“Well, that was impressive,” Lin said.
“Uh-huh,” I said again.
“I just rode a charging, furious triceratops, and I didn’t even get a scratch on me. That was impressive,” Lin said.
I nodded, because I had to agree. Although at my size I was sure Lin couldn’t see it. I think I was in shock.
“Oh, and I’m not the only one. The wall didn’t get a scratch, either. Awesome, Danny. The test was a success,” Lin said in my ear.
I blinked. I rubbed my eyes. I swallowed a dry lump in my throat.
“Danny? Are you okay?” Lin said.
From the forest behind me, I heard Pizza and Cornelia growling again. I turned and looked just as the pack of tiny-raptors came running from the trees … again.
CHAPTER 6
THE MASTER OF DISASTER
The pack of raptors flapped their tiny wings and squawked around me. They were trying to climb on me and get behind me. I guess they were looking for me to protect them from Pizza and Cornelia, but what could I do? I was as helpless as they were. I snapped out of my fog and started thinking. I tapped my Invisible Communicator so Lin could hear me.
“Lin. You’ve got to catch the twins. They are going to destroy the entire Microterium,” I said.
“No problem,” Lin said. “And then we can go to the zoo.”
I called to Bruno for some help shooing away the oviraptors. He galloped over toward me, but stopped dead in his tracks when the twin tiny-saurus rexes growled in the trees again.
“Wait. Did you say the zoo?” I asked Lin.
“Yeah. Just because we had a little accident doesn’t mean we are skipping the zoo,” Lin said.
“That is exactly what that means. EXACTLY. Lin, this place is totally destroyed, and it’s getting worse. I ruin everything. I’m the master of disaster,” I said. I was covered in oviraptors, a situation I never expected to find myself in.
The twins roared out of the forest, their shiny teeth gleaming in the sunshine. They didn’t look mean to me, they looked like they wanted to play. But Bruno and the oviraptors saw things differently. The oviraptors tensed up, digging their claws painfully into my arms, my shoulders, even to the top of my head. It was all too much!
“Get off me!” I shouted as I jumped and waved my arms around. Feathers floated to the ground around me as the oviraptors flapped away, looking for a safe spot that wouldn’t yell at them.
“Don’t worry. I got this,” Lin said. Then her massive hand reached down from the sky and she picked up Cornelia by her tail. I watched as Lin lifted her in the air and placed her inside the tin mint case that had been their temporary home since they had hatched. Pizza started running around, snapping and growling now that he had been separated from his sister.
“Come here, little guy,” Lin said in what she thought was a soothing voice but to me it was as loud as thunder. Pizza tried to run away and hide from Lin’s loud voice, but she scooped him up and put him in the mint tin with his sister.
“There. Problem solved,” Lin said. She placed the mint tin down next to me. It was odd to see it from my tiny point of view, because it really was big enough to make a comfy home for Pizza and Cornelia. That is, until they grew up.
“Well, that’s one problem down. We only have about fifty thousand more,” I said as I looked around at the chaos. I started winding up the long coil hose that used to connect the Expand-O-Matic tank and spray nozzle together. “We have to get this lab out of here and start cleaning this place up.”
Lin, in her large size, made quick work of the cleanup. The Fruity Stars box rose in the sky, and she tossed it out of the Microterium and into the barn-lab. “Problem number two solved. Only forty-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-eight to go,” Lin said. I looked up and saw she was wearing a gigantic smile.
“It’s not funny, Lin,” I explained. “Maybe you don’t realize this, but if I don’t fix the Expand-O-Matic I could be stuck small forever. And even worse than that, Professor Penrod will be so mad that he’ll never trust us with the Microterium again.”
“It’s okay to chill a little, Danny. We have a few hours before he’s back, right?” Lin said.
I checked the app on my phone. “Three hours and thirty-six minutes, give or take a few seconds.”
“No problem. Look. Come to the zoo with me. I want to show Annie and Sam my Microbites final recipe. And the class is only one hour. We can run to your house and grab some PIBBs, build a quick lab, and be back here with more than an hour to spare,” Lin said.
