Beware the Tiny-Spino

by Dustin Hansen

  “Well, you’re already a horrible whisperer,” Vicky said. “I don’t think this makes a big difference.”

  “Can we discuss this later? I’m ready to dive in,” I said. “I have to leave my communicator with my backpack. Not sure I want to get it wet. So, really what I’m saying is, be nice to each other and hurry!”

  I was about to dive in when something tickled my feet. I looked down into the icy cold water and got my first break all day. The shallows of the lake were covered in blue, hairlike strings of algae. I reached down and picked a bunch of it, stuffed my pockets full of the stuff, then slipped the Invisible Communicator back in my ear.

  “I’m back!” I said.

  “What? That was fast,” Lin said.

  “And easy, for a change,” I said.

  “Good. Come help me dig, then,” Lin said.

  I was about to reply, when a scream stole my attention.

  “HELLLLLP MEEEE!” Vicky shouted in our ears so loud it actually hurt. “They are everywhere!”

  “The pterodactyls,” I said to Lin.

  “Yea. And guess who’s wearing a sparkly jacket?” Lin said.

  “I didn’t even think of that! What have we done?”

  “We’ll dig later. I guess we have to help Vicky.”

  I started running, but the thought that Lin was willing to help Vicky, rather than let her live the rest of her life stuffed in a bug jar, or worse, be carried away by a glitter-loving pterodactyl, gave me hope as I made my way toward the eucalyptus trees. Who knows, maybe for the second time that day I was about to get a break. Maybe Lin and Vicky could get along after all.

  CHAPTER 11

  A TREE FULL OF TROUBLE

  Lin got to the tree first but not by much. By the time we arrived, there were six small goobery pterodactyls perched on the branches around Vicky, plus one very large pterodactyl named Twiggy, who sneezed loudly from a branch below her.

  “When you said banzai tree, I thought it was going to be small,” Lin said. “This thing is massive.”

  “What took you guys so long?” Vicky shouted down at us.

  “We got here as fast as we could. I’m coming up to help,” I said, then started climbing.

  “What can I do?” asked Lin.

  “We need a distraction,” Vicky shouted. “Every time I pick a leaf, one of these guys steals it from me. Watch!”

  Sure enough, Vicky picked one of the tender eucalyptus leaves, and as soon as it was in her hands, one of the small pterodactyls reached in and snatched it from her.

  I was nearly halfway up the tree when I spotted a young leaf close enough to reach. I plucked and held it out. The pterodactyls weren’t interested in my leaf at all. I showed it to Lin and called down.

  “Just what we thought. This isn’t about leaves; it’s about sparkles,” I said. “Here. Catch.” I dropped the leaf, and it floated down to Lin.

  “Vicky. Good news, bad news. The good news is, you’re an excellent distraction. The bad news is, the pterodactyls don’t want your leaves. They want your shiny jacket,” Lin shouted up to Vicky.

  “Ha. Very funny. Nice try, Lin. There is no way I’m falling for that trick,” Vicky said.

  “I’m not kidding. Twiggy wants it for her nest. The rest are just there to help her,” Lin said.

  “Which one is Twiggy?” Vicky asked.

  “The big one,” I said as I picked another leaf, then another. I dropped them down to Lin.

  “Well, there is NO way I’m giving my brand-new, custom-fitted, limited-edition amethyst Ruby Girls tour jacket to a Microsaur!” Vicky shouted. Twiggy took a snip at her, caught the sleeve of her jacket, and gave it a tug. Vicky pulled it back from her and stared the huge pterodactyl in the eyes. “NO WAY!”

  “Um, I thought your jacket was purple,” I said as I dropped three more leaves.

  “Amethyst IS purple, for your information,” Vicky said.

  “I don’t know who is snippier, Vicky or Twiggy,” Lin said, and I had to agree she had a point.

  I picked a few more leaves, dropped them to Lin, and decided we had enough to make Dr. Carlyle’s Miracle Fog. “Vicky. You need to give up your jacket. We have enough leaves for the Fog and we need to make a run for it.”

  Twiggy sneezed, filling the air around Vicky with a fine mist of Microsaur germs. “I’m coming down, but I’m keeping the jacket,” she said. “See you at the bottom, Danny.”

