This rapid-paced story for young readers from best-selling author Jonathan London churns with heart-stopping adventure as rafting novice Aaron confronts more than just white water on a life-changing trip in the wilds of Utah’s canyonlands.

Chapter One White Water!
Chapter Two The Wild Bunch
Chapter Three Rock Slide and High Side
Chapter Four Wild Horses
Chapter Five Nightmare Rock
Chapter Six Rock Art and Rattlers
Chapter Seven Little Rockhouse Rapids
Chapter Eight The Outlaw Trail
Chapter Nine Water Babies
Chapter Ten The Blue Sky People
Chapter Eleven The Disappearance
Chapter Twelve The Search
Chapter Thirteen The Nightmare
Chapter Fourteen Canyon Spirits
Chapter Fifteen Over the Edge
Chapter Sixteen The Spirit Trail
Chapter Seventeen Runaway Raft!
Chapter Eighteen Rock Garden
Chapter Nineteen The Thunder Hole
Chapter Twenty Racing for Rescue
Chapter Twenty-One Time to Go!
Chapter Twenty-Two Olympic Champ
Epilogue

CHAPTER SEVEN Little Rock House Rapids “Freeze, Lisa!” Dad yelled. Lisa froze. Then a rock ricocheted at Lisa's feet. She jumped back and Cassidy, out of nowhere, leaped down onto the trail and snatched something off the ground. It dangled from his hands. The rattler! It was about six feet long and its head was smashed flat. I couldn't believe my eyes. “You coulda got her killed, Cassidy!” Dad snapped, climbing over to Lisa and slipping an arm around her shoulders. “What are you talking about, old man?” Cassidy growled. “I’m the one who saved her!” “What if you’d missed? Did you think about that?” Dad shook his head. “Rattlers only attack if they’re threatened. Leave ’em be and they’ll leave you be. If you’d missed, it woulda struck her like lightning.” “But I didn’t miss, did I?” “Sometimes you got to think before you act,” Dad said. “Sometimes you got to act before someone gets bit!” Cassidy yelled back. “Stop it!” Lisa said. My dad’s shoulders drooped. She turned to Cassidy and said, “Thanks, Cass.” It was the first time she ever called him "Cass." She even touched his arm as she said it. I hated to admit it, but I was on Cassidy’s side this time. He had killed the rattler, after all. But I couldn’t help feeling useless and a little jealous. What had I done? Nothing. I froze at the sound of the deadly rattle. If Lisa was drowning in some rapids, would I jump in and try to save her? I wanted to think so, because I’m a strong swimmer. But rattlesnakes? I didn’t know what to do. I just froze up. “Well, thank goodness for your aim,” Dad said. “If you’d been off by one inch . . . just one inch. . . .” He was shaking his head again, still angry. Cassidy just scowled and held Dad’s eyes, until Dad turned and started back down the trail. “Time to boogaloo down Broadway,” he called over his shoulder. He said that to lighten to mood. He always said that and it always embarrassed me. “Let’s go,” I said. We followed after Dad. Lisa glanced back over her shoulder at Cassidy. I glanced back, too. But Cassidy stayed behind. He was firing rocks at the petroglyphs, sending sparks flying—and chips of cultural history. Good thing Dad didn’t see him; he would have had a cow. On the way back, I saw something scurry under a rock. Something way smaller than a snake. So I knelt and lifted the reddish rock. "A scorpion!" I said. Lisa's shadow fell over it. The scorpion’s tail curled back, needle-sharp and vicious. I thought of smashing it with the rock, then thought, why not leave it alone? I carefully lowered the rock and stood up. Lisa studied me, like she was trying to figure out a puzzle. “That was kinda cool, Aaron. Not killing the scorpion, I mean.” Then she looked back over her shoulder, but Cassidy was nowhere in sight. I think she was trying to tell me that being brave doesn’t mean killing things for no reason. But Cassidy had a reason. I think. Dad asked me to help clean up and reload the kitchen boat. I’m lazy by nature, but I didn’t mind. I wanted to be away from Cassidy, and I didn’t even want to talk to Lisa. Not right now. I just wanted to think, and I could think and clean up at the same time. Back home in California, I would boogie board in the ocean, or hop on my skim board in the sea foam, and I wasn’t that afraid of getting hurt or drowning. I was in my element. But out here in this canyon, with someone like Cassidy, I felt out of my element. Like I could be pulled in and drowned—or bit by a rattler. Or smashed by a boulder dropped by a sixteen-year-old with more tattoos on his body than teeth in his head. Or brain cells. But how could I compete with him for Lisa’s attention? And what compelled me to even want