“Josh, what are you doing?” Dink asked. He watched Josh slide five or six energy bars into his cargo pants pocket.
“I might get hungry,” Josh answered. “But we just ate breakfast!” Ruth Rose
said, slipping her binoculars into her backpack. Ruth Rose liked her clothes to match. Today she was wearing red from her headband to her sneakers.
Josh grinned. “We did?” he asked. “Gee, I don’t remember!”
“And we’re having a picnic with my uncle in about two hours,” Dink reminded his friend.
“Okay, Donny,” Josh teased.
Dink’s full name was Donald David Duncan, but most people called him by his nickname, Dink. His uncle had always called him Donny.
The kids were on their spring vacation in Arizona. Dink’s uncle Warren Duncan had invited them to join him on a trip to the Grand Canyon. They were staying at Bright Angel Lodge. When Dink looked out his window, he could see the rim of the Grand Canyon.
Josh sat on his bed. “Actually, I’m a little nervous,” he admitted. “And when I get nervous—”
“You eat!” Dink interrupted.
“Why are you nervous?” Ruth Rose asked.
Josh threw himself back on his pillow. “Well, let’s see,” he said, gazing up at the ceiling. “This morning, I go up a hundred miles in a hot-air balloon. Tomorrow I ride a donkey a hundred miles to the bottom of the Grand Canyon!”
Dink grinned. “It’ll be a blast!” he said. “And it’s not a hundred miles. The balloon only goes up about three miles, tops.”
“Three miles!” Josh croaked. He closed his eyes and pretended to faint.
Ruth Rose opened her guidebook and read. “We’ll be riding mules tomorrow, not donkeys,” she said, pointing to a picture. “They look cute!”
Josh sighed. “Mules, donkeys, elephants . . . what’s the difference?” He looked at Ruth Rose. “How far is it to the bottom?”
“Well, the canyon is a mile deep,” she said, reading from her book. “But the ride is a little over nine miles, which will take about five hours.”
“I have to sit on a mule for five hours?” Josh asked. “Do they bite?”
“Yeah,” Dink said. “They bite nervous boys.”
Ruth Rose checked the clock next to Dink’s bed. “It’s time for Roger to the Rescue,” she said, turning on the TV. “That should relax you, Josh.”
Josh sat up. “Cool! Roger’s at the North Pole this week,” he said.
Roger to the Rescue was their favorite TV show. It was about a kid named Roger Good and his pet parrot, Tommy. In each show, Roger visited a different part of the world. He met people who were trying to help animals and the environment. The week before, Roger and Tommy had been in India, helping a scientist save a baby tiger trapped in quicksand.
“Scoot over!” Dink said. He and Ruth Rose jumped on Josh’s bed as the show came on. First the kids saw a T-shirt with a circle on the front. Inside the circle were the letters RTTR, which stood for Roger to the Rescue.
The camera moved up to show Roger Good’s face. He was played by Parker Stone, a teen actor. Roger put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. A gray parrot with a bright red tail flew to his shoulder. In this episode, Roger and Tommy found two lost polar bear cubs and returned them to their mother. The final scene showed Roger sipping hot chocolate. Tommy was eating raisins out of a
little purple box.
Then these words appeared on the TV screen: please visit roger and tommy at their website!
As the show ended, Josh let out a whistle.
“You sound just like Roger!” Ruth Rose said. She shut off the TV and grabbed her backpack. “Come on, we have to be in the lobby in two minutes!”
Copyright © 2019 by Ron Roy; illustrated by John Steven Gurney. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