  Before I could suggest one more time that she leave her jacket behind, Vicky jumped forward and grabbed on to a branch. She pulled herself up to her waist and swung around the branch. Then she let go, did a flip in the air, and grabbed a lower branch on her way down. She swung up, flipped her knees around the branch, and swung around it twice. Next, she did a double backflip to the ground. When she landed, perfectly I might add, she raised her hands above her head and beamed with pride.

  Lin and I looked at her in total shock. She looked back at us and smiled. “What? Four years of gymnastics with the best coach on earth. Did you expect anything less than a perfect dismount?”

  “That was impressive,” I said as I worked my way quickly down.

  Twiggy flapped her massive wings and flew up in the air, scattering the other, smaller pterodactyls. She screeched a high-pitched call, then dove right toward us.

  “RUN!” Lin shouted.

  Lin and Vicky sprinted away, and I jumped out of the tree and chased after them. I looked over my shoulder and saw Twiggy, with a sparkle in her eye and a wide grin on her long mouth. She stretched out her massive clawed feet.

  “DUCK!” I shouted as I jumped to the ground. Lin and Vicky did, too, barely missing Twiggy’s grip. The huge winged Microsaur zipped back up into the sky, turned around as fast as a trickster airplane pilot, then shot toward us again.

  Lin dropped some of the leaves, but there was no time to pick them up. We bolted forward, running down the hill as fast as we could. I saw Twiggy’s shadow swooping toward us, coming in fast.

  “Quick! Under here,” Lin said as she jumped beneath a fallen log. Vicky followed her, and I crammed in what was left of the space.

  Twiggy flew by us, bolted straight up in the air, then flapped down and landed on the log. Her big toes carved into the wood and flecks of sawdust floated down in front of our eyes. Then she bent over, put her head against the ground, and looked at us upside down and SCREEECHED!

  When there wasn’t something shiny around that Twiggy wanted, she was as kind as any Microsaur in the Microterium. But when she was eyeballing something she wanted, there was just no way around it, and we all knew it.

  “Fine,” Vicky said as she took off her jacket. “You can have it. But I want the record to show that I am NOT happy with this decision.”

  “What record?” Lin asked.

  “The IMPA challenge record. This has to count for something,” Vicky said.

  I had totally forgotten that we were still doing the IMPA challenge. We’d been so busy trying to help the Microsaurs and trying not to get snapped up by Twiggy that it had completely escaped my mind.

  “Sure. It’ll count. Just give the jacket to her so we can get out of here,” Lin said.

  Vicky tossed her jacket, and it landed on Twiggy’s nose. The Microsaur chirped happily, flapped just far enough away that we could see exactly what she was going to do next but couldn’t reach her, and then she preceded to shred Vicky’s brand-new, custom-fitted, limited-edition amethyst Ruby Girls tour jacket.

  “Oh, come on. That was just rude,” Vicky said. For a second, I thought she was going to cry.

  “Well, think of it this way, Vicky. If Twiggy ever has a nest full of baby Twiggys, they’ll be wrapped up in your brand-new, custom-fitted, limited-edition amethyst Ruby Girls tour jacket shreds,” Lin said.

  Vicky smiled a little. She looked over at Lin, and she smiled, too.

  “Okay. I’ll admit. That is pretty cool,” Vicky said.

  CHAPTER 12

  DR. CARLYLE’S MIRACLE FOG

  On the way
back to the Fruity Stars Lab 3.0, we stopped and finished digging out the ginger root by the side of Snow Lake. It was by far the heaviest ingredient, and it took all three of us to carry it. As we walked, I read through the instructions Dr. Carlyle gave us for making her Miracle Fog.

  “First, we need to smash the ginger root with a mortar and pestle,” I said.

  “Great. First item on the list and I’m already confused,” Lin said.

  “A mortar and pestle is a ceramic dish and a smashing tool that you use to, well, smash things,” I explained, then kept reading. “Next we need to boil and strain the liquid from the eucalyptus leaves.”

  “I know how to boil things,” Vicky said.

  I nodded and went back to the notes. “Then we need to dry the algae and crumble it up into a fine dust.”

  “How are we going to do that? The stuff is super wet. It’s soaking through your pants,” Lin said.

