Read Online Return of the Homework Machine by Dan Gutman - Free Book Online Page B

usually go an hour or so and come back up. I’d never been all the way down to the river. That’s a long hike.
    They’ve got these signs all over the trail warning you to turn back if you’re not in good shape,if you have a heart condition, if you didn’t bring enough water, stuff like that. They say that nobody should try to hike all the way down to the river and back in one day. There’s this one sign that always cracks me up—it’s a stick figure of a hiker down on his hands and knees, and he’s puking his guts out. Hey, if you get in trouble, you can’t say nobody warned you.
    MR. MURPHY. SIXTH-GRADE TEACHER
    There are a number of trails that lead from the South Rim of the canyon down to the Colorado River. I chose the Bright Angel Trail because it’s the easiest and most gradual. These kids were not experienced hikers, and I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Even so, it’s almost eight miles to the river with all the switchbacks, a 4,380-foot descent.
    KELSEY DONNELLY. GRADE 6
    I didn’t tell the others, but I had never hiked in my life. I’m sure they’d make fun of me. It’s a little embarrassing. I grew up less than a mile from the Grand Canyon, but I never even set foot below the rim until that day we went looking for the blinking red light.
    It was scary when we started out. I’m not afraid of heights or anything, but as soon as we went below the rim, it looks like you’re about to drop off a cliff. If you took a couple of steps in the wrong direction, you could fall off a rock and die.
    JUDY DOUGLAS. GRADE 6
    Everybody was in good spirits when we started out. Snik was cracking jokes and making fun of everybody. The trail is smooth and wide. It’s easy walking downhill, of course. Climbing back up is a lot harder. They say it takes twice as long to hike out as it does to hike in. We were anxious to get down to the river, but we went slowly. Mr. Murphy said we had to take a ten-minute break every hour. Even if we weren’t tired.
    KELSEY DONNELLY. GRADE 6
    It was dirty and dusty. They actually let mules carry people and supplies on the trail. Mules! We all had to move aside to let a bunch of mules go by. So I had another thing to worry about—stepping in mule manure. I really don’t like hiking.
    MR. MURPHY. SIXTH-GRADE TEACHER
    A lot of chipmunks and squirrels were scampering around. I hoped that the kids might get the chance to see some bobcats, mountain lions, and bighorn sheep too. There are actually something like fifteen hundred plant and four hundred animal species living in the Grand Canyon today. Some of them have been here since the Ice Age.
    SAM DAWKINS. GRADE 6
    Mr. Murphy was being all teacherlike. He’d say, “Look, kids, there’s a whiptail lizard!” and tell us some random fact about it. Or, “Ooh, check out that peregrine falcon! He can fly two hundred and fifty miles an hour!” I think that in teacher school they must tell all the teachers in training that they have to always be teaching, whether or not there’s anything worth learning. I was making fun of him, but in a nice way. He’s a good guy.
    BRENTON DAMAGATCHI. GRADE 6
    We came upon a little carving on the wall. It was a stick figure of a person running. Everybody thought it was graffiti, but Mr. Murphy told usit was a pictograph, sort of a prehistoric doodle. Some ancient cartoonist was trying to talk to us, but we didn’t know what he was saying. Snik wanted to make a rubbing of it, but Mr. Murphy told him not to because that would damage it. You’re not even supposed to touch them. We took some pictures instead. You know what they say—take only pictures, leave only footprints.
    My mom once told me that when she was young, they taught kids in school that Columbus “discovered” America. They made a big deal about celebrating Columbus Day. Then they found out that people lived in America more than