by Raymond Bean
Dr. Snow seemed really worried to me in that moment. It was like he was a kid that got in trouble and couldn’t get himself out. Dr. Kent acted a little like his mother (although she obviously wasn’t!).
“You realize I created that app in my sixth-grade tech class?” I said. “I’m not a scientist or anything.”
“Yes, but you’re an expert in creating excuses,” said Dr. Snow. “We need several if we’re going to keep this from the public. Do you know what will happen if people learn prehistoric beasts are roaming around the city?”
“I can’t imagine they’ll be too happy,” Dad said.
Dr. Kent added, “Benji, catching these dinosaurs isn’t going to be easy. They’re highly intelligent, and the land behind our facility extends for miles. If we don’t catch them soon, and they make contact with people, we’re going to have a much bigger problem on our hands.”
Dr. Snow agreed. “We have to catch them in a way that no one knows this little mishap ever took place,” he said. “We want to continue to study the Troodon in secrecy at another location. If the public learns about their existence, we’ll never have peace again, and the Troodon will be doomed.”
I didn’t want to be rude or anything, but I had to ask. “I hope you guys don’t take this the wrong way, but if you were clever enough to figure out how to clone live dinosaurs, shouldn’t you be able to figure out a way to catch them without my help?”
“We didn’t clone them, Benji,” Dr. Kent shared. “Dr. Snow, who happens to be very wealthy, paid the world’s leading biologists to clone the Troodon.”
“Once the dinosaurs escaped,” she said, “the scientists were afraid of getting in trouble, so they bailed out. They left us to clean up the mess.”
“So if you hired scientists to do the work, what are you guys?” I asked.
“We’re paleontologists, Benji,” said Dr. Snow. “We know a lot about dinosaur bones and their history, but not a whole lot about how to handle them if they’re alive.”
“You’re young enough to appreciate the dinosaurs, Benji,” added Dr. Kent. “We’re afraid that if we share our situation with adults, they’ll want to capitalize on it and make money. We just want to catch the Troodon safely and continue our research, not exploit them or cause them any more harm. It’s got to be you. You may be our only hope.”
CHAPTER 7
The Troodon Solution
Sometimes when I’m solving a problem, my mind takes over, and I can’t hear anything else around me. It happens when I solve puzzles and complex problems. My mind visualizes the solution one piece at a time. I see a bunch of different images in my head. The images swirl around in my mind, independent of one another. If I concentrate hard enough, I can always find a way that they connect together to make a solution.
My mother says that when I was really young, I used to call this process chicken-and-idea soup!
Even today, when I get in a deep concentration while solving a problem, my parents say I’m making soup. It was happening at the table. I was completely zoned out.
I was aware that Dad and the scientist were still talking, but I was too lost in my thoughts to hear what they were saying. There were so many things running through my mind at once that it was hard to keep up. I envisioned myself capturing the Troodon and sending them somewhere safe. My mother was there. We were standing in a field, and she was really proud of me. In that moment, it all clicked.
“I see it!” I said, snapping out of my haze.
“You see the Troodon?” asked Dr. Kent, turning around quickly.
“A solution,” I said. “I think I can solve your problem, but I’m going to need a few things first.”
“Just like that? You’ve figured out a solution?” Dr. Kent asked.
“What will you need?” Dr. Snow asked.
I grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper from the table and wrote out my list. It was like a dream. I knew that if I didn’t write everything down, I might forget something important:
15,000 Square feet of clear, high-security glass
1 Remote-control helicopter with video camera
1 Crew of carpenters/painters
1 Crane
1 Large flatbed truck
$6 million dollars in cash
75 –100 Dairy cows
150 –200 Chickens
I slid the note across the table to Dr. Snow. “Chickens?” he said. “You need chickens and cows?”
“We’ll need them if we’re going to do this right,” I said. “It’s not for me. It’s for the greater good.”
“This will be expensive,” said Dr. Snow.
“Brain power isn’t cheap,” I said, acting confident.
“And you can guarantee that no one will learn of the Troodon?” Dr. Kent asked.
“Unless someone here tells people about it,” I said, “I guarantee it.”
“Can you guarantee the safety of those chickens as well?” she added.
“I’m not prepared to answer that at this point.”
“Personally, I’m not so sure you’ve even cloned a dinosaur successfully,” Dad said, challenging them a bit. “No offense, it’s just I’m a man of science. I haven’t seen any evidence so far to lead me to think this is a real problem you have here.”
“Oh, I wish we were making this up, Mr. Franklin,” Dr. Kent said. “You’ll see soon enough, the Troodon are quite real.”
“Well, that’s what I’ll need if I’m going to capture them. I can do it quickly, and no one will ever know this happened,” I said. “You’ll have your solution and an excuse for any commotion we might cause.”
“You’ve got a deal,” Dr. Snow said.
A younger man who’d been sitting quietly across the table said, “Let’s hear how the kid plans to capture the Troodon.” The lack of white in his hair meant he was the youngest one in the room, except for me of course.