  “We’ll need heat and lots of it. We’re going to have to expand to do all this, aren’t we?” Vicky said.

  “Yes, especially when you read the next part,” I said. “Then we measure the ingredients perfectly, add them to a flask and turn them into steam, cool the steam down, and turn it into fog that we can release into the Microterium.”

  “How in the world do we do that?” Lin asked.

  “It is easier than it sounds, but there are a lot of steps and we’ll need to be really careful,” I said.

  “And we still need to hurry,” Lin said as we arrived at the lab. Pizza and Cornelia had joined Bruno and the others, and even they were too gooped up and exhausted to chase and play.

  “Come on, then. Let’s go,” I said. I dropped my end of the ginger root and ran toward the lab.

  “Don’t we need to expand that?” Vicky asked.

  “It’s already regular-sized. If not, ginger would be the size of a couch in real life,” Lin said as she chased after me.

  “Oh yeah,” Vicky said, then started to laugh. I don’t know what was so funny, but something about a ginger root the size of a couch made us all laugh. In fact, we kept laughing the whole time we expanded, and we didn’t stop until we collected our non-couch-sized ginger and found our way to the barn-lab.

  It didn’t take long to find what we needed to make Dr. Carlyle’s Miracle Fog. Professor Penrod’s barn-lab was well stocked. Lin started smashing up the ginger root with the mortar and pestle. I showed Vicky how to use the Bunsen burner to boil water in a beaker, and she used that to boil down the eucalyptus leaves into a thick blue-green liquid. And with a little help from an old toaster oven I found under the desk, I had the blue algae dry and crispy in less than twenty seconds.

  While Vicky carefully measured out the ingredients, Lin found the perfect flask for us to make our steam. I hooked a long, coiled tube to the end of the flask, then passed it through a bucket of cold water, and placed the end of the tube over the edge of the big metal step.

  “So, how does this work exactly?” Vicky asked as Lin turned up the heat on the Bunsen burner, directing the flame on the bottom of the flask of Dr. Carlyle’s Miracle Fog solution.

  “It’s simple, really. The solution heats up to a boil; then the steam has to have somewhere to go because it has expanded. But the steam will still be really hot, until it passes through all these coils down in the cold water bucket. After the steam is cooled, it will flow through the rest of the tube and out into the Microterium. I’ve turned this fan on to its lowest setting and put it just below the step, and that should help the Fog travel to every little corner of the place in no time,” I explained. “It’s not perfect, but I think it’s going to work just fine.”

  “I do, too,” said Lin. “But I was thinking, it might be really cool to see the Fog from down there.” She pointed to the Fruity Stars Lab 3.0.

  “You took the words right out of my mouth,” I said.

  “To the Shrink-A-Fier,” Vicky said, and we all made our way to the big metal step.

  As the machine whirled to life, I noticed the first little puff of Dr. Carlyle’s Miracle Fog escape from the end of the tube. Orange particles swirled around us, and we began to shrink. In less than a second, we were standing on the metal step, rushing toward the Slide-A-Riffic.

  As we coasted down the Slide-A-Riffic zip line, we passed over the tops of trees and entered into the Fog that was starting to build up all around.

  Lin took in a deep breath and smiled. “This stuff smells really good.”

  I took a little sniff, then breathed in deep as well.

  “I bet the Microsaurs are going to love it,” Vicky said. “Let’s go check on them.”

  I could hear some coughing before we even made it all the way to the Fruity Stars Lab 3.0, and I was worried. But when I saw the Microsaurs, I felt much better. Zip-Zap was walking around, flapping her wings, and even doing a couple of hops. Pizza and Cornelia weren’t chasing anything around just yet, but they were at least nudging each other with their wide heads and growling a little. And while there was still some coughing, at least the sneezing had stopped.

  Bruno was sitting in the grass, sniffing at the Fog as it rolled by. I unzipped my pack, pulled out a jar of peanut butter, and slathered it on a nice, tasty-looking stick.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said. He looked over at me and sniffed. “You ready for a snack?”

  Bruno woofed, then smiled as a big snot bubble popped out of his left nostril. He bounded over to me and took the stick and started munching on it right away.

  “He looks a lot better,” Lin said.