“How about you go to the zoo, and I’ll clean the place up,” I suggested. I was trying to stand Professor Penrod’s bookcase back up.
Lin tipped it upright with a single fingernail. “How about we both go to the zoo, then we both come back here and clean up together. You know we’re best that way. I’ve heard you say it before.”
Beneath the bookcase, the books were all stacked in a pile. I dug through them until I found Professor Penrod’s leather-bound journal. I knew inside I would find drawings of the Expand-O-Matic and plans for how to put it back together. I thumbed through the pages, then thought about it for a while. I had a lot of studying to do before I could reassemble the broken Expand-O-Matic, but it didn’t do any good to put it back together unless I had somewhere to put it. I couldn’t leave it out in the open, and we knew now more than ever that cardboard wasn’t the answer. We needed to build a new lab out of PIBBs. And the more I thought about it, we needed to build a playpen for Pizza and Cornelia. At least until we could train them to stop chasing the pack of oviraptors.
I looked around. The place was a mess, but with Lin helping me while big, and my hands doing the details while small, things really would go faster. I tucked Professor Penrod’s notebook in my backpack and looked up at Lin.
“All right. But there’s no time to mess around at the zoo. It’s in. Show your treats to the instructors. And get out. We have too much to do to stop by and visit the other animals. Not today,” I said.
“I totally understand,” Lin said. She pried open the lid to the tiny-saurus rexes’ mint tin. “Climb in, Danny. There’s plenty of room.”
“I’m not riding in there. It’s not safe,” I said.
“Let me put it this way. If you ride with the twins, you know exactly what’s inside that box. If you ride in the bottom of my pocket, you have no idea what you could run into,” Lin said.
I sighed then let out a big breath. “All right. You have a point. Help me climb in,” I said. Then I climbed on Lin’s hand, and she slipped me into the mint tin with Pizza and Cornelia.
CHAPTER 7
JUST A LITTLE DETOUR
On our way out of the Microterium, Lin stuffed a few snacks in the mint tin with me and the twins. A couple of shredded pepperoni slices and a few chunks of corn dogs, complete with mustard. I wasn’t too thrilled about it because it made the little mint tin smell pretty strong, but it did seem to calm down Pizza and Cornelia, so I guess it was for the best.
The mint case didn’t quite fit all the way inside Lin’s pocket, so I climbed to the top to try to get a look around. If I stretched on my tiptoes while balancing on Pizza’s head, I could see a small view of the world as I peeked out of an airhole punched in the mint case. Which Cornelia found hilarious, by the way. Not the looking out part, the standing on her brother’s head part.
“I don’t know about this. Maybe we should skip the zoo,” I said into the Invisible Communicator. “I’ve ruined everything.”
“No you haven’t,” Lin disagreed. “It’s just a little mess. We can get it all cleaned up.”
“A little mess? The Expand-O-Matic is completely destroyed. Bruno smashed the Express Modulation Unit! It looks more like a Pancake Modulation Unit.”
“Wait. The Expand-O-Matic makes pancakes?” Lin asked. She put her skateboard down on the sidewalk and stepped on board.
“No, no, that’s not what I mean. I was making a joke. What I mean is that there is no way we should be…” I star
ted, then Lin kicked off on her skateboard and the world became a blur.
I felt like I was on a rocket ship to the zoo, not on a skateboard. Lin hit a bump, then did some kind of kick-flip, and it bounced me and the twins around inside the mint case. I fell from Pizza’s head and ended up on the bottom of a pile of Microsaurs, snack scraps, and an old cotton ball that was covered in mustard and T. rex slobber.
“No more tricks!” I shouted.
“Oh, sorry, Danny. It’s a habit,” Lin said. The constant whirl of Lin’s skateboard wheels and the wind as it rushed by was loud in my ears.
“And you two are in trouble with me, too,” I said as I looked up at Pizza, who was smashed between me and Cornelia. “You’ve got to stop chasing everything in the Microterium that runs, because one, you’re making a huge mess, and two, EVERYTHING RUNS!”
