My name is Mackenzie McLeod. You probably don't recognise my name but if you were bothered enough to google me you would see my picture and say something like,
"Oh! The bigfoot girl!"
This is how most people know me now and its not because I have particularly big feet, or even a singular big foot, it's because I found and photographed him. Bigfoot I mean. There's plenty of photographic evidence of bigfoot out there from all sorts of people, and now my photos are included. It's fair to say I think, that some of these photos are fake, and therefore only fair for people to assume that mine might be too. Some people think I somehow photoshopped bigfoot, and I suppose from an objective point of view, being that some people do photoshop stuff for a laugh, or for fame or infamy, it's not unreasonable of people who don't know me to think that I may have done that too. The thing is though. I didn't. It's all real. 100% real. I have witnesses too, because I didn't actually take the most famous photo, Chuck took that one. My mum took a whole bunch of them too, from her vantage point in a hide we had made. Me, mum, Chuck and DP (DP is short for Delaney Procter but DP hates that name so everyone calls him DP or Del) all camped wild in the woods in California for about six weeks and the result was the famous photos that not everyone believes in. Of course the three fantastic people who were out there with me know the photos are real, and if you bear with me and listen to my whole story, you will know they are real too.The story is quite a long one and it gets off to a bit of a bad start really because the story starts when my dad, who was also called Mackenzie McLeod, died. I know. I did say it gets off to a bad start though didn't I? My dad died of a massive heart attack. It was completely out of the blue and honestly, I was quite startled because let me tell you, I did not see it coming! It still makes me feel a bit.... complicated. My dad died, bad thing obviously, but because of him dying I literally had the biggest and best adventure of my entire life! Good thing right? When I look at those words, I realise it might not paint me in the best light. Who goes on a massive adventure just after their dad dies of a massive heart attack? I hear you cry. There was actually a very good reason for it, and if you carry on reading I really think that you will wish you were with me for my adventure, and for that wonderful, once in a lifetime day. The day I found bigfoot.
You're still reading so I am going to carry on talking since I am taking your mild interest as a big G for go. You can stop at anytime. I won't be offended cos I am just going to carry on talking anyway. Let's talk about dad first. My dad, as I said, was called Mackenzie McLeod. Having the exact same name as him didn't really mean a whole lot if I'm honest. The first born child of the first born child is always called Mackenzie in my family and it's been that way in the clan for, well, forever I think. Sure its a tradition in the clan but it didn't make dad anymore interested in me. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I think dad didn't like me as such, it's more that he just didn't notice me. Dad was a science teacher and he taught at the same secondary school that I still go to now. He took no more notice of me at school then he did at home. He didn't like, walk home with me or sit with me at lunchtime or stuff like that. Don't get me wrong. I didn't mind that he ignored me at school because, let's face it, who wants to be known as the offspring of the grumpiest and nerdiest teacher in school. I am already classed as a weirdo so if my peers had known I was a weirdo and related to 'grumpy science teacher' I would have been a complete pariah. According to the Oxford language dictionary, a pariah is an outcast. I have always verged on pariah-ism, not sure that's a real word, and I have always been keen to remain on the cusp so dad ignoring me at school was all for the greater good. Dad ignoring me at home was a bit harder to swallow but I suppose I did just get used to it. Even when I was tiny, he basically just found me a bit irritating. When I was really little, my mum used to call us - big mac and little mac - (other fast food brands are available, just saying) I would grab hold of my dad's big fingers, his thumb was as big as my mum's wrist, I swear it, and I would say,
"Big Mac, little Mac "
In my squeaky little five year old voice. Dad would just look at me with his pale blue eyes and he would crease his golden red eyebrows in to a frown and he would say in his deep Scottish burr,
"Och! What is she saying Rosie? I can't understand a word that she says Rosie!"
Rosie being my tiny little English mum. It is kind of strange I think that I am emotionally and mentally so close to my mum, but I look nothing like her, and I was never even remotely emotionally or mentally close to my dad but I couldn't look any less like him if I tried! I literally have all my dad's genes. Mackenzie McLeod was a giant of a man. He was nearly seven feet tall! Well, mum says he was six feet and six inches which is well tall! He was wide as well, as least as wide as a bus and he had big shoulders and big arms and big feet, like the size of freaking great canoes! He had golden red hair and white skin, white like he hadn't ever seen the sun, but he did grow up in Scotland so......Oh and he had freckles all over him, some as big as dinner plates! OK, maybe not that big but you get what I'm trying to say right? My dad was huge, like the hulk, or Shrek if I'm being less kind. People say he wasn't actually that big and that I have built him up in my mind but I don't think that's true. My dad was a scientist and my dad was an enigma. According to the Oxford English dictionary, an enigma is a person, thing or situation that is mysterious and difficult to understand. If ever there was a word which best described my dad, it was enigma. My dad was a scientist. He was a teacher. He existed in the world of proven facts and figures. He was a great big ginger haired Scottish man who believed in and understood science. And yet, I discovered that he also believed, in bigfoot! Science and bigfoot! And when he died of a massive heart attack when I was just thirteen, he was an enigma. Because what scientist, what university educated teacher of facts and figures would spend all of his spare time researching bigfoot? Of course I didn't discover until after he had passed away that that was what he was doing in his secret shed at the bottom of our garden, but when I did discover it, it made no sense whatsoever! He spent every minute of his spare time ignoring me and mum in favour of researching bigfoot! He believed so very, very much that bigfoot was out there that he spent every spare minute of his time and, as I later discovered, every penny of his wages, saving for the opportunity to prove to the world the existence of a freaking great monkey man!
What the heck dead dad!!!
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Mackenzie McLeod finds bigfoot
Teen FictionMackenzie was never close to her dad, so when, after his sudden death, she discovers that all her distant dad ever wanted to do was prove to the world that bigfoot exists, Mackenzie decides that she will take on the challenge herself. Mackenzie and...