“I don’t want to know, Professor Clive,” Dr. Snow said. “If the Troodon damage or hurt someone, it’ll cost us far more than what Benji is asking. I’ll order the materials right away. We’ll send you a bill when the Troodon are all bolted safely back in their enclosures.”
“Well, in that case, what are we sitting around here talking for?” I asked. “I don’t know about you, Dad, but I want to see a living dinosaur!”
“That makes two of us,” he said.
$$$
Young Dr. Clive insisted the other scientists wait in building seven. He took Dad and I to the hangar.
We walked for several minutes down a long, narrow trail behind the buildings that led to a clearing. “Was this the old runway when this place was an airport?” I asked, glancing out into the darkness.
“Yep,” Dr. Clive replied, pointing at an old airplane hangar on the far side of the clearing. The farther we walked, I could hear a high-pitched screeching.
“Is that—?” I started to ask.
“Yes, Benji,” he replied. “That is the sound of a living dinosaur.”
Inside the hangar, there was only a three-foot wide space to stand in. The rest of the room was enclosed in a glass cage that rose all the way to the ceiling. “They’re nocturnal, you know, so she should be pretty active,” said Dr. Clive.
It was dark inside, except for the moonlight coming through the window. My eyes took a few seconds to adjust.
Dr. Clive gripped my arm and turned me toward the farthest corner of the hangar. He pointed. The Troodon stood so still that if I didn’t know better I would have thought it was a statue.
The beast stood about fifteen feet from us and was a little taller than me. We were as silent as possible. I didn’t even breathe. It shrieked, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand up and my skin to tingle with excitement.
“Unbelievable!” I whispered to Dad.
“Totally,” he whispered back.
“I wonder
how much she’d cost,” I said.
“Is that enough proof for you, Mr. Franklin?” Dr. Clive asked.
“Yes, sir,” Dad and I answered at the same time.
I couldn’t look away. The Troodon had a long, thin head and an even thinner neck. It reminded me of a mini T. rex. The skin was like a lizard’s. It was muscular and stood on two legs like an ostrich.
“That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” I said.
“It’s also the most insanely dangerous thing you may ever encounter,” Dr. Clive warned. “Don’t take these beasts lightly, young man. They’re brighter than you might imagine.”
“They must be clever if they managed to get out of here,” I said, looking around the enclosure.
“They had one of the largest brains in the dinosaur world,” explained Dr. Clive.
“You must mean have,” said Dad. I was wondering how to transport the Troodon to my space station zoo.
“Dr. Snow thought he’d be able to bring them back and train them to be pets.”
“Looks like they outsmarted Dr. Snow,” I said.
“A rock could outsmart Dr. Snow,” whispered Dr. Clive. “He’s book smart, but he doesn’t have any common sense. I tried to warn him that this was a bad idea, but he wanted no part of it.”
“He’s the reason the others got out,” Clive said. “He left the enclosure open! I don’t know which I find more unbelievable: the fact that we cloned dinosaurs, or the fact that we were careless enough to let them escape.”
Dad and I were hardly listening. We were both entranced by the Troodon.
“I love dinosaurs,” he said. “Always have. The Troodon is miraculous. Some scientists theorize that if the dinosaurs hadn’t died off, the Troodon would have evolved into a being with intelligence similar to that of humans.”
“Humans?” I said.
“I’ve always thought they were more like birds than anything else. They just happened to have enormous brains,” he said. “Now that I’ve actually seen them and looked them in the eye...if they’d had time to evolve another 70 million years or so, who knows? Maybe they’d be running this planet instead of us.”
“Well, Dr. Clive, I think I should see one of these fellas in the wild, if I’m going to catch them,” I said.
“That shouldn’t be a problem. I know the perfect place,” Dr. Clive said.
$$$
Moments later, we were waiting up in a lookout tower that Dr. Clive said was an old air signal tower, when Dad’s cell phone rang. “It’s Mom,” he said.
Dr. Clive had already put out some meat in the field below us. He wanted to draw the Troodon out where I could see them.
Dad answered in a whisper. “Hi…I know it’s late, honey,” he said. “I’m not sure how much longer…you wouldn’t believe me if I told you…I know he has school tomorrow…he’s right here. Hold on.”
I took the phone.
“Hi, Mom,” I whispered.
“What are you guys doing? It’s almost midnight,” she asked.
“I know, Mom, but we’re experiencing something that I can’t really even believe is happening,” I said. “I’ll tell you all about it when I get home in the morning.” She wasn’t too happy about the fact that I was out so late, but she could tell it was important.
“Didn’t you sign an agreement that you wouldn’t tell anyone outside of the group about the dinosaurs?” Dr. Clive asked.
“Yes, but my mom doesn’t count,” I replied. “If you can’t trust your mom, who can you trust?”
The Troodon appeared as if on cue. There were three of them. They gnawed on the meat and glanced cautiously around. More appeared slowly from the woods. Each one looked gray in the moonlight, stood about three feet tall, and looked like it had crawled right out of a sci-fi movie.