Pizza tilted his head to make eye contact. He grinned at me, then growled a gurgle sound in the back of his throat.
“I’m not kidding,” I said as I peeled an oily strip of pepperoni off my shirt. I tossed it to Pizza, and he snapped it up in one bite. “It’s important. Very important. I mean, Professor Penrod left us in charge of the place. Sure, we’re rebuilding the Fruity Stars Lab, but it’s not finished. And you two, well, let’s just say that hasn’t been a successful experiment. No offense,” I said to Cornelia.
Cornelia smiled, then burped, then smiled even wider.
“Who are you talking to, Danny?” Lin said in my Invisible Communicator.
“Myself, I guess,” I said.
I pulled my phone from my pocket just as Lin did another trick thingy. The three of us bounced up and shuffled among the snacks and cotton ball again. I nearly dropped my phone. I turned it on to check the time.
“The professor will be home in three hours and four minutes. Just thought you’d like a time check,” I said to Lin.
“That’s plenty of time, and good news. We’re already here,” Lin said. The noise of Lin’s wheels stopped, and we bounced around in the mint tin one more time as she jumped off her skateboard.
Pizza growled, and Cornelia made a little noise that sounded like a giggle. Then they both growled at each other, then they both looked at me and giggled.
“It’s not funny, you two. It’s serious,” I said.
Pizza agreed and frowned, but Cornelia went into another laughing fit. There was something seriously wrong with that laughing Microsaur. Something very wrong indeed.
“I guess that’s what I get for trying to reason with a T. rex,” I said. I settled down on the cotton fluff and tried to take a few deep breaths to calm down. It’s a technique my dad taught me, and it helps. Well, it helps a little.
“Are you talking to yourself again, Danny?” Lin asked as she entered the zoo. I could hear people chattering all around her, but still I couldn’t see a thing from inside the mint tin.
“Probably,” I said.
“I do that, too, sometimes. I’m at the front gate,” Lin said. “Do you have your zoo pass?”
“Um, yes, but I don’t think they’ll be able to read it without a microscope,” I said.
“Yeah. Good point. Are you ready?” Lin asked.
“For what?” I asked. “To be stuck half the size of a grain of rice for the rest of my life? Because no, I’m not ready for that.”
“No, Mr. Grumpy Pants. For class to start,” Lin said, although I already knew what she was talking about.
“When you’re ant-sized, it doesn’t matter if you’re ready for class to begin. It does, however, matter that we get back to the Microterium soon so I can, oh, I don’t know, FIX THE EXPAND-O-MATIC BEFORE PROFESSOR PENROD GETS HOME,” I said.
“In through the nose, out through the mouth, Danny. Breathe. Relax. Read a book. There’s plenty of time. Besides, Penny isn’t back from China for like three hours or something,” Lin said.
“Two hours and fifty-four minutes,” I said.
“In through the nose, out through the mouth, Danny. We have plenty of time. In through the nose, out through the mouth,” Lin said. “Besides. I’ve seen you fix loads of things before. You’ll get it together in no time at all.”
“Sure. I can build a Slide-A-Riffic, and even then I forgot the brakes, but I have no idea where to start rebuilding one of the most important inventions of our time,” I said.
“The most important?” Lin asked, referring to the Expand-O-Matic.
“When you are one quarter the size of a pencil eraser, the Expand-O-Matic is very important.”
“That’s a good point, but I believe in you. Okay. Class is starting. I’m going to find a seat. Can you see?”
I worked my way to the top of the mint case again and looked out of the airholes. “Kind of. Maybe when you sit down you could put the mint case on top of the table or something. It is jiggling a lot in here. I’m starting to get motion sickness.”
Peering through the airhole, I watched as Lin followed a bunch of kids our age into the zoo’s very own classroom. We’d been there before, but at my current size it looked gigantic. Junior Zookeeper classmates chatted all around us, and the twins were getting very excited. Lin walked in, found a seat at an empty desk, then pulled the mint case out of her pocket.
We rolled around inside until she placed the mint case on the desk.
“Oh no. This can’t be happening,” Lin said.
