Three cousins are traveling through a desert. They are visually simple: All three have white bodies with rounded edges, bulbous noses, and black dot eyes. They resemble cartoon bones.

Phoncible “Phoney” P. Bone has been run out of Boneville because “a couple of [his] shady business deals went sour” (18). Previously, he was the richest Bone in Boneville. He wears a shirt with a star on it. Phoney’s cousins are helping him skip town. Smiley, the middle cousin, has a broad grin and chain-smokes cigars. Fone is the youngest. They are lost and have run out of water. Smiley finds a map of a nearby mountain range, but it is crudely drawn and impossible to read. They are swarmed by locusts and separated.

A large creature in a cave watches Fone. In a later chapter, we will learn that this is the Great Red Dragon. Fone follows a trail of Smiley’s cigar butts. Unwittingly, he is followed by the Red Dragon.

While Fone is sleeping, two monsters approach him. This pair will reoccur and will be unofficially designated as “Stupid Rat Creatures.” They check to see if Fone is “the one […] [with] the star on its chest” (27). He has no star, so they resolve to eat him.