Chapter 1

THE DEAD SEA SQUIRRELS A Dusty Donkey Detour From the co-creator of VeggieTales Mike Nawrocki Illustrated by Luke Seguin-Magee

CHAPTER 1 Ruben yelped into the phone from his cramped hotel room in Nazareth. Next to him sat a rolling pet carrier (the ones people on airplanes use to tote their tiny terriers to Tampa) wrapped tightly with duct tape. And in that pet carrier stood Merle and Pearl Squirrel with their faces pressed up against the mesh. If you'll recall from where we last left our friends, Merle and Pearl had been re-squirrelnapped by the man in the suit and sunglasses, whose real name was Ruben. As Michael and Dr. Gomez were on their way to the famous Basilica of

the Annunciation in Nazareth to rescue their friends, Ruben received a tip about where the squirrels were hiding out and got there first. "Ein Karem. It's a little town in the hills outside of Jerusalem," the voice on the phone replied. "Why do I have to go all the way down there? I thought I was supposed to drop them off up here!" Ruben complained. "If you hadn't botched things up so badly, you could have!" the man scolded as Ruben held the phone away from his ear. "But now Dr. Gomez and his son know you're in Nazareth, so you and the squirrels need to be someplace else!" "But I'm nearly 150 kilometers from Jerusalem!" Ruben protested. In Israel, like most places in the world, the metric system is used, so distance is measured in kilometers instead of miles. As Google will tell you, 150 kilometers is a little less than 100 miles.

"And?" the man on the phone said. "It should only be a two-to three-hour drive." Ruben swallowed hard. "I... uh... I don't have a car." "What do you mean, you don't have a car?" "I sort of crashed it when the squirrels got away from me yesterday," Ruben confessed. Merle and Pearl looked at each other and smiled. It had been a very daring and exciting escape.

"Well, rent another one!" "I'm a little short on cash at the moment," Ruben admitted. A long silence followed. "Well," the voice finally said, spacing the words out, "I guess you'll just have to walk." "That'll take days!" Ruben groaned. "You'd better get started, then." The man hung up.