to do that? It seemed that two feelings were battling inside me: that I was better than Cassidy—smarter, more sensitive—and that I was inferior. Not as powerful. Not as brave. But so what? I’m twelve and he’s sixteen. Where’s the level playing field in that? I should just be okay with who I am, right? Why is that so hard to do? I should like who I am and let Cassidy be who he is. Or should I? He’s totally unpredictable. You never know when he’s trying to save a life or take a life. And he could be funny, which really drove me nuts. He was always making Lisa laugh. The only time I made her laugh was when she laughed at me. Back home people actually think I’m funny. I’m kind of the class clown. Like one time I was sitting in the back of the class and cut up a poster with a pair of scissors until it dangled like a mobile, or piece of art. Then I held it up—right in the middle of a lecture by our teacher Mrs. Gruber—and said, “Will it sell?” The class cracked up, and I had to go to the principal’s office. Again. But whenever I’m alone with girls, I get some kind of social brain freeze. Any attempts at humor go over like a deflating balloon. “Earth calling Aaron,” said Willie, snapping me out of my zone. “Why are you scrubbing the cheese?” Back on the river we faced a strong headwind. I took turns with Dad at the oars—just like Lisa was doing with her dad. Against wind like that, it takes all your energy not to let the raft slip backwards. Up ahead Cassidy was rowing the kitchen boat while his dad took a snooze. With a huge ice chest, a dutch oven, and all the food supplies, it was by far the heaviest raft, yet Cassidy was plowing ahead. I switched again with Dad, and doubled my effort at the oars, inspired by Cassidy's example. If inspired is the right word for it. That evening at camp, after chowing down on a great barbecued chicken dinner that Willie made, everybody just kicked back. Everybody except Cassidy, that is. He sat down in full lotus right in front of Lisa, then swung up into a handstand, his legs still crossed. Then he started walking around on his hands! Finally, he cartwheeled over and did three back flips—one, two, three—and crashed into the dark river with a big splash. "Sweet!" Lisa cheered. Not to be outdone, I jumped up and did a backward handspring—my one gymnastics move—and landed on my butt. Lisa laughed. “You’re so lame!” I felt like a toad. I crawled to my tent and buried myself in my sleeping bag. “That Cassidy,” Dad said when he joined me, “is a show-off and out of control. And that’s a dangerous combination.” I didn’t say anything. I wrestled with my own mixed-up thoughts, while outside I could hear Cassidy running around howling like a coyote, free of self-doubt. The next morning we were on the river by ten o’clock. I asked Roger if I could ride with him and Lisa, and he said yes. Lisa smiled and it made me feel good all over. The river was swift here. Box elders and tamarack flicked by like light poles on the freeway. Swifts darted and spray flew. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We were coming up to Little Rock House Rapids. Roger said that with the high flow this year it could be a Class 3. Roger asked if I wanted to take over at the oars. “I think you can handle it, mate,” he said when I looked at him doubtfully. We switched places. “All right, now swing the raft around so you’re facing forward and can read the river,” Roger explained. Dad had been teaching me, but when it came to rapids, I still got butterflies in my stomach. “You want to find the main channel,” he continued. “See that smooth tongue where the water current slides into a V-shape between the waves?” He pointed and I could see where he meant. “You want to aim right for the point of that V.” “Okay,” I said through clenched teeth. I tugged at the oars and soon we slipped right into the V, as planned. The river was getting wilder and Roger had to shout so I could hear him. “Now turn the raft around and pull hard!” he commanded. “You want to move the raft faster than the current, matey. That way you can control where it goes, instead of the current controlling you. Lisa will keep a lookout for boulders.” I braced my legs and rowed so hard that I practically stood up with each pull. While Lisa yelled warnings, I adjusted my aim and rowed even harder. We were swept bouncing down the rapids, wobbling and sliding over the boiling water and between boulders as big as little houses. But when I looked back over my shoulder to check my position, there was a rock as big as a LARGE house. And we were headed straight for it.