Book Four of ten · Rookie Season
Bridge Out at Canyon Ridge!
A broken bridge, a scared truck, one big plan.
Week 2 · Tuesday, at dawn · Canyon Ridge
At dawn, the old bridge at Canyon Ridge falls down, and nobody is on it. But a kind yellow delivery truck is stuck on the far side, with supplies for half of Rumble City and a big fear of high places. Big Stomp wants to jump across right now. Torque wants a plan. When the first plan crumbles, the crew needs a wrecking ball, two fence posts, one borrowed cable, two Thunder Stomps and the longest thirty seconds of Big Stomp’s life.
The books are not on sale yet. Nothing on this site takes orders or payments.
Read it right here
Chapter One The Bridge Went Crack
Watch and listen to Chapter One
Just listen
Read aloud by a computer-made voice, with sounds made in our workshop. Nothing plays until you press play.
Big Stomp was always the first truck awake.
He liked the Garage at dawn. It was gray and quiet, and the big doors glowed pink around their edges. Five trucks were still asleep in their bays with their headlights dimmed. Mudslide was snoring. It sounded like a giant pot of mud going blub, blub, blub.
Big Stomp was halfway through his morning fuel-up when the Command Screen flashed red.
BEE-BEEP! BEE-BEEP!
Headlights popped on all over the Garage. Bounce sprang straight up in his bay, boing. Nitro was out on the floor before his engine had even finished starting.
“LET’S CRUSH IT!” roared Big Stomp.
He had not read the screen yet. He just liked to be ready.
Torque rolled up beside him and read it for him.
“It’s a bridge, Big Stomp,” she said. “It’s already crushed.”
A map filled the screen. Far away to the northeast, past Mud Mountain, were the deep red canyons of Canyon Ridge. A red X blinked in the middle of them.
“The old bridge over the Gap,” said Torque. “It fell down this morning, right at sunrise.”
Smash rolled out of her bay with a sleepy clank. “Was anybody on it?”
“Nobody,” said Torque. “Not one truck.”
Every truck in the Garage let out a long sigh through its intake.
Then the radio crackled, and a wobbly voice came on.
“Hello? Hello? Is this the Mash Motors Crew?”
The map zoomed in. At the edge of a canyon sat a big, boxy yellow truck. On his side, in tall letters, it said RUMBLE CITY SUPPLY CO.
“It sure is,” said Big Stomp. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” said the delivery truck. “I’m just stuck. I was driving home, and I was just about to roll onto the bridge when it went creak. So I stopped. Then it went CRACK.” His voice went very small. “And then it just... went.”
“You stopped,” said Big Stomp. “That was good stopping.”
“Thank you,” said the delivery truck. “I’m a very good stopper.”
“Is there another way home?” asked Torque.
“No. The canyon goes on for miles and miles, and the bridge was the only way across.” He gave a nervous little honk. “And I’ve got supplies for half the city in here! Paint. Light bulbs. Boxes and boxes of bolts. Forty steel fence posts for the new fence at the park. And...”
“And?” said Big Stomp.
“And I don’t like high places,” said the delivery truck. “I don’t even like tall curbs.”
Big Stomp looked at the yellow truck on the screen, all alone at the edge of that huge red canyon. He wanted to be there right now. Right this very second.
“We can’t exactly toss him across,” said Smash.
“No,” said Torque. Her crane arm was already tapping the screen. “But we can build him a way across. For that, I need a cable. A very, very long cable.”
“How long?” asked Big Stomp.
“Longer than anything we’ve got.”
There was only one truck in Rumble City who kept everything. Big Stomp called him on the radio.
“Rusty? It’s Big Stomp. We need the longest cable you’ve got.”
For a moment there was only a tick, tick, tick on the radio, like an old clock. Then a slow, warm voice came back.
“Meet you at the east gate, kid.”
The end of Chapter One
The adventure keeps going in the book.