“That is officially the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” I whispered to Dad, handing him his cell phone. He tried to take it, but must have lost his grip because it fell to the floor.
The noise startled the Troodon and, in an instant, they were gone.
“Now you see why catching them will be such a challenge,” Dr. Clive said. “They’re quick and smart. You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I assured him. “No one will even know they were loose.”
CHAPTER 8
The Daily Grind
Dad and I didn’t get home until four in the morning. Still, I managed to drag myself to class.
“Someone looks tired,” Mrs. Heart said, spotting me napping at my desk.
“I was up working on, uh...” I remembered my contract with the Institute. “A special project.”
“You’re too exhausted to learn,” she said.
“I am!” I exclaimed. “In fact, I think I’d like to talk with the principal, Mrs. Heart. Can you please call down to her office and see if Mrs. Petty will meet me?”
Mrs. Heart looked shocked. She stared at me as if I had just said something in a foreign language that she didn’t understand.
“What did you ask, Benji?” she said. “Are you sure you don’t mean the nurse?”
“No, I’d like to see Mrs. Petty, the principal,” I repeated. “Please.”
“She’s a busy woman, Benji,” Mrs. Heart replied. “Students are usually not given the opportunity to simply stroll in and have a meeting.”
“I realize that, and I mean no disrespect, Mrs. Heart,” I continued. “But I’m going to need to see the principal.”
The other kids were as confused as Mrs. Heart.
As far as I knew, a student at my school had never asked to sit down with the principal.
But, after a few moments, she agreed.
$$$
Ten minutes later, I returned to class with a note from the principal. The note informed Mrs. Heart that I was headed home early, and I’d be out for a few days. My classmates were stunned, but they weren’t as shocked as my mother was when she arrived to pick me up.
“You must be so proud of Benji,” the principal said to Mom, in the office.
“I’m very proud of him,” Mom said, looking confused.
“First, the success of his app.” Mrs. Petty was clearly working to fake a smile. “Which, I’ll admit, is causing a lot of problems at the school, but at the same time raising some interesting conversations about honesty in the classroom.”
“To be honest, I’m not a big fan of the app either,” Mom added.
“But you must be so proud of his newest project!” Mrs. Petty exclaimed.
“I am,” Mom said, looking confused. I knew Dad had told her about the Troodon after I left for school. “His father and I are very proud. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out. He’s living a very exciting life these days.”
“I think it’s going to do a lot of good!”
“Well, we should get going,” I said to Mom.
“I told Benji to take as many days as he needs for this project. Just keep us posted,” said Mrs. Petty.
“I will,” I promised. Mom and I walked out of the office. She didn’t say a word until we got in the car and closed the doors.
“What was that all about?” she asked. “Your father said you guys signed a paper saying you wouldn’t talk about the dinosaurs to anyone.”
“Who said I mentioned anything about the dinosaurs to the principal?” I asked.
“You didn’t make up some crazy excuse to get out of school did you?” questioned Mom.
“Nope, I told her the truth,” I said.
“The whole truth?”
I cracked a small smile. “I just left out the parts about the dinosaurs.”
I may also have mentioned something about making a sizeable donation to the school. How does the Benjamin “Benji” Franklin Mega Media Center sound?
CHAPTER 9
A Dino-Mite Plan!
Word spread quickly that I was working on a project at the old airport. The fact that trucks containing cows, chickens, and huge sheets of thick plastic were rolling through town may have helped. Our town is pretty small. Anytime something out of the ordinary happens, people know.
That afternoon, I met with Dr. Snow and Dr. Kent in a small office located near the hangar. Workers were assembling the high-security plastic into three large containers.
“When this thing’s over, people will wonder what was going on back here,” I said. “We’ll have to work fast and get this done the first time. If everything goes as planned, I’ll have the Troodon safely captured and loaded on a truck. You’ll have to relocate them somewhere far from here.”
“I already have a place lined up,” Dr. Snow said. “It’s perfectly safe, secure, and secluded.”
“Fantastic!” I exclaimed. “By tomorrow morning, the town won’t know any of this ever happened. Dr. Snow, if all goes as planned, I have one more thing I’m going to need from you guys.”
“Anything, Benji,” Dr. Snow agreed. “If you get us out of this dinosaur mess, you just say the word.”
“I’ll need you guys to give me the old airport,” I told him. “In return, I’ll donate funds to help you guys keep the Troodon out of trouble.”
“No need for that, Benji,” Dr. Kent said. “If you manage to save the day and recapture the Troodon safely, you’ll have earned this airport.” She reached out and shook my hand.
“What do you want the airport for?” Dr. Snow asked. “A personal jet?”
“No, I don’t plan to do any flying,” I said. (Besides, my own private jet was in the repair shop.)
“It’ll be a gruesome scene if the Troodon attack the cows and chickens,” Dr. Kent said, changing the subject.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
“What about all those cows and chickens?” Dr. Snow asked. “I think you may have gone a bit overboard on the bait. We’ve managed to lure the Troodon in with only a few steaks.”