by Ron Roy
They shared the rest of the milk and cookies while Parker told the kids and Dink’s uncle what had happened at Blue Meadow. Tommy sat on his shoulder.
“We were in the woods when two guys jumped us,” Parker told them. “They put a pillowcase over Max’s head. I kicked one of the guys really hard in the knee. I’d have kicked him again, but they both jumped on me and tied me to a tree. They had a truck there, and they ran over to it and pulled out a big rug.”
“Did you write Phantom Ranch in the dirt?” Ruth Rose asked.
Parker grinned. “Yeah. When they were tying me to the tree, I saw a yellow-and-brown Phantom Ranch patch on one guy’s shirt,” he said. “Actually, I realize now that it was a woman, not a guy. Anyway, I saw the same yellow-and-brown logo on the truck’s bumper sticker. So when they weren’t looking, I tried to write Phantom Ranch with my boot. I could only write Phantom Ran before they came to untie me.”
“That is so cool!” Josh said. “Just like Roger Good!”
“A brilliant move, young man!” Uncle Warren said.
“We found what you wrote!” Ruth Rose said. “But their feet must have erased the first four letters in Phantom.”
“They rolled me up inside the rug and put it in the back of the truck,” Parker continued. “The guys drove like crazy, and it was real bumpy. Then they stopped and dragged the rug and me onto the ground. They took the rug off and held a smelly cloth over my nose and mouth. It put me to sleep, and when I came to, I was where you found me—tied up in the dark.”
“We found your raisin boxes, too,” Dink said.
Parker nodded. “I figured my kidnapping would be on TV,” he said. “A lot of people know I feed Tommy raisins on the show, so I hoped someone would find the boxes and figure out I dropped them.”
“Is that your shirt on the clothesline?” Josh asked.
“Yup,” Parker said. “When Flip and Heidi brought me a hamburger, I ate all the mustard and made myself throw up. It smelled gross! I hoped they’d wash my shirt and hang it outside. I thought someone would recognize it from the show.”
“Tommy did!” Dink said. “He saw your shirt through our window and got excited. You should have seen him trying to get to it!”
Parker patted Tommy’s head. “My buddy Tommy has excellent vision,” he said. “Good old parrot!”
“So Flip, Heidi, and Brenda planned the whole thing,” Uncle Warren said. “They asked your parents for ransom.”
“They did?” Parker asked. “How much?”
“Three million dollars,” Dink’s uncle told him.
Parker sipped his milk and stared out the window. “I think there’s someone else,” he said. “When they were rolling me in the rug, I heard one of them ask about the money. Flip said, ‘The boss will bring our share in a couple of days.’ ”
“So who’s this boss?” Josh asked.
Dink watched Parker stare out the window. He had tears in his eyes. “I think the boss is Max,” he said. “My agent.”
“Mr. Kurve?” Dink asked.
Parker nodded. “A couple of weeks ago, Max got a new insurance policy for me. If I got hurt real bad, he told me, the policy would pay three million dollars. Or if I got kidnapped.”
Parker looked sad. “It was Max’s idea to come to the Grand Canyon and go for a balloon ride. He made me walk with him into those woods. He knew about the insurance policy.”
“But what about the blood on his face and shirt?” Josh asked.
“What blood?” Parker asked.
Dink told Parker about Maxwell Kurve running out of the woods with his shirt and face all bloody.
“I thought there was something funny about that blood,” Dink said. “Mr. Kurve told us the kidnappers put the pillowcase over his head, then punched him. If they’d done that, the pillowcase would have been bloody.”
“But it wasn’t,” Ruth Rose said. “The pillowcase was clean.”
Dink nodded. “Even if they’d put the pillowcase on after they slugged him, there would still have been blood on it,” he said.
“I’ll bet a million bucks they didn’t really hit Max,” Parker said. “He and I used to practice karate together. He knows how to fake getting punched.”
“So that means there was no blood, right?” Josh said.
“Oh my gosh!” Ruth Rose cried. She ran into the bedroom and came back with the nail polish bottle. She twisted off the cap and handed the bottle to Parker. “Smell it,” she told him.
Parker took a sniff. “It’s stage blood,” he said. “They use it in movies and on TV. You mix red food coloring, sugar, and cocoa in a blender. Where’d you find it?”
“In the woods,” Dink said. “Near where they grabbed you.”
“Max must’ve squirted this stuff on his face and shirt after he took the pillowcase off,” Parker said.
“Then he threw the bottle in the stream,” Dink said.
Parker wiped his eyes. “Max planned it all,” he said. “I thought he was my friend, but all he wanted was money.”
The kids sat and watched Tommy clean his wing feathers with his beak.
“What are you going to do about Mr. Kurve?” Dink asked Parker. “He doesn’t know you escaped from Heidi and Flip.”
“My dad told me to call him and my mom after they had a chance to talk to our lawyer,” Parker said. “I’ll tell them about Max, and they’ll arrest him.”
“Do you want us to come with you to call your parents?” Ruth Rose asked.
“That would be great,” Parker said.
“Cool!” Josh said. “Can Tommy ride on me?”
Parker transferred Tommy to Josh’s shoulder, and they walked toward the ranger station.
Parker had a long talk with his mother and father. He explained why he thought Maxwell Kurve had planned the kidnapping. Two hours later, Maxwell was arrested.
Parker’s parents told him that they planned to fly to Arizona the next morning. For tonight, Parker would stay with his new friends, Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose, in their cabin.
* * *
—
In cabin two, the four kids were playing Scrabble.
“My mom wants to give you guys a reward,” Parker said. “And I have an amazingly awesome idea!”
“We don’t need a reward,” Dink said.
“Except maybe your autograph,” Ruth Rose added.
“What’s your amazingly awesome idea?” Josh asked Parker.
“How about you guys come on my next show?” Parker asked.
“Really?” all three kids said.
“Cool!” Josh said. “Can we call the show Josh to the Rescue?”
Parker shook his head. “No way, Ray.”
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