“What, what’s going on?” I said.
“This is the biggest disaster of all time. Ever. Worse than the Expand-O-Matic getting smashed,” Lin said.
“What could be worse than that?” I asked as I tried to peek through the airhole to see what Lin was talking about.
She rotated the mint case so I could get a look at the desk right next to hers.
“This,” Lin whispered. “She is worse than the destroyed Expand-O-Matic.”
“That’s not even close to worse, but I’m confused. Why is Vicky Van-Varbles here?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Lin whispered. “Should I ask her?”
“Sure. That’d be nice,” I said.
“I’m not interested in being nice, but I am curious,” Lin said.
Just then, I heard a muffled voice. “Are you talking to yourself?” Vicky said.
“Yes. I mean no. I mean, not really. What I mean to say is, why are you here?” Lin said. “You weren’t here for the first two classes.”
“Oh, I didn’t need those two classes. I probably know more about protecting endangered species and providing safe habitats than anyone in this entire classroom. Maybe even in the entire zoo. I’ve been to Africa, South America, and next summer we’re going to feed pandas in China. I’m pretty much a world-traveling animal expert. I could practically teach the class, if they needed me to,” Vicky said without taking a single breath.
“Oh boy, can you get a load of her?” Lin said to me, but Vicky obviously thought it was directed to her.
“In through your nose, out through your mouth, Lin,” I said.
“A load of what? Also, I had horseback riding camp two weeks ago and Singing Stars camp last week. As you probably know, I’m a very busy girl,” Vicky said. I could only see her mouth and hands through the airhole, but I could tell by the way she moved them that she was very impressed with herself.
“Last week I rode a dinosaur through a swamp, and two weeks ago I jumped from a bottle cap suspended beneath a flying lizard-bat to rescue a shiny battery so my friend and I could grow thirty-five times our size,” Lin said.
“Eighty-five times our size, but who’s counting,” I said, which made Lin giggle.
“You’re weird. I stopped playing imagination games when I was six. You should really grow up,” Vicky said.
“Oh, I’ll grow up all right,” Lin said, which I didn’t totally understand, but then she started to stand up. I heard her pop her knuckles, and I really wished I was her size so I could calm her down. I had to try my best while tiny-sized.
“Um, Lin. Can you hear this?” I asked. I took the Invisible Communicator
out of my ear and held it to Pizza’s stomach. It growled and gurgled. “I need your help. These guys are getting hungry and restless.”
“Sure. I’ve got more snacks in my pocket. Just a second,” Lin said as she sat back down.
“What? You brought your lunch? This is about feeding animals, not humans,” Vicky said. I could almost hear the big grin on her face. “Oh, it’s just mints. I don’t know why you are making such a big deal about mints. I have the exact same kind of mints in my purse, and you don’t see me bragging about them.”
Lin huddled around the tin box, hiding it away from Vicky and the rest of the class. The lid popped open, and I had to hold back Pizza and Cornelia from jumping out.
“Hey, little critters. How are you? Want a snack?” Lin stuffed more shredded pepperoni and mustard-covered corn-dog pieces into the case with me and the twins.
“How’s that?” Lin whispered to me.
“Thanks. Crisis averted,” I said. “For now.”
“Good. Holler if you need something,” Lin said.
I could see the desk next to Lin’s now. Vicky was sitting there in her purple glitter jacket. She pulled a tin of mints out of her bag and put it on the desk, then she opened the box and started talking to the mints, totally making fun of Lin.
“All right, mints. Stay minty. I’ll eat you later. Is that okay with you, talking mints?” Vicky said, then she laughed at her own joke so hard I thought she was going to fall out of her chair. A couple of the kids sitting around her laughed, too, but Lin didn’t think it was funny. Not one bit.
“One of these days I’m going to introduce her to what is inside my mint tin. We’ll see who’s laughing when she is staring up at a couple hundred T. rex teeth,” Lin said.
“In through your nose, out through your mouth, Lin,” I said.
Lin took a deep breath, then the class started to mumble as the instructors entered the room.
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