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Riley Mae and the Sole Fire Safari

ZONDERKIDZ

Dear Sean,

How are you? I'm writing to say hi, and to tell you that you don't have to save me a donut at church this week. I'm flying to Kenya! I know, it sounds crazy, but my whole life's crazy now. Remember the shoe deal I got involved with? Well, that turned out to be a disaster. Yeah, the shoes are great and all, but the people who own the company aren't really who they say they are, and they're running from bad guys who want to kill them. Remember my goofy photographer, Flip? Well, he nearly fell off Half Dome! Then, right after I almost got eaten by a bear, I experienced my very first whitewater rafting trip—without a raft. Thankfully nobody's dead, but were all pretty scraped up. I even have a broken hand, which is why my writing's so terrible.

Anyway, I heard you have a new friend named Morgan. I hope you don't "like" her like you "like" me. I know I've been saying since kindergarten that I'd never marry you, but lately I've been thinking it could happen ... someday. Riley O'Reilly might be a cool name to have after all ...

Whatcha writing, kiddo?" Flip's voice right next to my ear made me jump about a mile out of my seat on the jet.

"Nothing." I wadded the paper in my good fist. "How long have you been standing there looking over my shoulder?"

Flip shrugged. "I wasn't. Why'd you crumple it up?"

"Bad penmanship." I held up the glowing orange cast and examined the puffy fingers on my right hand. "I wish I broke the other hand instead. No ... wait. I wish neither of my hands were broken."

"You can use my laptop if you want."

"Thanks, but I wasn't going to send it anyway."

Flip raised an eyebrow. "So, it's a letter? I thought all you kids did was text these days."

"Well, in order to text, I would need a phone, and you guys took mine, remember?"

"But that was so you wouldn't accidentally divulge our secret location. You're kind of a chatty kid, you know."

"Yeah, but the bad guys found us anyway."

Flip scratched his head and thought a minute. "Okay, you have a point, there." Then he pulled my phone out of his pocket. "Here. You can have it back."

"Really?" I grabbed the phone out of his hand and ran my fingers over the sparkly pink cover. I pushed the ON button and hummed along with the cheery start-up tune. Then I noticed Flip's familiar smirk. "Hey ... what's the catch?"

"Yours won't work outside the U.S."

"That figures."

"But, you can use the camera part to take cool pics of giraffes and lions. And you can write all the texts you want to your boyfriend without worrying about sending them."

For that, I punched Flip in the arm. "He's not my boyfriend. And I thought you said you weren't looking over my shoulder."

"Hey, I'm just messing with you! That's what I do, remember? And you usually mess back. What happened to the fun Riley Mae Hart?"

I held up my cast again and stuck out my lower lip. "This happened."

Flip's older sister, Fawn, who's also my personal assistant at Swiftriver, came walking down the aisle carrying what looked like five daily servings of fruits and vegetables.

"Is he bothering you?" She plunked a napkin full of carrots in my lap. "Never mind, of course he is." Then she turned to Flip. "Stop it."

"What?" Flip threw his hands up. "I'm being a nice guy. I gave her phone back."

"Even so, I want you to go away." Fawn grinned and brushed him away with her hand.

Flip hobbled off in his ankle cast. Then we heard him from the back of the jet. "You girls should be nicer to me. I fell off a mountain, you know."

Fawn rolled her eyes then sat down next to me. "Did you take your malaria medicine?"

I barely nodded. I didn't want to talk about malaria, because that would mean we were really going to Africa, where apparently there were mosquitoes that could kill you. I already had people who were trying to do that. No need to add bugs to the list.

Fawn leaned over closer. "Ooh, I like your phone cover. Can I see some of your pictures?"

"Sure. But they're mostly of my friends." I pointed to one that was taken at children's church.

"Who's the strawberry-blond cutie?" Fawn asked.

My face heated up a little. "Oh, that's Sean. He's had a crush on me forever. But ..."

"But what?"

"I think it's over now." I grabbed a carrot off my lap, snapped it in half, popped both pieces into my mouth, and chewed and chewed and chewed.

"I doubt that very much," Fawn said.

I sighed. "He's hanging out with some new girl."

"Oh. Well, I'm sure she's not as sweet and wonderful as you are."

"You think I'm sweet and wonderful?"

Fawn smiled. "And beautiful, and much more put together than I was at twelve."

I sat up a little straighter and smoothed my wrinkled T-shirt. "You know, I'm turning thirteen in a few weeks."

Fawn gasped and almost dropped some broccoli on the floor. "What? Is that in the contract? Are you allowed to become a teenager?" She smiled and tried to force-feed me a disgusting green stalk, but I pushed it away.

"Probably not. Hey, maybe Swiftriver will finally let me out of that contract. Why don't we just turn the jet around right now and go talk to Bob Hansen about it in Fresno?"

"But then you would miss your surprise birthday safari." Fawn put her hand to her mouth, like she had let out some long-kept secret.

