His bangs were too long and badly needed a trim. Silas’s bronze skin absorbed the sunlight, turning richer and more golden as summer dragged on, and his hazel eyes were the color of fresh straw.
Mom used to cut his hair, but she’d been too busy with the baby. As he stared at his overgrown bangs dripping into his eyes, he realized that his life was full of a lot of…
Used tos.
He looked like a mix of his parents, who themselves were a mix, too. Dad had gotten them all one of those at-home DNA kits last year. Dad’s side of the family came from the Dominican Republic, while his mom’s side heralded from Cuba, though Silas had never visited either place. They did FaceTime calls with his grandparents, who still lived across the ocean.
But to his father’s surprise, the test came back showing that their ancestors originated from not just the Dominican Republic and Cuba but all over the world, including countries on other continents like Africa and Asia. Dad pinned the results with the world map displaying their ancestry to the family corkboard, proudly proclaiming that was what made them Americans.
Silas shut his closet and turned to his door. He half hoped Mom would come check on him and make sure he was ready, like she used to…but George was still wailing.
“Wahhhhhhhhhhh.”
Oh well, Silas was on his own for now.
He knew he should brush his teeth but decided what his parents didn’t know couldn’t hurt them. Plus, he’d brushed them the previous night.
Why did you have to do it twice a day?
He felt the same way about making his bed every morning. He glanced at the rumpled comforter strewn with books. Why make it if you were just going to mess it up again that night?
Sometimes, adults and their rules made no sense. Regardless, he found himself doing a lot of things for himself lately. His parents loved him—he knew that without any doubt—but they seemed so preoccupied. Not that he couldn’t take care of himself. He knew he was old enough for that.
But still, he missed when his mom would wake him up gently and help him get dressed for school, then feed him homemade pancakes in the shape of a mouse—with chocolate chips if he was extra lucky. Then, Dad would walk him to the bus stop.
“Who’s my favorite kid?” Dad would say before leaving him at the end of the cul-de-sac to wait for the yellow bus, their ritual every morning.
“Me!” Silas would giggle back. “But I’m also your only kid.”
Dad would muss his hair. “Ha, but that’ll never change.”
“Promise?” Silas would say.
“Promise,” Dad would reply, sweeping him into a tight hug.
Only it had…
Silas sniffed the air hopefully, wishing for pancakes, but it only smelled of stale coffee. No cooking aromas hung in the air. No sounds of happy chatter. His heart sank. With a heavy sigh, Silas trudged downstairs to the ceaseless wailing of his baby brother, as it reverberated through the house. George was miserable, and nothing was going to change that today.
Cold cereal will have to do…again, Silas thought glumly.
“Good morning, Son,” Dad called from the sunken living room of their small two-story house when he heard Silas poking around in the fridge. “Or should I say afternoon,” he joked.
Dad was a fan of…dad jokes.
The fact that he was playing around made Silas happy. Maybe Silas’s day was about to get a whole lot better than he thought. His dad was teasing him for sleeping late that morning.
“Hey, Daddo,” he replied, peeking out from the narrow kitchen. He had to speak up to be heard over George’s crying. “And I didn’t sleep that late…sheesh. It’s still morning.”
But then George’s crying turned into wailing. “Wahhhhhhhhhh” reverberated from upstairs, rising and falling in volume like a fire engine blaring down the street.
“What did you say?” Dad called back.
“I said it’s still morning,” Silas tried again, raising his voice.
“What…was…that?” Dad shouted back.
It was futile.
Silas shut the fridge in frustration and poked his head back out, and this time he stayed in the doorway. His father was slumped in the middle of their old, beat-up sofa, as always. Silas wasn’t sure if it was beige, or had only turned that color over time, darkening from white. Boring news flickered across the TV, muted in the background, while his father worked on his laptop.
Or rather pretended to work.
Dad sipped an energy drink with a scary name in bold fluorescent lettering—the kind of drink forbidden to Silas, or it would stunt his growth, his mother had warned.
His father seemed to have grown older more in the last few months than in the whole time Silas had been alive. White had seeped into his brown hair, while his hairline had receded on both sides. Despite the obvious signs of aging, his father still had a friendly, youthful face and wide, easygoing smile that made him look perpetually like a kid.
As usual, he was dressed in a gray suit and red tie paired with a pale blue button-down shirt, as if he was going into the office, but the truth was far different. For all it mattered, he could’ve stayed in pj’s all day. Silas took in the familiar scene, feeling dragged down.
Silas spoke loudly. “I said it’s still morning.”
“Ha, sure,” Dad said. “Early bird gets the worm.”
“Ew, who wants worms?” Silas said, again wondering why adults said the weirdest things. “Later birds get the…Cap’n Crunch,” he joked back.
Dad laughed, but then another bout of high-pitched shrieks tore through the house, making them both wince and look upstairs. “That kid’s got a set of lungs that could wake the dead,” Dad said with a chuckle.
Silas wasn’t sure how his dad could joke about that racket, nor did he understand how someone so tiny, who barely weighed ten pounds, could generate that level of noise.
It was a total mystery.
