Bingo pulled the blanket over his head and rolled onto his stomach, vainly trying to screen out the sunlight and catch a few more minutes of rest. He had slept fitfully the night before. For several hours, he had flipped from side to side unable to sleep, listening to the incessant hooting of a nearby
screech owl and trying to wriggle free of a twisted tree root that kept poking up from underneath his mat and jabbing him in the back. He had even tried moving to another spot, one that was closer to the other lads. But that had not proven to be helpful. One of the hobbits was snoring so loudly that Bingo had to plug his ears with his fingers until he could finally fall asleep.
Reluctantly, Bingo pried open an eye and sat up, scanning the length of the camp. He was surprized to note that no one else was awake. With a groan, he sprang to his feet. From the look of the horizon and the racket the birds were making in the overhead trees, the morning was already well advanced. It was long past the hour when they should have finished their breakfast, returned to the raft, and resumed their journey down river. Adventuring, Bingo reflected, was not always as easy as it sounded in the old tales. There, no one ever overslept!
Bingo scrambled over to where his brother was sleeping and jabbed him in the ribs, "Wake up, Reggie! We've overslept."
Then he started hollering and yelling to wake up the others, all the while ruefully thinking that this was not a very auspicious omen for the third day of their trip.