The Yellow Yacht Read Online Free PDF Page B

Later, when we were snorkeling, Hugotold us the sunken boat had rocks in it to weigh it down. Then I remembered a strange thing about Dr. Skor’s boat. I couldn’t see the green stripe and wondered why. The next thing that popped into my head was, something heavy must be weighing the yacht down. Something made the stripe sink below the water.”
    “And of course it was gold,” the king said. He raised his lemonade glass to Dink. “Excellent reasoning, young man.”
    “How did Dr. Skor get the gold to his boat?” Josh asked.
    “He told the cops his men took it out through the aquarium pipe,” the king said. “They just slid the gold bars right into the water, probably at night. Then his crew moved the gold underwater to that platform he’d already built onto
Sundown’s
bottom.”
    “But how could the men swim while carrying that heavy gold?” Ruth Rose asked.
    The king looked at Hugo. “Why don’t you tell them?” he said.
    “Everything weighs less in the water,” Hugo explained. “The crooks probably wore scuba equipment. They could easily carry the gold in baskets like deep-sea divers use.”
    The king grinned at Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose. “I don’t know how to thank you,” he said.
    “I do,” Josh announced. He reached for the last piece of Sammi’s birthday cake.

One of the questions kids ask me all the time is “Are Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose real people?” The answer is no. None of my characters is a person from my life. But like other writers, I sometimes think of real people as I invent characters for my stories. For example, Dink is partly me when I was eight, and partly a boy named Tommy who was in my fourth-grade class when I was a teacher. Tom was a reader and gave every decision a lot of thought, just like Dink.
    When I was creating the character of Josh, I remembered my best friend in the sixth grade. His name was Larry, and we had a lot of fun together. Like Josh, Larry seemed to be eating all the time! But Larry had black hair, not red. He had no freckles, and he wasn’t tall and skinny like Josh is.
    I gave Ruth Rose my initials because I love to use alliteration in my stories. Forthis series, I knew I wanted a smart girl who could stand up to Josh’s teasing. Years ago, there was a girl actress named Shirley Temple. In her movies, she didn’t let any boys get the best of her! She had curly hair and dancing eyes, and I was thinking of her when I began developing Ruth Rose’s feisty character.

    Part of the fun of reading is meeting new characters. Sometimes these characters might remind you of people you know. That’s great! Just remember that in fiction, almost everything is made up by the author.
    I hope you enjoyed reading
The Yellow Yacht.
I certainly enjoyed going to Costra (a made-up country!) and meeting Sammi and his parents.
    Please pay a visit to my Web site at www.ronroy.com . Happy reading!
    Sincerely,

Collect clues with Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose
in their last exciting adventure ,

THE ZOMBIE ZONE
    Inside the cemetery, about thirty people were clustered in a bunch. Some of the people were shouting. A few were crying.
    “What’re they doing?” Ruth Rose asked.
    “I’ll find out,” Jack said. He walked over to the group, with the kids following. Jack knelt on a pile of red dirt next to an old man. In front of them both were two deep holes in the ground.
    “Two graves have been robbed this week,” the old man said to Jack. “My wife and I are afraid. She wants us to leave here now. She says we can’t stay near zombies.”



Text copyright © 2005 by Ron Roy
Illustrations copyright © 2005 by John Steven Gurney
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
    www.randomhouse.com/kids
www.steppingstonesbooks.com
    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roy, Ron.
The yellow yacht / by Ron Roy; illustrated