"Safari, huh?" I pictured myself feeding friendly giraffes and smiled. "That sounds interesting." Then I pictured myself and the giraffes being swarmed by mosquitoes.

"But isn't it a little dangerous?"

Fawn chuckled and patted me on the cast. "This whole adventure has been dangerous, Riley. But hey—at least there aren't any bears in Africa."

The flight to Africa was LONG. Hours and hours and hours. First we had to fly to New Jersey, and then to Switzerland for more fuel. Then we still had something like ten hours left to go. Whoever wrote that song about it being a small world after all was wrong. But at least the boring flights were smooth. The last time I was in a Swiftriver private jet, we crash-landed. Tyler, our fearless pilot, guaranteed that wouldn't happen again. And this time, we were in the "back-up" jet, which had been checked, double-checked, and re-checked for safety.

"Need something to do? Here you go." Flip returned from the back of the jet and sat down in the seat across the aisle from me. He tossed over a thick mailing envelope.

I caught it, pulled out a stack of papers, and read the first one.

Dear Riley Mae,

I saw you in Outdoor Teen Magazine, and Id like to know if you were scared when you climbed Half Dome. I'm afraid of heights, but I want to try it anyway. What do you think I should do? Please write back!

Jessica

The next one was a printed-out email.

Subject: Girls in sports

Dear Riley Mae,

I love sports, but my dad won't let me sign up for any. He says there's only enough money for my brothers to play. What should I do?

Sarah

"Flip, where did these come from?"

"Your adoring fans. Some came to the Swiftriver office, and some were forwarded from Nate at Outdoor Teen Magazine. He said they're thinking of starting a column where you answer questions that kids send in. Whaddya say?"

"I can't answer these questions." I shoved the papers back in the envelope and tried to give it to Flip. "Tell whoever that I can't do a column."

He pushed it back. "Okay, but you still have to answer the letters."

"Why?"

Flip smiled big. "Because they're your fans. You have tons of them, kiddo."

"But I don't know what to tell them! I can't even solve my own problems right now."

I guess I got a little loud, because I woke up Mom, who had been napping a few seats in front of me. "Riley, what on earth is going on?" She stood up, stretched, and yawned. Poor Mom. She hadn't been sleeping much during the last week with all the Swiftriver nonsense going on.

"Nothing," I said. I jumped up and stormed to the back of the plane, looking for a place to hide. The bathroom was it.

Lord, what is going on? Why are you letting this happen to me? I prayed to go home. Why did you say no?

I allowed myself to cry for a minute or two. But then I realized that tears were bouncing off my cast. Oops, not supposed to get that wet. Time to straighten up.

I glanced up at my blotchy face in the mirror. "You're a grumpy mess, Riley Mae Hart." I wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

"Oh well. Might as well make the most of it."

I pulled a pen out of my pocket and scribbled on a paper towel:

Dear Jessica,

Don't climb Half Dome. You'll just fall off.

Blessings, Riley

With Love, Riley

I smirked. "See, terrible answers." I flushed them and then I wondered, where does that stuff go in a plane, anyway? There were so many things I didn't know. And that was only one of the million reasons why I couldn't write a column.

Mom tapped on the bathroom door. "Riley, are you okay, honey? You need to come out. We'll be landing soon."

Landing. Finally. Too bad it had to be in Nairobi. I wished I had paid more attention in geography class. I had already made a fool of myself by asking what country Kenya was in. Everyone sure got a laugh out of that. Turns out that Kenya is a country on the continent of Africa, which I sort of knew from a song I learned when I was four, but I didn't really understand what a continent was back then. After my silly question about where Kenya was, my genius little brother, Brady, had to show me up by drawing a map. On the plane, I showed it to our friend, Kiano.

"Where do you guys live?" I asked.

Kiano pointed to a place on Brady's map that said high.

"Oh, good, I like mountains."

He just threw his head back and laughed. Somehow, I must have had that wrong too. I decided not to ask anymore dumb questions right then, because at least I knew one thing:

Africa is hot.

How come it's not hot out here?" I shivered and was frustrated that I had packed my hoodie in my suitcase. "Are you sure we're in Africa?"

Kiano laughed again as he guided his daughters, Faith, Grace, and Hope, from the bottom of the jet steps toward the terminal.

"You will be surprised about the weather where we live," twelve-year-old Faith said. Then she turned to her dad. "Are we going to see our elephants today?"

Now that sounded exciting! I had always imagined kids in Africa riding elephants.

"Yes," Kiano said. "I think that Miss Riley Mae would love to see them too."

Just as Kiano said that, he opened up the terminal door and we were greeted by a sign hanging from the ceiling that said:

Smile, You're in Kenya!

"Okay, I need a group picture." Flip pulled his camera out of his bag. "Everyone under the sign. Wow. Our first day in Africa!" We all bunched together and faced Flip. He clicked his camera a couple of times and then frowned at me. "Shoe girl, did you leave your smile back in the States?"

I flashed him a real big, cheesy one.

He clicked. "Oh, good. You had me a little nervous there."