  Honk-Honk let out a half wheeze, half honk. It wasn’t great, but it was progress.

  “Dr. Carlyle was right. This Fog is a miracle,” Vicky said.

  “All in all, it’s been a pretty good day,” Lin said.

  “Good, or great?” I asked, because if Lin was feeling great, then I had a serious question for her.

  “I’d say great,” Lin said. “Most days in the Microterium are great.”

  “Well, is it great enough to let Vicky pass the IMPA challenge?” I asked. “I know there’s still the bug jar over there, but I think she’s proved quite a lot.”

  Lin rubbed her chin and thought hard, but Vicky chimed in before she could answer.

  “No way,” she said with her hands on her hips and her head held high. “My dad always says, if you’re doing to do a job, do it right.”

  “Really? You don’t think you passed?” I asked. Lin looked at me and shrugged.

  “Well, let’s see. There was the bravery test, and we all agreed I passed that by facing Twiggy and giving up my brand-new custom-fitted limited-edition amethyst Ruby Girls tour jacket,” Vicky said.

  “Right. That was pretty brave. Twiggy can even give me the shivers when she’s after something shiny,” Lin said.

  “And then there was the quest challenge. Not sure what you had planned, Lin, but if building a leaf raft, creating a rainstorm, collecting all the ingredients for Dr. Carlyle’s Miracle Fog, and helping spread it to the whole Microterium isn’t a quest, then I don’t know what a quest is,” Vicky said.

  “She has a point,” I said, and Lin nodded.

  “Fine. That counts,” Lin said.

  “But then there is the food challenge, which should have been the easiest of them all, but we didn’t really do that, did we?” Vicky said.

  “Can we count the crepes you made us for breakfast?” I asked. Lin shook her head.

  “I know sometimes ChuChu acts like a Microsaur, but the rule did say that she had to feed real Microsaurs,” Lin said.

  “Well, then I have an idea. One final challenge before I’m ready for the Promise Keeper’s Oath. Lin, I need the pepperoni and corn dog in your back pocket,” Vicky said as she held out her hand.

  “I’m sure it’s pretty smooshed by now,” Lin said.

  “I’m not sure it’ll work. It looks like Pizza and Cornelia are feeling a little sick still,” I said.

  “It’s not for them, and I need the Expand-O-Matic, Danny. Can you turn
that on for me, please?” Vicky asked, taking charge and giving orders, which was something she was very good at.

  “Okay. Right away, Captain,” I said. I don’t know why I did it, but I saluted her before I ran to turn on the expanding machine.

  As the machine warmed up, I watched as Lin and Vicky walked toward the big copper penny that worked as a reactor for the Carbonic Expansion Particles that flowed from the Expand-O-Matic. They were laughing and quietly talking to each other. It looked to me like they were starting to become friends. Maybe it was just Dr. Carlyle’s Miracle Fog in the air, but I didn’t think so. The Microterium has a way of making that happen.

  Lin handed Vicky the plastic bag containing the smashed pepperoni and corn dog muck. Vicky took it, emptied it in her hands, and rolled it into a ball that looked like a soggy, not-so-delicious version of the Microbites Lin had invented earlier. She put the tiny ball on the penny and gave me two thumbs-up.

  CHAPTER 13

  BACK TO THE BOG

  Bruno, Zip-Zap, and Honk-Honk were still a little slower than usual, but they seemed to enjoy the walk to Frank’s Bog. Vicky and I rode on Bruno again, because Honk-Honk was busy carrying the big glump of food Vicky had just expanded. The Fog was getting thicker and thicker as we made our way into the swampy area, and I had to admit, I was feeling a little nervous. And it didn’t help when Vicky started calling for Frank-N-Spine, promising him a nice big dinner.

  “Franky-Wanky, I have your dinner-winner, you big muddy kitty-saurus. Come join little Vicky-Wicky and I’ll give you a nice helping of yummy smashed corn-dog-and-pepperoni muck. You’re going to love it,” she said as loud as she could.

  We rode the Microsaurs into the bog for quite a while, Zip-Zap not enjoying the mud between her toes at all. We looked and looked, but Frank-N-Spine was nowhere to be found. Eventually, the Microsaurs were so tired of walking in the muck and glop that they gave up.