"Alright, kids. Be careful. The trail here gets treacherous. Many have fallen trying to find these ancient ruins."
"You mean they were killed? By who? How? Do we have to watch out for poisoned darts coming out of the bushes?" Dewey asked.
"What? No! They fell off the side of the mountain!"
The kids peered off the edge of the trail, which, sure enough, ended in a sheer drop.
"All in favor of not telling Uncle Donald about walking along the side of a cliff?" Huey asked.
Four hands shot up.
"I thought we weren't telling him about any of this," Webby said, her hand raised.
"Well, yeah, but in case he finds out anyway, we make extra sure to leave this part out," said Louie.
"And what if he still finds out about it?" asked Webby.
"He'll probably goes ballistic and try to drown Uncle Scrooge in the swimming pool," Dewey said with a shrug.
"Uncle Donald can throw a mean punch when he gets mad enough," Louie said.
"Yeah. You should have seen him at Dewey's third grade parent-teacher conference," Huey said.
"Hey!" Dewey said, punching his brother in the arm.
"She almost kicked him out of her class after that," Louie said.
"Honestly, it probably would have been for the best," Huey said.
"No, it wouldn't have been," Dewey protested. "And she didn't almost kick me out her class, there was just...talk of me switching to another one."
"Psh. Same thing," Louie said. "Either way, you survived the third grade, so what's the big deal?"
"Boys, focus!" Scrooge said. "Keep an eye out for anything that looks like ancient runes or pictographs. And don't fall off the mountain!" he added, yanking Dewey away from the edge with his cane.
The group continued on, slowly, as the path continued to get narrower and narrower. The triplets grabbed hands to make sure that none of them fell, and Dewey added Webby to their chain.
"U-uncle Scrooge? Don't you think we should...turn back?" Huey asked.
"Turn back? You don't get to where I am by turning back, lad," Scrooge said.
"What if I'd rather not die?" Huey said.
"Adventuring isn't without its risks," Scrooge replied. "And neither is making money."
At that moment, Louie's foot slipped off the slide of the cliff, very nearly sending him tumbling down to the depths below. If not for his brothers holding onto him…
The five adventurers watched the dislodged rocks as they fell in Louie's place. Louie's heart was beating so hard that Dewey was almost certain he could feel it in his hand. Either that, or that was his own pulse he was feeling.
"Alright, kids, turn around. We're heading back," Scrooge said.
All the money in the world wasn't worth the lives of these four kids.
Author's Note: My headcanon for Dewey is that he has ADHD and Donald has fought tooth and nail to make sure he was given the accommodations he needed (and that those accommodations, once put in his IEP, were actually implemented by his teachers). His third grade teacher was the type who didn't believe that ADHD was a real thing, but after the school's administration got wind that she wasn't following the kid's IEP, some extra training (and a reminder that not following a kid's IEP is breaking the law), she shaped up. Also, Donald earned a permanent place on the district's "parents whose conferences have to be attended by a third party (i.e. the principal or guidance counselor)" list. Though, to be fair, he's a perfectly model parent if the teacher's actually doing what they're supposed to be doing. (Can you tell I have a bachelors degree in elementary education?)