"Can you take a picture of just the girls?" eight-year-old Grace asked. "We have the same shoes on. We can send it to Sunday."

Faith, Grace, Hope, and I were all wearing the flaming-orange, Riley Mae "Sole Fire" running shoes. The girls' ten-year-old brother, Sunday, wears Sole Fires too. All the time. He doesn't even care that they're for girls. I wished he could be here in the picture with us instead of in Montana with his mom, fighting leukemia. At least when we left, he was doing well, recovering from a bone marrow transplant. Otherwise, I think it would be torture for his father Kiano and his sisters to be so far away from him.

"So, do each of you have your own elephant?" I asked the girls.

Grace and Hope giggled as Faith set me straight. "Mr. Flip fostered one for each of us at the elephant orphanage. We go to see them whenever we are in Nairobi."

Hope's eyes got big. "Mine is called Muna. That is my name!"

"I thought your name was Hope," I said.

"The name Muna means hope," Faith said.

Hope jumped up and down and pointed to herself. "Just like me! And wait till you see Muna, Riley. Her is so cute!"

Faith waved a finger at Hope. "She. She is so cute."

Hope looked confused. "That is what I said!"

Faith shook her head. "She refuses to learn proper English."

"She does better than most four-year-olds," I said. "Especially considering that she also speaks, uh ... what do you guys speak, anyway?"

"Swahili, and our tribal language is Kalenjin."

I tapped my fingers on my chin. "How will I know which one's which?"

Faith looked up toward the ceiling, and then put her hands on her hips. "I do not know how to help you with that. I am so sorry."

"Well then, Hakuna Matata!"

Faith's mouth dropped open. "What? It appears that you have learned some Swahili."

"No, I just watch Disney movies. You know, The Lion King? Hakuna Matata?" I shuffled my feet and shook my head back and forth, which made Grace and Hope laugh and dance around too. A few people in the terminal laughed at us.

"Jambo, Kiano!" A huge, dark man ran over to our group and wrapped Kiano up in a big hug. I had thought Kiano was big until then.

The girls laughed and squealed some more as they joined in the hug. Tears streamed down Kiano's face. A bunch of words that I didn't understand flew out of the mouths of the happy little group.

"You guys know each other?" No one answered, and I suddenly noticed that Flip, Fawn, and Mom were gone. Strange. So I just stood there, near the hugging group, looking around. A chill ran through my body, so I crossed my arms over my chest and hugged myself. This was so awkward. And lonely. I looked back up at the sign:

Smile, You're in Kenya!

Was Kenya supposed to be a happy place? I tried to smile, but something felt fake. Yep. Cheesy. Hmmm. Maybe Flip was right about me leaving my smile in the States.

Mom came back in a few minutes with Flip and Fawn. She waved some papers in the air. "Got the visas—wow, that was quicker than I thought it would be."

"Why do you need a credit card when you have Flip and Fawn? They've got tons of money." I turned to Flip. "I hear you're sponsoring elephants now too."

"These visas are actually permits to stay in the country," Fawn said. "Not credit cards."

"But," Flip added, "you'll be begging me for your own elephant once you see how cute they are."

He was right. The elephant orphanage was the most amazing place I had ever been.

"That is Muna! Her is getting big!" Hope pointed out the window at the smallest elephant as a volunteer held an extra-large bottle up to her mouth during the "kindergarten" feeding time.

"I don't get why there are so many elephant orphans." I scrolled through the collection of pictures at the information kiosk in the lobby. It even included some baby rhinos. "What happened to their parents?"

"Most elephants are killed by poachers who want their ivory tusks, or in the case of the rhinos, their horns."

Faith frowned. She scrolled farther on the kiosk to show me some gruesome pictures of animals that had been killed and had their faces chopped off.

"Ugh! Why would anyone do such a horrible thing?"

"Greed." Faith scrolled some more and found Grace's elephant, Matunga. "They discovered Matunga wandering all by herself near Lake Matunga."

"I'm writing a storybook about Matunga and how she finds her family someday," Grace said.

Faith pointed to another elephant on the screen. "This is my elephant, Chemi Chemi."

"They're so adorable! Can we touch them?" I really wanted to touch a baby elephant.

"Yes, follow me." Faith led us out of the lobby and pointed to a roped-off area that held the baby elephants. "We can go up and pet them if they come near."

I was at the rope in seconds. "They're not coming over."

"Give them time to eat first," one of the workers said. "They may be small, but they are still elephants, so they need lots of food."

No kidding. Each elephant was slurping through several big bottles.

"Where are the rhinos?" I asked.

"In cages," Faith said. "They are not as friendly as the elephants."

"Muna is all done!" Hope pointed as we watched the volunteer finish feeding the cute little elephant. But then Muna turned away from us and ran.

"Her is running away! Muna!" Hope ducked under the rope and ran after Muna.

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Excerpted from Riley Mae and the Sole Fire Safari by Jill Osborne, Mary Hassinger. Copyright © 2014 Jill Osborne. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERKIDZ.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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